"No way… there's someone else here?"
She stepped forward, gaze focused toward the direction of the cry.
After realizing there was another human nearby, Joo-Hee instinctively covered her mouth with both hands, her eyes wide with disbelief as a rush of relief surged in her chest.
"F-finally! I'm not alone!" she sniffled, trembling slightly with both arms up to the sky.
"I really thought all the hunters who entered earlier got ejected because of the system. But it seems I was wrong."
The echo rang again.
"… please! Help!"
In the midst of the eerie violet forest, Joo-Hee smiled, wide and genuine, like a child finding light in the darkness.
"Hehe… I have a companion now~"
Without hesitation, she darted toward the source of the voice, casting [Healing Touch] on her thighs and calves with every few strides, using the soothing energy to mend the fatigue in real-time and maintain speed.
Within a minute, she reached a clearing.
And there the person was. It was a familiar face.
"Ryu Min-Soo?!" she gasped.
Lying on the ground, bloodied, wide-eyed, and terrified, the young porter from her former party—the one she'd never expected to see again.
He was surrounded by six goblins, each carrying crude, rusted daggers, all smeared with fresh blood. They laughed and barked in their guttural tongue, looming over him like predators ready for a kill.
Joo-Hee didn't even blink, but something felt wrong as she took a glance at their mouths.
Though she disregarded it, her eyes narrowed, cold and merciless.
'Not on my watch,' she thought while sharply stomping on the grassy ground, activating [Verdant Growth].
The earth cracked beneath her, glowing faintly with green and purple light as hundreds of sharp, thorned roots erupted like a forest's wrath. The goblins barely had time to notice the ground shifting before the vines shot forward with deadly precision.
She extended her right hand like some kind of executioner. Fingers clawed in the air as she clenched her hand into a fist.
The sharp roots obeyed. Piercing through flesh, wrapping around the goblins' arms, legs, and necks with unnatural force. They screeched in panic, struggling to resist, but the roots were fast and too strong for them to resist.
One by one, they fell.
Blood splattered on the forest floor as the roots squeezed, choked, and silenced them. Guts falling to the ground. Their bodies convulsed for a few seconds… then lay still, the weapons dropping uselessly to the ground.
The forest went quiet again.
All that remained were the vines, twitching slightly in the aftermath.
Their deaths were followed by a cascade of green notifications:
[You have killed a D- rank Goblin.]
[You have killed an E+ rank Goblin.]
[You have killed an E- rank Goblin.]
[You have killed a D rank Goblin.]
[You have killed an E rank Goblin.]
[You have gained 290 experience.]
[You have leveled up!]
[You have gained 5 stat points!]
Joo-Hee's eyes lit up at the string of system prompts.
"At last!" she beamed, "I leveled up after so long… and the stat points aren't even being auto-assigned anymore. That's truly a blessing!"
She stretched her fingers, energy pulsing subtly in her veins.
"I'll check my status window later… Min-Soo comes first."
But her expression immediately twisted in disgust as the thick, rotting stench of ruptured goblin innards came through the clearing.
Their gutted corpses, riddled with holes and bruises, spilled all over the forest floor like spoiled meat.
"Eugh!" she winced, bringing a hand to her nose. "I feel like throwing up… Ugh, I better kill them cleanly next time."
Before she could turn to Ryu Min-Soo, he suddenly screamed in pure panic.
"A-AAAGHHH!"
Joo-Hee snapped toward him, alarmed.
Min-Soo was staring at his bloodied arms and shredded clothes, eyes wide in terror, completely unaware he had already been saved.
His mind, blurred by trauma, registered the gore around him as his 'own'. In that moment, he collapsed backward, passing out cold from fear and confusion.
"Min-Soo!" Joo-Hee gasped, rushing over.
But just as she took a step toward him while passing the bushes, her foot brushed against something cold.
Her gaze dropped.
And her stomach dropped with it.
Lying on the forest floor, face twisted in pain and lifeless, was a corpse—one she recognized instantly.
"E-Eun-Bi?! No..."
Choi Eun-Bi.
The E+ rank wind mage. Her old party member.
The young girl who once idolized her during their battles—the same girl who get scolded for recklessly casting magic.
Her body was barely intact—covered in bite marks, her limbs slashed apart, and her side gnawed open with chilling violence.
Near her were the remains of another hunter—gender indistinguishable—just meat and shredded armor, lying among three goblin corpses.
Joo-Hee stumbled back, her boots squelching in bloodied dirt.
Her breath hitched. Her hands trembled.
And then—
"—Nghk…!"
She dropped to her knees and vomited into the grass, bile mixing with the breakfast she had earlier.
Despite not being a stranger to corpses, this scene of mutilation and the sudden recognition of someone she once knew was far too much.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her shaking hand, staring blankly at the trees and looking at her once again.
Her current situation made her aware of the reality she was in.
The world of novels and manhwas she once found exhilarating—those thrilling dungeon dives and glorious power-ups—now felt 'once more' like a cruel joke.
Experiencing it firsthand was nothing short of agonizing. It wasn't a story anymore. It was real.
And someone she knew had just died in front of her.
Not a stranger. Eun-Bi.
She wasn't particularly close to the mage, but the sight of her torn body, the haunting silence where her voice used to be—it shook her.
"Damn it… this is all my fault…" she whispered.
She looked down at her palms. They felt... soaked. As though Eun-Bi's blood had seeped into her skin, clinging, accusing.
A weight settled on her chest.
She had entered the dungeon alone, wanting the restrictive quest. But the system responded in a way she never imagined.
Reconnected the dungeon. Dragged others with her. Got them killed.
Her breath hitched.
"I just wanted to test myself... I didn't mean for this to happen… I'm really s-sorry..."
She bit her lip, tasting iron, but didn't care.
Then, it began. A slow, creeping sensation—like hands pulling at her from the edges of her mind.
"You killed me."
"Why did you go alone?"
"..."
"Can you do better?"
"Why me?"
"I… wanted to live…"
"WHY DID YOU K-KILL MEE, MS. LEE?!"
"YOu GrEEdy BItcH!"
They weren't real voices. But they weren't entirely her own, either.
Fragments of the original Lee Joo-Hee's trauma bled into her, clawing their way back from the depths of her inherited memories. Her past—Joo-Hee's inherited fear, guilt, pain—wrapped around her like a noose.
She felt herself sinking.
"Stop… stop… I—! I-I'm sor—!"
Suddenly, pain.
A sharp, searing pain in her shoulder.
"AAAGHH!" she screamed, jerking sideways, snapping her back to the present.
Her body collapsed to the ground as she clutched her shoulder.
Blood.
An arrow.
A clean shot through the upper muscle—burning and hot.
"Crap! A goblin archer…!"
Just then, a mechanical voice echoed in her head:
[Scan has been completed.]
_______________________
[Minor World: Kinobgral]
Detected Population:
— 21, 317 (Can no longer expand detection area)
— Estimated total: Unknown (Scan incomplete)
.
Inhabitants:
— Goblins (65%)
— Other Entities (24%)
— Unidentified Threats (11%)
.
Average Power Level:
— E rank to C-minus rank
_______________________
Joo-Hee's eyes widened as the system scan finalized its first sweep.
She gritted her teeth through the pain in her shoulder.
"Twenty-one thousand?!" she growled, staggering upright. "And it's not even fully scanned yet… Just how many fragments did the system reconnect?!"
But she didn't have time to curse the system.
No time to process the absurdity.
No time to mourn the dead.
Her survival comes first.
She ripped the arrow from her shoulder, the pain sharp enough to make her vision blur. But she held steady—grunting, snarling—and immediately cast [Healing Touch], just enough to seal the flesh and stop the bleeding.
The pain still throbbed, but it no longer slowed her.
"They're coming here now… drawn by the blood," she spat. "These bastards…"
Her eyes darted through the trees, her instincts kicking in as she dropped to one knee.
She pressed her palm to the grass and thought, [Verdant Growth].
The earth beneath her pulsed. She felt the grass stretch. She sensed the shift in air between leaves. She heard the tremble of tree bark bending under a sudden weight.
There it is—fourth tree to the southwest. A goblin archer had just repositioned.
Her eyes snapped open, burning with cold rage.
"I'll kill you… you pest."
She stood up and picked up the bloodied wooden arrow that had pierced her just seconds ago and channeled her power into it, mutating it using [Verdant Growth].
It pulsed faintly—its shaft thickening and twisting with living wood. Barbs of green thorns wrapped around the head. Its very tip glowed faintly, humming with mutated vitality.
She infused the arrow like a javelin, reinforced her muscles and tendons with another [Healing Touch], fortifying her right arm and shoulder to withstand the throw.
Then—she launched it.
The arrow cut through the forest like a spear of vengeance. Leaves scattered in its wake. The wind rippled as it flew.
It pierced not just the branch.
It impaled the goblin, driving straight through its chest and snapping bone.
The creature made no sound—only a soft gasp of shock—before toppling with only its upper half, lifeless, from the tree.
Thud.
[You have killed a D rank Goblin Archer.]
[You have gained 79 experience.]
Her face didn't flinch. No satisfaction. No relief.
Only a tightening of her jaw as she muttered:
"That's six."