The Chick Class Hunter is Being Filial

“Next is the head. That four-year-old girl you took—where is she?”
Even without a reading skill, making someone talk through pain was something he’d done countless times.
“Owwie-ya.”

Irina smiled brilliantly.
Pain? No, this was a sharp thrill that tingled her nerves.
“You can’t read my thoughts? Oh, because it’s an [RP-Rank Dungeon]?”

Under normal circumstances, his reading skill would’ve told him Irina truly didn’t know where the child called ‘Guru’ was.
But if he couldn’t read her, it meant the dungeon environment was limiting his skill.
Bang!

This time, the bullet pierced her side. Irina bent her back, and a fluttery smile bloomed on her lips.
“Correct.”
The bullet, laced with magic, ripped through flesh with brutal pain—but she didn’t care.

Whenever she saw a trace of herself in her slightly older brother, Irina felt, for once, a sense of belonging in this world.
It happened when her brother beat the social worker who tried to touch her into a vegetative state, or when he entered illegal underground fights to bring home bread soaked in another man’s blood for his starving siblings.
Yevgeny, sweet and kind, could be merciless for the sake of his siblings.

Irina liked that blank expression he wore when he let his violence pour out.
Just like now.
That her blood family resembled her meant she wasn’t so different from normal people.

In the name of protecting family, his hands had become even crueler—and Irina found that lovely.
So, just as Siwon wanted to protect his family, Irina wanted to protect him.
No matter who else had to be sacrificed in that hellish orphanage, she wished that at least he’d be spared.
“You can’t shoot because you want to find the kid? Or is it because you still have lingering attachment to your only remaining family?”

“Where is Guru.”
He spoke coldly, but the faint crease between Siwon’s brows betrayed him. Proof that some part of him still considered Irina family.
Before he realized it, her body had fully regenerated. Straightening herself, Irina pressed her lower lip with her index finger.

“I missed you, Zhenya. So, so much.”
Siwon ground his teeth.
He didn’t want to hear another word from her. He wanted to cut off his ears.

“What do you think? Can you really pull the trigger this time?”
Pointing to her own heart, his sister smiled like a flower.
And just like that, memories from a not-so-different past came flooding in.

He didn’t learn the truth about his youngest sibling’s so-called accident until years later.
The youngest had been sold off under the guise of an accident, and their trail ended in a black market dealing in children.
A poor city in a poor country.

Child trafficking was profitable there.
Around the world, people needed children for all kinds of reasons.
Only after joining a government agency did Siwon learn the countless truths. The fate of those sold was, almost always, death.

It was all orchestrated under the leadership of the government—and the silence of countless adults.
And one more person had helped.
The one who had taken the child by the hand and delivered them to the director. The one who testified it was nothing more than an unfortunate accident.

Irina.
“But the director said so. That they needed one more.”
“She was our family. She was our little sister!”

He had to force back the nausea threatening to rise.
“Hey. Aren’t you curious? Why someone like you—handsome, strong, smart, so perfect that anyone would want you—why you never got sold even after turning fifteen?”
Now I’m curious too. Why the hell didn’t I see it?

“I was the one who picked the kids for the director. Ones that were docile, who owners would like. Rebellious ones that special clients preferred. Sturdy ones fit for special uses…”
Again, Irina pressed her lower lip with her index finger.
“The truth is, I was the one who protected you in that hell, Zhenya.”

So all the consequences belong to you—the one who knew nothing.
That’s what Irina’s face seemed to say.
“If I hadn’t stepped up to help the director, he would’ve sold you off somewhere. And I didn’t want that.”

“There… there had to be another way!”
“What way? You didn’t have the strength to protect anyone back then. Are you saying that now just because you’re strong now? That’s just self-indulgent hypocrisy.”
“……”

He racked his brain, desperately trying to think of another way. But every option was just a meaningless fragment of fantasy.
And Irina knew that.
Now, his only remaining family whispered like she knew everything about him.

“This is a horrible country. Children’s cries never stop, and the adults just look away.”
“……”
“I know what you really hate.”

“……”
“Zhenya, I’ll make it all disappear. Everything you hate.”
In the end, Yevgeny Markov couldn’t pull the trigger.

Inadvertently, his gaze dropped to his shoes.
“You think I can’t shoot?”
His finger tightened on the trigger.

I can kill her.
Right now, I can.
But then—

“Barrett.”
Jin Siwon shifted his body slightly and called out Barrett.
At that very spot, the mannequins’ attacks rained down, gouging deep into the hard ground.

Then the white snake Barrett appeared—and in that instant, the mannequins that had been about to swarm Siwon were sucked straight into its open jaws.
“……”
“……”

Jin Siwon stared blankly at Serhi.
The brown-haired boy who used to play along with his pretend family now stood before him as an enemy.
But all his pain had been left behind at that train station.

Serhi, face frozen, held up the acorn.
“Came for the acorn?”
“Where’s Guru?”

“She ran away.”
“Where to?”
“No idea. She jumped straight out of the train.”

“……”
Jin Siwon stared at Serhi like he was judging the truth in his soul.
Serhi lowered his head slightly, avoiding the gaze—even knowing Siwon no longer had a reading skill.

It still felt like the man could see right through to the feelings buried deepest inside.
Clenching his fist, Serhi tucked the acorn into his palm.
“Believe me or don’t. I don’t care.”

But before his sentence finished, Siwon’s eyes snapped toward the canal.
The sound of countless footsteps.
They weren’t mannequins.

All the guild members who had been fighting by the canal were now being pushed into the swamp.
Lower-ranked # Nоvеlight # Hunters had red, inflamed skin from the heavily polluted air. Yet even as they suffered, they didn’t stop moving forward.
“Help me! Please, someone! Ugh!”

“My body… it won’t move right!”
“No! Sowon! Please stop!”
It was pandemonium. Heart-wrenching screams calling out for teammates ahead hit like a hammer to the ears.

The surging crowd, unable to control their own limbs, grew ever more tainted—exactly as Irina had planned.
“Irina—!”
Siwon roared.

“Now it’s fun, right?”
Irina smiled like a flower again, pressing her lower lip.
Meanwhile, Serhi moved toward the blood clump.

Siwon chased after him immediately.
Right now, defeating the dungeon was priority. And for that, he had to recover the acorn.
Bang! Bang!

Magic-infused bullets fired at Serhi.
He twisted his body, dodging, but one bullet grazed his arm.
Just then, one of the countless mannequins slipped past Barrett and grabbed Siwon’s ankle.

Bang!
Siwon crushed the mannequin grabbing him in the same breath.
And in the next, Serhi—without hesitation—threw the acorn with his uninjured arm.

Siwon’s head jerked around in shock. The acorn flew toward the blood clump.
Why?
If the special purified acorn touched the clump, it would cleanse the contamination.

Wasn’t Gnosis’ goal to obstruct the [RP-Rank Dungeon] clearance?
The theory changed fast.
Their goal wasn’t to interfere with the clear… Then…

What they were after was the dungeon core.
If the core was taken outside the dungeon, it would trigger a forced dungeon break.