As I pulled myself away from Baek Tae-beom’s embrace, I couldn’t believe the words flashing before my eyes. I kept checking again and again. Lim Hee-Seop looked just as stunned. He muttered, “S-Rank? No way,” over and over as he flailed at the air, his face a mask of confusion. The camera equipment that had fallen with us was smashed to pieces, and the two of us stood in a square room, dazed for a moment.
Could a dungeon like this even be possible? No—that it exists means it is possible. But I’d never heard of a dungeon being reclassified from E-Rank to S-Rank without warning… It felt like someone had deliberately led me into a trap.
The first one to speak—or more accurately, the one who shouted—was Lim Hee-Seop.
“Are you fucking kidding me?!”
His face twisted in fury as he screamed. He was so loud I flinched even though I was standing next to Baek Tae-beom. The friendly, soft-spoken man from earlier was gone, replaced by someone beet-red and roaring like a madman.
“Are you out of your damn mind?!”
He stomped the floor repeatedly with a loud thud, then jerked his head up to stare at the ceiling we’d fallen from. I looked up as well. It was pitch black, so far away I couldn’t make out a single source of light. If I had fallen without Baek Tae-beom holding me, I probably would have been seriously hurt.
Lim Hee-Seop’s face oscillated between ghostly pale and flushed crimson as his eyes darted wildly. He turned that crazed gaze on Baek Tae-beom.
“You said it was safe! What the fuck is this shit?!”
He looked ready to grab Baek Tae-beom by the collar, so I quickly stepped in front of him.
“Why are you yelling at Tae-beom?”
Shouldn’t that anger be directed at the broadcasting staff? They said they did a preliminary check—how could they have missed a trap like this? But Lim Hee-Seop, consumed by his fury, started ranting nonsense.
“Then what the fuck kind of S-Rank Hunter doesn’t even realize there’s a trap?! Are you trying to screw me over?!”
“Excuse me? That’s just plain paranoia—”
“Oh, so now you’re looking down on me too just because I’m a C-Rank?!”
He came stomping toward me, face twitching with irritation. I was speechless. If this kept going, he was seriously going to do something he’d regret. I shoved Baek Tae-beom behind me and looked straight at Lim Hee-Seop, speaking firmly.
“Stop spouting bullshit and calm the hell down. This isn’t a good look for you.”
What I really meant was, You might get yourself killed by Baek Tae-beom. But there was no stopping him now.
“Outta the way!”
Lim Hee-Seop grabbed my shoulder and shoved me aside. I staggered from the force. Then, without hesitation, he seized Baek Tae-beom by the collar and yanked him down. The whole sequence felt like a scene straight out of a B-grade comedy movie, and I froze for a moment in disbelief. It wasn’t until he screamed “This is all your fault!” at Baek Tae-beom that I snapped back to reality.
‘Is this bastard out of his mind?’
Baek Tae-beom looked at me briefly, then slowly turned a frigid gaze down on Lim Hee-Seop. Hee-seop shouted again.
“This is all your fault. Do you even know why I joined this goddamn show?!”
Where the hell was this coming from?
I’d been ready to step in and stop him before he got himself killed, but those words gave me pause.
Here’s what Lim Hee-Seop claimed: A few months ago, he had appeared on a show with Baek Tae-beom. Known as a “national actor,” he had never before felt so humiliated. It was a simple quiz show. He didn’t even understand why Baek Tae-beom was on it in the first place, but the real problem was that, despite being a so-called elite graduate, Lim Hee-Seop had been completely obliterated by Baek Tae-beom.
There wasn’t even enough salvageable footage for the editors to cut something flattering. What aired was him getting thoroughly humiliated—and the internet turned him into a meme. He got nicknamed “2-Hee-seop,” referring to the number two, and became a laughingstock across online communities. Especially since he had been gaining popularity for his role in Stairway to Hell at the time, there was no recovering from the embarrassment.
And the worst part? Baek Tae-beom had acted like he couldn’t believe Hee-seop couldn’t answer the questions, which only made it worse.
So when he heard about The Hero Has Returned, he joined the program with the sole intention of knocking Baek Tae-beom down a peg.
So you’re saying… instead of recognizing your own shortcomings, you blamed Baek Tae-beom for stealing your spotlight and making you feel inferior? And now you joined this show to fix your image? This guy was the textbook example of someone too full of himself to see reality. The sheer immaturity of it all left me speechless.
Apparently, Baek Tae-beom felt the same—he didn’t say a single word.
“It’s all because of you…”
I was so dumbfounded I couldn’t even respond. Without cameras rolling, he was letting all this shit pour out of his mouth. It was pathetic.
“And now what, an S-Rank dungeon? Are you fucking kidding me? I don’t wanna die here, goddammit…”
He finally let go of Baek Tae-beom’s collar and slumped as if about to sob. I considered whether I should smack him in the head to knock some sense into him, but instead asked a question. There was something I wanted to know.
“Then why did you act all buddy-buddy with me?”
“…What?”
“On camera. Don’t pretend like you don’t know. Why’d you do that?”
“Oh, come on. Isn’t it obvious?”
What came out of his mouth next made my blood run cold.
“I figured if I made you mine, people would see me as better than Baek Tae-beom.”
“…What?”
“Everyone knows Choi Ga-hyeon and Baek Tae-beom are always seen together, right? But if you—Choi Ga-hyeon—looked closer to me than him on screen, how do you think people would react?”
“Do you even know what I am to you?”
“Isn’t it basically the same as carrying around a trophy? I mean, you’re not even a Hunter anymore, yet here you are, tagging along.”
How could a person say something like that? Staring at his mouth, just flapping with no filter, made my anger boil over.
“Aren’t you just chasing after Baek Tae-beom because he’s more successful than you?”
Unbelievable. I was about to explode and yell back when I saw Baek Tae-beom bend down and grab Lim Hee-Seop by the collar, dragging him up with one hand. Holding him up easily, he leaned in and whispered something into Hee-seop’s ear. Whatever he said turned Hee-seop’s face sickly pale. Then Baek Tae-beom set him down and turned to me, speaking with a soft smile.
“First things first—we need to get out of this dungeon. This isn’t the time.”
“…Yeah.”
I wasn’t the least bit curious about what he whispered. Hee-seop staggered for a moment, then fell in line behind us with a visibly deflated expression.
For all the terrifying S-Rank rating, the path wasn’t difficult. It wasn’t a maze—just a single winding road we could follow. Traps popped up here and there, but nothing lethal. Something would jump out to trip us up, or sharp spikes would drop from the ceiling—that sort of thing.
Baek Tae-beom took care of everything at my side, so I didn’t need to worry. But Hee-seop screamed hysterically every time he triggered something, so much that even the sliver of sympathy I’d felt earlier vanished. He freaked out over a thorn caught in his clothes, and I honestly couldn’t understand how someone like him ever worked as a Hunter.
As for the monsters, Baek Tae-beom wiped them all out. Wrapped head to toe in tattered cloth, the mummies stumbled toward us like puppets on strings. Every time Baek Tae-beom swung his sword, they let out zombie-like groans before collapsing. When one of the mummies fell, Baek Tae-beom casually nudged the scattered bandages with his foot and turned to look at me.
“Hyung, wanna try?”
“What?”
“Come here.”
Baek Tae-beom naturally moved behind me, took my hand that was holding the sword, and gripped my wrist.
“Okay, bend your waist just a bit more…”
“W-wait. You want me to take care of it? Me? A monster in an S-Rank dungeon?”
“Why not? You can do it.”
“What the hell are you talking about?! Are you insane?”
I stared at him in disbelief, but he just looked at me like he didn’t see the problem. Did he hit his head during the fall? I turned to look at him with genuine concern, but Baek Tae-beom just smiled and told me to face forward.
Just then, a monster jumped out from around the corner. With a shove to my back, I stumbled forward and instinctively swung the sword while yelping. The blade sliced through the monster like it was tofu.
I froze.
Did I just—someone basically a regular civilian—kill a monster in an S-Rank dungeon?
Lim Hee-Seop was crouched in a corner, muttering in fear, while Baek Tae-beom clapped for me and said I did a good job. None of this made sense. Something felt off. But before I could fully process that unease, more monsters came pouring out, and I had no choice but to swing the sword frantically.
‘Something’s not right…’
Hee-seop seemed too terrified to notice anything strange. But I—someone with no real combat training—was killing monsters like it was nothing. I swung the blade diagonally with clumsy form, and a monster let out a screech and vanished.
Could it be that I still have some lingering power from a Constellation? Or maybe the sword Ahn Ki-yoon gave me is just insanely powerful?
But no matter how I examined it, that didn’t seem to be the case.
“Tae-beom, something about this is really w—”
“You’re doing great, Hyung.”
No, it’s weird, I’m telling you. “You’re doing great” isn’t the point here. Sure, they say praise can make even a whale dance, but no amount of applause is going to suddenly let me mow down S-Rank dungeon monsters like this.
Before I could argue more, the monsters came rushing in again. I had no time to think—I just had to swing my sword in a daze. They didn’t even try to dodge properly, and their attack speed was so slow I could avoid them easily.
Could this be some kind of hidden dungeon? This world has already gone way beyond anything I read about. At this point, nothing surprises me anymore.
Clunk.
Then I heard something shift behind us. I turned around and saw Lim Hee-Seop staring at a wall in shock, as if he had touched something he shouldn’t have. There appeared to be a button where his hand had landed. At the same time, the walls of the path we’d come from began to close in.
“……!”
“Gasp—the path—!”
We took off running without a second thought. There was no time to look back. The sound of the corridor collapsing behind us was all too vivid. As we sprinted in a blind panic, what stopped us was a single door.
A door?
But before I could voice my confusion, Lim Hee-Seop shoved it open and charged in. I thought I saw something gleam in the corner, but I didn’t have time to check.
