Tap the text to show or hide reading controls.
‘Again?’
Hyeonseong’s face crumpled instantly.
Faced with an endless wall of blacked-out text, Hyeonseong had no choice but to make a new request.
After receiving it, Yustitia wrote a new message.
The result was the same.
Hyeonseong didn’t give up. She asked again—whether there were any video files or audio logs instead of text.
Biiiiiiii—!
But no matter what kind of material she requested, the result never changed.
Video files were either completely broken or covered in noise, and audio turned into pure static.
In the end, Hyeonseong had to give up on learning what had happened back then.
‘The harsher the censorship is, the more suspicious it gets…’
Her eyes drifted briefly toward the network messages.
She couldn’t understand what the problem was, or why censorship was so severe today.
‘Is there information in there that we’re not allowed to know?’
At the very least, it seemed certain there was something the Interstellar Network didn’t want revealed.
‘It’s not like those guys are perfectly clean and human-friendly to begin with.’
To use awakened abilities and interact with Constellations, you had to pass through the Interstellar Network.
Meaning there was no known way for an awakened person to function without it.
‘Look at it another way, it’s a complete monopoly. The perfect condition for messing around.’
It left a bad taste in her mouth, but there was no way to dig deeper right here. There weren’t any more clues—and there was still an immediate problem to finish.
[Then I’ll ask for just one last thing.]system-end
Hyeonseong sent Yustitia another message.
Yustitia agreed without hesitation.
A message appeared on the device screen: all permissions had been granted.
After confirming Yustitia’s message, Hyeonseong handed control to Seona.
Seona operated the device and issued an order for every machine monster to gather at a single point far from the command post. She didn’t forget to include the order to bring any zombies along as they moved.
After the movement order, she entered a second command: self-destruct upon arrival.
That settled the cleanup. All that remained was to wait for the self-destruction to execute.
For the last time, Hyeonseong used the console to message Yustitia.
The reply came quickly.
Hyeonseong had no choice but to reply.
A short reply came back.
And with that message, Yustitia fell silent.
‘Something about this… just feels wrong.’
Hyeonseong lightly clawed at her hair as she shifted her gaze to the movement and self-destruct countdown Seona had set.
The raid left a bitter aftertaste.
‘Clear is guaranteed, and there are no serious injuries or deaths—so if you judge by results alone, it went well…’
As the self-destruct executed, the remaining count on the screen began dropping rapidly.
If they waited just a bit longer, they’d be able to leave the dungeon.
Before long, familiar messages flooded Hyeonseong’s vision.
The moment the remaining count hit zero, the clear message arrived.
‘…Fine. I’ll think about the rest after we get back.’
[Would you like to exit the dungeon?]
There was nothing they could pick up within a minute anyway, so Hyeonseong exited immediately.
As she left the dungeon, a new set of messages appeared before her.
Every line was something she couldn’t just shrug off, so it was only natural that Hyeonseong’s brow twisted again.
‘No—of all things, you reclaimed that?’
The moment she returned to the front of Gwanak District Office, she stared at the messages again.
Of course, glaring wouldn’t bring back the captain’s diary that had already vanished.
‘What a joke. They left the train alone, but they take the diary?’
Hyeonseong opened Infinite Corridor’s internal item list.
The train she’d kept on hand—ready to throw at a monster swarm if needed—was still inside Infinite Corridor.
‘This is hard to sell, too…’
Selling was one problem, but the bigger issue was how she’d even present something like that in the first place.
‘After what happened when I threw it earlier, the moment I pull this out, it’ll cause a riot.’
That didn’t mean there was no way to profit from it—but whether the effort would be worth the return was questionable.
‘Not like I’m in a position to be picky, but still…’
Hyeonseong stared at the train’s info for a moment, then made a decision.
‘I’ll find a use for it somewhere.’
There were plenty of other spoils she could sell quickly. There was no need to rush disposing of the train.
“Everyone made it out safely.”
“Yeah. No issues on your side either?”
“As you can see. But that immunity buff in the middle…”
While Hyeonseong checked her inventory, the others were exchanging greetings and confirming everyone’s status.
It seemed nothing had happened on the shelter side.
“Hyeonseong, you worked hard today too.”
A few teammates approached her once she confirmed there were no other missing items besides the diary.
“Ah, yeah. You all worked hard too. By the way—aren’t you heading to the guild?”
Hyeonseong asked.
“We are. We just wanted to check what we needed to check and say hello first.”
At that, Hyeonseong looked around. A few members were already boarding the bus the Ten Thousand Swords Guild had sent.
And around the dungeon entrance site, Manggeomju staff who had been waiting were controlling the crowd of civilians and reporters who’d gathered.
‘They look pretty shocked.’
Which made sense. Considering the dungeon’s rank, scale, and time limit, finishing the raid in less than a full day was bound to be shocking.
‘If we’d had to track down every last one manually, we’d have spent days camping in there.’
That was why everyone looked so curious about what had happened inside.
‘Not my job to handle that. The guild will organize records and release the press materials anyway.’
After checking the situation, Hyeonseong boarded the bus. She found a seat and sat down, and soon she sensed someone approaching the seat beside her.
She turned her gaze slightly.
“May I sit here?”
It was Kwon Seojin.
“Ah, sure.”
Hyeonseong granted permission lazily. She didn’t care who sat where.
Kwon Seojin sat down without hesitation.
“You worked hard today. You had quite a lot to do.”
Kwon Seojin greeted her the moment she sat.
“You too. You helped a lot today.”
Hyeonseong returned the greeting lightly. It was true—she’d been helpful at key moments.
‘That deputy-captain ID, the skills we needed…’
If she hadn’t brought the ID quickly, the clear might’ve taken far longer. If she hadn’t prepared skills of various attributes, it would’ve been hard to avoid serious injuries.
But helpfulness and suspicion were separate matters.
‘…The timing was just too perfect. Like it was scripted.’
“Is there something else you wanted to say?”
Kwon Seojin asked.
“No.”
Hyeonseong flinched for a split second and denied it immediately. She must’ve made a strange face without realizing.
“By the way—doesn’t it get uncomfortable, carrying everything around like that every time?”
Since they were already talking, Hyeonseong decided to probe something she’d been wondering about.
“It’s uncomfortable, yeah. Checking my item list every time is a hassle too.”
“Still, you run dungeons as a team. You don’t have to bring every little thing yourself. An extradimensional bag has capacity limits, doesn’t it?”
Across skills and items, the only space with effectively no limitations was Hyeonseong’s own Infinite Corridor.
Everything else had clear restrictions—either on volume or what could be stored.
“You never know what’ll happen. If I can bring it, I should bring everything I can.”
It wasn’t an unreasonable argument, so Hyeonseong had to nod.
She was the same type, after all.
“But how did you decide to raid like that in the first place? It’s not a common style, and it couldn’t have been easy.”
Hyeonseong followed up with her next question.
For Hyeonseong, she could—and had to—because her ability worked that way.
But Kwon Seojin didn’t seem like she needed to do it. Based on the weapon-handling skill she’d shown, she looked like she’d be welcomed anywhere without resorting to such troublesome preparation.
“I guess I have to give you the same answer as before.”
“Because you never know what’ll happen?”
Hyeonseong narrowed her eyes.
“Yes. Since you never know what’ll happen, I thought it’d be good to learn different ways to respond. And conveniently…”
Kwon Seojin trailed off mid-sentence for no clear reason.
Hyeonseong pressed with a frown, but she didn’t continue that line.
“Anyway, I figured it’d be necessary, so I’m trying it. If I were part of a big company or a large guild, I could practice through simulations—but someone like me has to train in real fights.”
After that pause, Hyeonseong felt like she’d deliberately steered the topic away.
“From what I’ve seen of your channel lately, you must be getting some decent offers.”
Given the buzz around her and her baseline skill, she should’ve been getting proposals from at least mid-tier companies or guilds.
“Haha, who knows.”
Kwon Seojin laughed lightly and dodged again—an answer that didn’t clarify whether she’d refused offers or simply had no intention of accepting any.
‘Well, it’s her choice…’
Hyeonseong was thinking about what to ask next when the messages in front of her eyes wiped her thoughts away.
‘Looks like we’re done.’
Starting with the settlement notice, a string of system messages followed.
Even the base rewards were more than she expected.
Most were miscellaneous titles that gave small stat boosts, but since Hyeonseong was still severely lacking in stats, she welcomed those too.
‘Some of them had special effects… I’ll check later.’
The reward messages didn’t stop.
Hyeonseong’s eye twitched at the “bonus reward”—the kind you could get only if you were lucky.
‘I said “bonus reward” earlier, but they’re actually giving it?’
‘…What is this supposed to be?’
Her surprise at the extra Ghost Coin didn’t last. The moment she read the new title’s description, Hyeonseong’s brow furrowed.
It talked about “wounds,” but she understood:
This title referred to what she’d tried to do—pry the past out of Yustitia and the dungeon world.
‘If I take it literally, it’s telling me not to stab at other people’s emotional wounds… but—’
Hyeonseong didn’t accept it at face value. Not with how frequently the Interstellar Network had been censoring things today.
‘There’s no way that was out of consideration.’
That kind of censorship looked far more like an attempt to hide something.
Still, the situation left her uneasy.
‘If they wanted to hide something, they could’ve done it more subtly. These are the kind of bastards who could act completely natural if they wanted.’
Hyeonseong tried to guess why the Network’s censorship was so blatant.
Two reasons came to mind:
Either they looked down on her so completely they didn’t even think she’d dig into it… or they wanted to warn her openly.
Either way, it was unpleasant.
‘Are they telling me to dig deeper? Or what?’
Even so, she couldn’t jump into it right now.
She already had enough problems as it was—and even if the Interstellar Network looked suspicious, she wasn’t in a position to distance herself from it, much less oppose it.
‘No matter what, if I want to use my abilities, I have to go through them.’
The longer she kept thinking, the more fatigue crashed over her.
As if shaking off intrusive thoughts, Hyeonseong flicked away the system messages floating before her eyes.
‘Either way, I’ve gathered all the Ghost Coin I need for this month.’
She leaned back into her seat, sinking into the headrest.
A glance to the side showed Kwon Seojin leaning back too, eyes closed.
There was no one left worth talking to.
Until the bus reached the guild building, Hyeonseong decided to shut her eyes as well.
Reading Settings
