[Death and Beauty trembles her feathers.]
The demonic energy circling the Management Center suddenly thickened, followed by a deep rumble, as if something had collapsed nearby. Even to the naked eye, the Giantvine’s main body swelled noticeably thicker and surged upward. It had absorbed manastones from the Manastone Exchange.
Tae Woon, squinting in the distance as if struggling to see clearly, narrowed his sharp eyes toward the Management Center and gave a blunt assessment.
“We’re screwed.”
“You still shouldn’t use such foul language.”
“Right. But with this, the fruit will ripen faster, won’t it?”
“Sometimes it actually delays it.”
“Completely unpredictable.”
“Well, that’s what makes it a monster.”
The Giantvine’s main body was trouble enough—but the real threat came after the fruit burst. If they missed the harvest window, the entire city could be engulfed in contamination.
Kim Sibaek looked between the ticking countdown and the now-strengthened Giantvine, then let out a quiet sigh.
***
An employee from the Hunter Registration Department slowly opened her eyes. The lights must’ve been damaged; everything around her was dim.
Where am I?
She tried to sit up, only to cry out in pain from her leg. The jolt brought her last memory flooding back: a tentacle bursting from the bathroom floor, seizing her leg. In the chaos, she hadn’t realized it—but now she could see it clearly. That thing had been part of the Giantvine.
Whether it was a monster or a human, the Giantvine absorbed all as nourishment. She frantically felt her body over. Her leg was swollen and throbbing with pain—likely a fracture. But aside from that, she seemed mostly intact.
Still, the fact that her limbs were unharmed only deepened her terror. Would it not have been better to be unconscious—to be devoured without awareness—than to be awake while reduced to monster feed?
As panic clawed at the edges of her mind, the feeling of dampness soaking her back jolted her. She touched the floor beneath her. It was wet. She recoiled in horror as she realized—it was blood. And not hers.
A faint silhouette of someone sprawled on the ground came into view. Gritting her teeth, she crawled over to check if the woman was breathing. There was breath—shallow but there.
Thanks to the growing commotion, she could sense others stirring nearby.
“What the…? Ah! The Giantvine!”
“B-blood? I smell blood?!”
Just as panic began to rise, a calm voice called out from a corner, steadying the others.
“Everyone, stay calm. Make noise, and you’ll draw more monsters.”
It was the department head from the Hunter Registration Department. Following her lead, the survivors tore strips from their clothes to dress wounds and began surveying the area. The emergency training they’d been required to take every quarter was finally paying off.
Strangely, they had all regained consciousness in the Manastone Vault. There were five survivors in total—all civilians with no Awakening. Aside from one seriously injured and unconscious woman, the rest had only minor wounds.
The woman with the injured leg tilted her head, puzzled. The situation made no sense. The department head seemed equally confused as she spoke quietly.
“Are you sure it was the Giantvine? Since when does that thing not eat people right away—let alone move them somewhere else and stash them?”
“L-look at this.”
Another employee, who ran hot and wore a short-sleeved shirt even in November, held out his arm. In the light from his phone, they saw skin mottled and stained, the pattern of vine-like poison marks clearly visible. It matched the known symptoms of Giantvine exposure.
“S-so what… It brought us here to eat us alive…?”
The youngest employee—just hired this year—stammered as her lips turned pale and trembled. Her wide, unfocused eyes stared off in shock. Before the terror of the Eid Portal could fully set in, the department head pulled her into a tight embrace.
“It’s alright. You’re okay.”
With firm hands, she rubbed and patted the younger woman’s back. The girl, who had only been shaking moments ago, suddenly broke down in sobs. As her quiet sobs filled the room, the others curled into themselves, overwhelmed.
Ironically, that crying brought with it an odd kind of comfort—it proved they hadn’t been left alone in the domain of monsters. The woman with the broken leg held tightly onto the unconscious woman’s hand.
Only after she’d cried her fear out did the youngest finally begin to calm down.
“Feeling better?”
“Y-yes… I-I’m sorry.”
“Of course you’re scared. We don’t know what the Giantvine is trying to do, but this is the middle of Daejeon. The Strike Team must’ve already moved in.”
They’d awakened in an office on the second floor of the Management Center. The standard procedure when dealing with a Giantvine infestation was to begin search-and-rescue from the basement. It might take time, but they would be rescued. They had to believe that.
“Y-yeah. Guildmaster Tae Woon left the center just a little while ago… Maybe he’s leading the team himself…”
“Guildmaster Tae Woon was here? How did I not hear about that?”
“Huh? Didn’t anyone tell the department head?”
Each employee chimed in, sharing that Tae Woon had visited the center. Given what they’d endured, the memory now felt like something from a past life—but still, it brought a faint smile to their lips. Above all, the weight of Tae Woon’s name alone was enough to calm them.
“Alright then. Let’s do what we can here. How’s the injured one?”
“…Still unconscious.”
The department head looked over the survivors, making a conscious effort not to show her despair.
“Does anyone have a protective magitech device?”
These devices, whose quality depends on the skill of the crafting mage, are notoriously expensive. Among them, only three people had one. If they had all been single-user devices, someone would have been left behind—but the youngest employee’s device was a mid-size model built for five.
“A mid-size? That must’ve cost a fortune. How’d you afford that on a public servant’s salary?”
“M-my eldest brother bought it for me as a gift when I passed the civil service exam. He said that if something ever happened, I should use it to save the people around me… and that it’d help me keep it together mentally, too…”
“He sounds like a good man. You said you were the youngest, right? How big’s the age gap between you and your brother?”
“S-seventeen years.”
“Wow, that’s quite a gap. Your parents must’ve been really close. What do your brother and sister call you?”
“Their baby princess…”
Her voice shrank with embarrassment, but for the first time, she wasn’t trembling from fear. A quiet laugh rippled through the group.
“If any monsters show up, you’re the one who needs to activate the protective device right away. Can you handle that?”
“Yes…!”
After comforting the youngest, the department head unfastened the magitech device she wore like a necklace. She slipped off her shoes and quietly crawled across the floor.
The doorframe had warped—there was no way it would open. She pressed the activation button on the device and tossed it through the gap beneath the door. In the darkness of the hallway, the device began to emit a soft, glowing light—a call for rescue.
The Giantvine couldn’t detect light, but there was always the risk of other monsters. It was a gamble—would the rescue team find them first, or would a monster?
Still, the department head didn’t hesitate.
As a refugee from Seoul, the name Tae Woon carried a trust that was more than earned. She believed without a doubt that Tae Woon and his Strike Team would come for them.
The survivors gathered around the seriously injured woman. They tried to keep the mood light on purpose, but her condition was worsening by the minute, and the anxiety gnawed at them. Even after finding a first aid kit and redressing her wounds, the unease didn’t go away.
The woman with the injured leg kept wiping away tears, holding back her sobs. Her colleague had lost so much blood. Even if the Strike Team arrived, she wasn’t sure the woman would survive long enough to be carried out.
***
The chaos began to settle.
Hunters from the Paranormal Phenomena Response Agency had arrived.
“Good afternoon.”
A Hunter approached Kim Sibaek with a cautious tone, his government-issued ID hanging around his neck.
“I heard you played a major role in helping take down the Giantvine’s root. If you don’t mind me asking—what guild are you with? Are you an acquaintance of Guildmaster Tae?”
It made sense that they were suspicious. The Hunter who’d suddenly appeared had handled the root with a skill level rivaling Tae Woon’s. A lie here could cause serious trouble later.
He was just about to nod and claim to be Tae Woon’s acquaintance when someone came running up behind him and placed a firm hand on his shoulder.
