Chapter 16
Suho said that with an elegant smile.
He was definitely smiling—so why was Mo-rae breaking out in a cold sweat? She rubbed her arm, trying to smooth away the goosebumps.
“I just… didn’t want to bother you. You don’t like that kind of thing.”
“What kind of thing do I not like?”
“Fans. You were stalked by a sasaeng fan when you were 19. After that, in every interview, you said people who approach you pretending to be fans were disgusting.”
“Ah.”
He let out a dull sound, as if the memory had finally returned.
“You remember all that?”
“Well… I’m a fan.”
She had hunted down every single one of Gyeon Suho’s interviews, rewatched them in her spare time, and even saved them separately. But that, she decided, would stay a secret.
“If I’m not disgusting, then don’t avoid me.”
He spoke firmly, then asked with casual warmth:
“By the way, why are you gathering those? No one buys that kind of stuff.”
“I’m not trying to sell it. I want to try planting it in my garden.”
Mo-rae cautiously observed Suho, who now seemed to be in a good mood again.
‘Is he… a bit emotionally volatile?’
Cute.
Up to now, she’d only seen him cold, indifferent, or openly foul-tempered. But he had a cute side, too.
Come to think of it, Suho didn’t even get mad when she grabbed his wrist without warning.
Even when she said she was a fan, he hadn’t looked disgusted.
He really wasn’t the monster the world made him out to be. He just had rough speech and no pretense, which made people misunderstand.
‘If he just softened his tone a little, people would love him…’
While she continued collecting, hiding her sympathy, her stomach started to growl.
When she checked her device, the alarm said there were about three hours left.
Time flowed differently inside the dungeon, so she hadn’t noticed, but it was clearly past lunchtime.
Mo-rae settled on a large rock and took out her lunch.
Homemade inari sushi and cherry tomatoes harvested from her garden were neatly arranged.
She pulled out a wet wipe from the front pocket of her bag and carefully cleaned her hands.
As she tucked the used wipe into her bag and took out her chopsticks, she felt his eyes glued to her hands. Unable to bear it, she asked,
“Would… you like to eat with me?”
She had expected an instant rejection, but Suho sat down on the rock.
As his scent swept toward her, Mo-rae involuntarily held her breath. Her heart, which had just calmed, began pounding at full speed.
“Here, chopsticks.”
Suho just stared at the chopsticks she offered.
It made sense. He never ate food if he didn’t know where it came from. Too many fans had sent weirdly tainted “gifts.”
Knowing this all too well, Mo-rae quickly added,
“Don’t eat the inari sushi. Try the cherry tomatoes instead. I grew them myself.”
“In your garden?”
“It’s not a real garden. Just a Styrofoam box filled with soil. I didn’t even use fertilizer—just water.”
Suho looked at the tomatoes for a moment, then picked one up and popped it in his mouth.
Though his expression didn’t change, he must not have found it bad—he reached for another.
Suppressing a smile, Mo-rae began eating her inari sushi. Even though she’d rushed it this morning, it tasted surprisingly decent.
“When did you start liking me?”
“Cough!”
“Are you okay?”
After a bout of coughing and downing some water, her face turned crimson. She mumbled, barely audible.
“Not that long…”
“A year? Two?”
“Twelve… years.”
“Twelve?”
“Yes…”
Suho crossed his long legs and rested his chin on his hand. His usually cold and imposing eyes now held the faintest warmth.
“Twelve years ago… that was before I was even on TV much. How’d you come to like me?”
“You saved me.”
“I did?”
He replied indifferently. Unsurprisingly, he showed no sign of remembering.
Of course. To him, saving someone’s life probably wasn’t even a noteworthy event.
‘It was special to me, though.’
What’s a treasure to one person may be worthless to another. Mo-rae wasn’t disappointed that he didn’t remember.
“You like me that much, but don’t want to tame me?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to… I just… I’m sorry.”
“Hmmm.”
He made a curious sound and tapped his knee with his fingertips.
Mo-rae fidgeted, then drank the rest of her water. She packed up her half-eaten lunch and stood from the rock.
She could feel him staring. Was this what prey felt like in front of its predator? Her stomach felt scorched.
“What are you going to do with the mandrake?”
Suho changed the subject.
Finally gave up, huh? Mo-rae let out a small sigh of relief.
“I’ll sell it at the item shop.”
“They take a hefty commission.”
There were two ways to sell dungeon materials: to the item shop or directly to an individual.
The first method was convenient and guaranteed a sale, but with a 40% commission.
The second method had no fees, but finding an alchemy-type awakened buyer was hard, and it wasn’t guaranteed the item could be sold at all.
“Want me to introduce you to someone?”
“To what?”
“An alchemist.”
“Oh, no! You don’t have to go that far to help me.”
“He’s desperate to buy a mandrake. Really not interested?”
“……”
If he was that desperate, couldn’t she sell it for more than the market price?
Even at a conservative 10 million won, 40% was four million.
That was enough to change her rooftop rental to a semi-lease deposit apartment.
“Then… I’ll accept, as long as it’s not too much trouble for you, Hunter Gyeon Suho.”
Suho nodded and held out his phone.
“Give me your number.”
“M-My phone number?”
“I can’t introduce someone if I don’t have your contact info.”
“Oh!”
Mo-rae quickly entered her number into his phone. Just as she was about to hand it back, she felt a faint vibration from below.
“Huh?”
Did she imagine it?
She instinctively looked down—just as the ground gave way beneath her.
There was no time to scream. Mo-rae plummeted into a dark hole with no visible bottom.
Wind howled wildly around her. Her hair flew in all directions, her clothes whipped violently.
“Urgh!”
Her body suddenly jerked to a stop mid-air.
The pain that tore through her limbs made her groan. She waited for the agony to subside before cautiously opening her eyes.
A net-like structure had caught her halfway down the hole. Thankfully, that had broken her fall.
The bottom was still nowhere in sight. Was it too dark, or was it just that deep?
She slowly tried to move.
She didn’t seem to be seriously injured, but her body was heavy—sticky strands clung to her arms and legs.
“What is this…?”
When she opened her hand, a viscous liquid stretched into white threads. As she stared at it, a memory flashed through her mind.
The strategy video she’d watched on the bus.
The named monster at the end of that video—it had been a spider.
“……”
The ‘net’ now looked unmistakably like spiderwebs. She swallowed hard.
No way. This dungeon’s already been cleared. These are just leftover webs. That’s all.
“No way…”
But as if mocking her denial, eight glowing red eyes appeared in the darkness.
The named boss in the video had eight eyes too.
Mo-rae bit her lip to hold in a scream. But this was no time to panic. She acted on instinct—she tried taming.
“Stop.”
Her pulse reached out toward the spider—but dispersed, powerless. She couldn’t read its wavelength.
Taming was always harder with hostile targets.
In such cases, you had to make physical contact to bring their wavelength into your body—but touching a creature like that?
She’d be chewed from the head down before her fingers even grazed it.
“Stop! Please stop!”
She poured out pulse after pulse, but the spider wasn’t affected.
Using her power so recklessly made her dizzy. As she gasped for breath, the silk from the spider’s abdomen shot out and tightly wrapped around her.
“No—!”
