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The Mangja Seongnyeo Shia hated being alone.
She might be the strongest being in this world as an individual entity, but what she feared the most were silence, solitude, and loneliness.
Having lived 21 years as a human and 64 years as a Mangja Seongnyeo, Shia often lamented that she was still just a child who despised being alone.
She had originally planned to come to the mutation raid dungeon with the Icicle Nine, Yeonhwa.
Shia’s personal transport drone wasn’t filled with food, but rather stuffed to the brim with various sauces, rice, seasonings, salt, and sugar.
‘What kind of food would make Yeonhwa spread nice rumors?’
Although she had never spoken to Yeonhwa properly, Shia was grateful in many ways to her.
A young man who had achieved nothing in 2024 ended up alone without a family in 2088, so you can imagine how lost he felt!
Yeonhwa had been like family, helping her in both material and immaterial ways.
In terms of repaying her gratitude, Yeonhwa’s family was renowned even in Korea, being one of the top nobility.
And as a genius who was an A-grade hunter, Yeonhwa wouldn’t need to become a bodyguard or anything.
If this world frequently experienced disasters like the Great Rift, it might have been a different story, but for now, the order of the hunter era was established, and Shia’s power was overflowing.
So, all Shia could offer was to catch ingredients that couldn’t be tasted anywhere else and cook them for Yeonhwa.
Of course, Yeonhwa would insist it wasn’t necessary, but Shia, despite her appearance, had lived as a saint for over 60 years.
She might not always live by self-sacrifice, but a basic sense of goodness and ethics had deeply settled in her.
‘This time, I’ll make good food.’
I refuse to repeat the disgusting fishy disaster of cooking orc pork belly in butter like last time.
To serve delicious meals to Yeonhwa, Shia meticulously prepared this time.
She had studied how to prepare fried dishes and all-round stir-fry sauces.
She even spent all night excitedly memorizing recipes since she thought she could also make soup or broth-based dishes.
The tasty dungeon cabbage she obtained from Yeonseo was carefully preserved as fresh, glorious ingredients; she had made a quick salad to accompany the meal with just the right amount of sauces and sesame oil.
All she needed now was for Yeonhwa to arrive.
No monster could scare her.
She would make everything taste great.
Even if a god appeared, she would turn it into divine stew.
Then, the day before they were to start the dungeon raid, Shia received the unfortunate news that Yeonhwa couldn’t join her due to issues with the remnants of the Goblin Rangers.
Outwardly, of course, she didn’t show any signs of disappointment.
With a lifespan of 85 years, would she really sulk over something like this?
Still, this 85-year-old Mangja Seongnyeo felt quite a considerable disappointment deep in her heart.
‘Are the remnants of the Goblin Rangers more precious than me…?’
She knew that Yeonhwa wouldn’t think like that.
Yeonhwa was merely making the right choice as a hunter to prevent innocent and helpless people from being harmed by the Goblin Rangers’ invasion.
But Shia felt anxious.
There wouldn’t be anyone she knew, and she was supposed to go with 19 other hunters; would there even be someone who could eat with her?
‘Hmm, it’s not easy…’
And of course, Shia was not particularly skilled at making friends.
While it was possible for her to attract people with the unique aura of a saint, creating relationships deep enough to cook and share monster-soup with someone in such a short time would be quite a challenge.
In reality, until Menelapie introduced people to her, Shia rarely approached anyone first.
Even after returning, that hadn’t changed.
‘But… if Yeonhwa can’t go, maybe I can take someone else instead?’
Fortunately, Shia had a good number of connections.
There was also Yeonseo.
And then there was Cheon Ah-Young, an A-grade hunter who had teamed up with her to make wyvern egg stew in the Kurtala Mountains.
And of course, there was Choi Bomi Director. If necessary, even the lady in front of the stew restaurant by her house could count.
Oh! The owner of the meat restaurant near Hapjeong Station, too; she recognized his face, even if she didn’t know his name.
Yes, Shia definitely had a fair amount of relationships.
But how many among them could join her in this raid dungeon?
Shia started racking her brain again.
She wanted anyone to go with her.
She hated being alone.
She hated eating alone even more.
However, since it was a private raid dungeon and the transmissions from the drone camera didn’t go through, she couldn’t even turn on the broadcast to enjoy a meal with the viewers.
‘Agh…!’
An excellent thought struck her. Shia immediately sprang to her feet and headed for the “Rotten Mountain” dungeon, where she had cooked the fried Centipede Dragon recently.
○○○○○
Lucky Bladed Centipede.
Despite their inability to communicate, the astute centipede quickly submitted and surrendered upon seeing Shia.
When it first met Shia, it was about 10 meters long, but it had evolved since devouring the remains of the Centipede Dragon that Shia had left behind.
Normally, a Bladed Centipede eating the remains of the Centipede Dragon would not have meant much.
It would simply fill its belly.
It would manage without needing to eat for a longer time.
Nutrients were plentiful.
That would be the extent of its understanding.
But the Lucky Bladed Centipede consumed the remains of the Centipede Dragon that had been touched by the “Mangja Seongnyeo.”
Not just any fleeting touch.
Shia’s passion, eyes, and hands had come into contact for a long time to create excellent fried dishes.
The saint’s touch was akin to bestowing blessings and baptisms.
If Shia had been just a ‘saint’ instead of a Mangja Seongnyeo, monsters consuming the blessed meat might have felt pain or even died.
Monsters are evil, after all.
Being malevolent and monstrous, it would be natural for them to suffer under the saint’s power.
But Shia was a Mangja Seongnyeo.
Her blessings as someone stuck between the living and the dead delivered equal blessings to the living, the evil, and the deceased.
As a result, the Lucky Bladed Centipede experienced ‘spiritual consumption’ blessed by her.
Spirituality is a philosophical concept related to the mental world, and it can also refer to deities.
By consuming the flesh of the Centipede Dragon blessed by Shia, the Lucky Bladed Centipede managed to devour and claim the spirituality, a higher existence than itself.
Other Bladed Centipedes would not have obtained the same results from eating the remains of the Centipede Dragon.
This only happened because Shia had permitted it to consume the remains.
Thus, the Lucky Bladed Centipede underwent a fundamental evolution, contrary to what Shia had intended.
Of course, aside from its size getting a bit larger, there were no apparent changes.
Just a single act of spiritual consumption wouldn’t have been enough to evolve a primitive B-grade monster like the Bladed Centipede into an intelligent being like a human or demi-human.
But that was enough.
The Lucky Bladed Centipede…
“Here, finish your meal.”
[..ki..yek…]*
Swallowed whole by Shia’s tentacle and then spat out, the Bladed Centipede lay sprawled on the ground, seemingly exhausted.
Shia wasn’t a monster tamer.
As she wasn’t a monster tamer, it was illegal to carelessly bring a monster out of the dungeon.
However… if it was illegal, then she could pay the fine later.
Feeling lonely eating alone, Shia had kidnapped the Lucky Bladed Centipede from the Rotten Mountain and headed for the raid dungeon.
Were there any problems in that process?
Probably not.
When the Bladed Centipede panicked and resisted as Shia’s tentacle attempted to swallow it whole, this pitiful malicious creature was merely a toy in the hands of the Mangja Seongnyeo.
Is this monster going to eat me after all?
Am I going to die now?
I don’t want to die.
Having evolved to a certain degree, the Lucky Bladed Centipede felt fear and sadness towards death as it tried to escape from Shia, but once swallowed by a tentacle, it could no longer find what it presumed to be the exit.
An endless prison of flesh.
Suffocation.
Slimy saliva and dampness.
Even scratching frantically with its claws and teeth to escape wouldn’t cause a single scratch.
The Lucky Bladed Centipede suddenly had a question.
If that monster, if this tentacle really wanted to chew and swallow it whole, it could have just done so.
But after swallowing it, the tentacle did nothing.
Not even attempting to digest or chew. Why so?
Before long, the Lucky Bladed Centipede felt one side of the tentacle delightful open up, letting it meet the fresh outside air again.
As Shia’s tentacle parted, the Lucky Bladed Centipede darted towards the flowing outside wind and began tearing into the bizarre, emaciated human shape laid out before it.
Whether it was human or monster didn’t matter; to the hungry Lucky Bladed Centipede, it was just meat that could be consumed.
“Good, you’re eating well.”
And so, Shia set off for the raid dungeon banquet with the Lucky Bladed Centipede to dine with her.
The place was filled with only dark emptiness, but her steps were light. The grotesque appearance of the humanoid monsters was indeed unsettling, but after all, they were monsters with malice.
At first, she worried about whether she could taste the human meat, but they smelled nothing like humans.
If she were to compare the taste of the meat to something… it felt like a mix between alligator and beef.
After enjoying a good meal with the centipede for a while, Shia suddenly stopped.
One shouldn’t overeat.
If you were to suddenly ask why she was saying this, it was because overeating didn’t exist in the concept of the Mangja Seongnyeo Isia.
“Ugh, I’m full. So bloated…”
Have you ever stuffed chicken in your mouth late at night when your stomach wasn’t digesting well?
Even if you normally had a fantastic appetite to devour a whole one, you’d feel a nauseating sensation that made you feel as if you were getting fat right then as your appetite swiftly dropped.
That was how Shia felt at this moment.
“Ugh, I ate too much…”
After living over 60 years as a Mangja Seongnyeo, this was her first experience feeling so bloated.
It was hardly a pleasant sensation.
It felt as if everything inside hadn’t digested yet and was still swirling around with solid forms.
She had eaten too eagerly.
After coming to this world, she hadn’t eaten anything malicious.
In fact, from her very first day in this place, she devoured the Black Minotaur’s booming ribs until she felt stuffed. She feasted on the huge Centipede Dragon and the wyvern egg stew until she got tired of it.
And then this place was a party of malice.
Just breathing felt like filling her lungs with malice. The strange humanoid creatures that only appeared to be C-grade monsters had enough malice packed within to rival that of a dungeon boss.
Having devoured dozens, or perhaps even hundreds, of them, it was no wonder she felt bloated.
It’s only natural to get sick of eating 100 chickens at once.
She needed something refreshing, like cool broth or something to settle her stomach.
Broth… broth…
Beef bone soup… oh, that’s delicious…
Then Shia noticed that all the monsters in this place were grotesquely bloated, covered not in thick flesh but in abnormally enlarged and heinous bones.
…slurp…
Alright.
Menu decided…
She would have to make it after defeating the dungeon boss.
◆◆◆◆◆◆
The hunters gathered their gear and weapons, preparing to exit the collapsing Yeongwoljung.
It was Shia.
No, more accurately, it was the Lucky Bladed Centipede that Shia brought with her that had devoured every last stronghold laid down by the dungeon boss just before the darkness-filled raid dungeon began to collapse.
However, due to the dungeon’s unusual nature and massive size, the speed of its collapse was unbelievably slow.
“This pace means it’ll take all day to fully collapse…”
“Let’s set a watch for the time being. We’ll camp here for tonight.”
“Are the dungeon mobs still around?”
“Yeah, they are.”
Considering that it would take a while for the dungeon to completely collapse, hunting down would likely consume at least a whole day, so the hunters set up a campfire and tents to prepare for sleep.
Even with the dungeon boss dead, the bizarre humanoid monsters remained. Still, for an A-grade hunter, simply assigning two people to guard duty would be manageable.
“Ah! Did someone start the campfire?”
At that moment, Shia popped up, stretching her tired shoulders as she passed between the hunters.
Having fallen into the dam and gotten completely soaked, she wasn’t in her white saint’s robe. Instead, she wore casual clothes one could find on the street.
“Hehe, feels warm…”
“…………”
gulp…
Of course, the hunters were not in a good mood.
It wasn’t that they disliked Shia.
It was the frustration and self-reproach they felt towards themselves.
They had clearly realized that they were of no help in this raid dungeon.
Just yesterday, they had treated the temporarily certified hunter Shia as an irrelevant burden, but it was Shia all alone who defeated the dungeon boss and saved the hunters who faced annihilation, so it was only natural to feel self-conscious.
However, even if that was all, the hunters wouldn’t feel this embarrassed.
Shia was exceptional.
They had dismissed her due to the temporary hunter certification, but now they realized she was a powerhouse.
She’s strong. Impressive.
How awkward.
That was probably the impression they were left with.
Fuck… I’m so embarrassed…
Haa…
I want to die…
Ugh, I’m so sorry…
But first, the hunters remembered their own actions.
They had not only misjudged the dungeon boss and attacked Shia as if she were a mere burden but also openly cursed her to die and attacked her.
A few hunters even threw evasive questions at her, asking why she hadn’t revealed that she was Shia earlier.
If she had shown her true identity sooner, such a mess wouldn’t have happened.
[Eh? Didn’t I say it a ton of times?]
It was then that the hunters realized the dungeon boss held the power to ensnare all A-grade hunters in illusions.
Shia had been killed by the boss, who didn’t even know how to comprehend its abilities, but had the boss concentrated on her, warping her voice wouldn’t have been difficult.
In the end, the hunters had been played by the dungeon boss from the very start, mistakenly believing her to be the boss and attacking, almost putting the lives of the subsequent hunters in jeopardy.
Had it not been for Shia, not only would they have faced annihilation, but they might have also become a sacrificial offering to the dungeon boss in the long run.
Being A-grade hunters, they were well aware of their own disgrace.
In their hearts, they felt like hiding in a mouse hole.
Of course, they could use fear and darkness as excuses.
They could use the explanation that they had been entrapped in an illusion by the dungeon boss.
But even considering all that, the hunters felt an overwhelming sense of embarrassment and shame regarding their own actions.
Time continued to pass.
The hunters’ campsite was remarkably quiet for what should have been a successful raid dungeon. Not even a slight cheer could be heard.
[Miracle – Great Healing]
“Are you feeling alright?”
“………”
Jinseong felt the clean hole in his abdomen disappear and lowered his head.
He struggled to muster even a proper thank you.
“Hah, it’s cold. The dam water is colder than I thought…”
“…….”
“…….Ugh..”
Though unintentional, Shia’s honest remark sent a chill down the spines of the surrounding hunters.
After a moment, while Shia spaced out by the campfire, she glanced around and suddenly realized something.
“Wait, wasn’t there supposed to be 20 of us? One person is missing?”
Upon hearing that, the already bleak atmosphere among the hunters sank even lower.
“…They died.”
As silence continued, a female hunter spoke up.
“…Oh, they died? I mean, that was relatively quick…”
“That fox-faced dungeon boss had to mix in with us by killing one of the hunters…”
“We found a corpse near Yeongwoljung after coming out.”
Having checked breathing and pulse already, the hunters had seen dead colleagues before, but there was something frightening about how easily someone they’d shared work space with had died.
“Where’s the body?”
“The body? It’s in the transport drone over there…”
“What’s the condition? Is the body torn to bits or is anything missing?”
“From the strangulation marks, it seems like it wasn’t sliced or anything… but why…?”
At that, Shia stood up and confidently walked over to the transport drone where the body was kept.
Upon her sudden movement, the hunters paused what they were doing and focused their eyes on her.
Naturally, they didn’t expect much.
They guessed Shia would be heartbroken and offer a few prayers for the dead.
[Miracle – Great Healing]
But when Shia declared the miracle with the divine energy, every hunter present heard her voice.
It had a sacred tone to it, like a song or an echo resonating through everyone.
‘What is happening..?’
‘Did she revive him?’
‘Oh, she’s probably just trying to clean up the corpse or something…’
‘But how… it’s been several hours since they died…’
Bang! Bang! Bang!
[Excuse me?! Is anyone there?!]*
“!?”
“What… what the hell?!”
“Uh… how do I open this transport drone? It’s different from mine; I don’t know how to open it…”
“I’ll do it! Wait a moment, excuse me!”
When a loud noise suddenly erupted from inside the transport drone, the hunters decided it was better to quickly open the door than to hesitate.
“Whoa! Ugh, that was suffocating. What on earth happened for my body to be in the drone? The dungeon boss…?”
Struggling to squeeze out through the gap of the transport drone, the hunters were left in disbelief.
“Did they really come back to life…?”
“No, how could…”
The fact that not only did Shia defeat the dungeon boss by herself but also possessed the healing ability to revive the dead…?
“Eh, when did I die? I didn’t die, what’s this…?”
“…You should be thankful to this person.”
“What?”
“Say thank you, bastard…”
“I don’t understand…”
“Well, it doesn’t matter; thank you either way, miss….”
“Really? That’s enough. Good then. Hehe.”
“……”
“…………”
As Shia smiled lightly and tried to get up from her place, the remaining hunters, who had stayed seated until now, all stood up and stared at her in unison.
“Uh, Ms. Isia.”
“Shia.”
“Isia Hunter…”
“Eh?”
“…Thank you.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Really sorry.”
“We’re sorry trash.”
“I’m a loser, I’m scum…”
“We’ll get what we deserve and won’t complain…”
“Ah, no. Why all of a sudden..?”
Suddenly, the once proud hunters began to bow their heads to Shia, leaving her utterly surprised.
Really, why all of a sudden? If they wanted to thank her, they could have done it earlier…
But the hunters felt they couldn’t tolerate not apologizing.
It was just too much for them to bear, feeling so embarrassed and ashamed of themselves.
Originally, they thought they’d wait until after all follow-ups were complete and they could meet to apologize privately.
However, it would be unacceptable to delay more apologies to the benefactor and saint who had revived their dead colleague.
“That’s enough. To be honest, everyone doing this makes me feel a bit pressured…”
With a slightly flushed face, Shia waved her hands dismissively, but as soon as one hunter bowed their head, it was as if it was contagious, and all the hunters lowered their heads in respect.
Even after repeatedly saying it was enough, they held their silence while bowing their heads toward Shia for quite a while.
In the end, it seemed that Shia came up with a good idea while observing those who wouldn’t heed her words; her lips curled up slightly.
“By the way, what did you all do wrong?”
“We were deceived by the boss and collectively attacked Ms. Isia…”
“Heh… well then, can I get angry at you?”
Hearing this made the hunters feel their hair stand on end.
“It’s not really anger, but… instead of punishment, how about having a meal with me?”
“…….A meal?”
Everyone’s attention turned to Shia, whose smile was incredibly bright.
Of course, they wouldn’t know.
What it meant when Shia said ‘let’s have a meal together.’
They probably didn’t even know what the menu would be or what kind of bones would be used.
“Hehehe…”
