Two hours after the exam started.
Lee Seo-jun joined up with Lee Hyun-joo.
Since the broadcast announcing the Demon infiltration, no further broadcasts had been heard.
There had been no corrections either, which meant that Demos had truly infiltrated the dungeon.
Lee Seo-jun suddenly recalled the Demon incident during his mercenary training experience in the past.
At that time, the Demon had been searching for the one who had the “Power of Demon Slayer” that dismantled the large-scale barrier during the midterm.
And Lee Seo-jun knew who had dismantled it.
It was Kim Sunwoo.
‘No way… Are they targeting Kim Sunwoo again this time…?’
Lee Seo-jun’s expression became grim.
Lee Hyun-joo, noticing this, asked him.
“Why the sudden face?”
“Well, something similar happened during the first semester.”
“Oh, the Demon terror incident?”
“Yeah. I’m wondering if this situation might be connected to that.”
“Wouldn’t it be? We don’t know their exact objective, though.”
As expected.
The Demons target was highly likely to be Kim Sunwoo.
“Let’s move quickly.”
Thus, the two steadily pushed forward through the stage.
One might expect students to be hiding in fear of the Demons, but Lee Seo-jun thought differently.
Rather, he believed that at times like this, they needed to gather people to strengthen their forces and prevent easy attacks.
After passing through the complicated maze-like dungeon for a while, they arrived at the first merging point.
“Aaahhh!”
A terrified scream rang out from somewhere.
Lee Seo-jun and Lee Hyun-joo exchanged looks and sprinted toward the source of the scream.
When they arrived at the scene, they saw a student crawling desperately on the ground, eyes wide with fear, and someone slowly following behind with a bloodstained sword.
At that moment, the man turned around and looked at Lee Seo-jun.
“You. Are you Lee Seo-jun?”
The man seemed to recognize him.
Lee Seo-jun glared at the man with wary eyes and drew the sword at his waist.
“As a fellow swordsman, I’ve wanted to fight you. This works out well.”
Without warning, the man charged.
It was a movement as swift as a flash.
Lee Seo-jun infused his sword with mana and swung to counter.
Clang!
The clash of swords echoed through the dungeon.
Their swords trembled, and a contest of strength began.
The man shoved Seo-jun back once and swung his sword again.
Whoosh!
Seo-jun swung his sword again to block the attack.
However, the following irregular strikes managed to carve a long wound into Seo-jun’s shoulder.
“Ugh!”
“Haah!”
The man swung again.
Seo-jun gritted his teeth and blocked the attack once more.
Thus continued the fierce clash of swords.
Lee Hyun-joo, watching from the side, wanted to summon a water wolf to help, but the two were moving so intensely that she couldn’t find a chance to intervene.
“Haaah!”
At that moment, Seo-jun shouted, and his sword radiated a bright light.
It was ‘Synergy,’ a light-attribute sword aura known as the natural enemy of magic beings.
The man flinched and tried to retreat.
Light attributes were extremely dangerous for Demons, capable of being fatal with even a mere graze.
At that moment, Seo-jun’s movements exploded in speed.
He attacked with blinding swiftness, as if he had become one with the light.
“Grgh!”
The man barely managed to block Seo-jun’s sword and was shocked.
Was this really the skill level of a student?
Even though Seo-jun was a genius, the man was still an A-rank Demon.
There was no way he should be overwhelmed by a mere kid.
“Ugh!”
At that moment, Seo-jun’s sword grazed the man’s forearm.
Black blood flowed down, and the light attribute caused the wound to sizzle and burn.
“Argh!”
Allowing one hit, the man’s movements dulled even further.
And Seo-jun was not foolish enough to miss that opening.
He immediately rotated his body with full strength and slashed at the man’s waist.
Whoosh—!
“……Gah!”
A long slash ran across the man’s stomach.
Seo-jun’s sword had neatly cleaved through half the man’s body.
The battle was over.
The man collapsed, spewing black blood.
“……Whew.”
Lee Seo-jun let out a deep sigh of relief.
If it had been him before the vacation, he wouldn’t have won.
It was the result of the intense training he had undergone recently.
“Are you okay?”
Lee Hyun-joo approached Seo-jun with a worried look.
Seo-jun nodded.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
Then he gazed down at the Demons corpse and muttered quietly.
“There really were Demons in the dungeon.”
“Yeah. And they’re pretty strong too.”
At that moment, Kim Sunwoo came to Seo-jun’s mind.
“……Right. Kim Sun-woo.”
“Huh?”
“We have to find Kim Sunwoo.”
“What are you talking about? Why Kim Sunwoo?”
“Follow me!”
Seo-jun hurriedly sprinted forward.
Their goal was Kim Sunwoo.
They had to save him.
Its been two hour since the exam started.
In front of the second rendezvous point.
I was clearing stages and quickly moving into new ones. After running and running, I finally reached the second rendezvous point.
There had been a Demon in a place unreachable from the first rendezvous point, so I had no choice but to head for the second one.
As soon as I arrived, I bought another Demon Detection Compass.’
Its one-hour duration had run out, so there was no helping it.
“Ugh, what a waste of points.”
One compass cost 10,000 points. Since this was already my second one today, I had spent 20,000 points in total.
It made me feel like crying from the waste.
“Sigh.”
I let out a heavy sigh and looked at the compass again.
The needle was pointing west.
“So it’s that way.”
The demon I defeated earlier was a B-rank, so the remaining ones had to be either A- or S-rank.
My fingertips trembled slightly from the tension.
Who could the demon to the west be? If it was Won Hyuk, I would have to run the moment I confirmed it—but would running even be possible?
And then—
“…Huh?”
Whish, whish.
The compass needle, which had been pointing west, suddenly jerked in a different direction.
It meant the location of a demon had changed.
A shift in the compass needle meant one of two things: either another demon had come closer, or the demon it had been pointing to had died.
Given the dungeon’s structure, it was unlikely that another demon had suddenly gotten closer to me.
That could only mean one thing — a demon had died.
“It must be Lee Seo-jun.”
In the original story, Lee Seo-jun had taken down an A-rank demon all by himself.
There was no reason he couldn’t do the same now.
Which meant that the only demon left in this dungeon was Won Hyuk.
From deep inside my chest, a surge of fear began to rise. Would I really be able to kill him successfully?
In the original, Yoon Hayoung first awakened the “Power of Demon Eradication” here.
And with that power, she miraculously succeeded in killing Won hyuk.
Of course, many students had died and gotten injured in the process.
But that didn’t mean we couldn’t pull it off now. Today’s Yoon Hayoung was far stronger than she had been in the original.
I checked the dungeon map and calculated the distance between my location and the compass reading.
From that, I could roughly estimate where Won Hyuk was.
There was still some time.
“Well then, let’s go.”
To meet Yoon Hayoung, who would become the sword to slay Won Hyuk.
About thirty minutes later, I met up with Yoon Hayoung.
Fortunately, she had been waiting at the agreed spot.
“Sunwoo.”
Maybe because she knew about the events happening in the dungeon, her expression was dark.
During the first semester’s midterms, she had come close to being killed by a demon. Perhaps the trauma of that day was resurfacing.
To reassure her, I gave a small smile.
“Did you wait long?”
“No, I also had trouble clearing the stage, so I only just got here.”
“Still, it’s good you made it on time. You know what’s happening here, right?”
“Yeah. Just like during the first semester, demons have invaded the school to cause terror.”
Then, in a small voice, she added,
“…To kill me.”
Her face grew even darker. I looked at her with a hint of pity.
She was probably feeling guilty.
Because so many people were in danger just because a demon had come to kill her.
She might even be thinking it was all her fault.
“It’s not your fault. Don’t blame yourself.”
At my words, Yoon Hayoung looked up at me. Then, with a slightly changed expression, she nodded.
“Okay.”
Then she said,
“Sunwoo. You said my power is a natural enemy to demons, right?”
I nodded.
“That’s right.”
“Then the demon who infiltrated the dungeon… Let’s take them down together.”
I grinned.
“That’s exactly why I asked you to meet me here.”
Hearing that, Yoon Hayoung looked slightly surprised.
“Did you already know something like this was going to happen when you asked to meet?”
I hesitated a moment at her question.
Given how big the situation had gotten, it felt wrong to outright deny it.
“Well, I had an idea.”
“I see. So that’s how it is.”
She quietly nodded. She didn’t ask how I knew about the demon attack or anything like that.
“Then, let’s move to a different location.”
To the battlefield where we would take down Won Hyuk.
Thus, Yoon Hayoung and I relocated. Using the map and the demon-tracking compass, we moved to the place where Won hyuk would appear.
It was Stage 6 on the left side.
A wide hall.
I explained my plan to Yoon Hayoung. She looked surprised at first, but then nodded.
Following my instructions, she waited on the left side. I checked the items inside my subspace storage from the right corner.
There were three items I planned to use to take down Won Hyuk.
A “Mana Elixir” to replenish my depleted mana.
An “Advanced Magic Concealment Potion” I had bought with points.
And finally, the “Demon-Tracking Compass” that would constantly reveal Won Hyuk’s location.
Comparing the compass with the map, I could tell that Won Hyuk was getting closer.
It was almost time.
I gulped down the Mana Elixir and the Advanced Magic Concealment Potion at once.
The strange flavours swirled in my mouth.
Then, I activated the “Heart of Nature” and “Fighting Spirit” skills.
Hoo…
I felt the power surging through my body and compressed my maximum magic into my hand.
A radiant orb of light attribute magic began to pulse above my palm.
Ha…
Won Hyuk was beyond irritated from the prolonged game of hide and seek.
Because of the sudden announcement, all the students had gone into hiding.
And because they had named “Kim Hye-chan” specifically as a demon, students ran away the moment they saw him.
Of course, just running wouldn’t save them. But it made the situation much more annoying.
“…Still, looks like I’ve killed all the students in this area.”
Each location had a set number of students.
To kill more, he would have to clear another stage.
“It’s all that bastard Jung Hyun’s fault the plan got ruined.”
Though it was his own mistakes that ruined things, Won Hyuk never thought he was at fault.
Grinding his teeth, he seethed in anger at Jung Hyun’s incompetence.
He made his way toward the next stage.
The complicated traps and magic formulas ahead already made his head ache.
Of course, Jung Hyun had explained the solutions to him.
But Won Hyuk hadn’t bothered to listen carefully, and now he resented Jung Hyun for making the stage so complicated.
“Once the extermination plan’s done, I’m killing that bastard first.”
After five grueling minutes, he finally managed to solve all the magic formulas.
Time to open the stage gate.
Creaaak.
The door opened.
And that’s when it happened. For a moment, Won Hyuk was frozen in shock.
A massive orb of magic was hurtling straight at him.
Yet… there was no magic aura coming from it.
A magic attack with no detectable mana?
Was that even possible?
Acting on pure instinct, Won Hyuk made a split-second decision.
It was too late to dodge.
In that case, he had to brace for it and take the hit with minimum damage. He had to use every last bit of his mana to reinforce his defense.
Even if it meant his body would shatter.
Won hyuk covered himself in his strongest protective shield.
The next moment, the magic orb smashed into him with immense force.
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