“How do you sterilize and drink the water dripping from stalactites?”

“You just need to collect and boil it. Outside, drinking like this could cause problems, but the Blue Starlight Valley dungeon has cleaner water than the outside world.”

“Really?”

This was the first time I learned about this. I had assumed that since it was a dungeon, the air and water would naturally be polluted.

“Yes. This dungeon is tough because of its monsters, but the environment is good. Dungeons with air quality so poor that ordinary people can’t endure have the word ‘polluted’ attached to their names. Dungeons like ‘Polluted Cemetery’ or ‘Polluted Waterway’ fall into this category.”

I was relieved that I hadn’t fallen into such a place. Since my rank was low, I might have been affected even if I wasn’t an ordinary person.

‘Blue Starlight Valley would be a good dungeon for camping if it weren’t for the monsters…’

I placed a mug on the floor, aligning it with where the water was dripping from the stalactite.

Drip, drip, drip…

The water was falling in truly tiny amounts. It seemed like it would take quite a long time to collect enough to drink.

‘I should start cooking instead of doing this.’

Today, I planned to make fish cake skewer soup. First, I took out the backpacking table and chair from my backpack to use as a cooking station.

When I unfolded the collapsible backpacking table, it expanded to the size of a large monitor.

The backpacking chair was the same. It was so small that I wondered if it could really be a chair, but when assembled, it grew to a size suitable for sitting.

Backpacking gear had a more compact charm compared to items used at regular campsites.

‘It’s like playing with toys.’

I placed all the ingredients I had brought on the table: square fish cakes, cylindrical rice cakes, green onions, radish, and so on.

“Should I add this too?”

Hunter Chae Dong Hwa, who was watching from the side, asked while gesturing at the cylindrical rice cakes.

“Yes. I tried it when I visited Busan, and it was delicious.”

In Busan, they also put cylindrical rice cakes on fish cake skewers. There, they called these rice cakes ‘mul-tteok’ (water rice cake).

“Do you not like it?”

“No, I just didn’t know it could be eaten this way.”

My goodness. How could he not know about mul-tteok?

I thought mul-tteok was quite common knowledge, even if it was a regional cooking method. It was unexpected.

Or not? Maybe if he’d never been to Busan, he might not know…?

“They call it mul-tteok there. It’s chewy and delicious. If it doesn’t suit your taste, I’ll eat it all myself.”

“Alright.”

Hunter Chae Dong Hwa nodded. Come to think of it, he had some peculiar aspects.

He was good at everything, but seemed oddly relaxed in strange ways. At the campsite, he would sometimes doze off in front of the bonfire and fall asleep right there.

At those times, I would wake him up, telling him to sleep inside because it was cold, and he would groggily go in with bleary eyes.

But today, he showed a dependable side, navigating the pitch-dark cave with ease. I couldn’t tell if he was naturally slow-witted or just enduring.

I tilted my head in puzzlement as I picked up a skewer and threaded the fish cakes onto it in a zigzag pattern, as if sewing.

Hunter Chae Dong Hwa watched how much I was doing and then followed suit, skewering fish cakes. With the two of us working together, the skewers were quickly completed.

For the soup, I added small portions of green onions, radish, mushrooms, and various seasonings that I had brought, and boiled it vigorously.

The delicious aroma filled the cave.

“Let’s eat.”

“Yes, let’s eat.”

After walking around so much today, I felt hungrier than usual. I took a spoonful of the fish cake soup first.

The warm and savory broth spread throughout my body.

‘Ah, this relieves fatigue.’

Indeed, the perfect ending to a day was a meal in front of a bonfire. It felt like warmth was reaching every corner of my body.

The scenery was also beautiful. The sun had set, and stars had risen.

The forest glowed like fireflies, receiving the starlight’s energy. With both twinkling, the boundary between earth and sky became blurred.

It looked like a large aquarium filled with fluorescent jellyfish swimming about.

Coming out of the campsite made the dungeon feel new, even though we had been here for a long time.

“How’s the mul-tteok?”

Hunter Chae Dong Hwa was already on his third mul-tteok. But his expression was as serious as if he were solving a difficult math problem.

“It’s delicious.”

I guess that’s just the expression he makes when he’s shocked. He ate the mul-tteok quietly but quickly.

‘I should have brought more rice cakes.’

It made me happy to see him enjoying the food so much.

The only thing that improved while living alone was my cooking skills. I had nowhere to show off, but coming to the campsite allowed me to demonstrate my true value.

The campsite guests never failed to praise the food I made for them.

It made me feel regretful and nostalgic to think that I had never cooked for my own family.

“By the way, about that senior of yours, Hunter Chae Dong Hwa.”

I cautiously brought up the topic. Hunter Chae Dong Hwa looked up from eating his fish cake.

“You know, the senior who helped you a lot when you first became a hunter.”

“Yes.”

I suddenly felt like talking about my brother after a long time.

“What kind of person was he?”

I had deliberately avoided this topic until now. But after thinking about it, I realized there probably wasn’t a more appropriate conversation partner than Hunter Chae Dong Hwa.

At some point, whenever I talked about my missing family, all my acquaintances would look at me with pity.

‘I’m not excessively sad or lonely anymore.’

He didn’t know I was my brother’s sister, so he wouldn’t sympathize or try to comfort me.

I just wanted to talk with someone who remembered my family.

“When you ask what kind of person… are you asking for his name?”

“No, just any characteristics or memories about him. Like memories of him teaching you about backpacking, things like that.”

“Ah.”

Hunter Chae Dong Hwa stopped eating and pondered deeply, choosing his words. Soon, a faint warmth spread across his face.

“He was a kind person, even though he had a rough way of speaking.”

Ah, my brother did have a bad habit with his words…

My brother was a typical tsundere type. He would nag while constantly feeding me, taking care of me, and even brushing my hair.

“And even though I must have been annoying, following him around so much, he treated me without prejudice.”

There had been rumors that Hunter Chae Dong Hwa was a fan of my brother and followed him around, and it seems that was true.

I nodded as I listened to the story.

“But there’s something I couldn’t say because I wasn’t sure. Now that the situation has changed, I regret it a bit.”

“What is it?”

By ‘the situation has changed,’ did he mean my brother’s disappearance in the dungeon?

Even though he was speaking incoherently, I could roughly understand what he was saying because I knew who he was talking about.

“…To explain this, I need to tell you something else, but it’s information that only some officials in the association know about.”

Ah, then he probably can’t tell me.

“Can you keep it a secret?”

“Huh? Yes, of course.”

I thought he wouldn’t tell me, but he seemed ready to open up just because I promised to keep it secret.

Does he think we’ve become that close?

Anyway, since we’re trapped in the dungeon, even if he wanted to tell someone, he could only tell Teddy…

And normally, I would have told him not to share such important information, but I couldn’t suppress my curiosity.

I thought it might be related to why my brother wanted to keep my existence a secret from Hunter Chae Dong Hwa.

“I have no records from before I became a hunter. It wasn’t reported in any media.”

I knew this. His mysteriousness was unusually intense.

“It’s because there really is nothing.”

“What?”

“The place where I was first discovered was here, Blue Starlight Valley.”

Discovered? What is he talking about?

“My senior said he picked me up when I suddenly appeared in the dungeon. I have no memories before that.”

“You have no memories? None at all?”

“Yes. No family, no friends. I don’t remember anything.”

This was quite shocking.

“Didn’t anyone come looking for you after you became a hunter?”

Sometimes people accidentally enter dungeons or get swept up in guerrilla gates. Those who couldn’t come out for a long time and were discovered and rescued by hunters were called returnees.

If he was a returnee, his family should have been waiting for him outside.

“No one came.”

I thought his mysteriousness was just a concept to gain popularity. Or maybe he was hiding everything because he found public attention annoying.

After all, there were many hunters like our family who hid to avoid causing trouble for their families.

But it seemed he really couldn’t remember anything, and no one recognized him, which inadvertently led to his mysterious image.

“So for a while, there were suspicions that I might be a dungeon monster disguised as a human. Since the rank measuring device doesn’t work on monsters, the misunderstanding was cleared up as soon as my rank appeared.”

That made sense. Even I started thinking along those lines as soon as I heard his words.

Most returnees go back to their families. If no family members or even acquaintances had come looking for him despite him becoming such a famous hunter, it’s understandable that people would suspect he might be a creature originally born and living in the dungeon.

‘So that’s why he seemed grateful when he said my brother treated him without prejudice, knowing all this…’

I gradually understood why Hunter Chae Dong Hwa felt thankful to my brother. Then suddenly, one possibility occurred to me.

‘But if he was discovered inside this dungeon, could he have been swept up in this dungeon’s guerrilla gate?’

Usually, guerrilla gates occur outside. When cleared, people naturally exit to the outside.

But the Blue Starlight Valley’s guerrilla gate is the only one that forms inside the dungeon, so if he was a survivor of that gate, it would make sense for him to appear suddenly inside the dungeon.

This means Hunter Chae Dong Hwa could be a returnee who entered and exited that gate.