Chapter 72

Of course, exchanging names was a common and convenient way to socialize.

"But, well... how should I put it... You know that feeling when something completely nonhuman is pretending to be human?"

"Monsters often attempt mimicry to lure humans in."

"In the case of the Jangsan Tiger, a monster that still has not been subjugated, it imitates human voices."

"Among monsters overseas, there are also individuals that wear human skins or learn human language."

At the researcher's words, the Hunter shook her head.

"It wasn't that crude."

"I told you earlier, didn't I?"

"Even though it was obvious that he wasn't human at all, deep down, I was convinced he was human."

"Yes, you did say that."

"It's in a similar vein to that."

The Hunter explained with an awkward look that said, How am I supposed to make you understand this?

"Black Cloak was definitely not human."

"But there was nothing extraneous about the way he acted like a human."

"In the case of the monsters you just gave as examples, that one fragment of them might seem perfect... but they don't look like perfect humans, do they?"

"..."

"By contrast, Black Cloak didn't have that kind of alienness."

"The sense of wrongness was strong, but he was certainly a perfect human."

"It was..."

"A perfect human?"

The researcher stared straight at the Hunter.

"Humans cannot be perfect."

"That's the problem."

The Hunter nodded.

"He was too perfect."

Black Cloak's behavior that day certainly had nothing alien enough to say he was human, but the sense of wrongness was considerable.

"As if he hadn't been human when he was born, but became human afterward..."

"That is not a concrete description."

"They call it a Hunter's intuition."

"Should I say it felt off?"

"It's not like there was any clear evidence, but it was like, wow, this is really strange."

"I can't just let this pass... I think I had that kind of instinct."

The Hunter gave a hollow laugh.

"Though honestly, it would be strange to call it an instinct when anyone could tell he wasn't human."

No matter the age or gender, if someone were thrown in front of him, they would think, Huh, that thing isn't human, so it should not have been defined as something as vague as instinct.

He was exceedingly polite.

His voice, which seeped into the ear as though teaching someone, seemed to whisper through the brain rather than the mouth, and that voice was so still it was embarrassing even to call it "sound."

He was like a peaceful grave.

"I just meant that the sensation I felt was that contradictory and ambiguous."

"It's too hard to explain concretely."

"You'd probably understand what I mean if you saw Black Cloak for yourself."

"Hmm..."

The researcher asked, sounding puzzled.

"You are surprisingly favorable toward Black Cloak?"

"... Pardon?"

"I am?"

"Was I?"

"You do not seem aware of it, but what you just said did not feel like 'you should suffer through it too.'"

"It felt much more like 'I want to introduce him to you too.'"

"Am I mistaken?"

"..."

After hesitating for a long time, the Hunter spoke with difficulty.

"... I think I probably am favorable toward him."

"This is a sincere question, not a criticism, so you do not need to worry."

"I am simply curious how you came to feel that kind of favor toward an obvious object of fear."

"Ah... this is so hard..."

After letting out a sigh, the Hunter continued.

"... I don't know whether putting it this way will be enough of an answer, but I think it was because the other party was extremely kind to us."

"A monster, to humans?"

"Didn't I write that in the report?"

"I understand how it behaved, but that alone does not help me understand."

"Can you explain?"

"..."

After thinking it over, the Hunter nodded.

"It would be best to start from when we first met."

She recalled what had happened in the "country of the deep sea."

That black, enormous cloak.

* * *

"Team leader."

It was when they had fled from the humanoid monster Iser and the monsters he had brought with him.

"There are no other monsters nearby."

"Are you sure?"

"What about traps?"

"There aren't any of those either."

"We all checked together, so I'm sure."

"This is a little strange..."

Hunter Jeong Da-woon, the team leader, knew there was something strange about the situation.

"It isn't as though the dungeon master doesn't know our location, so it makes no sense that only this area has no monsters."

"It's not like this place is a safe zone."

"At a glance, it obviously isn't..."

A safe zone referred to, exactly as the name implied, a "safe area" that existed in some dungeons.

Sometimes, when there were multiple dungeon masters, monsters would avoid the area to keep from clashing with the opposing individual, and such zones would come into being.

'There are exceptions where a safe zone is left sitting alone even though it isn't a matter of a territorial dispute, but I can't say this has that kind of atmosphere either.'

On top of that, there was objective evidence as well.

"There are too many traces of monsters passing through for this to be a safe zone."

"So monsters were originally swarming this place, and then they suddenly disappeared?"

It was not a good sign.

"In that case, the only possibility is that an even stronger monster barged in..."

Thinking that way, the reaction of Iser, whom they had just confronted, also seemed strange somehow.

"He seemed confused because something had gone wrong with the dungeon."

"Yes, considering that the air throughout the entire dungeon shook, something probably did happen."

"This dungeon seems closely connected to its master."

"If a humanoid monster, of all things, was shaken, it would only make sense if the monster was far stronger than him."

"But if that's the case..."

"... Then we wouldn't be safe either."

"Ah, we're properly screwed."

They had been so busy fleeing in a panic that they seemed not to have realized this place was dangerous.

"We walked right into the tiger's den with our own feet."

The place where a monster strong enough to shake the humanoid monster Iser had barged in was probably the very space they were in.

"At the very least, it has to be nearby."

"... Everything was so chaotic..."

"Yeah, if we hadn't come here anyway, we would have died."

It was not that they had failed to think something was strange on the way here, but they had had to come here.

With their bodies worn down to the worst condition, they would not have been able to take out the other monsters nearby and succeed in clearing the dungeon.

"... Phew..."

Jeong Da-woon forced herself to smile.

"Well, still, it might be a monster we can talk to."

"That's true too."

Even though they knew there was almost no chance of that, the Hunters chuckled among themselves.

They had realized long ago that they might die here, and because of that, they had already prepared themselves mentally in advance.

"Who knows?"

"Maybe if we beg really nicely, it'll spare us."

Joking like that, the Hunters rested.

"Hey, hey, rest."

"Once we get out of here, it'll be war again anyway."

"You're right... If we don't rest now, when else will we?"

"Ughhh, my legs... Does anyone have a potion?"

Thanks to that, they were able to take some time to regroup, but as time passed, their anxiety grew.

"... Why aren't the monsters coming here?"

"... How strong of a monster showed up that they'd turn down a meal already laid out for them...?"

The times when monsters attacked the most were, as expected, when Hunters were half-forced to regroup.

Hunters who were nearly at their limit, with their equipment weakened as well, made excellent snacks for monsters.

"And yet they still aren't coming at all?"

Even the humanoid monster they had been facing had grown flustered and withdrawn.

They could not tell what on earth had happened in this dungeon.

"We shouldn't just sit still like this."

"But if we move rashly, we might upset both monsters at the same time."

"That doesn't mean staying here is fine either."

"You're right, but..."

"..."

"... Ah."

Hunter Jeong Da-woon's gaze, as she was soothing her team member, reached somewhere.

"Team leader?"

"Why..."

"..."

"..."

Something pitch-black entered the Hunters' field of vision.

"A p-person?"

"Is it a survivor?"

"No, that's..."

It was a man draped in a black cloak.

"Hello."

"..."

"I am a portrait."

"... Uh..."

"What are your names?"

"Uh, uh..."

"I am curious about your names."

That was their first meeting with Black Cloak.

"Would you talk with me?"

* * *

"..."

The researcher shrugged.

"From what you have told me, I do not feel any favor at all."

"That's true."

"To begin with, the fact that something nonhuman was asking for human names was frightening in itself."

"It was the same for me and my teammates."

"..."

"But maybe we felt a little relieved by the fact that he seemed capable of conversation."

Unlike Iser, whose will to tear humans to death could be felt as vividly as color, Black Cloak, who approached silently and asked to talk, did not give off even the slightest hostility.

"If you ask whether his existence itself wasn't frightening, then no, absolutely not..."

Even so, she had felt relieved.

"... Should I say it felt as though we were receiving the goodwill of something... extremely high in standing?"

"... By extremely high in standing, do you mean a god?"

"If so, it becomes difficult to call it a monster."

"Though rare, there are gods who visit dungeons in forms humans can perceive, so please answer with that in mind."

"No, I know what gods are."

"They are close to fate or nature that possesses will."

"But speaking as a follower of the sun myself, that was absolutely not a god."

"I did feel divinity, but he wasn't one."

If anything, he might have been an existence higher than that.

"I felt the energy of the sun from him."

"It was truly warm."

"But it was as cold as a corpse."

"I definitely felt the energy of death as well."

"But it wasn't rough, and all of it was merely an outer shell..."

"No, no, rather than something... something like that, it was just..."

"..."

"... Rank or authority seemed completely useless before Black Cloak."

"We call gods fate and nature with will, but he didn't even seem to have will."

"He thinks and moves... but can that be called will?"

"What do you mean?"

"He seemed simply to exist."

There seemed to be no intent to save someone, nor any intent to harm someone.

No will to be upright, nor any intent to be greedy.

But it was definitely thinking, and it could converse.

"..."

"..."

"... I don't know how to explain this either."

Birth and death.

Living things and nonliving things.

A tremendous level and presence so vast that trying to find "will" in the way he thought and acted felt impure in itself.

A sensation that could not possibly be explained from a human point of view, yet was terribly clear.

"And also, his eyes..."

Ah, that was...

"... That was..."

"... What was it?"

"..."

She answered only after a long while.

"It felt like he could become anything."

She did not know how immense and vast a thing was contained in those small eyes.

It could not be expressed with a trite word like universe.

Between that black and blue endless space, bonds, nature, and fate, like densely scattered stars, moved as though they possessed will, only to grow still like mere inanimate objects.

How could a person express that?

They could not.

Nor should they.

"At least, I can't."

A realm humans should not see.

"He seemed to be that itself."

"..."

"So I don't think... you could call that a god, probably."

He was closer to a structure than that.

"... Or a system?"

"Or maybe... no, I'm not sure."

"... I see."

The researcher nodded.

"But in the end, you returned alive thanks to his goodwill."

"We did."

"He didn't seem to know we were afraid, but he was still quite gentlemanly."

"I understand, since it must have been difficult for something nonhuman to notice human emotions."

"Black Cloak introduced himself as a portrait..."

"I thought that might have been the introduction that suited him best."

A portrait that was a person, but not a person; that could be real or a delusion; that might contain someone's death or life.

Black Cloak's introduction had been very fitting.

"Mm, and..."

"And?"

"He also used that method."

They returned alive through a painting.

* * *

Black Cloak asked the Hunters, who had calmed down at least a little.

"Then you must want to leave."

"Is that not so?"

"W-well, of course..."

"I will help you."

He brought a frame from somewhere and held it up for the Hunters to see.

"..."

"Do you know this place?"

It was a landscape painting that seemed to depict an alley deep within a city.

It probably looked like a slum, but none of the Hunters present knew the complex structure of the slums, which were tangled like an ant nest.

"..."

"Do you know this place?"

"Ah, no."

"I'm sorry."

Perhaps he disliked it if they did not answer in time, because when he asked twice in the exact same tone, she could not bear not to answer.

Jeong Da-woon sent the others a look asking, Do you know it?, but they shook their heads.

She was nervous.

Only if they solved this unidentified riddle would they be able to escape alive.

No, even if that was not it, for some reason Jeong Da-woon wanted to meet the expectation shown by the being before her eyes.

She wanted to find favor in his eyes.

"..."

And because of that, she could not lie.

Amid awe and fear so great that she could not dare even imagine doing such a thing, Jeong Da-woon shook her head.

"... I'm sorry, but we... don't really know."

"You do not need to be sorry."

It was a stable voice from which no emotion could be felt, but which did not feel cold either.

Black Cloak swept his pale, long hand over the frame.

Then the landscape painting changed.

"Do you know this place?"

"Ah."

She knew this painting for certain.

"Yes, yes, I know it."

"That... Collector guild station... the aboveground rail, yes, it's the aboveground rail station."

"That is correct."

"Haa..."

Jeong Da-woon felt greatly relieved.

Although his hand was visible, the other party, whose whole body was hidden by the black cloak and who was nothing but shadow, did not even feel as if he had substance.

"Th-then... will you send us there?"

"You do not need to be afraid."

"..."

"Yes, I will help you."

The black cloak that seemed to embody a funeral, the thing that resembled a grim reaper, stroked the painting.

"May I paint you?"

Black Cloak melted the Hunters down into paint and painted them into the landscape as well.

"..."

"... Uh..."

"... No way..."

When they opened their eyes, they were at the aboveground rail station.

It was an abrupt return to life.

* * *

"..."

"..."

"Does that answer your question?"

"... Yes, for now."

The researcher nodded.

"I will report this to the Association."

It was the moment Black Cloak was officially registered in the world.