CHAPTER 75: STAY AWAY FROM ME

"Areum...?"

Hesitant to take a single step more, Cheon Areum fretfully looked around to see if anything was getting a little too close to him for comfort.

"It’s quite peaceful here. Do you think these harmless beings are the monsters?"

Lee Nari strolled over to a gnarled tree, her expression oddly serene as she reached out to gently pet a tarantula nearly the size of her face. The massive spider crept slowly along the bark with its hairy legs. Cheon Areum stood frozen a few feet away, his face twisted in horror.

"That’s because these beings are not harmless at all! Look at them! You can’t even tell what they might do next!"

Motivationally speaking, as if the world was already too much to handle, he suddenly caught sight of something flying straight at him from the corner of his eye. He instinctively turned towards Yoon Seoyul, wanting to hide in his arms, but then crouched down instead, throwing his own arms over his head for protection.

These fucking things always want to come close for no reason!

"Areum, that was a butterfly...."

"...."

"Cheon Areum, are you—scared of bugs?"

"Who wouldn’t be, unless they were a psycho?!"

Carefully lifting his head, Cheon Areum yelled urgently, but then he involuntarily saw something even worse than a butterfly. Not caring about anything else, he quickly grabbed Yoon Seoyul’s clothes and climbed up on him, wrapping his legs around his waist and arms around his neck. He hid his face in the shoulder.

"That’s a cockroach, right?....."

He asked in a low voice, which only Yoon Seoyul heard. Cheon Areum felt hands patting his back as Yoon Seoyul began to walk in that direction.

"Stop!!"

"Why are you walking in the same direction??"

Cheon Areum tightly held the upper body while shouting as Yoon Seoyul finally came to a screech.

"Areum, I need to get close to them to kill them."

Yoon Seoyul spoke helplessly while patting his head as Cheon Areum pointed at Lee Nari standing behind him.

"You kill them! Degenerate all of this! Now!"

Balancing between a worried and cheerful expression, Lee Nari smiled, and a vein popped on her head as she spoke.

"Cheon Areum, do you see how big this jungle is? The most I can do is degenerate the ones crawling on the ground. But what about the ones flying? You can’t expect me to run after each mosquito and degenerate them separately. We’ll be here for ages!"

Lee Nari closed the distance, her face being a hand’s length away.

"Why don’t you use your skill? Mind corruption. Use that to kill everyone like you always do."

"Areum, you don’t have to talk with her."

Cheon Areum stared at Lee Nari’s fake smiling face, wanting to use that same skill on her to make her actually kill every single bug individually. But that thought immediately dropped.

"That’s equivalent to touching them with my bare hands."

He didn’t know what kind of reputation he had, but touching millions of bugs with his energy—that kind of trick wasn’t in his books. The most he could do was use it to build a safety shelter for himself. The only safe place in the entire dungeon right now was Yoon Seoyul, who he was clutching onto for dear life.

"Areum, get down. I need to move."

And that safe place was instantly gone as Cheon Areum was abandoned pitifully by the river. Yoon Seoyul and Lee Nari gauged the area while bickering, and after coming to an agreement, they shook hands like two monarchs who would definitely betray each other one day. This was still a development because Yoon Seoyul wouldn’t even talk to Lee Nari in the book, but now he would at least give her a crooked answer.

Cheon Areum didn’t know what they had planned, so he found himself a neat large rock near the river, infected by mosquitoes. But they weren’t scary—just annoying. Though to kill them, he would have to touch unwanted beings too. That would be too precarious. He took a shaky seat on the flat rock as he watched on with a deep frown, not knowing when he’d be attacked with no way out.

Lee Nari placed her hand, with a pink glow, on the ground, degenerating the bugs crawling on it. As she cleared the area, Yoon Seoyul stepped forward, rolling his sleeve up to the elbow. He extended his arm toward Cheon Areum.

"Bite me."

"You want to use blood rage?"

Yoon Seoyul nodded slightly, giving Cheon Areum the green light as he snatched the arm and sunk his teeth into the skin without any mercy, drawing blood instantly. As always, Yoon Seoyul didn’t even flinch. He calmly pulled away and returned to the patch Lee Nari had cleared, unfazed. There, Yoon Seoyul moved to the large trees forming a square around the area. He pressed his hands against their trunks and, with little more than a firm push, sent them toppling one by one. The trees fell in precise formation, collapsing with unnatural order.

Cheon Areum let out a long yawn, lazily covering his mouth with one hand. But the moment a strange buzzing filled the air from his right, his eyes naturally drifted toward the source.

A swarm of dragonflies—large, glinting, and fast—was darting straight toward him.

His expression shifted in an instant. The blood drained from his face as he came out of his shock, and a sharp, panicked scream tore from his throat.

"Ahhh!!!! Yoon Seoyul!!"

"Yoon Seoyul!! Come here!!"

Fiddling nervously with the edge of the rock beneath him, Cheon Areum’s fingers trembled as the buzzing grew louder, closer, more menacing. In a panic, his voice cracked as he called out for even Lee Nari in desperate times.

"Lee Nari, come and catch them!! I’ll give you whatever you want if you save me!!"

But the swarm of dragonflies was faster than anyone else—buzzing closer, their wings shimmering sinisterly. Just as they were about to brush against his face, Cheon Areum made a split-second decision. Without hesitation, he leaned back and let himself fall—willingly—into the cold river behind him.

*SPLASH*