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Chapter 4
Blanc Marca knew this world better than anyone, yet she never settled down in one place and instead wandered from one end of the world to another. Finding out her whereabouts would not be easy.
“Even if she’s Mythic Grade, the conditions for using her skill won’t necessarily be the same as mine.”
If every Mythic Grade Hunter had died once and regressed, then the future should have kept changing.
However, from what I had observed over the past two years, aside from my own actions, the major events involving Hunters had remained unchanged.
Something like regression couldn’t possibly be common.
Wanting to find even the slightest clue from Blanc was merely wishful thinking on my part. The chances were slim.
“Yeah. That’s not it.”
In any case, the Hidden Dungeon was related to me.
There was a high probability that it would appear somewhere around me, or within my kingdom.
“Surely the System didn’t have the nerve to hide it in some remote mountain backcountry and tell me to go find it. If that’s what it did, then I swear I’ll chew up and swallow that System in the sky…”
Phew.
Perhaps because I was too immersed in playing the role of a spoiled brat, I sometimes found myself getting worked up like this.
“I endured until I was twenty. What’s another two years? Don’t get impatient. I’ll definitely find it.”
I spread out all sorts of equipment and wandered outside.
Although I was the king of a nation, ironically, no one considered me a true king, which made this possible.
For now, it didn’t matter.
A dungeon would eventually appear somewhere in this world, so I wanted to visit as many places as possible.
That day was no different from any other. The only difference was that there happened to be a festival, so the streets were unusually crowded.
Some people were carrying handheld crystals shaped like small mirrors.
They tapped their fingers against them to type messages, or raised the handheld crystals to take pictures.
Inside the royal palace, where royal etiquette was still strictly observed, they continued to use old-fashioned methods like letters. But handheld crystals had now become commonplace, easily found whenever one stepped out onto the streets.
As I walked around looking at the streets, I thought I caught a sweet scent, like a flower enticing a bee.
I turned around as if bewitched and spotted the back of a black head gradually disappearing into the distance.
What was so special about such an ordinary color?
“Hmm? Huh? Huuuuuh…?”
[The Last Guardian of the Hidden Dungeon]
Even after rubbing my eyes and looking again, then shaking my head and looking once more, it was the same.
[The Last Guardian of the Hidden Dungeon]
The clue to the Hidden Dungeon I had searched for so desperately was floating above the head of some nameless child.
“You there! No, hey! Hey! Wait! Don’t go! Hey! Don’t go! Just a second, that thing is getting farther away… No! You there! Wait a moment!”
The head of the relatively small child kept appearing and disappearing between the adults in the crowd.
Afraid that I would lose sight of the child among the masses, I hurried toward them without thinking.
“Hey? You can hear me, right? It looks like you’re walking faster and faster! Don’t run away! If you run away, I won’t let you off! No, wait! That’s not it! I’m not a bad person—Aaaagh!”
I even shook off Karen’s hand as she tried to grab me and frantically chased after the child.
I felt like Alice from Wonderland chasing after a fleeing rabbit.
The streets seemed to twist and sway as though they had turned into a maze.
My heart pounded violently. It felt as if all the blood and organs in my body were being swept away.
“Please, don’t go…”
I didn’t even know the child’s name. I knew nothing about them, and all I could think was that I absolutely could not let them get away.
“Wait! Please… Hah, wait! Hah! Wait for me!”
Had my thoughts reached them?
No.
It was probably simply because we had left the busy streets behind and entered an old alleyway where there was no one but the child and me.
Either way, it was the first time the child turned around to look at me.
[The Last Guardian of the Hidden Dungeon]
I was overjoyed by the words that remained unchanged no matter how many times I looked at them, and I rushed toward the child.
“I finally found you…! I found you!”
I wrapped my arms around the child with all my strength.
“……”
The child’s strange gray eyes trembled as they filled with the sight of me, my heart pounding wildly and my breathing rough.
Fwoosh!
That was when it happened.
A pure white light sprouted like wings and swallowed the two of us in an instant.
The child’s eyes rippled violently, filled with white foam.
Beautiful.
“……!”
The sound of water droplets falling made me snap back to my senses.
I barely managed to steady my dizzy, swaying vision and looked around.
Was the child not a guardian, but a gatekeeper?
Perhaps contact with the child had served as the medium, because the entire space had changed.
It appeared to be a cave with water nearby.
The sound of falling droplets was fierce, as though it were raining.
The weather in Elorang had been sunny, but outside the cave, it sounded as if a typhoon were raging.
The rain and wind blowing in through the opening caused my body temperature to drop rapidly.
But I was happy.
I instinctively knew that this place was the key to the Hidden Dungeon.
“Hah. Hah.”
My breathing was rough with excitement. I panted heavily, my eyes gleaming wildly.
[The Last Guardian of the Hidden Dungeon]
That ecstatic phrase gleamed like a delicious, greasy chunk of meat.
Gulp.
“You’re a pervert. Move.”
“A pervert? A perveeeert?”
I swear, that was the first time I had ever heard such a thing in my life!
The child coldly slapped away the hands I had wrapped around them so they wouldn’t disappear and stood up.
I hadn’t realized it, but I had been lying on top of the child.
Since I had been practically pouncing on them the entire time, I could understand how they had gotten the wrong idea.
Ahem.
I needed to clear up the misunderstanding.
“Are you hurt anywhere? Hah…”
I asked with a gentle expression.
I wanted to grab the child right away and question them about the Hidden Dungeon, but I held myself back with the patience of an adult.
I rarely had opportunities to meet anyone younger than me, given my circumstances, so I wasn’t very good at dealing with children.
Regardless of my physical age, my mental age recognized this person as a ‘child,’ so I tried to be as gentle as possible.
Especially since I had made a bit of a mistake.
“……”
Even the slightest breath echoed deeply through the cave.
It wasn’t as though the child hadn’t heard me.
In other words, the child was ignoring me.
And yet, what was with this little brat?
Despite being smaller than a rat turd, they were calmer than I was.
It would have been strange unless they had regressed like me and experienced this situation beforehand.
No.
Even if they had regressed, it would still be strange.
I had never seen this child before my regression.
“……”
“……”
Hah. Hah.
My breathing was still rough.
I had run as if my life depended on it, so there was nothing I could do about it.
In any case, I needed to calm down the sound of my breathing, which was echoing throughout the cave.
Hah. Hah.
“……”
While I refrained from speaking rashly, the child casually dusted off and organized the things they had bought at the market, completely ignoring whether I was watching or not.
Wait.
Was that the imprint of my butt?
The distorted piece of bread that I had clearly squashed was bothering me immensely.
Come to think of it, this cave was strange for an ordinary cave.
It had a sense of habitation.
Almost as if someone actually lived here.
Dry bundles of straw had been laid across the floor to keep out the dampness, and there were dishes that appeared to have been used not long ago.
I had a suspicion, but seeing the child naturally put their belongings away, I couldn’t help but ask.
Fortunately, my breathing had calmed down by then.
“Do you live here?”
“……”
“Is this space your skill?”
“What matters to you isn’t something like that. And I have no obligation to tell you.”
The little brat was exceptionally sharp-tongued.
“Do you know why I came here?”
The child frowned as though my question was annoying.
They scrunched up their face so skillfully that I almost felt hurt.
“Give me the necklace.”
You really do know everything, don’t you?
I stared at the child in shock.
“The necklace.”
The child urged me again.
“This is my life.”
I had received it in exchange for my death, so it wasn’t merely like my life.
It literally was my life itself.
I had no choice but to be cautious.
“How do you know about my necklace?”
“From a prophecy.”
“A prophecy? Are you a prophet?”
“I never said that. It’s like a folktale I’ve heard since I was born.”
A folktale?
Did they mean some kind of oral tradition passed down through their family?
“How did you know that I was the person it referred to?”
“I just know. Like an instinct engraved into my bones.”
The child held out a hand once more, their face covered in layers of annoyance.
Could there have been someone in their family who possessed a prophecy-related skill?
Skills were mysterious things whose manifestations could take any form, so it was possible.
What was strange was how strangely trustworthy I found the child’s words.
It felt as though the scent of swaying flowers brushed against the tip of my nose.
“You have to give it back.”
I hesitated for a moment, but in the end, I decided to trust the child.
I summoned the necklace and handed it over, giving the child a stern warning with my eyes.
A bound skill couldn’t be taken away by another person, and above all, the top of the child’s head gave me certainty.
[The Last Guardian of the Hidden Dungeon]
I wasn’t afraid of the child becoming increasingly ferocious as I refused to hand it over, eventually glaring at me with an eerie intensity.
Absolutely not.
There were only two of us here, and I merely considered the possibility that the physically larger one might be better at fighting.
That was all.
Seriously.
“……”
The child examined the necklace with the utmost care, like an appraiser entrusted with evaluating a priceless jewel.
Since I had entrusted them with my life, I continued watching the child without missing a single detail.
I hadn’t noticed because of their refined appearance and calm way of speaking, but their clothes were quite shabby.
Their life here also appeared impoverished.
It didn’t seem like they had a guardian, either.
Then I spotted a golden ring neatly placed beside the pillow.
It was one of the only things in this place that actually shone, and it bore a distinctive pattern.
Although its meaning had all but disappeared by now, I recognized it at a glance.
It was a ring bearing the symbol of the Titan clan, a people said to have gone extinct long ago.
“A Titan…?”
The child’s atmosphere suddenly turned sharp.
