…

"Is this what I think it is?"

A woman with long dark hair, a tall and slim body, a busty front, and a smell that could only remind you of a flower field asked. She looked at the mysterious object that laid on the desk in front of her. It emitted a dark blue light, and it had an ominous feel to it.

"Yes, and I don't have a great feeling about it."

A blond man responded to her. They looked at each other with worrying eyes, not knowing what to do with the object in front of them.

"We might need to discuss this with the other guild leaders, don't you agree, Minjun?"

She asked the blond while putting the World Fragment into her inventory.

"That's probably a good idea, Cho-hee. But, we need to get the newbies in order first. So I don't think a summit notice now is the best of times."

He puzzled with pieces of paper that had the names of all the survivors of this year's tutorial on it. But something bothered him about it.

"60 percent survived this year; that's more than double the amount of players than last year. And asking around about the experiences the newbies had, it seems that nothing has changed from the last tutorial."

He presented his problem to Cho-hee. Minjun couldn't find the reason for this abnormality, and he just thought it was a stroke of luck.

"I think it might have something to do with this guy."

Cho-hee stood up from her chair, went over to Minjun, and took the paper out of his hand. She pointed at the solution to his problem.

"Sung-jin?"

He said curiously the name she pointed at.

"We got this name from a group of players that said he had saved them from goblins. But even though they said he survived, he's the only one we haven't seen yet coming out from the gate."

Cho-hee sat on the desk in front of him, looking him straight in the eyes.

"Yea, he could have died, though."

Minjun didn't play around with the thoughts she had. And he continued to think it was just a luck-based reason.

"But does this name not remind you of someone?"

She continued with her theory. But the mentioning of this someone made him upset.

"Uhm, that's not even something to make fun of."

He protested her claims and quickly pushed the chair underneath him aside. He walked towards the exit of the room in a somewhat sour fashion.

"I'm completely serious. And even though it is hard to believe, he could explain all the abnormalities in this year's tutorial."

Her tone changed from a happy one to a serious one, making Minjun stop in his stead.

"We never found his body, right? So in theory, he could have survived."

She stated the facts to him, but it only made him more upset. He didn't want to budge on his stand as well, and he continued the argument.

"If he survived that invasion, why would he not come back? And how in the world can you explain him being in the tutorial again?"

He turned around to look her in the eyes. His argument was strong, and Cho-hee couldn't find a good comeback to his solid point. The silence between them befall, and they both began to feel some pain.

"I genuinely wish he survived, and if he did, I hope he lives a good and calm life now.

He ended the conversation between them and went out of the door, slowly closing it and leaving Cho-hee back. After getting reminded of a person he had lost five years ago, he got a bit sad, but Minjun quickly changed his mood after someone from his guild approached him.

"Haa! A calm life? That's the last thing he would do."

Cho-hee sat back alone, laughing for a bit before going back to her work. After their conversation, she was a little depressed too, but nothing could be done about the past, so she just moved on.

…

Thunk-!

"That's the last one in this room!"

Sung-jin pulled his knife out from the eye of a giant spider; it spewed some nasty blue hemolymph onto his face, but he just wiped it away with his hand.

"This blood thing smells terrible; it reminds me of the alley to the Underground City."

He complained as he continued down the path that the spiders had completely webbed. You couldn't really move around easily because of how sticky the web was.

"This is the reason why a lot of players from the first generation died in this dungeon. However, today, special boots have been made, which have become the go-to thing to get before conquering this dungeon."

He thought it may have been a good idea to get those before going into the dungeon, as he struggled with some of the webs.

"Well, it's too late now!"

He kicked the sticky web underneath him away, making room for him to walk properly. He looked to his sides expecting spiders to jump him, but nothing was there.

"It's kind of empty inside this room."

He said when his senses told him that something wasn't right. He began to slow down his pace until he stood completely still. He examined the room he was in very close without taking a single breath.

'I might be fortunate today.'

His cocky grin showed that he wasn't afraid of what he felt. To him, this opportunity was perfect.

"Just show yourself already! I don't have all day!"

He yelled at something in the distance that only he could perceive. It didn't take long before the thing he yelled at slowly approached him.

"There you are."

Red dots appeared in the air that slowly got bigger and bigger. The eery sound it made when it crept over the sticky spider webs would make most people get chills down their spines. It got closer and closer to Sung-jin until it was in full sight right up in his face.

"I see, you’re not the scaredy type."

Sung-jin provoked the enormous Spider that was only a few inches away from him. The Spider's mouth smelled terrible and small pieces of other spiders could be seen stuck in its mouth and fangs.

"You’re one heck of an ugly bastard, aren't you?"

He reached into his inventory and took out his only weapon, the Goblin's Knife. He then proceeded to initiate the fight.

Ding-!

-System: You engage in combat with the hidden boss, Spider King.

Sung-jin quickly stepped to his side, trying to get around to the back of the Spider before it could react.

Swash-!

[35 Damage Taken]

"What the—"

He exclaimed, getting knocked back a few meters.

"It's so fast!"

Sung-jin nearly lost his footing. He looked at the giant Spider, shocked at how fast it reacted to his movements.

'If not for my fifty points in agility, that spider's leg would have pierced my chest.'

He looked disturbed at the sharp metal-looking legs the Spider has. He only barely managed to block its attack with his knife. But even when blocking its attack, the Spider's damage output was still high.

'I haven't raised my vitality a single bit, but even so, why did I take so much damage.'

He pulled up his status bar showing how much mana and health he had left.

-Status Bar

Health: 65 — Mana: 100

'Thirty-five hit points when I blocked its attack! If I hadn't blocked its attack, I would have been a goner!'

He got a bit of cold sweat, and he knew that taking a direct hit would probably kill him or at the least get close to. He quickly found his footing and once again tried to get to the back of the Spider and hoped he could defeat it without it attacking him again.

'I need to get a good hit at his abdomen, which is where all his organs are. If I can, it will be a critical hit, and I can win this easily. But my knife will not reach deep into it, so I need to hit it multiple times.'

Sung-jin ran as fast as he could, trying to get around the Spider.

Swash-!

The Spider's leg clashed with his knife again as he was running, but this time Sung-jin was prepared. He pushed the leg away and quickly leaped high into the air.

"I got you!"

He yelled, falling straight towards the abdomen of the Spider. His strategy was simple; he knew that the Spider was fast, and with its ten legs, it could defend every side with no problems. Sung-jin found it out after the first hit he had to block. But when he was in the air, the Spider couldn't do a thing.

"Now!"

He activated his skill Night Slash making his knife emit a dark mist. With a fast speed, he landed on its abdomen.

Skreee-!

The Spider's crying scream echoed through the dungeon. And even though Sung-jin's knife couldn't cut deep because of its short length, the number of hits he got was more than enough to cover its flaw.

[36 Damage Given]

[42 Damage Given]

[39 Damage Given]

[32 Damage Given]

The critical hit bonus made the knife deal more damage than usual, and it didn't take long before the Spider got weak.

Skreee-!

Its scream quieted down, and soon it collapsed to the ground. The speed at which Sung-jin had figured out how to defeat it and react on it was simply outstanding. It didn't take long for him to defeat the Spider King, and if anyone had seen how he beat it, they would think he was a high-level player.

-System: Hidden boss "Spider King" defeated.

-System: Congrats Player. You leveled up!

"Nice!"

Sung-jin happily uttered. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and took away his knife.

"This was not a fight I thought would go this way!"

He said, wondering about how strong the Spider King was.

'It is my first time fighting it but being this strong in the first dungeon? No wonder I heard rumors of good raid groups getting wiped in here despite it being a noob dungeon.'

He thought deeply about it, and he didn't even realize himself that what he did should be counted as cheating. But his attention quickly turned to something he spotted on the ground.

"Uhh!"

He made a happy sound as he reached down to where the Spider King's corpse was before it faded away. He picked up the items on the ground and looked at its description.

-Item Description

Spider King's fangs:

A pair of fangs dropped by the hidden boss "Spider King." After mating with the Spider Queen, the queen chased the Spider King, threatening his life. He managed to get away, but he got nowhere to go; he roamed around inside the hill, feasting on the children he had made.

'These will probably be of good use at some point, maybe to make a weapon? Either way, I spent too much time dealing with this guy. Let's kill the queen next.'

Sung-jin put away the fangs into his inventory and went further inside the hill with a determined mind.