TFN C56

Chapter 56

He pressed his nose into the air, sniffing, bracing his front paws against Cheongmun’s arm as he barked sharply.

“Meong! Meong!”

Over there! That way!

Fixing his gaze on the pile of tangled metal and plastic, Wonhyo barked again. Cheongmun separated the worthless debris, laying out the salvaged objects in a neat row.

As the items shifted and rolled into view, members of Team One lit up with sharp interest and rushed in.

“Found a corded vacuum. Hair inside the canister.”

“Electric kettle here. And a fan.”

“Ah! A laptop!”

Kim, the administrative officer, cried out as he dragged a slim, flat object from beneath the crushed shell of a washing machine.

Cheongmun immediately looked to Wonhyo.

Eyes shut tight, every nerve focused on scent, Wonhyo suddenly snapped them open.

“Meong!”

That’s it!

Cho, who had been watching the pup with strained breath, quickly produced an evidence bag from his inventory and secured the laptop.

Wonhyo sniffed the rest of the items but none bore as much of the specter’s taint as the laptop. The stench practically poured from it.

“Meong! Meong!”

Wait—hold on a moment!

Before Cheongmun could take the laptop, Wonhyo wriggled urgently into the shelter of his arms.

Cheongmun stilled, waiting. Wonhyo tugged several talismans from his inventory, clamped them in his jaws, and looked up.

“Meong.”

Use these.

Cheongmun accepted them.

“Simply bring them close?”

“Meong!”

Yes!

To make it clear, Wonhyo pointed his nose toward the laptop, then looked back at the charms in Cheongmun’s hand, nodding furiously.

The vice-captain, quick on the uptake, darted forward and took the charms from Cheongmun.

“He says to use these!”

Detecting the ominous aura wafting from the laptop, Cho eagerly received the charms along with the evidence bag.

The vice-captain layered another bag over the first, sealed it, and pressed the talismans across the surface.

“So I’m the one handling this investigation, right?”

“Who else?”

Kim’s dry remark left Nam, the junior officer in charge of cybercrime, crestfallen.

Wonhyo, having done his part, gave a faint whimper and burrowed back into Cheongmun’s chest. From his inventory he produced still more talismans and offered them up.

“Meong!”

These as well!

Cheongmun’s brow arched.

“Even after using them, you still need to keep some on hand?”

“Meong.”

Probably.

Wonhyo wasn’t entirely sure, but the laptop would have to be opened eventually if its contents were to be examined, and handling it would be inevitable. Best to be prepared. He nodded firmly.

“With these on your person, you’ll be fine.”

“Oh! You’ve thought of everything.”

Nam, as though thanking Wonhyo himself, bowed politely toward the absent shaman.

Meanwhile, Wonhyo yawned, exhaustion dragging at his small body. Despite having napped earlier, drowsiness crept over him again—the chill only worsened it. He heard someone groan nearby, but his eyes slid shut before he could glance over.

Tucked securely beneath Cheongmun’s coat, wrapped in warmth and trust, weighed down by the backlash of overexerted energy, Wonhyo’s eyelids sagged. He stuck out his tongue, surrendering to instinct, and drifted.

It hadn’t been long before his breaths fell into a steady rhythm.

Cheongmun conjured a small cube, dampening surrounding sounds and adjusting the temperature. Carefully, he drew Wonhyo from his arms.

The pup kicked weakly, hind legs paddling in the air like a child’s sleepy protest, but did not wake.

Lacking a cushion, Cheongmun bunched an emergency towel into the cube, settling Wonhyo upon it. The little body burrowed instinctively, pressing deep into the makeshift bedding.

Floating the cube at his side, Cheongmun had scarcely done so before others swarmed closer, craning for a look.

“Can we take a picture?”

“No. He has no portrait rights to give. Denied.”

Cheongmun’s refusal was crisp. He turned back to the scene.

“Operation complete.”

The support team clapped their hands softly, no sound echoing. It was not celebration—they could not rejoice with deaths involved—but acknowledgment of labor carried into the late night.

“Thankfully, no further fatalities were found.”

Aside from two injured near the perimeter, everyone within the zone had been dragged into the dungeon.

Searches inside had found no additional missing persons.

That alone was cause to murmur relief—especially given that the dungeon’s difficulty had risen to S-rank, yet casualties were not overwhelming.

Cheongmun completed the report on-site, transmitted it, and finally departed.

Their government vehicle had been lost to the dungeon, so he had to use his emergency car. Beyond the half-ruined district, past the restricted cordons, he summoned the compacted vehicle and restored it to form.

From the cube he gently lifted the sleeping Wonhyo, laying him in the passenger seat.

“…Meong?”

The small shock stirred him awake. Tousled fur and a tongue peeking from his mouth made him almost comical.

“You’re awake?”

Wonhyo blinked, glanced around, then yawned wide and sagged against the seatback.

Cheongmun broke a communication cookie and offered it. Wonhyo licked and swallowed.

“Ahem… Thank you for your hard work?”

The first words tumbled out awkwardly. Cheongmun’s lips curved faintly in a suppressed smile.

Catching the expression, Wonhyo cast a sidelong glance, and Cheongmun tightened his grip on the wheel.

“You did well, too. Still, avoid the news for a while.”

“Huh? Why? What happened?”

Cheongmun’s eyes narrowed.

“Some are already complaining—asking why we failed to save everyone inside the dungeon.”

“What?”

Sleep fled. Wonhyo scratched his ear with a hind paw, as if the words themselves made his skin itch.

“But we did save everyone who could be saved.”

“And many still died.”

“But isn’t that… relatively few?”

“Few, yes. But not zero.”

The calm reply left Wonhyo deflated.

“Wait, hold on. The whole thing started because people kept picking fights on HunterNet posts. They’re the ones who drove the specter to frenzy. The deaths were the specter’s doing—not ours.”

Had they left the cursed post alone, it would have faded into obscurity. Instead, relentless bickering in the comments had stoked the specter into a rampage. The true culprit lay among them—though dead, beyond blame now.

Yet those who had stumbled into the mess, who had risked their lives, were being maligned instead.

“There are also those claiming the dungeon spawned because we were inside from the start. And the specter escaped. We cannot claim to be blameless.”

“What kind of logic is that? Since when is failing to catch a ghost a crime?”

Wonhyo shook his head, ears flapping with the motion.

Cheongmun tilted his head slightly.

“Regardless—do you know of any certain way to eradicate the escaped specter?”

“Uh…”

Wonhyo scrunched his nose, weighing his words.

“Technically… yes. There’s a way.”

“Then it exists.”

“Well, but… it’s troublesome. And costly.”

“Costly?”

The pup nodded solemnly.

“If I can undo this curse—no, this penalty—then a method might open up.”

Cheongmun drove in silence, waiting.

“The penalty came from failing a job-skill quest, right? Normally, job quests don’t have deadlines, only objectives, so failure’s rare. But I failed.”

He blew a soft snort, continuing.

“Because I failed, my skill rank is locked. When I first took the quest, there were so many dances I could have learned. Some would’ve been perfect for this.”

One of his skills, Baekhui-Gamu—the Dance of a Hundred Plays—included unique dances at each rank.

Though his mother and sister had taught him traditional dances since childhood, and those could drive away or soothe spirits, they were not recognized as system skills.

Without the rank, he could not use them.

“If the rank hadn’t been locked, I would’ve ended it today.”

“What rank was it before the lock?”

“Uh… A-rank.”

Wonhyo flicked open his status window and checked again. He still found it strange how fast it had risen, but traveling the country, dancing wherever needed, had shot it up quickly.

Talismans, too—the same. He could hardly abandon his livelihood for the system’s pacing.

“I was going to report it properly.”

He offered the excuse almost defensively. Days filled with prayers, nights awake at shrines, made it hard to appear at the registry on time. But he would have done it within the deadline.

…Except the deadline had changed to one month.

“I see.”

Cheongmun’s profile was unreadable.

Wonhyo bobbed his head vigorously, ears flapping, as if to insist on his sincerity.

“Anyway, if I clear the job quest, the lock will break. Then we’ll have a real chance at catching it. Even if not, lifting the penalty alone might be enough.”

The truth was clear to him: this specter was not like the usual restless spirits. From its very origin, it was different. Only a skill could truly sever it.

That was why, even in the dungeon, he had relied more on talismans and dance than raw divine power.

And it had worked—far better.