There was no warning sign.

There was no warning or change before that system window appeared, suddenly manifesting before Geon-joo as he lay on his bed.

Surprised, Geon-joo checked the quest contents and couldn’t help but frown.

A new disposition?

It made no sense. No matter how little he knew about the hunter industry or how lacking his information was, he at least knew that awakened ones basically possessed only one disposition. That was as obvious and publicly acknowledged as the fact that hunter ranks ranged from F-class to S-class.

If there was such a thing as a second disposition, word would have spread long ago. It was a suspicious quest. Moreover, that wasn’t the only concerning thing.

‘(º □ º l|l)’

What kind of childish emoticon was this?

Since his awakening, Geon-joo had never seen a system window that used emoticons. The same was true for others, and no emoticons appeared in the awakening messages provided by the Hunter Association.

So how could he not be suspicious?

Was it some kind of error?

Or perhaps his system had been hacked?

Either possibility seemed remote. The system was called a divine blessing that guided humans to survive the sudden gate crisis—if it had errors or could be hacked, humanity would essentially face extinction.

That meant that what remained was that this quest wasn’t some error, but genuinely a quest given by the system.

As he was lost in thought, a notification window appeared asking if he would accept the quest. The only buttons available were accept and accept. He didn’t understand why it even asked when there wasn’t a reject button.

Still, unable to press it recklessly, he hesitated, and the system automatically accepted the quest on its own.

<The quest has been automatically accepted after a certain time has passed since it was assigned! (º □ º l|l)>

What kind of system window is this?

It was close to forced acceptance.

After experiencing this absurd incident, Geon-joo immediately searched the internet that day to find information about suspicious systems like the one he had seen and to learn about quests and dispositions, but there was no harvest. Typing in “suspicious system” only yielded articles like “Water Rescue System” or “What’s the Next Research Target for Unmanned System Developers?”

In the end, there was no way to learn about this system except by experiencing it directly.

Just more headaches piling up.

More headaches on top of unwanted troubles.

It was overwhelming enough to worry about Noah and Sa-yoon, and now what was this quest about?

Geon-joo was, to his own surprise, bound to Noah. He thought he would be fine soon since he knew it was virtual, not a real person, but the aftereffects lasted longer than expected. When trying to sleep, he would recall the voice of the boy who slept in his arms; when trying to eat, he would see the innocent face chewing food. The prevailing opinion is that nightmares and hallucinations occur due to internal psychological processes. If so, the nightmares he had, the hallucinations he saw, and the auditory hallucinations he heard were all created by himself, so they should have disappeared if he thought he didn’t want to hear or see them, but those related to Noah weren’t like that.

The more he tried to erase them, the more they kept appearing and repeating endlessly. From the day they first met to the moment when Noah died, practically in Sa-yoon’s arms. The moment when he lifted the cold body with his own hands and faced the boy who could not open his eyes.

It kept circling in his mind and before his eyes like a repeating playback. It was enough to make him think, so this is how people go crazy.

If he called Noah’s name out of longing, memories of the days they spent together as three would reflexively come to mind. If there was anything good among the memories in the dungeon where they were busy fending off Waves, it was only the memories related to Noah.

When with Noah, Geon-joo mostly lived with a smile, and Sa-yoon enjoyed it too.

Geon-joo liked that atmosphere. A warm atmosphere where there was no anxiety, no awkwardness, just the laughter of a child overflowing.

It was a humane, family-like atmosphere that could never be felt when alone with Sa-yoon.

Since every day was difficult after entering the field, he cherished that comfortable and peaceful relationship. So he treasured it, valued it preciously, and took care of Noah with all his heart. Each time, Sa-yoon would criticize him for being fussy, but Geon-joo could see the affection in his eyes. Despite the various criticisms, Sa-yoon clearly had a fondness for Noah.

That’s why he was even more incomprehensible.

He couldn’t understand why someone who cared for Noah with such visible affection would kill the boy.

More precisely, it was closer to not understanding Sa-yoon, who killed Noah but didn’t properly explain the reason, vaguely evading it and eventually earning his misunderstanding.

There’s no way you killed that child just to leave the dungeon quickly. If that was the case, you wouldn’t have told me. You would have killed him before telling me that he was the source of destruction. If you had just unilaterally announced it afterward, then I would have accepted that you killed him to escape the dungeon. Whether regret or disappointment followed, I would have definitely accepted it.

But Sa-yoon came to me, explained that Noah was the source of destruction, and asked what to do. He agreed with my opinion that I didn’t want to kill him and acted like someone who would somehow try to leave the dungeon just by handling the Waves.

Such a person, someone like that, couldn’t have changed his mind in an instant to kill Noah. If that was the case, he wouldn’t have had such a sad expression.

So tell me.

So…

Say something, anything!

He wanted to believe and to know. He wanted to believe that at least the time spent with Noah, smiling and taking care of the boy, rushing anxiously whenever there was word that Noah was in danger—at least that wasn’t a lie. There needed to be a valid reason to believe so.

But Sa-yoon.

But you.

You don’t say anything in the end. Even when I mockingly called you a hypocrite, deliberately told you to speak, to refute if you felt wronged—despite such harsh words, you still didn’t say anything in the end.

It felt like being lost.

Suddenly dragged here, even if I didn’t want to, in the end the only one I could trust was you, but if that person constantly draws lines and tells only lies, who am I supposed to trust, who am I supposed to rely on to endure this field where everything looks like a graveyard?

Really, why.

‘Why didn’t he say anything?’

He murmured so in a situation where Noah’s voice still echoed in his ears. As if ruminating like this, asking himself over and over, would somehow yield an answer.

But there was nothing to find out. It was always a step in place. Always a repeat. At least until Sa-yoon made up his mind to tell his story directly, this repetition would remain the same until death, and it was clear that the first to grow tired would be himself.

With his head full of such thoughts, there was no way for the quest to catch his attention.

This was not a situation where he had the will or energy to carry out a quest.

But he couldn’t ignore it forever either.

…Let’s take care of the urgent matters first and think about it slowly.

Geon-joo had risen one rank when leaving the field with Sa-yoon, becoming a proper A-class. An A-class with better stats than others. So it wouldn’t take too long to become S-class.

There was no need to be impatient.

First, after resolving the matters at Night Rats, after his condition recovered and the conflict with Sa-yoon was resolved, that’s when he intended to proceed. In the first place, even if he wanted to proceed immediately, it was clearly stated that entering just any gate wouldn’t work, so until he figured out what the designated gate was, there wasn’t much he could do.

‘If you’re going to give such a quest, at least clearly tell me what the designated gate is.’

From the quest title to the content to the emoticon—everything was full of suspicious elements, he complained before closing his eyes. Although closing his eyes and falling asleep would bring nightmares, it was better to have nightmares than to keep ruminating on Noah’s matter in this room.

Dreams were still fantasies, so in dreams, when he asked Sa-yoon why he did it, he would give a different answer each time.

Sometimes he would say the system forced him, sometimes that he would die if he didn’t kill Noah—the reasons varied each time. And after having such nightmares, Geon-joo had to suppress the emotions that would suddenly surge up.

He didn’t want to know through dreams that those were the words he had wanted to hear.

He also didn’t particularly want to know the reality that you wouldn’t say such things if it wasn’t a dream.

‘Why did he do it?’

After waking from nightmares, Geon-joo always murmured this. He was bothered by the expression Sa-yoon had shown that day, that blank expression as if he himself had died despite killing someone else, and if what Noah said about wanting to be killed was true, he was going crazy with curiosity about why the boy had said such a thing.

And why, when conveying that Noah had asked to be killed, did you wear such an envious expression?

‘Ha.’

Just draining energy between what can’t be understood and what isn’t known.

The moment he felt that:

<If you want to resolve your curiosity, proceed with the quest! (º □ º l|l)>

+++

[Quest – The First Step to Activate “—“]

• ‘The system that analyzes fate has detected your special disposition! To activate this disposition, you need a stable body. Clear the gate and achieve S-class!’
• Note: You must conquer the gate found through ‘Survival Instinct’ to achieve S-class.
• Reward: S-class, Creation of special gate ‘The True Evil of Humanity?’ for activation
• Failure: Unable to exit the gate, Disappearance of ‘The True Evil of Humanity?’ gate

The quest window had changed.