The Hunter’s Gonna Lay Low

Chapter 296

After being left alone once again, Cha Uijae found himself revisiting the encounter every day, every hour. Whenever loneliness washed over him like a tidal wave, he clung to the stranger's voice, the sensation of the coat that had wrapped around him, and the conversations they had shared. That faceless stranger's promise became a shackle—a binding chain that prevented Cha Uijae from succumbing to death.

How powerful a promise could be.

Time passed—how much, he couldn’t say. He was counting the bones scattered around him when suddenly, a series of pure white system messages materialized before his eyes.

[Checking for survivors...]
[1 found.]
[Entity Cha Uijae has conquered solitude.]
[Congratulations! Executing the return of entity Cha Uijae.]
[Error! Possesses information values incompatible with the current era.]
[If left unchecked, critical error occurrence probability... 99%.]
[If left unchecked, premature apocalypse advancement probability... 99%.]

[Executing memory deletion protocol.]

Before he could react, his body was engulfed in a brilliant white light. It felt as though he was being sucked into somewhere, his entire being spiraling away. Instinctively, he squeezed his eyes shut.

The next moment, Cha Uijae opened his eyes.

Instead of red and white ruins, his vision was filled with a pitch-black sky.

Shhhhh.

Cold raindrops poured down, drenching him entirely. The white ash and blood caked on his body began to wash away little by little.

What happened? He blinked repeatedly, disoriented, as his twisted senses gradually began to recalibrate.

In the distance, he heard the sounds of people talking, accompanied by loud music—an unfamiliar song. The air was heavy with the stale scent of old oil, the rotting stench of food waste, and a cocktail of unpleasant odors that assaulted his nose. It was a smell he’d never encountered before. Beneath him, there was the squishy and crinkling sound of plastic.

"Where am I—ugh...!"

The stench overwhelmed him, and his stomach churned. Quickly, Uijae pulled off his mask and retched. Only thin, watery bile dripped onto the ground. His throat burned. Damn it. He coughed painfully, clutching his throat as he weakly turned his head to read the lettering on the surface beneath him.

[Standard Garbage Bag]

Oh. Trash.

Apparently, he had been lying on top of a pile of garbage. He needed to get up, but his body wouldn’t cooperate. His whole frame ached as if it had been shattered. The cold rain soaked his skin, and the wind brushed against his cheeks—sensations he hadn’t felt in what seemed like an eternity.

What’s going on? Uijae tried to piece his memory together.

Collapsed white ruins. An endless torrent of unfamiliar monsters. Yes, he remembered fighting the basilisk and driving his sword into its head at the very end. And then…

...What else?

He felt like he had forgotten something important, but no matter how much he strained, he couldn’t grasp it. Frustration gnawed at him.

When he finally managed to lift his gaze, a massive black void in the center of the dark blue night sky came into view. It was a black hole, a familiar, ominous presence that seemed capable of heralding the world’s end. Its existence had become so natural that imagining the sky without it was impossible.

You couldn’t see black holes from inside the rift. That meant...

He had returned to reality.

Suppressing a lingering cough, Uijae focused on the sounds around him. They tickled his ears—sounds he hadn’t heard in ages. Not just his own breathing, but unfamiliar music, people laughing, and the soft splash of tires on a wet road.

Strange, yet nostalgic.

He listened for what felt like a long time. As his mind cleared and he began to take in his situation, another sensation took hold: hunger.

Grrrgle.

His stomach rumbled, vibrating against his hollow abdomen. Uijae rubbed his sunken belly, realizing with a start just how famished he was. It was a dreadful kind of hunger, one that seemed to press down on his entire body. Clenching his teeth, he groaned.

It was the first time he’d ever felt so hungry it made him want to cry.

He muttered weakly, "I’m starving..."

His brain commanded him: To survive, you have to eat something. Now.

Uijae planted his hands on the garbage beneath him and forced himself upright. The gnawing hunger was so overwhelming that it dulled the pain in his body. Staggering, he leaned against a filthy wall and moved forward. Behind him, faint traces of blood mixed with white ash and rainwater were left in his wake. But even those quickly washed away.

Click.

The sound of a sliding door opening echoed in the night.

Darkness followed.

***

Uijae gasped sharply, as though waking from a sudden nightmare. What’s going on? Where am I? His eyes darted around, scanning his surroundings. Flickering crimson lights cast a wavering glow over the area. He flexed his fingers, feeling the rough concrete floor beneath soft, vine-like strands. He was lying flat on the ground, face pressed to the surface. Tentatively, he reached for his face. His mask was still firmly in place.

"......"

Only his eyes moved as he surveyed his surroundings. It looked like a long, arched tunnel. Under the crimson lights, white ash and pale vines completely covered the walls and floor. Is this still the Memorial Dungeon? Moving cautiously, Uijae sat up. The vine-covered passageway felt oddly familiar.

Where have I seen this before?

He tilted his head, frowning in confusion, but no clear answer came to him. His mind was filled with fragments of memories flooding in all at once.

Damn it.

Exhaling heavily, he leaned back against the wall. Now that he had a moment of quiet, he needed to organize what he had seen and piece together the memories he had forgotten.

The first thought that rose to the surface was unsettling:

Were the monsters I killed people from a destroyed world?

What about the monsters I ate? Were they people too?

His fingers twitched involuntarily. He remembered Mackerel’s mocking comment that monster meat wasn’t so bad. He thought of the backs of those who dismantled the creatures. What would happen to someone who ate mutated humans that had turned into monsters?

...Wouldn’t it trigger mutation? Or make it progress faster?

He recalled the muscular hunter he had personally killed, the village where Mackerel had stayed—a village that had been almost completely devoid of life. Where did all the villagers go?

...

He remembered plunging into the sea to save Mackerel. There had been countless presences beneath the waves—not just Mackerel’s brother but many others, large and small. Hungry people would eat anything. And hunters like Mackerel? They couldn’t catch regular fish, so they started eating the sea monsters instead...

They must have mutated.

They must have returned to the sea.

Lowering his head, Uijae’s ash-gray hair fell into his line of sight. He toyed with the ends of his hair—no matter how often he dyed it, it always returned to this color. He thought of his comrades from the West Sea Rift. The more monster meat they ate, the whiter their skin and hair became.

The whitening had been part of his own mutation in the past, back in the world that had already been lost.

"..."

Leaning his head against the wall, Uijae let out a dry laugh.

One mountain after another...

Just as he closed his eyes, he heard footsteps.

Humming.

Uijae’s eyes snapped open, and he turned his head toward the source of the sound. A large shadow flickered on the wall under the crimson light.

"...Hmm?"

The shadow stopped moving. Uijae clenched and unclenched his fist. Thankfully, his strength remained intact. The shadow tilted its head, as though inspecting him.

"Oh-ho? Aha…"

Exclamations of surprise followed. Then, a voice he recognized hummed lightly.

"What a big catch. Good thing I didn’t wander off and stayed here~."

The moment the figure’s foot stepped on one of the pale vines—

Screeeeech!

The previously still vines lunged toward the figure all at once. But the intruder crushed them underfoot without hesitation, each step deliberate and unyielding. Eventually, the figure squatted down in front of Uijae.

Disheveled pale-blue hair swayed as the young man tilted his head.

"Hmm, why are you fine? I thought you’d be all tangled up in vines. Can the vines sense strength too?"

He pulled out a pack of cigarettes, took one between his lips, and suddenly, as though remembering something, offered the pack to Uijae.

"Want one?"

"......"

"Ah, you can’t smoke with that mask on, huh? Oh well. Just take it for the thought~ Consider it a gift, a souvenir."

Uijae snatched the entire pack from the man’s hand, causing his grinning face to droop into a pout.

"Hey, I didn’t think you’d take the whole thing."

The flickering crimson light cast shadows over the heaps of white ash and vines covering the passageway. It looked just like a wasteland. Uijae pulled away a cluster of vines clinging to the wall he was leaning on. Beneath the vines, red bricks came into view.

I know this place.

"This is…"

"Jongno 3-ga Underground Dungeon. Though it’s a little different from when you went in~."

Click. A small flame flared from the man’s lighter. He lit the cigarette, took a deep drag, and exhaled a puff of smoke. Through the haze, the man extended his hand.

"Nice to see you again~."

Ryu Kyu-min, also known as Gyu-gyu, smirked at him. Uijae didn’t return the smile. Instead, he glanced around cautiously. There were no other presences nearby—just Gyu-gyu and Cha Uijae.

Then where’s Lee Sa-young? And Honeybee?

Uijae voiced his questions aloud.

"Where’s Lee Sa-young? What about Honeybee?"

"Oh, I didn’t expect that to be your first question."

Gyu-gyu tossed his lighter into the air and caught it smoothly. His crooked smile widened as he replied,

"That’s actually what I should be asking you. Why did J come back alone? Where are Lee Sa-young and Honeybee, and that other guy? Care to explain? I have to file a report, you know~."

Thud.

Uijae’s heart sank.

He spun around to look behind him. At the end of the Jongno 3-ga Underground Dungeon’s passage was supposed to be the entrance to the dungeon—a rift leading to the eroded dungeon. It was exactly where Uijae had been leaning. But where the entrance should have been...

"...What?"

There was nothing but a blank, dark wall.