Chapter 43 – A Slumber in the Dungeon

“How is it? Do you feel like some of your fatigue is relieved?”

He blinked, looking like a straw raincoat. He seemed to be reading the skill status window.

“The recovery buff has temporarily increased to 100%. It is a great skill.”

“Don’t mention it…”

Being praised for her skill by an S-class hunter, she was so flattered that she writhed in embarrassment.

When they first met in passing, she thought he was a stiff and scary person, but the more she got to know him, the kinder and gentler he was.

‘Even though he hasn’t slept properly and hasn’t eaten properly. If I were in that state, I would have been very sharp and annoyed about everything.’

The S-class hunter’s character was definitely different from that of ordinary people.

“How is it, do you feel like some of your fatigue has been relieved? There’s no way a mere C-class skill would work on you, Jin-hyun, but I just hoped you’d at least feel comfortable.”

Hee-na squatted beside the sleeping bag and spoke.

Kang Jin-hyun answered slowly.

“It is… good. It would be good if you also lay down here, Hee-na…”

“Pardon? Lay down together?”

Instantly doubting her ears, she asked back, but Kang Jin-hyun remained silent after that.

“…Excuse me?”

“…”

Although he was usually taciturn, he was someone who answered all of Hee-na’s questions diligently. This was a bit strange.

“Jin-hyun?”

She was about to call his name and check his face when a system window suddenly popped up and flashed before her eyes.

All kinds of text floated frantically before Hee-na’s eyes. Thanks to that, she was only able to grasp the situation after a few seconds had passed.

‘I put Hunter Kang Jin-hyun to sleep?’

Before she knew it, Kang Jin-hyun’s eyelids were gently closed.

‘Is he pretending to sleep just to play along?’

Hee-na waved her hand in front of his eyes. However, he showed no signs of opening his eyes.

“Really?”

Hee-na spoke out loud in surprise.

‘Heavens. He finally fell asleep, I might wake him.’

However, Kang Jin-hyun seemed to be so deeply asleep that he couldn’t even hear that voice. Without twitching a single eyelid, he was in a deep, sweet sleep.

After testing Kang Jin-hyun next to the sleeping bag for a long time, Hee-na was able to conclude that he was truly asleep.

“To think I put an S-class hunter to sleep.”

Hee-na looked down at her hands that had achieved such a great feat.

Of course, she had previously put Choi Sang-hoon, an S-class awakened person, to sleep in an instant. However, his class was an Appraiser, which was non-combat.

In terms of hunters, he had stats around the B-class level. He was incomparable to the stats of an S-class hunter.

‘He must have been extremely tired. He isn’t moving at all.’

Hee-na sat down and peeked at the sleeping Kang Jin-hyun. It seemed like about an hour had passed since he fell asleep, but he maintained a single posture like a corpse.

‘It will be scary once the sun sets, so let’s wake him up around sunset.’

She felt a bit sorry to immediately wake up someone who had fallen into a sweet sleep for the first time in years. In any case, there were no dangerous monsters here, so Kang Jin-hyun did not necessarily need to be awake.

However, since she thought it would get eerie to be alone once the sun set, she decided to let him sleep only until then.

Hee-na passed the time by scrutinizing the sleeping Kang Jin-hyun’s face in various ways. Fortunately, Kang Jin-hyun’s features were handsome, so she didn’t get tired of looking at him easily.

“If he hadn’t become a hunter, he probably would have been a celebrity.”

She muttered as she brushed off her bottom and stood up.

The sun was slowly setting. It was time to wake Kang Jin-hyun.

“Jin-hyun.”

Hee-na carefully patted the sleeping bag and called Kang Jin-hyun’s name.

“…”

But he did not budge. Hee-na spoke in a slightly louder voice.

“Jin-hyun, you have to get up now. You’ve slept for a long time.”

“…”

He was still fast asleep.

After that, Hee-na mobilized all sorts of methods to wake Kang Jin-hyun. She even rolled him on the floor and pinched his cheeks.

Nevertheless, the man in the sleeping bag showed no signs of waking up.

“At this rate, isn’t he almost in a state of suspended animation?”

Hee-na clicked her tongue. The S-class hunter who was sensitive to presence was nowhere to be found, and only a sleeping hunter of the forest lay in the sleeping bag.

The surroundings gradually grew dark.

‘Ugh, I’m scared.’

Hee-na rolled the sleeping Kang Jin-hyun over to her side.

It was because she was a bit scared to be alone. She didn’t believe in ghosts, but this was a dungeon. It wouldn’t be strange if something popped out.

‘I’m glad my phone has plenty of battery left.’

Hee-na turned on her phone screen to chase away the darkness.

Of course, because they were inside a dungeon, there was no signal. It was Hee-na’s house, where free Wi-Fi burst out, that was strange.

“I want to at least stop by my house, but it’s too far.”

Hee-na sighed softly. When she checked the map using her skill, the front door of her house was far away from where the boss monster was located.

If only she could make front doors at will as she did outside the dungeon. It was a pity she couldn’t do so inside the dungeon.

‘It’s probably because there’s building land inside the dungeon, right?’

She didn’t know the exact principle, but Hee-na thought this would be related to having a house inside the dungeon.

As she thought about this and that, time flew like an arrow.

In the meantime, Hee-na shook Kang Jin-hyun more than a hundred times, and he still did not wake up.

‘Is he dead?’

Feeling anxious, she placed a finger under his nose, and fortunately, he was still breathing. He was just sleeping like the dead and not waking up.

“Ah, what should I do?”

Before she knew it, the pitch-black sky was gradually brightening. Not knowing what to do, Hee-na desperately tried to wake the sleeping Kang Jin-hyun.

She even held him by the collar and slapped his cheeks.

However, the S-class body was extremely sturdy, so not even a slap mark remained. Only Hee-na’s hand turned bright red in vain.

“Jin-hyun! Please wake up! Seriously!”

Hee-na shouted as she shook the sleeping bag vigorously. The sun was rising, and it was now time for the monsters to begin their activities.

The closed buds opened like spreading flower petals. They were mushroom caps.

Every time the huge mushroom pillars squirmed, the ground shook slightly. Hee-na, who had taken a spot beneath the giant mushroom—no, the boss monster—was having a terrible time.

‘Heavens, what do I do!’

The ground was shaking as if an earthquake had hit, Kang Jin-hyun wasn’t waking up, the gradually swelling mushroom caps were disgusting, and Hee-na didn’t even have a weapon to fight the monsters.

Everything was horrible.

Pshhh.

It was at that moment that the mushroom emitted spores.

The amount was so vast that the bluish sky turned pitch black in an instant. The spores gathered like a swarm of bees to form a dark shape.

‘A hand shape?’

Although the shape was not clear, the spores gathered in black to form a giant hand shape.

Hee-na tightly hugged the sleeping bag containing Kang Jin-hyun and looked up at the scene.

‘What on earth is happening?’

However, for Hee-na, who had zero knowledge of dungeons, there was no way to know.

‘I shouldn’t have let him sleep! I was crazy, absolutely crazy!’

Hee-na cursed her past self for being unnecessarily nosy. And she also cursed Kang Jin-hyun, who wouldn’t wake up.

He had said he couldn’t easily fall asleep because he was sensitive to presence, but he was a complete liar.

‘When he’s a sleepyhead who won’t even wake up from being slapped on the cheek!’

Rumble.

Instantly, an anxious vibration shook the air. Hee-na, extremely tense, watched the giant hand made of spores.

Shooooo!

The giant hand seemed to float in the air for a moment, then struck the ground. It was in the direction of Hee-na and Kang Jin-hyun.

A heavy crash resounded. The giant hand left a palm print on the ground and withdrew. The place where the palm had touched was hollowed out.

‘I-I almost died!’

Meanwhile, Hee-na, shivering, was rolling on the ground along with Kang Jin-hyun in the sleeping bag.

She had frantically dodged upon seeing the giant hand descend, and survived by a hair’s breadth. If she had moved ten centimeters less, she might have died.

Whooosh!

The giant palm did not rest. As if catching a bug, it continuously swung its hand toward where Hee-na and Kang Jin-hyun were.

If there was any saving grace, it was that the hand’s movement was not extremely fast. Hee-na dragged the sleeping bag containing Kang Jin-hyun around, dodging the palm that struck the ground here and there.

“Pant, gasp, huff, pant…”

Hee-na breathed heavily. Having rolled around here and there, her entire body was scraped and in pain.

She was so out of breath that her throat burned. But since she had to survive, she couldn’t stop moving. Faced with an extreme situation, she couldn’t even cry.

‘How am I going to endure for an hour?’

Since Kang Jin-hyun had said they only needed to hold out for an hour, after an hour, this giant hand and the gross mushroom caps would disappear.

But to Hee-na, an hour was an eternity.

Even looking at it now, less than five minutes had passed, but her physical strength was already reaching its limit.

With Hee-na’s stats and stamina, it was impossible to run around here and there without rest for an hour while dragging a grown man.

“Aaargh!”

To make matters worse, her legs lost strength and she even tripped and fell.

“Ugh, what do I do!”

Hee-na sat down, hugging the sleeping Kang Jin-hyun.

She could no longer summon any strength in her body. She couldn’t move. At this rate, it was clear that Hee-na and Kang Jin-hyun would end up as flattened corpses.

Finally, she burst into tears. To die like this was too unfair.

‘If only I had a weapon, I wouldn’t die so helplessly!’

The Homemaker of the Dungeon