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KWAANG—!
A pure-white blade aura shot out sharply. The pointed white aura stabbed straight into the Bulgasari’s mouth.
Kyahahaak!
The Bulgasari screamed. The inside of its mouth, like its eye, was a part it couldn’t reinforce, so of course it hurt.
A new debuff was applied to it. It was a debuff that dealt damage over time and caused additional damage whenever it used throat-based skills.
‘If the intensity was Medium… then the power of its skills should start dropping, too.’
The Bulgasari’s throat-based skills were its roar and molten-metal breath. That meant the roar’s debuff chance and intensity would drop, and the breath’s maximum scale would shrink.
‘The roar was the bigger problem than the breath, so this worked out.’
The corner of Hyeonseong’s mouth lifted.
Kyaak! Kak!
The Bulgasari let out an angry cry. Maybe its throat stung badly, because the sound broke off awkwardly.
“Whew, guess I can’t even call you a big, clumsy bear anymore.”
As she put the megaphone back into the Infinite Corridor, Hyeonseong spoke as if making sure someone heard her.
Sure enough, the Bulgasari had shrunk even more. Now it was only about three meters tall. If it shrank a bit more, it would drop to the small-medium size bracket.
Thud! Thud!
Enraged by the mockery, the Bulgasari stomped wildly. Immediately after, it charged. Hyeonseong lightly slipped to the left.
“Hey! Over here!”
Before the thing could notice the metal structures in front of it, Hyeonseong shouted. In its provoked state, the Bulgasari reacted to her voice and turned its head.
Hyeonseong sprinted toward the wall with the entrance door. A few Constellations seemed puzzled by that. They must have mistaken it for another escape attempt.
‘It’s not like that—I just picked any direction that wasn’t the furnace.’
After dodging its stomps and charges, she cut back toward the center.
“Fire! How much longer?”
As she guided the Bulgasari’s movement, Hyeonseong asked.
“Almost there!”
The craftsmen shouted. It seemed everyone who had been afflicted recovered with the potions Jeongha had delivered.
“Tell me the moment it’s ready!”
Fast footsteps thundered behind her. Hyeonseong angled right. This time, toward the wall opposite the furnace again.
“It’s basically done!”
“Ten seconds!”
“9! 8! 7!”
The craftsmen started a loud countdown. They said “almost,” and it really was right there.
“6! 5!”
The Bulgasari chased Hyeonseong again as she veered far out of its charge path.
“4!”
THUD—!
The Bulgasari stomped hard. It was the ground-splitting stomp skill. Hyeonseong made only a small adjustment—just enough to barely avoid the crack tearing through the floor.
“3! 2!”
Kyahak!
The Bulgasari tried to charge again, letting out a half-baked cry.
“1!”
Hyeonseong spun around. This time, she pulled out an EX-rank Mana Thrust card.
“Ready!”
the craftsmen shouted the instant the Bulgasari lifted its foot. Hyeonseong checked the scene beyond the monster—its back was perfectly turned toward the furnace.
“Everyone, get clear!”
She shouted as she aimed the skill card at the Bulgasari. Beyond its body, she saw the craftsmen scatter left and right.
One use was deducted, and white aura formed again. Denser than the S-rank thrust she’d used a moment ago, it shot into the center of the Bulgasari’s chest.
KWA-AANG—!
The thrust hit dead center. The Bulgasari’s torso was driven hard backward—but not far enough to reach the furnace.
Having expected that, Hyeonseong rushed in and used the skill card again.
The skill card in her hand vanished. At the same time, another powerful thrust slammed the Bulgasari back.
KWA-AANG—!
Chiiiiiik—!
Driven back again, the Bulgasari crashed straight into the furnace. The fire began to melt its outer hide.
Kyaaaak—! Kyahak!
“Urgh…!”
The Bulgasari screamed wildly. Two craftsmen staggered. It wasn’t just a scream—it looked like a roar-type skill.
But nothing happened to Hyeonseong. With Throat Bleeding reducing the roar’s power, that was only natural.
“What do we do now?”
Jeongha, who had been near the craftsmen, approached and asked.
“We wait until it melts more—until it gets smaller and softer.”
“And then? That alone won’t kill it…”
Jeongha glanced down at his bow. Even weakened, it was still an S-rank monster—he clearly doubted he could finish it.
“Well, once the shell comes off, what can it even do?”
Hyeonseong answered lightly while gripping several skill cards, including an S-rank Mana Thrust. If it tried to crawl out of the furnace, she’d use skills to shove it right back in.
“Keep watching the fire. It can’t cool down before that thing weakens—or dies.”
She followed up by asking the craftsmen. The furnace fire was definitely hurting it, but no one knew how long it would take to fully neutralize it.
To shorten the time even a little, the only option was to keep the heat at maximum.
At her words, the two bravest craftsmen approached first. The others hesitated—then followed toward the furnace.
Kyahahaak! Kyahak!
Even then, the Bulgasari flailed and cried like it didn’t know what to do. It looked like it couldn’t even think about leaving the furnace.
‘If fire is its absolute weakness, falling into a fire pit could do that.’
But letting her guard down was the last thing she’d do. It could come to its senses and walk out at any moment. She tightened her grip on the cards.
While she stared the Bulgasari down, another Constellation message arrived. As always—it wouldn’t let her relax.
‘What is it trying to pull now…?’
Other Constellations reacted immediately to ‘Hands Faster Than Eyes.’ Surprisingly, Constellations with ice- or winter-sounding names responded negatively to it.
‘Hands Faster Than Eyes’ tried again to find a Constellation who would sell ice, but got nothing back.
‘I don’t know why, but… we lived.’
Hyeonseong exhaled a quiet sigh of relief. If ice or cold had suddenly dropped in, the hunt might have been ruined at the finish line.
As she aimed a skill card at the Bulgasari trying to push out of the furnace, a new message appeared.
‘So it was trying to take goods on credit and got caught.’
For a moment, Hyeonseong’s face showed pure contempt.
‘…This isn’t the time to care about that.’
Her eyes returned to the Bulgasari. Judging by its movement, it had finally realized it needed to escape the fire.
She used an S-rank Mana Thrust first. The forceful push drove the Bulgasari back into the center of the furnace.
Kiiyaaak!
The Bulgasari struggled to get out. This time, an S-rank Mana Slash detonated across its upper body. Staggering, it collapsed into the furnace.
That repeated three more times. Whenever it tried to climb out, Hyeonseong used S-rank skill cards made from Hyeonyeong’s skills to shove its torso back into the fire.
Soon, another alert arrived. Melted by the fire, its body had shrunk enough that even its size classification changed.
‘Can I shrink it further?’
Hyeonseong still didn’t relax. In some legends, the Bulgasari was described as being born as a tiny, pathetic little thing.
Meaning: the surest kill would be to push its size down to the smallest bracket—Tiny.
‘It’s not impossible, but…’
She fired another slash with a skill card. The Bulgasari was slammed back into the fire pit again.
‘The problem is, I don’t think we can make it any hotter than this. If we want it down to bean-sized, we’d have to hold it here forever…’
Hyeonseong narrowed her eyes. That was obviously unusable—she’d time out.
‘…Then there’s only one option left.’
If she couldn’t properly use the eradication method from legend, she’d do what hunters always did: crush it with force and stab a vital point—like a heart—or destroy its core.
Of course, Hyeonseong couldn’t “crush” an S-rank monster with raw strength. But right now, she could try.
‘More precisely: I can make it possible. But to do that…’
She tossed most of the skill cards in her hand back into the Infinite Corridor. Then she pulled out a C-rank Mana Slash card.
‘…Even a skill this weak needs to leave a mark.’
Right on cue, the Bulgasari tried to lift itself out of the fire pit again. Hyeonseong immediately used the C-rank Mana Slash.
Kiiiiiik—
A scraping sound rang out as metal was scored. It meant even a mere C-rank skill could scratch its scales now.
But the scratch she saw was too shallow. It needed to be deeper—meaning she had to keep the Bulgasari in the fire longer.
‘We still have enough time.’
She shoved it back into the fire pit again with an S-rank Mana Slash. There was still plenty of time on the clock to soften its scales. Hyeonseong decided to hold out until the scales became pliable enough.
Constellations tied to fire started chiming in, asking whether she truly wasn’t interested in sponsorship. Quite a few messages offered flames that could melt the Bulgasari down in an instant, as long as she did “one small thing.”
“Ah, hellfire? I’d be grateful if you’d give it to me, but as you know, I’m barely getting by. I don’t have any wealth to offer you—so what do I do?”
She couldn’t ignore them completely, so Hyeonseong responded.
‘Listen to the things they’re saying.’
Naturally, demands like that were far more dangerous than simple requests for money.
She didn’t even need to get as far as the “soul” the Flame Demon demanded. Even “do one thing for me” was dangerous.
‘If you take that the wrong way, it’s a fast track to ruining your life.’
“Haha, I appreciate the offer, but even if I gave you some kind of ‘talent’ instead of wealth, I’m not sure I could satisfy Constellations like you.”
The Constellations reacted negatively right away. She’d expected it—refusing bruised their pride.
‘Strictly speaking, it isn’t even a sponsorship.’
A real sponsorship wouldn’t demand a price. It would just be given—like when Primal Trickster sponsored a Ghost Coin.
“Instead, I was thinking I might show you something fun.”
Hyeonseong said toward the Constellations while watching the Bulgasari’s condition.
“I’ll kill it without getting fire sponsorship.”
“Huh?”
Jeongha, who had come up beside her, jolted in surprise.
Even the fire Constellations didn’t seem to believe her.
“Don’t worry. It’s possible,”
Hyeonseong said to Jeongha. The Bulgasari’s scales were still melting steadily. If she waited just a bit more, she could definitely finish it.
‘…This bastard?’
The moment she read the quest, a vein bulged on Hyeonseong’s forehead.
Hyeonseong was in a state where she couldn’t learn additional skills. Yet the bastard put up a skill—not a skill card—as the reward. That could only mean one thing.
‘That’s basically saying, “I’m not paying you,” right to my face. Seriously?’
If you couldn’t learn a skill reward immediately, there were two usual resolutions: it got converted into a skill-card item you could use later, or the reward itself got canceled.
If it got canceled, normally you’d receive something equivalent instead. But she didn’t believe that swindler had that kind of conscience.
When another Constellation promised a reward, it openly showed displeasure. So her guess about its intent was right.
“…Haha, five minutes, huh? Fine. Let’s do it.”
Arguing about the reward could come later. For now, killing the monster came first.
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