Before Jun arrived at the cabin, Maya had already gotten there and was resting.
Just like Jun had said, once they reached the cabin, no more pursuers appeared.
She wasn’t sure why that was, but she didn’t feel particularly curious about the reason.
While she was soothing her exhausted body, something happened.
“……”
The knights who entered the cabin started fiddling with various things and eventually discovered a mechanism leading to a basement.
But right at that moment, betrayal occurred.
“Weyrnain! I trusted you…!”
“I’m sorry.”
However, Maya didn’t feel much emotion toward the scene and instead focused on the secret passage revealed beneath the fireplace.
Down there, her enemy awaited.
Her ancestor’s spirit had pointed the way.
She quietly distanced herself from the scene of betrayal between the two bounty hunters and descended into the hidden passage.
And there, she found the curse mage.
The ones called the Heavenly Church?
Her ancestor’s spirit whispered to her.
They were the ones who had destroyed their tribe.
Two swords were pulled out silently in the darkness.
***
“Ah… you’ve been through a lot.”
The charred body of Weyrnain lay sprawled on the ground.
“Wh-What is that?”
“The curse mage. I killed him. Did I do well?”
Aiden had just finished checking Jun’s safety after the battle and felt relieved for only a moment.
Then, as Maya came up from the basement holding an unfamiliar head, Aiden was startled.
“Oh, so you went down to the basement first. Good job. I was starting to get worried since that guy was nowhere to be seen.”
The head belonged to the curse mage of the Heavenly Church.
If the curse mage had shown up alongside Weyrnain, even Jun’s life would have been in danger.
“But now, what do we do?”
“We need to gather everyone who’s scattered. Well… they’re probably already gathering on their own by now.”
Since orders had been given for everyone to gather here once the giant soldiers were gone, they would all head to the cabin without needing to be told.
And indeed, it wasn’t long before Colton and his companions arrived.
“Hah! Wh-What the hell happened here?!”
Naturally, Colton was confused by the chaos that had unfolded both inside and outside the cabin.
Once the situation was explained to him, Colton rubbed his forehead in distress.
“You, you killed a noble…?”
Weyrnain’s betrayal was one thing, but the fact that a baron had died at the hands of mere mercenaries…
What would happen if word of this got out?
The thought of that future made Colton’s face turn pale.
“There’s no need to worry too much. He drew his sword first. And… we have evidence of his connection with the Heavenly Church.”
Fortunately, Bernard who had been betrayed wasn’t dead.
He would soon become a living witness, making the crime of killing a noble effectively nonexistent.
And soon, that proved to be true.
“W-Weyrnain?! Wh-What happened to you! Hey, mercenary! Explain everything that happened here, right now!”
“Wait! Hold on! They did nothing wrong!”
As the bounty hunters who were scattered throughout the city began arriving and were shocked by the sight of Weyrnain’s corpse,
Bernard who regained consciousness explained what had happened in the cabin.
Strangely, the bounty hunters believed Bernard’s words without question.
“It’s true…”
At that moment, Colton felt his illusions about nobles and knights shatter completely.
“Looks like everyone’s here now. Let’s head to the basement.”
“Come to think of it, those church fanatics kept swarming from outside. Is there any way to stop them?”
“Now that we’ve gathered all the materials, it doesn’t matter anymore.”
The materials Maya had gathered were the same ones Jun had retrieved earlier from the “Eternal Sleep”.
The condition to clear this hidden dungeon was to bring those materials to the witch’s cabin within a limited time.
And so, the dungeon had been cleared.
When they followed Maya into the basement, they saw the headless corpse of the curse mage, a cauldron, and several books and documents scattered messily around.
At the same time, the sounds of commotion could be heard from above.
Sensing something strange, Colton shouted in panic.
“Uh, uh, uh, Mr. Mage! I think they’ve made it to the cabin!”
“Calm down, Maya, give me that.”
Just as the situation was about to spiral into chaos again, Jun calmly asked Maya for the materials.
“Here they are.”
As before in the “Eternal Sleep”, Jun placed the materials into the cauldron.
Soon, the strange phenomenon began again.
The difference this time was…
Wooooooooong――!
Unlike before, there were several colorless waves that spread out in all directions.
The group looked around in awe and murmured their amazement.
“Is this what we’ve only heard about in stories?”
“I knew clearing a Memorial Dungeon causes this kind of phenomenon… but it’s fascinating.”
Before they realized it, the clattering sounds of weapons from above had vanished without a trace.
The dungeon had been cleared.
As all the memories recorded within the Memorial Dungeon replayed, time inside the dungeon had come to a complete stop.
Fwooooosh―
And then, as if signaling the end of the long battle, a portal appeared before them.
“Ugh! Is it finally over?!”
“I feel like even two hearts wouldn’t have been enough for this…”
“……”
“Weyrnain… why did you make that choice…?”
With the danger now over, Colton let out a triumphant cheer, Aiden reflected on the tense moments, and Maya remained expressionless.
Lastly, the bounty hunters gazed at Weyrnain’s body which they had gathered with conflicted eyes.
But why did they come here in the end?
Colton briefly wondered about this as he looked at the grief-stricken bounty hunters, but he quickly brushed the thought aside.
After all, thanks to them dealing with the Heavenly Church, they had survived. He decided to think of it positively.
“Well, you all head out first. I’ve got something to take care of here.”
“Senior? Then I’ll stay with you.”
“No need. You can go ahead. I just need to grab a few books here. That was our goal, after all. Besides, the dungeon’s cleared, so there’s no more danger.”
“Hmm… understood.”
“Ahem. Mr. Mage! Don’t you dare find something valuable and keep it to yourself! Huh? I’m trusting you!”
“You can relax about that. I’m thorough with these things.”
With that, everyone except Jun left the dungeon.
Jun who was left alone cleared his throat for no reason.
“Ahem. That Colton… he sure is sharp.”
It went without saying, but Jun’s decision to remain there had nothing to do with academic curiosity as a mage.
Instead, there were more varied rewards waiting for him.
“Let’s start by grabbing this.”
When he reached into the cauldron that had released all the waves, his hand grasped something inside.
It was a teardrop-shaped jewel that shone purple.
“The Eternal Tear…”
The reward for clearing this dungeon.
It would later serve as a crucial ingredient for a hidden piece, but…
“Can’t use it there anymore.”
Jun already knew that his actions had distorted the hidden piece’s original course.
Jun sighed and turned his eyes to gather all the books and old documents scattered in the basement.
Dungeons like this were one-time-only content.
In other words, since Jun and his party had cleared it, the “Witch’s Forest” would never appear in the world again.
So, all the remnants of the witch here were now valuable artifacts.
If he were to put them up for auction, surely many magic towers would show great interest.
Ancient records left by a witch? Who wouldn’t salivate at the thought?
Though there aren’t that many books, in the end.
After collecting the remaining scattered papers from the floor, Jun stepped out of the basement.
“But what exactly was the Heavenly Church after in the end?”
From the start, the Witch’s Forest had no connection to the Heavenly Church.
In other words, it meant that this was a variable that appeared only after Jun had fallen into this world.
“Well, that’s fine. I can make a rough guess.”
Now, it was time to find the real reason he remained here.
After climbing out of the basement and stepping outside the cabin, Jun saw the forces of the Erbonach Church advancing like a tidal wave toward this place.
But just as the world was frozen, so were they. They were standing perfectly still.
Jun’s gaze shifted to the figure at the forefront.
“Ahraham.”
The guy who had clearly been attacked by surprise and had his heart destroyed was alive and well.
Beside him was the pursuer who had likely been pursuing Maya for a long time.
And so, the full forces of the Erbonach Church were assembled here.
Had they arrived even a little earlier, clearing the dungeon might not have been possible.
“But all that’s over now.”
In the end, Jun had emerged victorious and survived once again.
With the ease of a winner, he looked at the defeated Ahraham.
The man stood there with his mouth agape and with eyes filled with urgent frustration.
“…….”
Jun placed the Eternal Tear into Ahraham’s open mouth.
Immediately, the waves of energy he had seen earlier radiated out from the Eternal Tear.
However, their color was different this time.
The purple-tinged waves didn’t spread outward but resonated solely within Ahraham’s body.
“…It’s done.”
This was a kind of hidden piece.
It wasn’t mentioned in any of the community guides; instead, it was a hidden piece that only he knew about.
In a world that had come to a complete halt, another living being besides Jun began to move.
“Guh-huh, huh…!”
And then he collapsed as if crumbling apart.
Ahraham, the traitor of the Erbonach Church and a bishop who had dreamed of eternal life.
He grasped his throat with both hands as if he was suffocating.
“H-How, no, no… no…!”
In reality, the Eternal Tear was a consumable item that had a significant effect on undead or spirit-type monsters.
And according to the game’s lore, this old man before him was a half-undead being who prolonged his life by consuming the blood of children in his pursuit of immortality.
That was why he had raised an army after hearing rumors of an immortal witch.
Unaware of what the witch had truly wanted.
“Ah… my immortality, my glory…!”
Ahraham’s eyes were filled with bitter resentment as he died.
Jun’s expression, as he looked down at him, remained cold. From the start, the man wasn’t truly alive; he was just a monster recreated by the dungeon.
When he finally took his last breath, the dungeon began to change.
Sss――
As if torn paper were catching fire, the surrounding landscape began to vanish.
The forest disappeared, the sky disappeared, and the earth disappeared.
Finally, everyone from the Erbonach Church vanished, except for Ahraham.
All that remained was a world of pure white.
Before he realized it, a woman appeared above Ahraham’s lifeless body, the only thing left behind.
As if she had been there all along, she gazed down at the agonized face of the dead Ahraham.
Her appearance was identical to the woman in the portrait drawn inside the witch’s cabin.
However, unlike the portrait, there wasn’t a trace of a smile on her face. There was only a cold expression.
– Why?
Her voice echoed throughout the space.
It was a sudden question, but Jun knew what she meant.
She was asking why he had used the Eternal Tear on Ahraham.
Jun remained silent for a moment.
In the game, how did he respond?
Ah.
If he remembered correctly.
The choices went something like this:
[To stop the evil deeds of the Erbonach Church.]
[Because something as dangerous as the Eternal Tear couldn’t be left behind.]
And the final option was:
“Just because.”
– ……
There was that ridiculous answer.
And in return for that answer, “Lee Jeong-jun” had received a unique reward that couldn’t be obtained anywhere else.
However, it wasn’t just for the sake of that reward that he had given that answer.
“It pissed me off. Making innocent people suffer just for his own immortality. Don’t you agree?”
Jun didn’t know why she had come to live an eternal life.
Even so, she wished for death.
But was that death truly her deepest desire?
Jun recalled a portrait that had been hanging in the witch’s cabin.
The witch in the portrait was smiling.
But the witch standing before him wasn’t someone who would smile like that.
Who could ever imagine a smile like that on her face? She must have been a warm-hearted person.
Could it have been a passing artist?
Or perhaps an innocent young man from the village?
Whoever it was, the person painting the portrait must have thought one thing.
That the witch before them was happy.
But according to history, the witch never ended up smiling like that.
However.
– …….
After countless years had passed, the witch’s spirit that was lingering in one of the dungeons—
Unlike the portrait, it gave a faint yet strikingly similar smile before vanishing like mist.
Following that, even Ahraham’s corpse disappeared and a warp gate appeared in its place.
Before he realized it, Jun found the witch’s earring lying in his hand.
This was his first artifact.
***
An old crone spoke in a voice like scraping metal.
“He took his comrades to pretend there was no connection to us, only to fail? And to a mere level 2 mercenary group?”
At the old crone’s irritation, a hulking monk beside her replied.
“That’s right.”
“Weyrnain. Nothing but a worthless insect, not even useful as a ritual ingredient!”
“But what were you trying to gain there?”
“We’ve missed the vessel that would have opened the sky in the Black Forest. The materials to recreate an environment like the Black Forest were there, but it’s all ruined now!”
“I see. So what do you plan to do now?”
“Kirrk… What else? We’ll have to find another way. It’s about time we start reaping the seeds we planted in the Healing Church.”
“I’ll join you.”
With that, the two who had received the report rose from their seats.
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