The Hunter’s Gonna Lay Low

For a brief moment, Uijae had come to appreciate the one functional aspect of the Memorial Dungeon. But that thought didn’t last long.

Ham Seok-jeong took the laptop Jeong Bin had compiled notes on and skimmed through the data. Tapping her fingers against the chair’s armrest, she mused,

"From the looks of it, the method of apocalypse in that world and this one seems eerily similar. The whitening phenomenon there is nearly identical to the mutations and the erosion phenomenon we’re seeing in our own Eroded Dungeons. But what bothers me is that our world hasn’t had a Monster Wave. Could the sequence have changed?"

"It’s a possibility we can’t rule out," Jeong Bin replied.@@novelbin@@

"Pull up data on locations showing early signs of a Wave. Cross-reference with past occurrences as well."

"Understood."

The two continued their discussion with grave expressions.

But their voices were drowned out by another—the voice of Hong Yesung, immortalized within the black-and-white film of his workshop.

—

"I told you, didn’t I? We’re erasing the old world and creating a new one. But since this damn clockwork system is flawed, the previous world didn’t completely disappear this time. That’s why the destroyed world keeps interfering with the current one."

"Haven’t you ever found it strange? The West Sea Rift kept expanding, swallowing Hunters without end—until you entered. After that, did any more Hunters go inside? No. You were the last one."

"That ruined world finally found its first axis. But the price the current axis paid wasn’t enough. So it’s searching for someone else to pay the rest."

—

Uijae’s entire body shuddered as if struck by lightning.

The unending horde of monsters. The ceaseless battles, no matter how many he cut down. The endless waves—

No way.

What if those monsters had been the ones meant to spill into this world via the Monster Wave?

Then it would make sense why the mutation had begun skipping steps, why the usual sequence had been broken. It would also explain Hong Yesung’s words.

Cha Uijae had unknowingly paid the missing price at the West Sea Rift.

By slaughtering every last surviving human and monster from that world.

He wasn’t sure whether to call that fortunate or absolutely catastrophic.