No matter how you looked at it, it was my fault and it was a messed up thing to do because it seemed like I had planned it out. I was certain that if Solomon came and gave me his judgment, he would call me a sinner.

Despite choosing to gamble with the possibility of losing my reputation points with Kim Hyun-Sung, the situation didn’t turn out so bad.

The man named Lee Ki-Chul disappeared into a monster’s belly and one of Jung Jin-Ho’s lackeys was now looking at me in fury as if he was going to kill me.

A conflict had started and Kim Hyun-Sung’s reaction wasn’t so bad either. I wasn’t sure if he was aware of the fact that I had intentionally created this situation, but he was satisfied with the result. Lee Ki-Chul was sent to his death without Hyun-Sung having to dirty his hands.

Risking myself and becoming the victim caused me to lose a tooth. But in exchange, I acquired the loving affection of my precious comrades. The rewards far outweighed the risk, the result was beautiful.

However, I didn’t expect Jung Ha-Yan to display that kind of look again. From what I knew, I wasn’t allowed to make physical contact with the opposite sex.

‘Was this not allowed either?’

It seemed that she also couldn’t allow me to get hit.

Jung Ha-Yan bit her nails for a moment and after realizing that I was still on the floor, she quickly ran towards me without abandoning her hostility towards Kim Jae-Jun.

“O-Oppa!” she called out.

But when she saw blood spilling out of my mouth, she became absent-minded. She even started touching her ring; it was a sight to see her trying to use her magic The Divine Healing ring that she was wearing wasn’t used to heal the kind of injuries that I had, so when I lightly grabbed her left hand, she must have realized that I was hinting at her not to recite the spell.

Her eyes were filled with tears as they continued to fall from her large eyes.

“A-Are you okay? What…what should I do?” she asked.

“Of course, I’m okay. It’s my fault, so… it can’t be helped,” I answered.

The inside of my mouth tasted bitter. One side of my cheek was numb because of the tooth that fell out, but I couldn’t show them that I was in pain because if I exaggerated it, I felt like Jung Ha-Yan would suddenly use her magic on Jung Jin-Ho’s group.

‘Please suppress it…I beg you.’

It wouldn’t be a bad choice for our side to use magic first, but it would be best to move forward with this plan while I continued to act like I was the victim.

Seeing as how Kim Hyun-Sung wasn’t making a move, I was sure that this was what he wanted as well.

“Hiccup…”

The way Jung Ha-Yan kept touching my face made it seem like the world was coming to an end. Not only was she choking up, but she also started to show signs of a panic attack, so I became curious whether she could actually stay sane.

Her face was covered in tears and snot and if the others saw this, they probably would have thought that I died. Her reaction was simply too much considering the fact that I only lost a tooth.

“Are you okay? You are okay, right? Hiccup…o-okay?”

“Yes, I’m okay. It’s nothing, so don’t worry Ha-Yan. I’m fine, I'm really okay. It doesn’t hurt at all,” I answered.

It did hurt, but it wasn’t a huge wound. I felt somewhat grateful that she was showing this kind of reaction to me for a small injury, but on the other hand, she looked a bit scary.

“You jerk! How dare you!”

Truthfully, I only got hit because I made a mistake, but Park Deok-Gu was also expressing his anger. However, the reaction that Jung Ha-Yan and Park Deok-Gu were showing was probably worse than what Jung Jin-Ho imagined.

At this point, I was sure that Jung Jin-Ho was baffled, but I was also certain that the man that hit me was even more baffled than him. When the atmosphere suddenly turned violent, they felt something ominous. The grim situation earlier had just ended, but Jung Ha-Yan’s reaction created a new source of conflict.

Even though there was an error in the process, it wasn’t a bad way to take control.

The situation turned into something more magical than the magic that I used.

‘Pfft.’

I knew that I shouldn’t laugh, but I couldn’t help but smile. Despite knowing that I shouldn’t show this kind of expression, I couldn’t stop smiling.

In the end, Jung Jin-Ho’s side was the one that lowered their heads.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Ki-Young,” Jung Jin-Ho said.

“It’s nothing,” I said.

“I have no words to describe how I’m feeling. I know you didn’t do it with bad intentions and if you didn’t use your magic, we could have been in a situation worse than this. I think Mr. Jae-Jun felt a bit angry since he had spent a long time with Mr. Ki-Chul, and he had to see him die. I hope you’ll understand. Mr. Jae-Jun?” Jung Jin-Ho said.

“But…” Kim Jae-Jun said.

“Mr. Jae-Jun, please apologize. There was nothing they could do in that situation and it was the best option. If it wasn’t for Mr. Ki-Young, then we could’ve all died,” Jung Jin-Ho said.

I wasn’t sure if he was aware of Jung Jin-Ho’s decision, but the man named Jae-Jun, who still had a frown on his face, bowed in the end.

“I-I let my emotions get to me for a moment. I’m…sorry,” Kim Jae-Jun said.

His fist was shaking. I guess it was difficult for him to continue talking because he couldn’t look at me properly. Based on the situation, he probably knew that he had to apologize, but the words simply wouldn’t come out of his mouth.

I think that based on his nature, he had a difficult time apologizing, to begin with, and he didn’t seem apologetic at all. He actually looked like he was trying to suppress his anger.

“It’s okay, Mr. Jae-Jun, I completely understand. I acted a bit rashly too, and…I’m sure there aren’t any words that could comfort you, but I’m truly sorry,” I said.

I didn’t mean it, of course.

“I’m…sorry.”

I saw him forcing his head down, so it didn’t feel like he was actually apologizing to me, but despite that, I was in a good mood.

‘Pfft.’

If he didn’t have an intermittent explosive disorder, then the person that had to keep his head low would have been me, but honestly, I was more worried about Jung Ha-Yan’s presence than his.

‘This…’

If Jung Ha-Yan was thinking about doing the same thing she did during the Park Hye-Young incident, then things would be awkward on our side because I already hinted that Jung Jin-Ho was the culprit for Park Hye-Young’s case.

If she suddenly disappeared with Jung Jin-Ho’s lackey and we found him with his limbs cut off, then Kim Hyun-Sung might become suspicious of Jung Ha-Yan. Of course, I would become suspicious as well.

I wanted to stop her, but seeing her expression, I did not think that simply stopping her would work. She clenched her fist so hard that the palm of her hand injured her nails. It felt she was treating her palm as Jae-Jun and her nails were her attacks.

‘Not bad.’

If I were to think a bit positively about it, it wasn’t so bad. Simply put, if Jung Ha-Yan moved on her own, then that would be advantageous to me too. After all, if Kim Jae-Jun died, then it would be no different from Jung Jin-Ho losing everything.

‘Why is she…’

However, I saw Jung Ha-Yan discreetly picking up my tooth that fell out. Seeing that made her seem like a ticking time bomb.

“Let’s start moving, Mr. Ki-Young,” Kim Hyun-Sung suggested.

“Yes, let’s do that. I’m sorry for all the fuss,” I said.

When I was trying to get up, Kim Hyun-Sung wrapped my arm around his shoulder as if he was trying to support me, but my injuries were light. However, sticking together like this was the appropriate move because it was our side that needed to decide when to pull the trigger.

He didn’t want Jung Jin-Ho’s group to see his weird side, so if I was next to him, then he would be able to suppress it.

“Can you walk?” he asked.

“Of course,” I answered.

“If you’re tired, then…”

“No, I’m really okay. Like you’ve mentioned Mr. Hyun-Sung, we need to get out of here,” I said, interrupting him.

“Okay.”

The iron gate was still shut tight. It may not open until we were done with the quest or it may only be opened from the outside, but one thing I was sure of was that in order for us to survive, we needed to complete all the quests that were in this dungeon and coincidentally, the name of this quest was survival.

“Maybe the survival or the control that the woman was referring to were the quests within this dungeon,” Jung Jin-Ho said.

He said something in order to freshen up the atmosphere because our eyes, including Jung Ha-Yan, were on Jung Jin-Ho and his lackeys.

It was natural for him to make an effort to try and close the distance between us. I thought about how his actions didn’t fit his nature, but he said something afterward that I was also thinking about.

“I had the same thought. There’s nothing on the first floor, so it looks like survival and control of this place is the main quest. If the condition for survival means escaping from this place and either avoiding or winning against the monsters, then that means we’ll be completing the control quest as well. If my assumption is correct, then this first floor is truly a meaningless place,” I explained.

No matter what happened, we had to survive and control this place at the same time.

When I glanced over at Kim Hyun-Sung, he didn’t seem to disagree. I was sure that he wasn’t able to concentrate on the conversation since he was taking the lead in trying to find a way out. But when I saw how he didn’t say anything, his assumption must be the same as mine.

When the woman on the first floor mentioned survival and control, we had to complete those two within this place.

“I understand the survival part, but…”

“There may be a boss within this place,” I said.

“Oh.”

“It’s pretty common in dungeons. If you look at your status window and jobs, it’s pretty similar to an online game. If this wasn’t a tutorial, there may be several conditions when it comes to taking control, but if this dungeon is only meant to simply focus on survival and control, then there may be a different type of monster around. Killing that monster may fulfill the control part of the quest,” I explained.

“I agree with you, Mr. Ki-Young,” Jung Jin-Ho said.

“It’s only a simple speculation on my part, but for the second task, there may be an option to find a path,” I said.

“You’re talking about a way out of this place,” Jung Jin-Ho said.

“Yes, it can be a way out or it may lead us to a device that will help us get out of this place. I’m sure there’s a few more, but I can’t think of them right now, I said.

It didn’t matter if those weren’t the case because they were only assumptions, and it was nothing more than me throwing out ideas that were in my head. It seemed like Jung Jin-Ho and even Yoo Seok-Woo were thinking about the same thing, but the difference was that I said something out loud while they kept their opinions to themselves.

“It looks like you’ve been thinking about a lot of things. Mr. Ki-Young…” Yoo Seok-Woo mumbled.

I felt a bit of hostility in his words because it felt like he was asking whether I intentionally threw the fire ball, but I just laughed it off because Jung Jin-Ho’s group was also out to kill us.

“It’s just your imagination,” I said.

As we continued walking, we couldn’t find the monsters that we saw earlier. Of course, I did see some from time to time, but it wasn’t to the point that it was the same as the fight we had earlier. We took care of them as fast as we could in order to avoid any disturbance and the incident that happened earlier didn’t happen again.

Due to being low on stamina, we moved very slowly, but…we were able to relax a little bit and during that time, the fact that my mana was constantly being replenished was amusing to me.

There were times when Kim Hyun-Sung would frown and Jung Ha-Yan would stare at Kim Jae-Jun, but luckily, nothing happened. In Jung Ha-Yan’s case, I wasn’t sure why she was so depressed and furious, but whenever she saw my swollen mouth, she would often cry and mumble to herself while shaking her head.

Whenever she randomly cried, Park Deok-Gu was the one that felt a bit surprised. Unlike the time when he proudly told me that he was used to women, he seemed like he didn’t know how to comfort Jung Ha-Yan because no matter how you looked at it, the way she was acting was strange. Honestly, what was more surprising than her tears was the way she was whispering while keeping her head down. Her whispers were so quiet that even I couldn’t hear her despite being so close to her. Based on the words that I heard from time to time…

I think I heard her say, ‘I need to kill’ but I pretended that I didn’t hear anything because that would probably be more beneficial to me.

“I’ll get revenge for you.”

I was sure that pretending not to hear her was the best decision.