Somehow Familiar (1)

A notice from the Interstellar Network appeared before Hyeonseong’s eyes as she ate breakfast.

“Hey, you’ve actually got a conscience this month?”

Hyeonseong said in a sarcastic voice after checking the fee.

Last month’s quota of 500 Ghost Coins had been filled more comfortably than expected. It was thanks to her unexpected first-place contribution rank in an S-rank dungeon.

But that had been pure luck. Without that kind of fortune, even the normal monthly fee of 300 Ghost Coins was usually a close call.

‘If I get more raids where I’m the one calling the shots like last month, I’ll have some breathing room…’

If she took on command roles often—where contribution income was high for the workload—she might clear this month’s quota with room to spare.

But up to now, aside from the erosion dungeon she’d been dragged into, every raid she’d commanded had been one arranged through Hyeonyeong’s guild.

Which meant: without Hyeonyeong’s connections, it wasn’t easy for her to enter as a raid commander.

‘Hyeonyeong says word is getting around little by little, but…’

The fact that her reputation was spreading was good news. Still, the commander slot in a raid team was not something you handed to an outsider.

Why would anyone leave the role to a stranger when they could seat an insider who knew the team’s strengths and weaknesses inside-out?

“Yeah. 300 is easy to fill.”

Hyeonyeong agreed. Hyeonseong looked at her with a sour expression.

‘…Right. She fills her quota in a week at most, every time.’

Even if she was her little sister, it was hard not to feel a twinge of envy sometimes.

“What’s with that look you’re giving your sister?”

Hyeonju caught the brief sourness like a ghost.

“I’m allowed to, at my level.”

Hyeonseong decided to be shameless. The person concerned—Hyeonyeong—obviously wouldn’t care, and Hyeonju wasn’t really scolding her anyway.

“Still, didn’t you end last month with a decent amount left over?”

Hyeonyeong asked.

“Not enough to call it ‘decent.’”

Right now, Hyeonseong had about 150 Ghost Coins. She’d already filled half of this month’s quota.

But it didn’t feel like much to her—because something existed that demanded far more than the fee.

With her only skill asking for a ridiculous enhancement price, how could 150 possibly feel like enough?

“Even so, if it goes like last month, you’ll fill the quota quickly, won’t you?”

This time, Hyeonju said it.

“I can only hope.”

She didn’t even need “lucky.” If she could just command raid teams often like last month, the quota wouldn’t be a problem.

“Alright, I’m up.”

Hyeonseong finished her bowl quickly and stood. Today she already had a dungeon raid team lined up. It was a bit far from home, so she had to start early.

After getting ready, Hyeonseong greeted her siblings—who were finishing up and cleaning—then left the house.

“You checked the settlement payment, right?”

“Yes, it came in properly. Confirmed—let’s go. Good work.”

“Take care.”

The raid was over, and the settlement for loot and gathered materials was finished too. The temporary teammates checked their payments and left. Hyeonseong also went looking for a bus home.

Today as well, she waited with her face covered by a cap or something similar. A few minutes later, the bus bound for home arrived.

“Seriously, looks like I’m working with that guild again.”

“Same. For real—better not to associate with a place that messes with settlement money…”

As Hyeonseong got on, she caught snippets of passenger chatter. Judging by the talk, they were Awakeners who’d cleared a dungeon somewhere else.

“You going straight home?”

“I want to, but first I need to fill my usage fee quota…”

The conversation continued after the bus pulled out. With the bus relatively empty, every word carried clearly.

‘Everyone’s living the same kind of life.’

Half-listening, Hyeonseong took out her phone.

She also needed to run more dungeons. She had to see if there were any raid teams with open slots.

‘Not that I expect much.’

Even while browsing the recruitment board, she didn’t get her hopes up. If she could snag even a low-rank dungeon, that would be lucky. Usually, even that wasn’t easy.

‘The moment a slot appears, someone snaps it up like a ghost… that’s why everyone ends up joining a guild.’

As expected, no matter how she searched, there were no teams she could join. There were plenty recruiting—just none looking for a backliner or a gatherer.

“…There’s really someone who clears dungeons like that?”

“That’s what they’re saying. Hold on.”

Meanwhile, the Awakeners’ conversation drifted in a different direction.

“Look.”

“Huh? Seriously?”

One of them exclaimed in disbelief.

“They clear it in the weirdest way.”

“You think so too, right?”

“Yeah. Isn’t the efficiency awful if you do it like that?”

“But if you don’t have the firepower to wipe everything in one sweep, what else can you do? And if they’re uploading videos like this and living off the views, isn’t it not that inefficient?”

“Fair point. And it’s yesterday’s video, but the views are already—”

The two kept talking.

‘How weird does it have to be for them to react like that?’

Hyeonseong was starting to get curious. Most dungeon raid “hot topics” were predictable.

Clear a high-rank dungeon by bulldozing everything with overwhelming firepower. That was the usual “attention-grabbing” format.

‘But they weren’t talking about firepower—this was something else…’

If she had nothing better to do, it might be worth checking once.

Raids that relied purely on power and matchup advantages weren’t very useful to Hyeonseong herself. But if it was some unconventional approach, there might be something worth learning.

‘Like dealing with inverse matchups… or using terrain and structures… ah, damn it.’

Hyeonseong clicked her tongue while browsing the recruitment board. She thought she’d found a decent B-rank dungeon slot, but someone snatched it instantly.

‘People really do have fast hands.’

Annoyed, she searched harder. But not only were there no comparable slots—there weren’t even worse ones.

‘Guess today’s a bust.’

No listings, no direct offers. It seemed there were no dungeons that needed moving huge corpses or hauling loads of gathered materials.

‘Fine. I’ll look up the video they were talking about.’

With nothing else to do, she recalled the raid video those other Awakeners had been buzzing about.

She hadn’t caught the raider’s name or the video title. But from the conversation, it should be easy to find the moment she opened the platform.

‘Trending views… I might not even need to go that far.’

Hyeonseong opened the video app. The moment the main screen loaded, she found it.

A plain title. A channel name she’d never seen. But the view count was absurdly high—an upload from yesterday already in six figures.

From the outside, there was no reason it should be popular. Suspicious, Hyeonseong opened the channel first.

It was brand new—less than a month old. And it had only that one video. Meaning: the uploader wasn’t some famous person Hyeonseong didn’t know.

‘So the views only make sense if the content itself is insane.’

To answer the question, she had to watch it. She pressed play.

The opening was just an ordinary dungeon landscape. The ruins of what looked like a Western-style castle town spread across the screen.

-I’m inside the B-rank dungeon that formed at Beomgye Station. There should be a raid party that entered before me, but…

A voice that was hard to place by gender or age explained the situation—presumably the Awakener who cleared the dungeon.

After saying they were looking for traces of the party that entered first, the voice fell silent.

Then the camera surged forward, as if sprinting in a straight line. For someone searching in an unfamiliar environment, the pace was strangely confident.

-I used one of my items, and it looks like there are footprints heading that way. So I’m following them.

The voice resumed, as if anticipating the audience’s confusion.

-Ah, people watching will probably find this strange. How and why I entered a dungeon where a raid party already went in. Well… I was just having coffee at a café near where the dungeon opened, and then…

The voice continued.

Suddenly, the dungeon info display outside the café changed. The entry count was full, and then it suddenly dropped… and when the number drops, there’s usually only one reason, right? So…

In other words: someone likely died inside, so they entered to investigate and help.

-I don’t know what happened, but… there’s a high chance the people inside are in danger. So I need to find them as fast as possible…

The voice, which had been explaining at length, cut off awkwardly. The sprinting camera slowed.

-I think they’re up ahead. Let me get ready for a second, then I’ll go in.

Rustling sounds came from beyond the camera—checking gear and items. No packing visuals, just sound.

-Ready. Let’s go.

The camera sprinted again, faster than before. Soon, the screen caught a raid party engaged with two mid-to-large monsters.

‘No—this isn’t “engaged,” it’s…’

-Ah…! This looks like a dangerous situation, doesn’t it?

The moment Hyeonseong thought the party was being overwhelmed, the voice spoke.

-I have to get in there—now!

The atmosphere of the video snapped into urgency. The real show started.

-First, I need to confirm the info. The monsters are… as you can see, two half-human half-serpents. Neither of them has a name.

The camera framed the huge monsters: human upper bodies, serpent lower bodies.

-The raid party is currently… looks like just over ten people left. The entry limit was twenty, so…

A heavy, grim tone followed. If they’d entered with a full team, that meant nearly half were dead—no surprise the voice sounded like that.

-I’ll stop the explanations here. Once I enter combat, I probably won’t have time. Then…

A hand holding a crossbow appeared on screen. The moment she saw a ranged weapon built for pinpoint strikes, Hyeonseong guessed the first target.

‘Eyes first, I bet.’

Just as she expected, the crossbow aimed at one monster’s eye. With a sharp wind-splitting sound, the bolt flew—and lodged dead-center.

KYAAAAAAGH!

The monster screamed. The raid party—who’d been scrambling to evade—stared up in shock. Some turned their heads toward the bolt’s origin.

-Everyone, fall back—now!

The voice shouted at the party while loading the crossbow again. The survivors hurriedly widened the distance.

After that, the fight flowed under the voice’s calm directions. The voice led the remaining party and methodically dismantled the two monsters.

‘Those half-human half-serpents are sensitive to touch. Even if you blind them, you still need a way to crush their tactile sense. For something that big, you’d want a dirt storm mixed with grit… or an ice wind mixed with pellets…’

The instant Hyeonseong thought that, the voice ordered two D-rank mages in the party to cast an ice wind—exactly what she’d considered.

‘And then you pin the other one that’s still fine while you hold the blinded one… huh? That too?’

The plan she imagined next played out the same way on video.

Her idea was to restrain the already-blinded one while disabling the remaining one in a similar manner—and the voice and party moved exactly like that.

And it kept happening. Every time Hyeonseong thought, “If it were me, I’d do this,” the video immediately executed that exact method.

‘What… is this person?’

It was an unexpectedly unsettling experience. Hyeonseong’s brow furrowed hard.

‘There’s another person who uses this grimy, painstaking style?’

What Hyeonseong came up with wasn’t some genius, unheard-of trick. But it wasn’t a popular approach either.

‘Because unless you’re someone like me, there’s no reason you’d need to do it that way. And this dungeon still had open slots. So why force a clear like this?’

In a situation like that, it would’ve been better to focus purely on survival and wait for high-rank reinforcements to arrive, rather than force a risky clear.

‘It’s not even a dungeon that opened somewhere reinforcements can’t reach…’

-I-It’s… over…!

Someone shouted in the video. The moment came when a half-human half-serpent—twisting in agony after swallowing a poison made by mixing several potions—finally stopped moving.

‘…It’s also weird they had that many items.’

Watching the surviving party celebrate not only survival but a full clear, Hyeonseong thought.

Throughout the raid, the voice constantly swapped weapons, pulled out potions and special items as if from thin air. Just from how they used items, they looked like a walking general store.

‘Sure, if they have a subspace bag, they can carry stuff…’

A subspace bag was outrageously expensive. Still, if someone was filthy rich or insanely lucky, you could imagine them owning one.

The real problem was what they pulled out and used.

They had both melee and ranged weapons, disposable skill cards, and among the consumables were items you wouldn’t normally carry around at all—mixed in like they’d planned for this exact scenario.

‘A subspace bag isn’t infinite capacity, and they still carried all of that… and every single one was “just right” for fighting those monsters.’

She stared at the finished video. The clear itself was worth watching, but the whole thing left a strange aftertaste.

‘…Well, it’s not really my problem.’

Hyeonseong closed the app. The unease was probably just in her head.

And however that person cleared dungeons had nothing to do with Hyeonseong—as long as it didn’t interfere with her own livelihood.

‘Maybe I’ll check the recruitment board one more time on the way.’

She reopened the recruitment board. Maybe a slot would have opened while she watched.

But until she got home, she couldn’t find a single team she could join. With a long sigh, Hyeonseong headed inside.