Chapter 31

After packing up the iron bars and leaving the cave, a dense forest spread out before them. The two of them pulled out their axes and quickly began chopping trees. Once their inventories were full, they returned home to find the first-floor exterior completely reinforced with stone—but Father was nowhere in sight.

They looked around, searching, until they spotted Father walking back from a distance.

“Where did you go?”

When Theo asked, Father jerked her thumb over her shoulder.

“You two were taking forever, so I figured I’d hunt a bit while stocking up on food.”

Theo nodded, setting down the wood they’d brought. “The trees around here are all tapped out.”

“Ah.”

The very culprit who had stripped the forest let out a small groan. Theo smirked triumphantly at the speechless Father, then suddenly seemed to remember something. He turned toward Blaine.

“Right, we picked up something weird.”

Theo gestured, and Blaine, realizing instantly, hurried to pull out the iron bars.

“Weird?”

Father tilted her head as she stepped closer. Then her eyes widened at the sight of what Blaine was holding.

“What is this?”

“Looks like… treasure,” Blaine said.

“Treasure?!”

Startled, Father snapped her head up, looking between the two of them before staring back at the bars with disbelief.

“Treasure?!”

“Yeah.”

“No way… no way… this is the first time I’ve ever seen one.”

“You too?” Theo asked.

“Yeah. It’s insane.”

With trembling hands, Father carefully lifted the bars, turning them over with fascination.

“The question is… is it real, or just a trap…”

Theo muttered, almost like spoiling the mood. Father, realizing the possibility a moment too late, shot him a look. But before long, her gaze, like water flowing downhill, shifted to Blaine. Theo’s eyes followed. The two of them stared at Blaine, who stood there smiling serenely, as if blessed by fortune itself. Their eyes shone with blind faith.

This had to be treasure. Why? Because they had Blaine with them!

The three of them carried the bars inside with almost religious reverence, placing them carefully in the house before starting work on the second floor. In the meantime, the sun set, and Noquia and Holanghee returned.

“What’s this?” Noquia asked when she spotted the bars. Holanghee poked at them with her foot. Father jumped in alarm and stopped her.

“Hey, careful how you handle that!”

“Huh? What even is it?” Holanghee asked, stepping back at Father’s reaction.

“Treasure,” Father said gravely.

Noquia and Holanghee’s eyes went wide. They both blurted out at once.

“Treasure?”

“For real?! Where’d you get it?”

Father gently straightened the bent bars and answered, “Theo and Blaine brought it back.”

Noquia and Holanghee immediately turned their gaze on Blaine.

“No way, that’s crazy luck… we’d only ever heard about it before.”

“No matter how many dungeons I ran, I never once found treasure… Sweetie, you really must be lucky…” Noquia muttered in awe.

But Blaine frantically waved his hands and shoved all the credit onto Theo. “Ah, no, it’s thanks to Theo hyung.”

Everyone stared at him with a look that said, ‘Are you serious?’ But there wasn’t a trace of doubt on Blaine’s face. He genuinely believed it was all thanks to Theo.

Unable to hold back, Noquia whispered to Father and Holanghee. “He’s completely blinded by him.”

“Right? That’s serious-level stuff, isn’t it?” Father replied.

“People like that are the ones who fall for cults,” Holanghee muttered.

While the three of them whispered, the sun dipped below the horizon, and night fell in full.

From the second night onward, they were allowed to craft weapons. Using the materials they had, they quickly set to work. The available choices were swords, spears, and bows.

Father and Noquia, who were used to close combat, made swords. Holanghee, Blaine, and Theo each made spears.

The most powerful option was the bow, but arrows required feathers, which only dropped from birds or chickens. Thanks to their occasional hunting for food, they had managed to gather around fifteen feathers—too few to split among everyone, and too valuable to waste. So, they made only one bow and entrusted it to Theo. With his aim, they could count on him in critical moments.

Weapons in hand, they crouched beneath the windows, keeping out of sight. As they held their breath, noises began to gather around the house. Soon, the door came under attack.

The pounding echoed in succession. The sturdy door rattled violently, cracks beginning to form. Father rushed to reinforce it with planks.

The simultaneous assaults were intense, but the door held. From the sound and force, it was clear the attackers outside were small fry. They had to clear them out before the bigger ones came—those were the real threat that could smash the door down in an instant.

Theo and Blaine slipped out the opposite window, drawing the attention of the monsters clustered at the door. They darted around the house, striking them down one by one. With spears in hand, they didn’t suffer major injuries, but the problem was the sheer number. No matter how many they killed, more kept coming. Worse, if they chased too far, the monsters would reset, circling back to the house as if drawn to it.

They ran frantically, stabbing and dodging, when suddenly the ground beneath their feet gave a heavy thud. Something massive was moving. They froze instinctively and scanned their surroundings. In the pitch-black night, countless sinister eyes gleamed back at them.

Beasts, zombies, skeletons—the monsters came in many forms. But the most threatening were the hulking figures of werewolves and trolls. There weren’t many, but one wrong encounter with them, and the door would crumble in seconds.

“We’ll take the big ones.” A voice came from behind. Without anyone noticing, Holanghee and Noquia had joined them, jogging past.

Casually, almost lazily, the two rushed forward, picking out werewolves and trolls to engage. Small fry swarmed them too, but compared to the larger beasts, their speed was sluggish. After a few circles of kiting, the lesser monsters would peel off and head straight toward the house.

That was where Theo and Blaine intercepted them, cutting them down mid-route. Holanghee and Noquia held the front, Theo and Blaine guarded the rear, fighting back the endless tide.

Even so, just four people couldn’t cover everything. Even the small fry took three or four hits each to kill, and too many slipped past their line. Most of them broke through the defenses and made for the house, forcing Father to work nonstop, patching the battered door without a moment’s rest.

The pounding on the door grew faster, and the stack of repair wood dwindled quickly. Father worked frantically to patch the cracks, but even as she hammered away, she knew the limit was near. Shouts and screams grew louder outside, then—Bang! A massive impact rattled the house.

The freshly repaired door split with a jagged lightning-shaped crack. Father’s instincts screamed: the front line had collapsed. She whipped her head toward the window and spotted a hulking, fur-covered shape. A werewolf. It was relentlessly slamming against the door, while the others outside fought to hold it back.

Each crash rang with splintering wood, the door groaning under the strain. Father hurriedly nailed on more planks, but the thought hit her hard—this door won’t last much longer.

“A troll’s coming!” someone shouted.

Father’s head snapped up just as another boom shook the frame. The impact flung her backward. The door split from the center upward, and through the gap, gleaming eyes stared inside.

Two pairs of wild, gleaming eyes. The werewolf and the troll pressed their faces to the cracks, scanning the interior until their gaze locked with Father’s. Then, as if riled up, they roared and attacked the door with even greater fury.

“It’s not broken yet, right?” A frantic voice called from behind. Father spun around—Theo, Blaine, Holanghee, and Noquia were climbing back in through the window. She turned back to the door and answered.

“It’s about to break.”

And it was true. The door was seconds from splitting in half. Theo rushed forward with wood to brace it while Holanghee helped Father back to her feet.

Then—crash! The sound of glass shattering. All five of them whipped their heads toward the source. One of the windows had been smashed, and a zombie was halfway through, trying to climb inside. It was the very same window they had used to re-enter the house moments ago.

“What the hell is that?!” Noquia shouted. Holanghee jabbed her spear, knocking the zombie back outside, then quickly scanned the yard. Rounding the corner, more monsters were approaching in formation. Her expression hardened.

“They must’ve seen us come in…”

Theo peered outside too, then turned to Father. “If there’s any glass left, hurry and fix the windo—”

But he didn’t finish. With a deafening crash, the door gave way. In the moment their attention was on the window, the troll and the werewolf smashed it apart.

Chaos exploded. Through the shattered doorway, monsters surged forward, the troll and werewolf leading the charge. Behind them, more clawed and shoved to get inside. At the same time, monsters swarmed through the broken window from the rear.

“Where’s the door?! Grab the door pieces first!” Father yelled. Everyone fought and dodged, striking back while scanning the floor. To block the breach, they needed to reassemble the shattered door—but the fragments were nowhere to be seen.

Eyes darted frantically, searching. Then someone spotted something bizarre. A zombie, skulking low, sneaking away through the crowd—not toward the house, but away from it.

And in its arms, clutched tight, were the broken door remnants.

Everyone shouted in disbelief at once. “A Thief Zombie?!”