The fairies were breathing hard, roughly gulping air.

Marloe frowned, then snapped her fingers.

And then the spring gate leading outside opened.

- Go. It’s the spring gate leading outside. If you go out through there, Gomes will catch the fairy smell you’re giving off and come find you on his own.

“When I come back?”

- If you really bring down Gomes, then we’ll come find you. We’re always sensing Gomes’s presence.

“Okay.”

Nice service—coming to you.

Su-ho went straight into the spring gate, and not long after Su-ho disappeared, the Defense Captain, who had only just managed to pull himself together, approached Marloe and spoke.

“Your Majesty, are you all right?”

- I’m fine. What about you—are any of you hurt?

“Yes. My muscles stiffened up a bit from the pressure, but other than that, there are no abnormal signs. But...”

The Defense Captain asked in a worried voice.

“Do you think he can really bring down Gomes?”

- Who knows.

“...Pardon?”

- If he brings it down, then he brings it down. If he can’t, then that’s as far as he goes. I don’t like that bastard much, but my preferences matter less than my fairies.

“Your Majesty...!”

At the Queen’s words, all the other fairies who heard her were moved.

*

Passing through the spring gate, he again felt like his body flipped over, and an automatic motion landed him on the ground.

It’s really amazing.

She said their specialty was the sorcery of protection—so can she also do things like reversing your senses like this?

Well, it doesn’t matter.

Outside the spring gate, Su-ho began to walk forward slowly.

There was no set destination.

Marloe said if he just walked around like this, Gomes would come find him on its own.

He walked at an easy pace for a long while like that.

- Grk.

From somewhere, an unpleasant cry began to be heard.

- Grrrrk.

That reptile-like growling.

Looks like it had shown up.

That was when—

- Graaaang!!

A high-pitched cry that felt like it would tear his eardrums apart.

At the same time, system notifications began to appear.

[ Fairy Dragon Gomes uses Fairy Hunter’s Roar. ]

[ Dragon Blood is activated. ]

[ Fear is not applied due to the Dragon Mind effect of Dragon Blood. ]

“Oh?”

Seeing the system notifications, Su-ho smiled.

He’d been starting to get bored, and the guest arrived right on time.

Su-ho immediately turned his head toward where the sound had come from.

Then he could see the owner of the voice—Fairy Dragon Gomes. The bastard was stuck upside down on a huge tree like a baobab, flicking its tongue as it looked down at Su-ho.

But when Su-ho saw it, he let out a hollow laugh too.

“Wow, it’s that big?”

In the fairy mirror, it looked like just a moderately sized lizard, but seeing it in person, the thing was—what, African-elephant-sized.

So this is why checking the real thing matters.

He could understand at a glance why its nickname was “dragon” instead of “lizard” or “iguana.”

“Looks like everyone here comes with an extra size tier by default.”

Su-ho immediately started skill-armoring up.

[ You summon Heracles’s Lion-Head Helmet. ]

[ You summon Heracles’s Club. ]

[ Blood Armor is activated. ]

[ Blessing is activated. ]

[ Paladin is activated. ]

[ Divine Aura is activated. ]

[ Mana Detection is activated. ]

[ Endurance is activated. ]

[ Enhancement is activated. ]

[ Night Watcher’s Eye is activated. ]

[ Sword Energy is activated. ]

A storm of skill effects.

As multiple auras burst from Su-ho’s body, Gomes panicked for a moment.

It couldn’t be helped.

From the moment it was born until now, it had only ever seen fairies, so it was experiencing this kind of power for the first time.

- Grrrrk...

Gomes’s eyeballs started to roll around.

It had come all the way here, drawn by that delicious, fairy-specific smell, but when it lifted the lid, it turned out there were other things mixed in besides “fairy.”

And the power mixed in wasn’t normal.

Gomes wasn’t stupid.

It was a clever fairy hunter—an existence that prioritized survival over desire.

But it wasn’t such a coward that it would blindly cower before unfamiliar power either.

After thinking for a moment, Gomes decided to test the waters lightly.

Having made its decision, Gomes shrieked and swung its tail at Su-ho.

- KIAAAAAA!!

[ Fairy Dragon Gomes uses Fairy Hunter’s Roar. ]

[ Fairy Dragon Gomes uses Needle Tail. ]

Fairy «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» Hunter’s Roar had the power to drain strength from your whole body just by hearing it, and to stiffen the muscles of your entire body like Pressure and Mega Fear.

On top of that, maybe not against other beings, but against fairies, it had the power to interfere with the release of fairy power.

So it attacked with howling whenever it got the chance.

That was also the case with Needle Tail—the tail attack it had just swung.

Needle Tail looked like a simple tail swing, but when it whipped its massive tail, the spikes embedded in the tail fired like a crossbow, flying accurately toward the target.

WHIAAAA—!!

The firing force was so strong that with a single swing, you could hear the air tearing.

Su-ho stood still in place watching it, then swung his sword.

Slice!

The incoming spikes were cleanly cut and fell with no power left in them.

After cutting the spikes, Su-ho casually rolled his wrist that held the Blood Sword.

‘That’s it?’

It’s less than he expected.

Since it attacked while howling, he thought it might be some incredible attack, but the fear effect was boss-monster-grade, and the rest was surprisingly shabby.

“Tsk, tsk. You ran your mouth like you were hot shit, so I thought you were some insane enemy, but you’re really just a big iguana—nothing more, nothing less.”

Then I should finish this quickly and be done with it.

Just as Su-ho was about to move in to attack—

Gomes, having immediately assessed the gap, started running away at full speed.

“Man, your survival instinct is something else... Guiyeong, go bite it.”

[ Javelin Throw is activated. ]

SWA-A-A!

At Su-ho’s command, Guiyeong shot out like a ballista bolt.

Gomes was fast.

But Guiyeong was faster.

CRUNCH!!

[ Shadow Pierce is activated. ]

[ Shadow Bind is activated. ]

[ Shadow Bleed is activated. ]

The loyal shadow divine beast made a point of it, biting Gomes’s tail and successfully sealing its movement.

Shock spread through Gomes’s eyes—then impatience and fear.

Just having its tail bitten, and yet like a lie, its feet became tightly bound.

To Gomes, this was a massive fear.

And that made sense—none of the protection fairies it had faced until now had ever displayed this kind of power.

So it was an unknown terror.

Gomes had never experienced anything like it.

[ Shadow Movement is activated. ]

Su-ho immediately swapped positions with Guiyeong.

Then he grabbed its tail and, with all his strength, hurled it down under the tree.

KWA-AAANG!!

Gomes was slammed into the ground, flipped over.

The force was so strong that, from the violent shock transmitted to its spine, part of its spine snapped, paralysis began to spread through its whole body, and it trembled uncontrollably.

Tap.

Su-ho landed beside Gomes, having successfully piledriven it.

And at the unexpectedly easy difficulty, he looked confused instead.

“Wait, if it’s this easy, it’s kind of embarrassing for me....”

But what do you want me to do if things go smoothly?

Shouldn’t you at least put a scratch on me or something?

After watching the fully paralyzed Gomes for a moment, Su-ho raised the Blood Sword.

‘She said to bring the corpse, right?’

Then I should deliver it fresh from the source as soon as possible.

Just as Su-ho was about to swing his sword—

He paused.

He stopped the sword he was about to bring down.

Then he pulled it back again.

Because other thoughts suddenly came to him.

‘Something’s off.’

That nose-in-the-air queen wouldn’t have deliberately handed out a lousy guy like this as a “test assignment.”

And that was because she said it herself.

That I have two elements they hate.

Which means, for someone who spits out hate like a full-blown racist, there’s no way she’d “consider” me on purpose and package something this easy like it’s some hard task.

And there were plenty of eyes watching her and me, including the defense soldiers.

But Gomes wasn’t putting on an act either.

This was reality, and this was Gomes’s best.

At the same time, Gomes was still, to the protection fairies, an irreplaceable worst disaster.

It’s just that the things that are the worst for fairies are nothing to Su-ho.

In simple terms, it’s not Su-ho’s bad matchup.

At that moment, a smile formed at the corner of Su-ho’s mouth.

‘They’re protection fairies. If I’m the attribute closest to death, then she’s the existence closest to defense and protection. And yet if Marloe treats Gomes like a disaster, then to the other fairies, Gomes must be an unbelievable disaster.’

Su-ho reached out and used a skill on the paralyzed Gomes.

[ Corruption Sorcery is activated. ]

What he used was Corruption Sorcery.

What he manifested by imagining it was covering the entire body with every kind of contaminating factor, like a patient stricken with a plague.

And he didn’t just use it—he slammed in all the true mana he had to push the firepower to the maximum.

But—

Jiiiiing... PAAANG!!

It looked like Corruption Sorcery was rapidly devouring its whole body, but then, with the sound of glass shattering, Gomes brazenly bounced Su-ho’s sorcery off.

“Wow. Would you look at that?”

Marloe’s words weren’t a lie or some exaggeration.

The reason Gomes was the fairies’ disaster was because it had sorcery resistance close to invincibility—enough to bounce off even Su-ho’s sorcery, backed by his high stats.

Su-ho narrowed his eyes.

‘Then the reason Marloe demanded the entire corpse... could it be....’

She probably wanted to study Gomes’s corpse and somehow find a way to deal with Fairy Dragons.

If not, was she seriously demanding the corpse because the hunters wanted to show off and mount it like a stuffed deer head?

‘She said if I kill Gomes, they’ll come find me on their own, right?’

Gomes wasn’t dead yet.

But if he killed Gomes, they’d show up like ghosts.

Su-ho curled his lip.

‘Sorry, but I’m going to use Gomes’s corpse first.’

Su-ho lifted the Blood Sword again.

Then, in one motion, he drove the blade into the reverse scale he’d found on the paralyzed Gomes through Night Watcher’s Eye.

PUK!

The Blood Sword slid in smoothly, like sticking a knife into tofu.

At the same time, its breathing was cut off.

[ You have defeated Fairy Dragon Gomes. ]

[ Your level has increased. ]

[ All stats have increased by 1. ]

[ You have gained 1 bonus stat. ]

The moment it died, he gained a level.

This bastard gives pretty solid EXP for how easy it was, huh?

But before he could even admire it—

Su-ho immediately grabbed its tail and opened the door to the Subspace House.

[ Entering Subspace House. ]

Not long after Su-ho entered the house—

SHUAAA!

The space where Su-ho had been warped, and a wormhole formed.

It was a spring gate.

Countless fairies poured out of the spring gate, and sure enough, they were protection fairies.

Then Marloe came out of the spring gate, frowning, and said,

- Where did he disappear to? Find him right now!

“Yes!”

The protection fairies hurriedly began their search.