Han-Joon kept running.
His breathing was uneven, feet slamming against the stone floor while distant hunter voices echoed through the tunnels behind him.
Then his vision suddenly blurred.
A bright blue screen flashed in front of his face.
[EXP Threshold Reached][Evolution Starting]
"What?"
Pain hit instantly.
Han-Joon collapsed onto the ground, coughing hard as his body locked up. His fingers dug into the stone while every muscle in his body cramped at once.
"Wait… WAIT!"
His spine twisted violently.
A horrible cracking sound echoed through the tunnel.
It felt like something was pulling his bones apart and rebuilding them piece by piece. His arms stretched longer. His chest tightened so hard he couldn't breathe.
Han-Joon screamed.
The pain didn't stop.
His skin burned, but at the same time his body felt freezing cold. His teeth sharpened painfully, gums bleeding as new fangs forced themselves out.
He rolled across the floor, shaking.
"I didn't even choose this…"
More system messages appeared through blurry vision.
[Evolution Conditions Met][Human EXP absorbed successfully][Race Advancing...]
His heartbeat slowed.
Then suddenly became stronger.
Thump.
Thump.
THUMP.
Everything went dark.
Han-Joon slowly opened his eyes.
For a second he just laid there breathing.
The pain was gone.
But something felt wrong.
Different.
He pushed himself up and immediately realized he was bigger. Taller.
His arms almost reached his knees now, lean muscle stretched beneath pale gray skin. His fingers ended in dark claw-like nails.
Even his senses felt sharper.
He could hear water dripping somewhere deep in the dungeon.
Could smell blood from far away.
Han-Joon stared at his hands silently.
"…What the hell…"
A screen opened.
[Race Evolution Complete]Lesser Ghoul → Aberrant Ghoul
"Aberrant?"
Another message appeared.
[Evolution altered due to excessive human kills]
Han-Joon's expression slowly changed.
"…So killing them actually changed my evolution…"
That thought sat heavy in his chest.
Before he could think further, another notification popped up.
[System Updating...]
New branches spread across the screen like roots.
NEW FEATURE UNLOCKED: SKILL TREES
Han-Joon blinked slowly.
"…Okay. That's actually cool."
The branches split into categories:
Ghoul Body Mutation Poison Strengthening Godhood Path (Locked)
He stared at the last one for a long moment.
Then distant voices echoed through the tunnel again.
Hunters.
Still looking for him.
Han-Joon slowly stood up, flexing his new claws.
His body felt lighter.
Faster.
Dangerous.
He took a deep breath.
"…I need to get stronger before they find me again."
Blood covered the stone floor.
The smell alone made several students throw up.
Hunter instructors stood silently around the bodies, expressions dark and tense. What used to be a noisy dungeon field trip had turned completely silent.
One of the administrators slowly crouched near a corpse, inspecting the damage.
Deep claw marks.
Crushed ribs.
A neck almost torn apart.
His expression hardened.
"...This wasn't done by a normal dungeon creature."
Another instructor looked around nervously.
"The dungeon is classified as D-Rank. Nothing in here should be capable of this."
A third hunter swallowed.
"Then what killed them?"
Silence.
The question hung heavily in the air.
One of the teachers clenched his jaw.
"At minimum… this was done by a B-Class monster."
Several students nearby went pale.
A B-Class monster appearing in a D-Rank dungeon was the kind of thing that caused massacres.
Then suddenly—
WEEEEEOOOOOO—!!
Sirens blared throughout the entire dungeon.
Not normal emergency alarms.
These were deeper. Sharper.
The kind hunters prayed they'd never hear.
A cold mechanical voice echoed through the cavern systems.
"Emergency evacuation in progress."
"All students and lower-ranked hunters are to immediately return to the surface."
"A-Class Hunters have been dispatched."
The atmosphere instantly changed.
Panic spread.
Students started running.
Some cried.
Others looked around desperately, gripping their weapons with shaking hands.
Meanwhile—
Far deeper in the dungeon—
Han-Joon froze.
The sirens echoed through the tunnels around him while distant footsteps and shouting filled the cave systems.
His expression slowly changed.
"...A-Class hunters?"
His stomach dropped.
They weren't sending regular hunters anymore.
They were sending monsters.
Real ones.
Han-Joon leaned against the wall, breathing slowly as his newly evolved body still adjusted itself.
His claws twitched.
His senses felt overloaded.
And for the first time since entering this world…
He genuinely felt hunted.