Chapter 53
“Get a hold of yourself.”
Someone lightly tapped Mandy’s cheek while whispering.
Only then did Mandy regain consciousness.
When she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was the dark ceiling of a cave.
“Where… am I?”
“It’s a cyclops nest.”
“What?”
“Quiet!”
The person who raised a finger to his lips was someone Mandy recognized.
Unlike her, he had distinctly East Asian features.
Black hair, black eyes, and a young face still marked with traces of acne.
“You’re Korean—Kim Sang-sik, right?”
“That’s right. Keep your voice down.”
Kim Sang-sik nodded.
As Mandy had said, he was of Korean descent.
He wasn’t an Awakened.
He was a technician dispatched to maintain vehicles.
Mandy shook her head and pushed herself up. As she did, the full scene inside the cave came into view.
The cave was enormous—at least ten meters high.
Even a cyclops could walk upright inside it with room to spare.
Scattered throughout the cave were countless carcasses of magical beasts—remains left behind by the cyclopes after feeding.
Mandy and Kim Sang-sik were trapped inside something like a cage hanging from the ceiling.
The cage was made of an unknown metal, tightly constructed without any visible gaps to escape through.
Mandy let out a scoff.
“Hmph! I’ll just break this pathetic cage.”
Though she had been caught off guard and knocked unconscious by Anika, Mandy was a highly capable Awakened.
Otherwise, Neo Seoul wouldn’t have sent her as a supervisor.
She was a magic-type Awakened.
Her specialty was wind-based magic.
Mandy tried to cut through the cage with a blade of wind—but for some reason, the mana in her body wouldn’t move at all.
“It’s useless. You can’t use mana in here.”
“What are you talking about? Why can’t I—”
“The cage we’re trapped in seems to suppress mana.”
“What? No matter how smart a cyclops is, there’s no way it could create something like this.”
“They didn’t. They probably found it by chance—an artifact from a dungeon.”
“…!”
Only then did Mandy understand.
There was nothing strange about such items appearing from dungeons.
After all, Neo Seoul itself existed thanks to artifacts obtained from dungeons.
“Ha… so we’ve basically become boxed lunches for cyclopes.”
The only reason she and Kim Sang-sik were still alive was because the cyclopes weren’t hungry.
After all, they had already devoured everyone at the shelter—they must be full.
Mandy clenched her fist.
“What about Team 7? Did you see them?”
“No… I lost consciousness too…”
“They dared to strike me from behind. If I get out of here, I’ll never forgive them.”
Mandy swore revenge.
She hadn’t become a supervisor in Neo Seoul by luck—she had the skill and ability to back it up.
If she could just return safely, dealing with Team 7 would be easy.
The problem was surviving long enough to escape this place.
Just then—
Thud! Thud!
Heavy footsteps echoed through the cave.
The cyclopes were returning.
Kim Sang-sik’s face turned deathly pale.
“The cyclopes…! We’re going to die…”
His complexion drained of color.
He wasn’t an Awakened like Mandy—just an ordinary person.
He had managed to stay calm until now, but the presence of the cyclopes shattered him completely.
Mandy tried to reassure him.
“Stay calm. We’re not going to die.”
“How? How are we supposed to fight those monsters when even Awakened attacks don’t work on them…?”
“……”
Mandy couldn’t answer.
She was just as desperate.
The cyclops was a natural predator of the Awakened.
Especially for magic-type Awakened like her—it was practically a disaster.
Even now, she couldn’t think of a single way to deal with them.
Thud! Thud!
The footsteps grew louder—and soon, the cyclopes appeared.
Grrr…
Their single eyes gleamed as they approached.
Up close, they were even more terrifying.
“Ugh…”
Kim Sang-sik crouched down, clutching his head with both hands.
The light had gone out of his eyes, and drool dripped from his mouth.
The oppressive aura emitted by the cyclopes was driving him insane.
It was one of the reasons ordinary humans couldn’t stand against magical beasts.
The three cyclopes had clearly just returned from another hunt—their mouths were smeared with fresh blood.
Yet they still seemed hungry, scanning their surroundings for prey.
Then their gaze fell upon the two people trapped in the cage.
Grrr…
Thud! Thud!
The cyclopes strode toward them.
There were three of them—
but only two pieces of prey.
They began to fight over who would eat them.
The massive cave shook as if it might collapse at any moment.
The victor was the largest cyclops.
After swiftly subduing the other two, it strode forward arrogantly.
As it drew closer, Mandy’s face turned pale.
Creeeak!
At last, the cage door opened, and the cyclops’s massive hand reached in, grabbing Kim Sang-sik.
The moment the door opened, the item’s effect vanished, and the force suppressing her mana disappeared.
“Let go!”
In desperation, Mandy launched a blade of wind—Wind Cutter.
But her attack dissipated uselessly.
It couldn’t penetrate the cyclops’s overwhelming magic resistance.
Instead, her attack only provoked it.
Grrr!
The cyclops changed its target and grabbed Mandy.
“Ugh!”
As the crushing force tightened around her, Mandy groaned.
The immense pressure clouded her consciousness.
The cyclops lifted her toward its mouth.
Eloi!
Just as Mandy desperately called out a name—
Shhhhhh!
A strange sound reached her ears.
It was like the sound of water rushing through a narrow passage.
But this was a cave deep in the desert.
There was no way water could be flowing here.
Mandy thought it must be a hallucination before death.
Yet the cyclopes’ reactions were strange.
As if facing a massive threat, they raised their clubs and stared toward the source of the sound.
ROOOOAR!
The strange noise grew louder.
Sensing something was wrong, the leader cyclops shoved Mandy back into the cage and moved beside the others, staring ahead.
What’s going on?
Barely spared, Mandy looked toward them.
Her vision was blurred from the pressure that had burst the blood vessels in her eyes.
Then—
ROOOOAR!
An enormous surge of sand burst into the cave.
The sound Mandy had mistaken for water was actually sand rushing through the cavern.
The problem was its speed—it was beyond imagination.
Like a tidal wave, the sand crashed over the cyclopes.
ROOOOAR!
The cyclopes roared as they resisted.
But no matter how massive they were, they couldn’t hold back the torrent filling the cave.
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
The sand surged like a high-pressure blast.
The cyclopes swung their clubs wildly, but the sand didn’t yield—instead, it struck them with even greater force.
ROOOOAR!
Their roars echoed.
Not the roar of intimidation—
but cries of fear.
Mandy and Kim Sang-sik never realized it.
They had already lost consciousness.
SKREEEE—
The sand spun violently, grinding the cyclopes apart.
Their magic-resistant hides were stripped away, exposing raw red muscle.
Those powerful muscles were torn apart, revealing bone—
and even the bones were instantly ground to dust.
For the cyclopes, the cave was the worst possible terrain—it amplified the destructive force of the sand.
In the sealed cavern, the sand swirled like a giant blender, shredding the massive monsters without a trace.
SKREEEE—
The horrifying roar of spinning sand swallowed even the cyclopes’ final screams.
***
Mandy and Kim Sang-sik groaned almost simultaneously as they regained consciousness.
“Where…?”
“Ugh…”
As they blinked, their vision slowly cleared, revealing a white cloth stretched above them, blocking the sky.
Then a voice spoke.
“You’re awake. That’s a relief.”
“—!”
Mandy instinctively tensed.
In her view stood a man.
He wore a dark red robe with a hood pulled low, concealing his appearance.
She prepared to cast Wind Cutter and asked,
“Who are you?”
“Just someone passing by. I’m not an enemy, so don’t worry.”
The man replied as he removed his hood.
Long hair falling to his shoulders.
Pale skin.
A tall, slender build.
A handsome face with a gentle smile.
But most striking were his eyes—
deep and clear, like black gemstones, impossible to read.
Seeing no hostility in them, Mandy cautiously asked,
“Did you… save us from the cyclopes?”
“Not at all. I just happened to find you collapsed nearby while passing through.”
“You found us?”
“Yes. You were unconscious, trapped in something like a cage. It looked dangerous to leave you there, so I brought you here.”
At his answer, Mandy pressed her hand to her head.
A sharp pain throbbed.
She remembered the overwhelming torrent of sand flooding the cave.
So we got swept away by it…?
She didn’t know why such a sand surge had entered the cyclops cave.
She didn’t even care what had happened to the cyclopes.
What mattered was that they had survived such a catastrophe.
They had been swept outside—and by sheer luck, found by a passerby.
It was unbelievable fortune.
Behind the man stood a Bactrian camel loaded with supplies.
Where they lay, wooden poles supported a canopy of white cloth, shielding them from the sun.
That was why they had survived.
Mandy lowered her head.
“Thank you… You saved our lives.”
“It’s nothing.”
“I’ll repay this debt, no matter what. What’s your name?”
The man smiled.
“Zeon. My name is Zeon.”