Readjustment (2)

‘It’s fussy, as usual.’

Kang-hoo grumbled about the stone’s condition, which still could not be activated, and moved quickly.

Of course, he moved with Concealment and Shadowless as the basics, while also checking his entire surroundings with the Sense Focus skill.

After applying Sense Focus to his vision, he could see everything clearly even from a very long distance.

There were not that many sentries. To begin with, it was not the kind of place that warranted it, and numbers were not what mattered.

However, just as it had been in the original work, he saw “hostile plants” planted here and there.

They were creatures that unconditionally attacked when they sensed a hunter’s mana.

An ordinary hunter would be unable to distinguish friend from foe among plants and would suffer a disaster after casually passing beside them without thinking.

But from Kang-hoo’s position, since he had the Empathy - Plant skill, distinguishing hostile plants was far too easy.

So he moved toward the side where the plants were, while barely skirting the outside of their detection range.

Because the fact that they had planted many hostile plants also meant that security on this side was loose.

While moving.

Kang-hoo even used the Synchronization skill, preparing for a situation that might, by some chance, lead to an emergency.

Furthermore, he moved while avoiding the CCTV cameras installed here and there, though they were not numerous.

Then, from a certain point onward, the dungeon entrance began to come into view. It was a position where he could use the Stone of Readjustment.

‘Proceed immediately.’

When he pressed the button without hesitation, one of the Stones of Readjustment in Kang-hoo’s hand instantly grew hot.

It seemed to be the activation.

There was not even a very small sound or a faint flash. It was silent, as if nothing had happened.

Kang-hoo’s choice was the latter.

With the method of changing the dungeon entrance, if a new entrance was discovered in the unlikely event, its existence would become known outside.

But if he changed it so that entry and exit were possible only by using the stone, near-permanent concealment would be possible.

He only had to be careful of one thing. Losing the stone! Since he had his subspace, there was no chance of dropping it anywhere.

As soon as he selected the latter option, the Stone of Readjustment grew even hotter.

Flash!

Soon, with a streak of light flashing from the dungeon side as the end, the entrance that had originally existed disappeared.

At the same time.

‘I just need to not leave it neglected for too long. Simple. I didn’t know it would be this fast either.’

Everything ended in an instant.

The dungeon that had been milk and honey itself to Jang Si-hwan had changed into his possession. The person in question would not even know who had taken it from him.

There was still one more stone left.

And there was one more dungeon in the country that was giving Jang Si-hwan benefits as great as this dungeon.

Since the main stage for Jang Si-hwan in the original work was Korea, the places of fortuitous encounters he could conveniently create as the author naturally had to be inside the country.

If the two most precious things were stolen from him one after another, the aftermath would be so great that he could not handle it.

Yes, he wanted to properly make a fool of him. He would now come to know that there was no such thing as eternal ownership.

And he would become afraid.

Because he would have to experience the helplessness of someone repeatedly stealing important things from him from somewhere unseen.

Constantly shaking Jang Si-hwan’s mind and making him unstable. That was exactly what Kang-hoo wanted.

A little later.

“What? The dungeon in Haeju disappeared too? Does that even make sense?”

“When I received the report, I thought the sentries had seen things, but no. The dungeon entrance disappeared entirely.”

“Tell the sentries to try entering the dungeon! Even if they can’t enter because of the level restriction, there should at least be a reaction that bounces them off, right?”

“They say there’s none of that either, so I think the expression that the dungeon entrance has disappeared entirely is exactly right.”

“Fuck……!”

Jang Si-hwan’s expression twisted severely after hearing the situation report directly from Chae Gwanhyeong. The curse that came out with it was a bonus.

Something absurd had happened.

In just a few hours, two dungeons he owned had disappeared.

It was not that they could not be seen, nor was it that a distortion had occurred in his vision. Their existence itself had disappeared.

There had never been a precedent in the hunter world for a dungeon disappearing without a sound or rumor.

There were cases where that happened because of a dungeon break, but dungeons absolutely never disappeared for no reason.

Yet the proposition of “absolute” had been broken. Not once, but twice.

Tremble, tremble. His fingertips shook.

Something incomprehensible was happening. Who on earth had taken the dungeons from him?

“I need to see this myself.”

He had heard all the reports about the situation on-site and even checked all the videos they had personally filmed and sent. Even so, it made no sense.

Since it was a reality he could not accept by common sense, he felt he would only feel relieved if he saw it with his own two eyes.

Jang Si-hwan immediately put on his coat.

He would find the reason at the site, even if it meant being one minute or one second faster. He absolutely had to.

After some time passed.

Jang Si-hwan, who arrived at the dungeon in Maryong-ri, Cheongdan County, realized that the earlier report was not a single bit different from reality.

Seeing the sentries panicking at the site made anger surge up, but he did not take his anger out on them for no reason.

“Everyone, you worked hard. Could you leave the area for a moment? I want to examine it closely by myself.”

Even in the midst of that, he managed his composure as much as possible. The instinct of a hypocrite neatly suppressed his anger.

Soon, the sentries withdrew.

Worried they might offend Jang Si-hwan, they moved far away. They had no intention of even coming near the area.

Thus, he faced the dungeon entrance alone—no, the place that had been the entrance.

Standing before it, Jang Si-hwan stretched out his hand. He could not feel anything. There was not even a small flow of mana.

For some reason, it was possible for a dungeon entrance to become invisible. But its energy did not disappear.

Yet the fact that he felt absolutely nothing at his fingertips meant the dungeon entrance had completely vanished.

If the dungeon itself had not disappeared, then someone had forcibly changed the location of the entrance.

It was something without precedent until now, but looking at the situation, there was no proposition that could stand except this hypothesis.

“Just what…….”

Jang Si-hwan’s shoulders, his head lowered deeply, shook. He was barely suppressing uncontrollable rage.

“Who could do something like this? I don’t want to learn this kind of shitty experience. It’s fucking shitty. Huh?”

A disgusting emotion he absolutely never wanted to feel toward himself—helplessness—was carved across his entire body.

It was a greater helplessness than when he had lost the Seeker of Pure Darkness constellation before.

That was how much the dungeons in Cheongdan County and Haeju had been dungeons that had continuously served as growth engines for Jang Si-hwan.

They were still doing so even now. They were also the only dungeons that could grant expandability to his Dark Energy skills.

And yet they had been unilaterally taken from him without him even knowing to whom he had lost them. He trembled with humiliation.

“Haa……. Fuck! Shit! This fucking shitty fucking……!”

Curses filled with rage poured out without pause. As a bonus, he slammed his fist into the ground.

It was fortunate that he barely controlled his mana usage. Otherwise, the entire surroundings would have been reduced to scorched earth.

With rage he could not control, Jang Si-hwan’s expression continued to twist like a crushed can.

Was it because he had completely lost his composure and a change had occurred in his once-quiet mind?

Something happened that drove him even crazier.

I told you. There is an existence that knows your essence.

That existence knows you better than you know yourself, and so it is an existence that will slowly destroy you.

Stop your rampage even now, and let us create the future that “we” originally dreamed of. This world is too beautiful to tear down. Isn’t it?

It was none other than Jang Si-hwan’s other self.

He described himself as his “good self,” but well, Jang Si-hwan had never once thought so.

That bastard was the hypocrite.

A loser who did not know the value of the existence called Jang Si-hwan and only parroted that they had to live kindly.

Recently, the frequency of his harassment had increased, so Jang Si-hwan had increased his intake of medicine to suppress it…….

But when his composure collapsed and rage filled the empty space, the good self appeared as if he had been waiting.

It was disgusting.

On the other hand, his spite also grew stronger. He could not hand over control of his body to a bastard like this. That would be humiliation.

“Fuck off, just.”

The curse, without any filtering, struck exactly as it was. That was how great Jang Si-hwan’s rage was. The same was true of his sense of loss.

We can set things right, we can.

“I told you to get lost.”

Rumble, rumble, rumble!

When he burst his eye-light and spewed out Dark Energy, the voice of the good self soon could no longer be heard.

As if an invisible enemy were not troublesome enough, there was another me tormenting me. It was enough to drive him mad.

In any case.

Just like the Seeker of Pure Darkness matter before, someone kept targeting him and taking what he needed.

It was not an accident that happened by chance. It was thoroughly targeted. Otherwise, it could not have happened.

An existence whose identity he had no way of knowing. That being knew clearly what was most important to him.

And that was why it was stealing them like tweezers. Leaving only the wounds that would become the most fatal blows clearly behind.

“I’m feeling fear, me?”

When even an unacceptable emotion pushed its way in, Jang Si-hwan, now deeply offended, ground his teeth hard.

He was afraid.

He did not know who the opponent was, but the opponent took things away casually, as if they knew everything.

It felt as though he were facing a god.

Was that not so?

Because a god looked down on humans from above, they could make a person lose his fate and everything he possessed at any time.

The very fact that he had to think of something like a “god” in this situation was humiliation to Jang Si-hwan.

“Maybe it could be the Eyes’ doing. Yes, the Eyes. The only ones who might know about me more deeply are those bastards.”

The arrow flew toward the wrong place.

However, for Jang Si-hwan, it was a rational inference.

The “Eyes,” who firmly believed that they were the beings who would fulfill “His” will.

Since they had been granted quite a lot of power, adjusting the location of a dungeon might perhaps be nothing to them.

Even though he had hidden his hostile feelings that had been gathered tightly from before, there was no longer any reason to do so now.

“I absolutely won’t tolerate bastards who play around with what I have. I’ll definitely kill them. Those sons of bitches.”

A leap created by misunderstanding!

Jang Si-hwan, whose nose had been cut off right before his eyes by Kang-hoo, was expressing his rage toward an entirely different existence.

If Kang-hoo had heard his words beside him, he would have burst into roaring laughter! It was a perfect swing and miss, worth a full 100 points.