Chapter 109 – Red Dragon’s Lair (15)

Sungjin was teleported to another dimension along with a bright light. He tried to search for Nada as soon as he arrived, but he didn’t have a chance to even look around because there was a giant ball of fire falling towards him from above.

‘Eeh...’

He didn’t have many tools at his disposal. It was too late to chant something, and Artemio was broken. Sungjin was forced to resort to his last line of defense, throwing his frozen mantle over himself and shouting

“Solidify!”

Soon from close by,

‘Boom!’

The ball of fire exploded. Thanks to deploying his spell on time, Sungjin was able to withstand the attack without being blown away, but he had to take on the resulting fire blast head on.

‘Ugh...’

Sungjin’s hair curled, and his skin got slightly burnt. But thankfully, Sungjin was wearing the Red Dragon’s Scale Armor (Most likely made of Khal Gal’s own scales). Unlike other parts of his body, the parts protected by the scale armor had been mostly protected from the flames.

‘This is really useful.’

Sungjin thought to himself as he took a look around. The first thing he noticed was Khal Gal running rampant, flying around the cavern. He was firing balls of fire as large as his fists as he flew by. Sungjin looked around for the other hunters and groaned.

‘Ugh...’

He saw several corpses ripped in half, or turned into cinders. Only five hunters were still alive. As she had said, they were in trouble.

Sungjin checked Khal Gal again. Khal gal was slowly coming back down to the ground. But Sungjin couldn’t see any major wound on his body. The party had been unable to deal any meaningful damage upon him despite the sacrifice of half of their members.

‘Wow... I need to focus... this time it’s really dangerous.’

Sungjin thought as he prepared to fight Khal Gal once more. But this time, Blood Vengeance and Moon Specter seemed to bite harder than before.

Despite not landing any proper hits, Khal Gal bellowed out in pain each time his swords made contact with his scales.

‘Ah right... I had that.’

Sungjin just recalled that he had earned the ‘Dragon Slayer’ Title. Although he did not receive the 4x damage boost due to not having the title equipped, it still granted him double the damage compared to the last time he had fought Khal Gal. Nada used her signature black magic to support Sungjin.

“Tense muscles, brittle bones, weakness”

She harassed the dragon. The other hunters were greatly stunned by Sungjin’s appearance, but they began to join Sungjin in the offensive. Sungjin succeeded in defeating Khal Gal once more with their help.

“Kraghwagar...”

Khal Gal let out a death throe as he collapsed into the ground.

“Wahh!”

“We did it!”

While the other hunters were celebrating their victory, Sungjin leaned against the fallen dragon and

“Whew...”

Let out a deep sigh. It was a difficult fight. Because he had blown all of his cooldowns on his major items, he had no help from his items this time around. If it wasn’t for his Dragon Slayer title, he might have had to put his life on the line to finish the dragon off.

Nada approached the resting Sungjin. She first expressed her gratitude.

“Thank you. All of our tanks had burnt to death, so we were in a pinch. But you saved us.”

Sungjin waved his hands and said

“Ah, no problem. Instead...”

‘Boobs! Ooooh! Great as always!’

Sungjin removed Besgoro once again and took a deep breath before replying.

“Did you come to realize that it was all a misunderstanding?”

To his question, she raised both of her hands and said

“Well, yes. You kept trying to help me... I think I had the wrong idea about you.”

Sungjin nodded without getting up from his spot.

“That’s really great. Back then... there was just not enough time... I didn’t have a choice.”

“I thought over it last night... I realized... you probably had reasons.”

Sungjin wrapped up his break and stood up as he said

“Well then... I’ll be on my way.”

“Way? Where to?”

“... I have to visit other dimensions too.”

Nada replied to his words.

“Other dimensions? Right now?”

Sungjin a had total of five Trollseeker Marbles. But he had spent far too long in this one. Most of the Trolling will occur right after the defeat of Khal Gal within his main chamber, so he could reduce the time it took to find trolls in each jump by simply starting off in the chamber, but there was no guarantee with the raid system. If the trolling occurred in the middle of the maze, he might have to invest a great deal of time combing the map for them.

“Well I want to give you a better explanation but... I don’t have time this time around either. But... since you can request my summon once a day, you can wait until the next time you are in danger. If not...”

Sungjin took a pause to think. He had appointments at 5 and 6 pm.

“7 PM. If you want, please call me at 7 pm.”

“Seven... Got it.”

Sungjin faced the other four hunters and said

“If it’s just five... hunting might prove to be a bit dangerous...”

She lifted up her staff at his comment. It was the Mad Magician Lenin’s staff of Cerberus.

“Normal Mobs will be fine with just the five of us. Since I’m here.”

Sungjin looked upon her.

“Then since the Hidden Piece is behind the Lava fall that way, please collect it first. The Hidden Treasure is among the Dragon’s treasures.

Sungjin was reminded of something as he spoke.

“Ah! And do not challenge the Hidden boss if you can... Well, most people won’t even want to try anyway but...”

“... Understood.”

Once he was done with the conversation, he used the Trollseeker marble once more. It was a sudden and unexpected reunion, but he was glad that the misunderstanding was somehow resolved.

Sungjin had now obtained three trustworthy and dependable allies. Sungjin used the Trollseeker marble to hunt trolls in other realms.

Because the raid was composed of ten hunters, the scale of the battle was quite large, or overwhelmingly one-sided. The second teleportation led to a place where the hunters were battling three on three.

Sungjin who arrived on the scene was able to kill two of the three hunters and collect their items. The third place he arrived had two survivors dueling to monopolize the points.

The men had mutually attacked each other, and both had entered troll states. They were fighting with their lives on the line, but the winner, in the end, was Sungjin from another Dimension. When Sungjin separated the two fighters, they saw him as an enemy.

Due to the appearance of an unexpected enemy, the hunters had agreed to a temporary truce, but they were no match for Sungjin. Sungjin killed them both and collected their items.

The fourth dimension only had one troll left.

He didn’t know what happened in this realm, but he killed the lone troll and took his item. Sungjin asked the Operator from the fourth raid

“Operator, Time remaining?”

[28 minutes and 32 seconds remaining.]

Sungjin spent 2 hours endlessly running, killing, and teleporting.

“Whew... so busy...”

Sungjin was exhausted. But, still he made his way to the Red Dragon’s Corpse to use the final marble.

“This is the last one... and then it’s finally over.”

Finally, he said

“Pursuit of Justice”

A pillar of light appeared and enveloped Sungjin. Once Sungjin was teleported, he tried to look for the other hunters again. But instead, he was facing Khal Gal who was sleeping on his hands.

Sungjin did a double take and took a step back. He wasn’t close enough to wake the dragon yet, and the Dragon continued to sleep. Sungjin thought to himself,

‘What is going on? How is this possible...? Wait, did the trolls act before they even took on the boss?’

This was not an impossible event. Trolls like ‘Friar’

‘If he dies, I act. If he lives, I do nothing’

Carefully planned out their trolling, whereas others were closer to

‘You pissed me off. Die’

They didn’t think of gains or losses and simply acted out on emotional impulse. Of course if this happens before the boss fight, it becomes nothing short of suicide.

‘I thought something like this could happen on a rare occasion, but...’

It was still shocking to experience it for real.

‘Then just where are they? The surviving hunters?’

Sungjin cautiously walked back towards the entrance of the cavern, taking care not to awaken Khal Gal, and began his search. But he didn’t have to travel far.

The remaining hunters were huddled together right at the bend before the cavern. Sungjin quickly counted them.

‘One, two, three, four...’

Four hunters remained. They had given up even attempting to raid and sat in place. Sungjin approached them.

“What are you guys doing? Why are you sitting here?”

They were shocked to see Sungjin.

“Eh...? What?”

“Adjudicator? You weren’t here at the start”

Sungjin didn’t answer but threw his own question.

“Don’t worry about me... but what happened? What are you all doing here?”

The four hunters wordlessly stared at the ground. Finally, one of the hunters let out a withering sigh. Sungjin could see the despair on their faces.

Even Sungjin had felt intimidated when facing the Dragon with all ten members of his party intact.

But the remaining members of this party were just four, not even half the original number of hunters. They felt hopeless, he knew without a doubt. They would die if they challenged the dragon, or if they simply waited out the timer; their end would be the same. Sungjin asked them

“A troll appeared here right? And that’s why the number shrank so much? So where are they?”

One of the hunters replied

“Troll? Yeah, there was one. He died by our hands.”

He gestured with his chin. There was a corpse of another hunter in the distance. While Sungjin was being summoned, the other hunters must have finished him off. Sungjin asked him

“So why did he end up trolling?”

Once again, the hunters became mute at his question. Sungjin became impatient and swung his sword in the air before saying action

“Answer me. If you give me a good answer, I will save you all.”

Two of the four hunters looked up to stare at Sungjin.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know who you are, but do you think you can kill that dragon?”

Sungjin stared at them before deciding to lie.

“I am someone who appears before those who lose their will to continue... a helper.”

“Helper?”

Now everyone was staring at him.

“Yes Helper. You all were thinking that it was over for you guys, right? And that’s why you’re just sitting there, right?”

Everyone fell silent once more at his words. But the reason behind their silence was different. This time, the silence was because Sungjin was right on the mark. Sungjin swung his swords once more and said

“I will ask you one more question. Are there any other trolls? If you answer, I will slay the dragon on your behalf.”