The Hunters quickly armed themselves. The nervousness was evident on the expressions of everyone present.

With Koner leading them, the rest of the Hunters cautiously and quietly entered the boss' 'room'. However, their silence only lasted a few seconds afterwards.

"J-Jackpot!"

The Red-Nosed Hunter shouted. He was none other than the guy whose nose hit the back of someone's head.

Originally, it was forbidden to shout too loudly inside a dungeon. Because there was a possibility that a monster they didn't have to fight could hear the noise and run towards where the Hunters were.

However, none of the others reprimanded Red Nose for his mistake.

“How much could all this cost? »

"It's a real jackpot, isn't it?"

Everyone was far too busy gasping in admiration and happiness, that was why.

"Wait a second."

When Stuart fixed the beam of light in mid-air, the situation in the room became clear to all, along with the jewel-like stones protruding from one of the cave walls.

"Those are mana stones!"

“The whole wall is made of it! »

These mana stones reflected light attractively and also made the eyes of greed hunters glow.

Mana Stones!

They were one of the treasures that could be found inside dungeons.

Although each stone possessed a lower amount of magic energy than a magic crystal mined from a monster, they were almost always found in large quantities, so if one was able to harness them, one could earn a substantial profit.

Moreover, the manastone deposit they had discovered was incredibly large. The entire wall of the huge cave was actually filled with these stones.

"Let's do a quick calculation."

A hunter with a mathematical brain began moving his fingers hastily.

"If we can exploit them all, we could earn up to $10,000,000. Even if we split nine ways, we're looking at a payout of over $100,000 per head.

" Oh oh ! »

Smiles formed on the faces of the Hunters.

Takuya had stayed behind until then, and when he heard those words, he started nudging Ajin's side with his elbow.

"Big bro, don't you think these guys are a little weird?"

"Why do you say that ?"

"I don't know, it's just that their behavior is very weird and the fact that they just said they will share the stones between the 9 of them when there are 11 of us here is really creepy."

Even after Takuya's realization, Ajin shrugged once.

Then Takuya walked towards Koner while carrying him.

“Excuse me, old people? I want to ask you something.

“Chief, you just said you will share the stones among the nine of you when there are 11 of us in this room, I think there is a miscalculation.

Everyone understood what Takuya was trying to say.

In other words, the mana stones had to be divided into eleven ways, not nine.

The light in the hunters eyes changed a lot, but Koner just smiled and took a step forward.

“Of course, we will share them equally. I just made an account mistake. We still have things to settle before that, however.

Koner raised his index finger and pointed to his forehead.

Takuya flinched greatly at this. He thought it was him who was being singled out, actually.

He shivered slightly and turned his head to take a look, and finally spotted a snake as huge as a house crouched quietly there.

Heok….!

Takuya began to back away quickly and covered his mouth after seeing the snake's appearance. As if sleeping soundly, the huge snake didn't even move an inch from the spot.

Surrounding the creature were empty shells of dead insects stacked as high as a mountain.

A good number of them were "half eaten", and there were also bodily fluids mixed in between them, essentially looking like a garbage pit full of food scraps.

"He's the boss, huh."

"Did that thing eat the bugs inside the dungeon?"

"Well, he certainly ate a lot, didn't he?"

The hunters glared at the snake and gave their opinion one by one.

Koner called on the others to come together. Ajin and Takuya also stood in front of Koner.

"As you all know very well, as soon as the boss is killed, the door will start to close. So before we kill the snake let's mine the mana stones first."

Everyone nodded.

"Stuart, did you bring the equipment for the job?"

The man named Stuart shook his head.

"No. Who knew we'd find Manastones in a C-rated dungeon? All the mining equipment is back in the van.

“Oh, come on now, man…. Didn't our boss always tell you to keep it on just in case?

“My evil, my evil. I'm really sorry about that.

Stuart smiled brightly and began to apologize to Koner, the rest of his teammates, and even Ajin.

Koner spoke while scratching the back of his head.

"Aigoo. How boring this has become. In that case, why don't you stay here and wait? We'll go out and get the materials while we wait.

 

When the Hunters tried to all leave at once, Takuya put on a confused expression and quickly asked them.

“Are you telling Ajin and me to stay in the boss room? »

Koner smiled with his eyes and replied.

"The b*stard hasn't woken up yet even though we've been talking loudly for a while now. So I'm sure nothing's going to happen here. Well, there's also some things I want to talk to my Boys, so we're going to take a short smoke break too, but don't worry, it won't take long.

 

Ajin listened to Koner's rather detailed explanations and smiled inwardly.

“You finally revealed your true colors, huh. But are you all leaving at the same time? Aren't you fools who take us too lightly? »

Konor's eyes have opened wide...

"What? What is Mr. Ajin talking about?"

"Don't mess with me, I know very well that you are part of the "Scorpion", since you arrived."

A small silence settled in the cave before Konor clicked his tongue.

"It looks like that bastard has unmasked us."

Koner's plan was to abandon Ajin and Takuya in the cave to get away from the boss room a bit, blowing up the cave entrance which would wake up the sleeping wild beast, offering Ajin and Takuya to this beast, while that Koner and THESE men had arrived at a place far enough from the boss's room, since at a certain distance there would be no danger for them.

At that moment, Ajin remembered an important sentence that a hunter had said to him

“Be very careful of the 'Scorpions'. Because they will appear on many types of people”

Low level scorpion members could break into a raid, try to sacrifice several other hunters to get their artifact and even steal their powers, it was also clarified that they often attack those who are simply weaker than they are. weren't.

The strangest thing is that it was very difficult to identify a member of a scorpion, as if they had never existed.

 

An idea came to Ajin's head to ask for more information about the scorpion but he quickly gave up.

And now….

 

Koner had decided to kill both Ajin and Takuya.

Ajin understood Koner's intentions soon enough, but chose not to say anything. It was what he wanted, in fact.

 

However, unlike Ajin who was full of self-confidence, Takuya was quite different as he was never found in this kind of situation before.

Takuya spoke with a voice full of concern.

 

" What's happening? »

Frankly speaking, it hurt Ajin to see an innocent person lose their life because of him, I mean those scorpion members were sent here to assassinate Ajin.

Koner smiled deeply and nodded to Stuart who was next to him with his chin.

 

" Must ".

It was then that Ajin noticed one of the hunters raising his hand to his hips. So he put his hand on Takuya's shoulder and spoke.

"Can you get away from me for a bit? Something very bad is going to happen."

Ajin's words had Takuya in a bit of confusion, but when his eyes returned to Koner's men.

He quickly understood.

The Hunter's hand reaching for her waist stopped.

As Ajin expected, Koner finally started moving. It was, however, slightly different from the expectations of young people.

 

"? »

Takuya was quite surprised and confused, but Ajin just kept his mouth shut and shook his head slightly. Of course, the kid was loud and pissed him off a bit, but Ajin had no intention of letting this innocent man die here.

Koner smiled as he looked at the two youngsters.

Takuya turned and demanded answers from Ajin.

 

"What are we going to do now?"

 

Undoubtedly, he was very afraid of this "Scorpion".

 

"Looks like this kid hasn't quite figured it out yet."

 

Ajin clicked his tongue inwardly. It was too complicated to explain everything too. Instead of a response, he began to relax his body once more.

Then "it" happened.

Kaboom !!!

Boom!!

Blown away by the explosion, Ajin's figure flew at a frightening speed and slammed into the wall of the cave.

Slam!!

Part of the wall collapsed and fell on Ajin.

Fall…

"Mister Ajin!!"

Takuya froze in place in surprise.

Takuya stared at where Ajin was. Just as Koner hinted, Ajin didn't move an inch as he remained buried under the debris.

"You...you murderers..."

Tears pooled around Takuya's eyes.

Koner and his companions simply laughed at the word "murderers" thrown out by Takuya. Well, that was the truth to begin with anyhow. No, they were worse and they were proud of that, how many died at their hands in many other dungeons?

As they looked at Takuya and continued to smile, Ajin had decided to stay under the pile of rubble, doubting his own eyes for the time being.

"Don't sweat over death and why don't you come here?"

Koner gestured with his fingers.

"Like hell I'll come to you guys!"

"Then you can die with him."

The corners of Koner's lips arched.

“Block the entrance so we can go take a cigarette break. Quickly done."

"Yes sir."

Stuart replied as a blinding light began to form on his fingertips.

With a loud explosion, the entrance to the boss room suddenly collapses.

"BOOM!"

“Uh, uh?! Eh!! Ahh!!"

Takuya rushed towards the entrance.

Unfortunately for him, the entrance was completely blocked by scree. He pushed with all his might, but not a stone moved.

Then Ajin slowly rose from the rubble.

As expected from a magic spell cast by a C-rank Hunter; it was only one hit, yet his HP had almost halved. There was no place to relax now.

Meanwhile, Ajin slowly walked there towards Takuya.

“Grumbling~! Oh Ajin you are up! Can you help me push this!

Ajin threw all sorts of punches to push back the blockade of stones.

"He said his name was Stuart, huh."

Before the explosion, there was a flash of light. A C-rated wizard who controlled the "light". It was definitely the work of that b*stard.

Ajin put his hand on the fallen rocks.

“If I want, I can get out of here anytime. »

He could feel the weight of the stones through his hands. They weren't as heavy as they looked, at least for him. When he pushed very lightly, he felt the wall shake gently. Of course, he wasn't thinking of leaving at all, anyway.

“Oh! »

Takuya stopped pushing the stones and shouted as if he had finally understood the truth. His face now flushed with fury, Takuya looked back at Ajin.

"By the way, how are you?" These sons of bitches are trying to murder us!! They don't want to share the mana stones, so they blocked the exit and left the monster to devour us!

“Wow, you figured that out so quickly, Sherlock. »

Ajin rolled his eyes in his head, but still played along for now.

“It looks like this. It's embarassing.

But something was strange here.

“huh! »

Suddenly, Takuya's flushed complexion paled in an instant. Could it be the look of someone whose blood had run cold?

But right now it was not important.

“…..”

Takuya's gaze was fixed on the sleeping monster. Even his breathing was careful.

"That monster, she's not going to suddenly wake up on us, is she?" he asked then, his expression frozen with fear.

"Who knows."

Ajin remained thrifty with his words. He had more or less understood what would happen next, but if he said his entire thoughts out loud, then Takuya might pass out from fear.

'Come to think of it….'

Those words were the first to come out of Takuya's mouth in the last five minutes or so. It looked like he was really scared right now. And he used to be so talkative, too.

No need to ask him what happened there – the giant monster's silhouette reflected so clearly in Ajin's eyes.

Ajin turned around.

“Keurruuk. Keururuk.

The monster's sleep had been interrupted by this loud explosion and it was slowly lifting its massive body.

The body the size of a house. Dozens and dozens of eyes. That horrible mouth.

Now that he had started moving for real, he looked a lot more terrifying than when he was actually in a deep sleep.

Uh…”

Takuya let out a frightening sigh. His body had become stiff as a statue.

On the other hand, Ajin kept his sight firmly locked on the monster as he calmly summoned his daggers from his inventory.

'You're mine.'

It was the perfect opportunity to test his improved stats.

Scorpion's Poison Fang appeared in his right hand….

Swiish.

….As if he had always been there.

Ajin gripped the hilt of the dagger tightly. The reason why a hunter was called a hunter! From that moment, the real hunt would begin.

"W-wait a sec, big brother!!"

However, Takuya quickly grabbed Ajin's sleeve just as the latter took a few steps towards the beast.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!"

Takuya's hands were shaking quite hard. Ajin used his left thumb to point over his shoulder.

"Obviously, I'm going to hunt that. If we just sit there and do nothing, this thing will eat us alive.”

Ajin had followed Koner's group until now for just this purpose.

….In order to monopolize the remaining monsters in the dungeon as soon as Koner ran away. It was a wonderful opportunity to swallow all the experience points and magic crystals.

"Well, only if the boss hadn't devoured all the monsters in this dungeon, of course."

If that hadn't been the case, he would have benefited a lot more, though. What a missed opportunity that was.

However, Takuya's facial expression clearly showed his disbelief, as he had no idea about Ajin's special constitution.

“What is this guy talking about? ! »

There was something he had heard from someone somewhere before.

A person would stop thinking rationally the moment they received a mental shock beyond their ability to handle.

The F-ranked Hunter standing directly in front said he would hunt the boss of a C-ranked dungeon. If that wasn't an act of irrationality, what else could it be?

Takuya asked again, this time looking rather stunned. He wasn't sure of Ajin's answer, when he asked that question.

"Mister, do you want to hunt that thing?" For real?"

Ajin scratched the top of his dumbfounded head, before answering with a personal question.

“Of course, do you want to hunt it, then? »