Seung-hoo stood there, the yellow crystal still glowing softly in his hand.
The light reflected off the broken stone and danced across his fingers. He felt eyes on him—sharp, focused, suspicious.
Slowly, he turned around.
Kim Bak-un was standing behind him, staring directly at the crystal.
"…Huh?" Kim whispered. "How did you find that?"
Seung-hoo stiffened.
Kim stepped closer, lowering his voice so the others wouldn't hear.
"There shouldn't be any kind of resource like that in a cave-type Rift," Kim said quietly. "This place is just stone and monsters. So how did you know this crystal was buried here?"
Seung-hoo hesitated.
"…Lucky guess?" he said.
Kim's brows twitched.
"A lucky guess!?" he repeated. "You walked straight to this wall. You asked for a pickaxe. You kept striking the same exact spot."
He pointed at the cracked stone.
"And now there's a glowing crystal in your hand."
Seung-hoo shifted his grip slightly. "I just picked a place."
Kim shook his head. "No, you didn't. You didn't look around. You didn't hesitate. You didn't try anywhere else."
His voice dropped even more.
"You knew."
Seung-hoo frowned. "You're imagining things."
"I'm not," Kim said sharply. "Before the hounds attacked, you muttered something about a crystal. You sounded certain."
Seung-hoo's eyes flicked away for a brief moment.
"…You misheard me."
"I didn't," Kim replied. "You were staring at that wall like you could see through it."
The yellow crystal pulsed faintly between them, making the silence heavier.
"So explain it," Kim pressed. "How did you know there was a crystal inside solid rock?"
"I already told you," Seung-hoo whispered back. "It was a guess."
"A guess that happened to be perfect?" Kim scoffed. "In a Rift where crystals aren't even supposed to exist?"
Seung-hoo's jaw tightened. "Why are you so obsessed with this?"
"Because this crystal shouldn't be here," Kim said. "And neither should your certainty."
He folded his arms. "You find something impossible, and you expect me not to question it?"
Seung-hoo looked down at the glowing crystal.
Inside his mind, the System quest was engraved in his mind.
|[ Find 3 Yellow Crystals In The Cave ]|
But he couldn't say that.
"…It doesn't matter how I found it," Seung-hoo said quietly.
Kim shook his head. "It does matter. If there are more crystals like this, and only you can find them, then I need to know why."
Seung-hoo's voice grew tense. "I don't know why."
"That's not an answer." Kim says
"It's the only one I can give!" Seung-hoo says back
Kim leaned closer, eyes narrowing. "Then tell me this, are there more of them?"
Seung-hoo froze for half a second.
Kim noticed.
"…There are, aren't there?" Kim said slowly.
Seung-hoo clenched his fist around the crystal. "You're overthinking it."
"You're dodging the question," Kim replied. "First one crystal appears out of nowhere. Now you're acting like it's nothing."
Their voices remained low, but the argument burned hotter.
"You went straight to it," Kim continued. "Like you were following something."
"I wasn't."
"Then why this wall?"
"I told you, I don't know!"
Kim exhaled sharply. "Every time I ask, you say the same thing."
"I guessed."
"I got lucky."
"I don't know."
He looked at the crystal again.
"That thing is proof you're lying."
Seung-hoo lifted his eyes slowly to meet Kim's stare.
"…You wouldn't understand even if I told you."
Kim's expression hardened. "Try me."
Seung-hoo stayed silent.
The yellow crystal glowed between them like a secret neither of them could let go of.
The tension stretched on, thick and unbroken, their quiet argument circling around the same question again and again,
how Seung-hoo knew,
why the crystal existed,
and what it meant that he was the one holding it.
The tension between Seung-hoo and Kim was still thick in the air when sudden footsteps echoed through the cave.
"Seung-hoo! Kim!" a familiar voice shouted.
Both of them flinched and turned.
Seo-yeon came running toward them from a side tunnel, her ponytail swaying wildly as she waved her arm.
"We found another cave entrance!" she shouted.
Hyun-wu followed close behind her, his massive shield slung over his back.
"Yeah, it's deeper inside," he added. "It looks important. You two better come quick."
The argument between Seung-hoo and Kim instantly broke apart.
Kim clicked his tongue in frustration. "We'll finish this later."
Seung-hoo nodded silently, slipping the yellow crystal into his pouch.
They started running after Hyun-wu and Seo-yeon through a narrow stone corridor. The cave walls tightened around them, jagged and uneven, glowing faintly from veins of mana embedded in the rock.
Their footsteps echoed loudly.
Hyun-wu ran in front with long, powerful strides. Seo-yeon moved like a shadow beside him, light and fast. Seung-hoo followed closely, his breathing steady, his body moving as if it remembered far greater battles.
Kim, however, was struggling.
His boots scraped against the stone as his breathing grew heavier with every step.
"W-Wait…" he muttered under his breath, but no one heard him.
Sweat dripped down his face. His legs felt like lead.
Meanwhile, Hyun-wu and Seo-yeon showed no sign of slowing down. Seung-hoo noticed it too—none of them looked tired at all, as if the Rift itself wasn't draining them.
Kim clenched his teeth and forced himself to keep up.
After several minutes of running, the tunnel suddenly widened into a hollow chamber. A dark cave entrance yawned open at the far end, its interior pitch-black, like a mouth waiting to swallow them.
Seo-yeon stopped and pointed.
"It's here."
Hyun-wu nodded. "This has to be another section of the Rift."
Without hesitation, the two of them stepped inside first.
Seung-hoo and Kim followed.
Seung-hoo and Kim where questioning why Seo-yeon was acting so energetically
The moment they crossed the threshold, the air changed.
It felt colder. Heavier.
And strangely… silent.
Seung-hoo's eyes widened.
Inside the chamber, bound against the rocky wall with thick, black tendrils of shadow, were Hyun-wu and Seo-yeon.
The real ones.
Their armor was scratched, their weapons dropped to the floor beside them. Seo-yeon struggled against the bindings, while Hyun-wu tried to tear himself free with brute strength.
"What…?" Kim whispered.
Seung-hoo's heart slammed in his chest.
He slowly turned around.
The Hyun-wu and Seo-yeon who had led them here were standing near the cave entrance.
But now, their smiles looked wrong.
Too stiff.
Too wide.
Their eyes shimmered unnaturally, reflecting a dull, distorted light.
Seung-hoo felt a chill crawl up his spine.
"…Those weren't them," Kim murmured.
The two figures began to shift.
Their bodies rippled like water, skin stretching and melting into something darker. Their outlines warped, revealing tall, twisted shapes underneath. Their limbs elongated, and their faces blurred into pale masks that barely resembled human features.
Seung-hoo recognized them instantly.
Mimics.
--Creatures born from cave-like Rifts, using their power of Mimicry to copy human appearance and lure prey deeper into traps--
The false Seo-yeon tilted her head at an unnatural angle.
"So easy," it said, its voice still sounding like hers.
The false Hyun-wu let out a low, distorted chuckle.
"Humans always follow their own kind."
The cave walls seemed to close in as the shadows thickened around the trapped Hyun-wu and Seo-yeon.
Seung-hoo stepped forward instinctively, placing himself between Kim and the monsters.
His eyes darted from the bound teammates to the two Mimics blocking the exit.
The yellow crystal in his pouch pulsed faintly, as if reacting to the sudden surge of mana in the chamber.
Kim swallowed hard. "So… the ones we followed…"
"…weren't real," Seung-hoo finished quietly.
The Mimics slowly spread their arms, their bodies creaking as if stone and flesh were being torn apart and rebuilt. The distorted shapes that once resembled Hyun-wu and Seo-yeon began to melt away, flowing like liquid shadows.
Then, they changed again.
One of the creatures reshaped itself into Seung-hoo.
The other became Kim.
Same faces.
Same posture.
Even the same weapons formed in their hands from hardened shadow.
For a moment, the real Seung-hoo and Kim stood frozen, staring at copies of themselves.
"…You've got to be kidding me," Kim muttered, tightening his grip on his staff.
The fake Kim rolled its shoulders, mimicking the motion perfectly.
"So," it said in Kim's voice, "do you really know how to fight?"
Seung-hoo clenched his fists. "You think an F-rank can't fight?"
The fake Seung-hoo repeated his words with a hollow tone, twisting them into mockery.
The cave fell silent again.
That silence shattered when both Mimics lunged forward at once.
They charged straight through the narrow space between the stone pillars, using the confusion of their identical forms to hide their movements.
The fake Seung-hoo attacked first.
It leaped high, copying Seung-hoo's stance perfectly, and brought its fist down in a crushing arc. Seung-hoo noticed the motion at the last second and jumped aside. The stone fist slammed into the ground, cracking the floor.
Seung-hoo twisted midair and kicked the creature's face.
The impact split the false face open, black mist pouring from the fracture.
At the same time, the fake Kim rushed the real Kim, swinging its shadow-formed staff. Kim raised his own staff to block. The collision echoed sharply through the cave.
Sparks of mana burst between them.
"Out of my way!" Kim shouted as he shoved the Mimic back.
Seung-hoo rushed forward to help, but the second Mimic suddenly stepped into his path—wearing Kim's face now instead of his own.
For a split second, Seung-hoo saw two Kims in front of him.
His movement faltered.
The Mimic seized that opening and slammed its staff into his side. Seung-hoo skidded backward across the stone floor, forcing himself to keep his strength suppressed.
"Tch… tricky," he muttered, pushing himself up.
The fake Seung-hoo advanced again, copying his breathing, his stance, even the slight tension in his shoulders. It threw a punch exactly the way he would have.
Seung-hoo ducked, spun around it, and drove his elbow into its back. The creature let out a distorted cry that sounded half like Seung-hoo's voice and half like grinding stone.
"Kim! Gimme some help here!" Seung-hoo shouted, grappling with the Mimic as it tried to lock its arms around him.
Kim raised his staff and fired a burst of mana at the fake Seung-hoo's shoulder. The blast tore into its body, causing its form to flicker violently between Seung-hoo's face and its true monstrous shape.
But the other Mimic rushed in from the side and struck Kim, knocking him off balance.
Kim staggered, barely managing to stay on his feet.
Now the battlefield was chaos.
Two real fighters.
Two perfect copies.
Their footsteps overlapped. Their voices echoed. Every movement looked the same.
The Mimics shifted again, their bodies rippling as if deciding which form to wear next, switching between Seung-hoo and Kim to keep them guessing.
The cave walls reflected their shadows, multiplying the confusion.
Bound against the far wall, Hyun-wu and Seo-yeon struggled harder, their muffled sounds blending with the clash of stone and mana.
Seung-hoo wiped dust from his eyes and narrowed his gaze, trying to focus on the smallest differences as the Mimics closed in again, circling them slowly, waiting for the next opening.