The scene was tense, with three teams squared off in the open space, all centered around a wooden box placed in the middle of the area.
Twitch twitch—
A wooden box that moves on its own… or is there something else inside it?
‘Wow… what a situation…’
[Stealth]
I immediately slipped into stealth mode, signaled to Yeon-hee, and veered to the right, approaching those guys cautiously.
‘Should I say I got lucky… now I know what the box is, let’s see what these people are thinking for a moment.’
I approached a spot where three four-member parties were gathered.
One party comprised middle-aged folks, another was made up solely of sorcerers, and the last one was the Ilseom Guild members who had been tormenting Baek Ah-rin.
On my way to them, I noticed two colossal trees, rare in this dungeon. One lay cut down, seemingly sliced like it was measured, while the other was charred and in bits, burning away.
‘It seems like each party has used at least one of their core skills… yet somehow none of them got hurt?’
The downed giant tree, the refrigerator-sized wooden box in the center, and the three confronting parties. Putting these three elements together made the cause of the loud noise we heard clear.
‘They were fighting over that box. How much more interesting could this situation get?’
About fifty other hunters flanked the perimeter, but they seemed more like onlookers watching a fire across the street.
However, they were hyenas disguised as spectators, ready to pounce at any moment.
I could see our party members carefully sneaking into the hyena group from a distance.
As Yeon-hee and the summoned creatures approached, the hunters, who were crossing their arms and observing, slowly began to inch back. It seemed the presence of the summoned creatures was intimidating.
As our party joined the ranks of the spectators, the Ilseom guild members cast brief glances our way and revealed their undeniable displeasure.
– “Let’s finish this quickly, damn it… this is embarrassing.”
– “Who hesitated? Just because there are spectators doesn’t mean we should back down, you idiot.”
– “So what, should we just kill them? If we let even a whisper slip outside, we’ll be sent back to ‘Hyun-san’ and immediately expelled! You dumbass.”
– “Hey, seniors… doesn’t it bother you that Baek Ah-rin is being watched? Can’t we just leave?”
– “Leave? Why should we? Just wipe the floor with them, and it’s over!”
The short-haired woman who had been harassing Ah-rin clung to the arms of the two men, but they had already fully immersed themselves in the box.
As the people surrounding the box grew increasingly nervous, their complaints began to spill out.
“This is nuts; they’re swarming like a pack of dogs!”
“Seriously, I said we should decide right away!!”
“Deciding is our job; who do you think you are trying to meddle?”
“I just suggested we settle this one-on-one!”
“Shut up! We found it first; don’t talk crap!”
“I don’t care, let’s just go for it. Damn.”
“These Ilseom guys really are a bunch of punks.”
“Hey, old folks! Do you have any proof that you spotted it first? If we’re talking about first sighting, we were clearly the first here. I can see up to 500 meters. Want to test me?”
“Shut it!”
Given they had clashed before, it was no surprise that their language was rough right from the get-go. Naturally, from the perspective of onlookers, we wanted to see them really clash. Watching a fight can be a blast even from the grave.
Swish—
They turned their heads towards the wooden box that they so desperately wanted. Inside that box, I felt a strange sensation that tugged at me.
‘So that’s what it was… from the very beginning, this strange feeling… I’ve never seen anything like it in my entire life.’
While I could’ve touched it without anyone noticing, I remained patient, knowing what I had heard.
After all, what mattered was not who touched it first.
So, these folks in conflict were just wasting their mental energy for no reason.
After gauging the situation, I moved back toward our party. I hadn’t gathered much information, but there was a sorcerer who kept glancing towards me, which felt quite unsettling.
“······ Could that be?”
“Yeah, probably? Otherwise, there wouldn’t be this crowding.”
“How fascinating…”
“Wow…”
As I reached Yeon-hee’s side, she was on her tiptoes trying to see the box more clearly, having realized its existence.
Mimic
There exists a monster called a Mimic. A monster…? Well, let’s just label it a monster for now.
As always, this monster appeared without straying far from the concept we imagined.
A super-unique monster that can be randomly encountered in a dungeon with a very low probability.
And everyone present at this location had managed to encounter this unique monster, defying the odds.
I had never heard of so many people discovering a Mimic simultaneously; should I call this luck, or bad timing?
In this spacious area, where the only thing indicating it used to be a forest were rotting trees, the lone treasure chest awoke excitement in the hunters just by existing.
Clink-clank! Clink-clank!
The wooden box began with slight shudders, but now it waved more obviously, beckoning to be opened.
At first glance, it looked like a large safe, but safes nowadays aren’t made of wood, so it seems inadequate to entice modern folks. A conceptual error perhaps?
“Mimic… this is insane. People go a lifetime without seeing one. What should we do?”
“Huh? I-I’m not too sure… I heard during training that if we touch it, it’s bad news…”
“That’s the story. Mimics have unpredictable levels of difficulty.”
It’s well known that a Mimic reacts in two ways when someone tries to open it.
It either swallows everyone within a certain range into a spatial pocket or pulls only one conditionally chosen person among them.
In either case, the person dragged into the spatial pocket would have to fight a different monster that the Mimic had transformed into; the level of that monster is entirely erratic.
There’s even talk that defeating this monster doesn’t guarantee a good reward; it has been rumored that some who put in the effort ended up dying from curses, though those stories remain unverified.
‘The idea of a curse sounds hard to believe. A corpse of someone cursed should exist for that to make sense…’
But when defeated, the Mimic is said to offer one guaranteed ability as a reward, that is, the ability to automatically store loot into the inventory.
For example, after defeating the Lizard Champion in the Lizard Swamp, I once retrieved the rune by searching through the champion’s body.
Since the rune responds only within a certain distance, being someone who defeats the Mimic gives you the ability to automatically store without rummaging through a filthy corpse.
In simple terms, it improves your quality of life as a hunter. And I had seen someone with that ability, recalling being quite envious.
‘Come to think of it, what did that person get for defeating that Mimic?’
I could barely recall anything about that person apart from their small stature and chubby body, suggesting they never showed me what they had. Or did they? This part seemed hazy.
As I was rummaging through my fuzzy memories, Ham Eun-young muttered with fear-filled eyes.
“Those people might summon Necrosquall…”
“……That’s kinda scary, right?”
Ten years ago.
A dungeon break occurred in one of China’s dungeons.
Only one monster emerged from that dungeon.
Since the first wave connected with gates throughout the world and was halted by the earliest Awakened Ones, the Great Beast ‘Necrosquall’ has caused the worst casualties in a single nation.
It’s said that the emergence of this terrifying creature was due to a catastrophe linked to the Mimic.
This insane monster that leveled an entire city in China, thankfully, is currently in a deep slumber, but when it wakes up is anyone’s guess.
Including such horrifying theories, it was generally believed until just a few years ago that basically, the Mimic is a catastrophe you shouldn’t mess with; not only does it bring misfortune to the person who touches it, but it could cause unhappiness to everyone.
Even as some who gained summoning abilities from encounters with Mimics garnered media exposure.
However, when a prominent press article reported that there are at least hundreds of people worldwide possessing this summoning ability, the credibility of such long-held beliefs took a significant hit.
It implied that the number of Mimic custodians paralleled those with summoning abilities, which was only logical.
The fact that most of those with summoning abilities were also top-tier hunters further fueled the temptation to hunt down the Mimic.
A life-changing opportunity.
At some point, the Mimic had transformed into this kind of existence.
Of course, the sequence might have changed; it’s possible that the top-tier hunters were the ones capable of defeating the Mimic, but when faced with such situations, thoughts often twist to suit oneself.
The hyenas circling us.
While no one dared to voice it, desires must be burning within them. It was likely that mysterious box looked like a lottery that hadn’t had a winner for years.
In what seemed an endless standoff, one courageous man took a step forward from the observers as he watched the situation unfold.
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