「It’s a trap! Fall back!」

Someone’s desperate shout echoed through the dungeon, but it was already too late. The floor where the hunter had stepped had turned into a living sand trap. This sand was unlike normal sand—it shone sharply like blades and moved like a hungry beast.

The man lost his balance and stumbled. His face went pale, filled with the fear of someone who could sense their death. That fear spread quickly to the other hunters. The sand clinging to his ankles made a horrifying sound, like thousands of tiny teeth gnawing on bone.

「Help me! Anyone, please…!」

The man’s desperate cries echoed through the dungeon, but no one moved. The more he struggled, the faster the sand swallowed him. Dark blue grains of sand began crawling up his neck and face, like a swarm of starving ants. All hope vanished from his face, leaving only pure fear.

「Please…! Save me…!」

The man’s desperate last words were cut off as the sand filled his mouth and throat. Moments later, even his face was completely swallowed by the sand trap. His eyes, full of despair, were the last thing seen—then they too vanished into the dark blue sand.

The sand trap moved like a living tomb as it slowly settled. The swirling sand gradually calmed and eventually returned to a completely flat floor—as if nothing had happened. Nothing remained where the man had stood. Not a single bone, not a drop of blood. He had vanished completely. Only a heavy silence remained in the dungeon. 

The weight of his death pressed down on everyone present. The other hunters’ faces were filled with fear and hopelessness. Then, from the footage, Cha Ju‑heon’s strange laughter echoed through the dungeon. It sounded like a drunk man laughing into nothing.

“Hahaha! This is fun!”

Cha Ju-heon didn’t look like someone in his right mind. While the other hunters were frozen with fear, he was the only one excited, like a child discovering a playground. His black pupils narrowed sharply, like a predator eyeing its prey.

「I see now. His skill is making traps.」

His voice carried a strange excitement, like someone who had found hidden treasure. On Cha Ju‑heon’s face, there was no sadness or shock over his companion’s death—only the satisfaction of learning something new about the enemy.

「Someone else go. Who knows, the pattern might change this time.」

At Cha Ju‑heon’s cold command, the remaining hunters went pale as if their blood had drained away. One hunter clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. 

A younger hunter behind him bit his lip to hold back tears, while the most experienced hunter tried to stay calm and think of what to do. But no one dared disobey Cha Ju‑heon’s orders. They all knew that challenging an S‑rank hunter would be pointless.

「What are you guys doing? Don’t you hear me? I said someone else should go!」

His growling voice cut through the air like a whip. The hunters flinched instinctively, as if they’d actually been hit. Cha Ju‑heon’s eyes were completely consumed by madness, staring at them like a scientist watching a rat in a lab.

‘This crazy bastard… I knew he was already insane, but…’

I felt sick at Cha Ju‑heon’s attitude, as if he didn’t even see his own teammates as human. It was a sickening, gut‑wrenching feeling. Cha Ju‑heon had always been known for treating his subordinates like disposable tools, tossing them aside once they were no longer useful. 

His team members changed constantly—no one stayed for long.

There had been posts exposing Cha Ju‑heon’s crimes on the hunter community before, but each one disappeared without a trace, and the authors vanished as well. 

It was as if someone had deliberately covered it up. That explained it. The Hunter Association was backing him. He was the sword the Association wielded, and no one cared about the blood on its blade. Naturally, his crimes continued without any punishment.

‘That bastard… he’s not human, he’s a monster!’

Even on the screen, the terrified hunters looked like C-rank at best, or B-rank at most. Their gear was old and worn-out, and their eyes clearly showed their inexperience and nervousness. Sending them into an S-rank gate was practically a death sentence.

From the start, it was obvious why Cha Ju‑heon had brought such low-rank hunters. They weren’t meant to be useful—they were expendable. Living bait. They were Cha Ju‑heon’s carefully calculated victims. I remembered reading a raid report after this gate was cleared that mentioned a few deaths and injuries. 

At the time, I had assumed it was because Halphas liked to trap people. I had never imagined that Cha Ju-heon—the man himself—had actually been the main cause. Just then, a laugh echoed from the deepest part of the dungeon. 

It was an ominous laugh, and the hairs on my body stood on end. In the darkness, the faceplate of the spiked helmet trembled slightly, like someone trying to stifle a laugh. It looked disturbingly human. It sent chills down my spine to see the metal helmet make a human-like expression.

–Your soul shall fall apart.

A terrifying curse echoed through the air. It felt like someone was speaking directly into the deepest part of my soul. Then, from the empty eye sockets inside the helmet, thick black mist started to come out. It dripped like liquid but also spread through the air like smoke.

In the next moment, the spikes on the helmet shot out in all directions. A creepy metal sound mixed with people’s desperate screams. Then the footage suddenly cut off, as if someone had cut the film. The silence at that moment felt even heavier after all that noise.

When my consciousness snapped back to reality, it felt like I had suddenly come up to the surface from deep underwater—I couldn’t breathe for a moment. In my ears, the hunters’ desperate screams and the boss monster’s curse from the footage were still echoing. I could almost smell the blood and the thick scent of the black mist lingering faintly.

My head throbbed painfully. At the end of the footage, the message that had appeared on Cha Ju-heon’s system left an afterimage. It felt like those chilling words were stuck deep in my mind.

–[Mental Corruption increased from 79% to 87% due to Halphas (S)’s attack.]

The display in front of me, which had gone black after the footage ended, slowly turned transparent. Then it disappeared completely, like ink spreading and fading on water.

Only then did I realize that the video had played only in my mind. It felt like I had been pulled into another dimension and then dropped back into reality. 

Not even a second had passed. Everything was frozen, as if the world had stopped for a moment. Min Ga-on’s expression, Cha Ju-heon’s posture, even the angle of the sunlight coming through the window—everything was exactly the same as before I had seen the footage.

In that split second when the world felt frozen, everything that had just run through my mind suddenly clicked. The recovery effect, the vision I had seen, the mental corruption… all the pieces of the puzzle fell into place in an instant, as if pulled by a giant magnet. It was like someone had struck me in the head with a hammer—everything made sense at once.

An S-rank boss monster was corrupting the mind of an S-rank hunter. The thought alone was terrifying. A chill started at my fingertips and spread through my whole body. Shock and fear hit me like someone had thrown ice water over me.

“Ah… damn it.”

A curse slipped out of my mouth without thinking. It was an instinctive reaction to the shock. Just before watching the footage, I remembered the system message that had appeared earlier. Cha Ju-heon’s mental corruption was already at 81%. Even after my healing skill’s recovery effect had lowered it by 6%, the number was still very high. 

Only now did I understand what it really meant. Most of Cha Ju-heon’s mind was already corrupted. I didn’t know exactly what mental corruption did, but the fact that it could be healed with a skill was definitely not a good sign. Then a sudden thought struck me.

‘No way… could it be the other S-rank hunters too…?’

My mind went completely blank. If Halphas could corrupt Cha Ju-heon, couldn’t other S-rank hunters be corrupted too? The thought was terrifying. What if the S-class hunters we believed to be humanity’s final spear and shield were actually just puppets controlled by those monsters…?

I remembered experts saying the next S-rank boss monster might be able to attack human minds. But no one had ever claimed that all S-rank boss monsters had that ability…

Min Ga-on, Cha Ju-heon, and Ki Hyun-tae—the names of a few of South Korea’s S-rank hunters—flashed through my mind. 

All of them had cleared an S-rank gate and faced an S-rank boss monster directly. What if none of them were thinking clearly? My head started to throb.

‘Ah… and the old me…!’

The moment I thought of that, my heart sank. Even my past self had defeated S-class boss monsters twice, so it was possible my mind had been corrupted without me realizing it. Yet the system had never shown me a mental corruption value.

‘…It probably didn’t show me because I was fine.’

I couldn’t bring myself to think that the system had deliberately hidden that information from me. Even if my mind had been corrupted in my old body, that body had been dead for more than two years. Did that mean I should be glad my old body was dead? 

A strange sense of relief washed over me. At least I was safe from the risk of mental corruption. The body I was in now had been completely safe in that sense. After all, no matter what Ryu Yeon-ho had tried, an F-rank healer like him could never have joined an S-rank gate raid party.

‘Haa… is this really something I should be relieved about?’

All of a sudden, something hot and bitter surged up inside me. I had spent my whole life trying to get stronger than anyone else, trying to break past my limits. And yet I found myself seeing this pathetic weakness as a good thing. A bitter taste filled my mouth. Then, the message the system had displayed popped into my mind.

[Healing Skill: “□□□ □□” (F)

Recovery success rate increased to 25%.

Recovery effect increased to 9%.

Recovery range increased to 0.2 km.

Recovery target detection added.

Cooldown reduced to 19 hours.]

As I suspected, the hellish scene I had just witnessed wasn’t a hallucination or a product of my imagination. My skill had just been upgraded, adding a new effect called “Recovery Target Detection.” It showed me Cha Ju-heon being mentally attacked by an S-rank boss monster. 

Because of it, I could see everything as vividly as a scene from a movie.

So much information and emotion flooded my mind at once that I felt completely overwhelmed. My temples throbbed, the fear and despair from the footage hadn’t faded, and my fingertips trembled slightly.

T/N: Hi guys, hope you all are doing good. I’m sorry to inform you that I won’t be able to continue this. I’m just moving to another city and have a new job so I still trying to adjusting life. Thank you for your understanding. If you want to read the mtl version please check out my ko-fi link. Click here. Thank you 🙏