‘Uh… It’s working…!’

Fortunately, it seems one of them has completely fallen for it, and while not perfect, it’s working quite well on the other one too.

Rude inwardly breathed a sigh of relief while sweating profusely.

This skill automatically uses a flirtatious tone, and even with increased charm, it’s truly a gamble whether it will work or not due to individual preferences.

“Uh… A-Alright, I’ll let the child go!! But in exchange…!”

“In exchange?”

“…You come up here yourself.”

“Once I see the child come down safely with my own eyes.”

“Hey, hurry up and get down!!”

The guard monsters nodded and untied the ropes binding the child. The child ran out from the castle wall with a tearful face.

Before the sniffling child could say anything, Rude spoke. His tone was rather gentle.

“Run to the forest behind. There are no monsters. If you keep going, you’ll find a safe place where people are gathered. Can you do that?”

The child stopped crying and nodded repeatedly. Rude patted the elementary school child’s head and muttered.

“And don’t look back no matter what happens on your way. No matter what. This is a promise with uncle.”

Rude held out his pinky finger to the child. As the little child linked pinkies and nodded, he smiled and said.

“Th-Thank you, Hunter mister. Really, thank you so much!”

“That’s right, you’re brave. Now go quickly.”

As he watched the elementary school child run away, Rude’s eyes turned cold. He took out his phone and checked the time.

“The time now is…”

He had declared 20 minutes to finish to that handsome young master at the very beginning, so there were about 7 minutes left.

Rude’s motto was SGEM. It was better to finish quickly before his mental power, which negatively affects ordinary people, spreads further into the dungeon.

He opened a portal and went straight up to the top of the castle wall. The guards swallowed hard as they saw him, seemingly not expecting him to come up so quickly.

“Well, I came up as you said.”

“Th-Then now… to us…”

Crack! With those words as his last, the guard’s head rolled on the ground. Rude shook off the blood dripping from his black half-scissors and approached the remaining guard.

The guard gripped his spear tightly in a completely different atmosphere from moments ago.

“Lowlifes like you getting all cocky just because you took a child hostage? You trash.”

“Huk…!”

When he slightly raised the scissors and then let go, the guard’s spear changed as if it were tissue paper and fell down. He looked at Rude.

The guard’s eyes met Rude’s. The guard saw something writhing in Rude’s black pupils.

And he froze just like that. Like an animal encountering a natural predator, he couldn’t do anything. In those few brief seconds, the guard’s mind was filled with terror.

This is… pure evil. Pure and absolute evil. It’s as if fear itself has been personified into human form.

The charm maximized by the honey trap and the terror aligned. It was frightening, but he couldn’t take his eyes off. Even knowing it would go wrong, knowing he would die, he felt the urge to stay by his side.

It truly felt like just being near him would break one’s mind. Could any being in this world withstand such a person? No, there couldn’t be! There wouldn’t be!

“Your boss.”

Rude spoke while maintaining eye contact with him. Just that alone made cold sweat run down the terror-stricken guard’s back.

After staring at him for a while, Rude continued in a chilling tone.

“Where is he?”

* * *

“These guys again…”

Rude furrowed his brows as he discovered hostages tied up in abundance in the garden after beating up all the guards and entering Stage 3.

About five or six office workers were tied to the rose stems of what appeared to be the plant-type monster boss of Stage 3.

[The Lord of Chaos shrugs, saying they seem to be people captured while working overtime.]

‘Yeah. I told them not to touch office workers working overtime.’

Anyway, this was the problem with dungeon-type fields that had sentient beings. The monsters would capture civilians and turn them all into hostages in preparation for hunters coming.

[The Lord of Chaos shrugs, saying since all the hostages are adults, let’s just SGEM quickly.]

What to do. If it weren’t for the hostages, he would have just done a 1-second cut and gone to the boss room… As Rude was pondering this, his eyes met with the stage boss.

“H-Hey! It’s no use looking at me with such seductive eyes! I can’t free the hostages or tell you where the Lord is!”

The Stage 3 boss, dressed in a white dress with snow-white hair, and rose stems densely packed under her skin with white roses blooming all over her body, was looking at Rude with a deeply flushed face.

‘Oh, it’s working on this one too.’

Rude placed his hand on his chin. It seemed the monsters in this gate had a taste for Rude’s type.

Alright. It would be best if he could resolve this quickly without using his mind control skill. Rude put on a deep gaze again and said.

“Can’t you let them go… for my sake? Hmm? And guide me to your Lord too.”

“Ah… Ahh, if you shoot such glances…”

The Stage 3 boss, the White Rose Lady, wrapped her arms around herself and took a few steps back. As Rude approached the boss by a few steps, the monster said with a shy expression.

“B-But I can’t… I have my faith…”

“You can repent again later, I won’t be able to see you often. Hmm? How about it? Won’t you let them go?”

Rude said as he took a few more steps towards the White Rose Lady. The monster said as her white roses turned pink.

“A-Actually… I’ve been waiting for a hunter like you for a long time…”

The White Rose Lady had turned completely pink. Rude slightly lifted her chin and said.

“Honestly, so have I.”

“Really?”

“Just kidding.”

Stab. Rude’s black half-scissors pierced through the Rose Lady. As he twisted and pulled out the scissors, sap flowed out between the pierced wound.

“Ah, aah…”

The White Rose Lady let out a moan full of sadness.

Rude shook his half-scissors, thinking it must be over, and that it seemed easy as expected for a 4th-grade monster.

Looking up at the indifferent Rude, the White Rose Lady cried out.

“How cruel… To trample… my pure heart like this!!”

‘Huh…?’

Startled by the unexpectedly more vigorous voice, Rude looked at the monster in surprise. At some point, the body of the woman stabbed by the scissors had been filled with transparent sap and hardened.

The Rose Lady stood up and spread both hands. White rose stems endlessly stretched out from between her dress. The monster shouted in a voice full of anger.

“You… Prepare yourself!!”

[White Rose Lady Exclusive Skill :: Rose’s Noble Fight]

Countless rose vines stretched out from under her dress, wrapping around the hostages and creating a massive roof covering the castle.

“Hey, wait…!”

“Kyaak! Save us!”

Slurp, slurp. Something was drained from the rose vines wrapped around the hostages and absorbed into the Rose Lady.

“Damn it…!”

A flustered Rude tried to cut the vines around the hostages with his scissors, but it was useless. Feeling he had no choice, Rude swung his scissors in the air.

Whoosh, when the black flames created by illusion magic touched the rose stems, they scattered and disappeared. The Rose Lady laughed loudly and said.

“Illusion magic and mind control don’t work on me! Our Father told us! Because illusionists are all liars, if you ‘don’t believe,’ it won’t affect you!”

Damn it, Rude bit his lip. It seemed this monster had some resistance to illusion magic and mental attacks.

Even now, the hostages’ vitality was being drained in real-time by the Rose Lady. With each slurp, slurp sound, the monster’s size grew enormous.

There’s no choice. Rude raised his scissors as a last resort. He needed more advanced illusion magic, the power to dominate this space.

[Trait :: ‘Natural Lucid Dreamer’ is activated!]

Mental power imbued his scissors. If the hostages were to see this, their minds would likely be considerably damaged, just like the people in Stage 2. But that’s something that can be recovered from.

Of course, the recovery process would take a few months.

But there’s no choice. This is truly an unavoidable problem.

‘Still, losing your mind is better than losing your body in a gate, right?’

[The Lord of Chaos shakes his head, saying our master is really too half-heartedly kind, this is going to be trouble.]

Yes, saving that elementary school student safely was just a coincidence. Rude was evil-aligned anyway, there was no way to clear dungeons without harming others.

Rude recalled the words of the priest. His words about there being a best method. But that was just a pretty excuse from an idealist.

In the world, there were far more people who couldn’t practice the best method, and Nari was one of them.

Then, he had to do what he could do.

Not what he wanted to do.

This was the life philosophy of Shin Binnari, who had lived for 25 years.

But the reason he felt more uneasy than usual was probably because of the words of that priest and the elementary school student who had expressed gratitude to him.

Because Rude had never directly heard words of gratitude due to mind control. He always only confirmed people’s reactions through internet responses after the rescue was over.

But well, it doesn’t matter. He’s just doing this job because he needs money. It’s just that words of gratitude felt a bit unfamiliar.

In this job where even a small mistake directly leads to the life of the person he’s trying to save or criticism towards himself, he doesn’t feel any sense of fulfillment.

Absolutely, absolutely not. Absolutely!

[Transition period will begin soon. Please relax your body.]

“No matter how high-quality the illusion magic is, it won’t work on me!! If I don’t believe, that’s all there is to it!!”

The White Rose Lady aggressively spread her rose stems, but the black mental power ostentatiously clung to the stems.

“We’ll see.”

Ta-da-da-dak−! Cameras filled the gate. Soon he would enter the dream.

After that, this place becomes Rude’s space.

“Can you really not believe?”

Rude spoke to the monster in a chilling tone. The black mental power clung thickly to the rose stems.

He was already feeling quite uneasy, and the moment he thought about taking it out on this monster…

“Rude-ssi!!”

Crack! A sword stuck into the ceiling. At the young voice of the priest that was just heard, golden holy fire emanated from the blade.

[Trait :: ‘Unquenchable Flame’ is activated!]

Whoosh, the unquenchable holy fire spread rapidly across the entire ceiling, quickly burning the rose stems. Thud, thud, the rose stems turned to ashes and fell to the ground.

“Aack!! It’s hot!!”

The Rose Lady screamed and cut off the rose stems with her own hands. The roof of rose stems instantly turned to ash and disappeared.

Thud, the white-armored priest who lightly descended from the sky set the holy fire to the rose stems containing the hostages and burned them away.

And Kang Ihyeon retrieved his sword and gripped it in his hand.

“Hurry and escape!”

“Thank you. Thank you!”

The hostages, who instantly recovered their strength from Kang Ihyeon’s flames, expressed their gratitude and ran outside.

His brilliant golden hair sparkled in the light of the holy fire.

Someone once said he was the absolute master of holy power. They also said he was a person who gives others peace just by existing.

“…”

Rude silently looked at Kang Ihyeon. His expression gradually distorted. He looked at Rude and smiled awkwardly.

“Are you alright?! I wanted to come help earlier, but I was a bit late because I was treating the people from Stage 2…”

“Get lost!”

Rude frowned deeply and looked at him. He was already feeling uneasy because of what Kang Ihyeon had said earlier, and now seeing ‘that bastard’s’ face made him feel utterly disgusted.

‘What I achieved with such difficulty, he did so easily…’

Rude gritted his teeth and raised his voice at him.

“Did you come to preach again?! Yeah, I’m just a bad influence on people, and you’re not, is that what you came to brag about?!”

“Ah, no, that’s not it…”

“I know that stuff best, so get lost. Disappear from my sight right now!”

Kang Ihyeon looked at Rude at his words and said. His face looked extremely frustrated.

“Please just let me finish what I’m saying!”