Ugh. Haniel cut away the mushrooms that were stealthily extending toward her with a dagger. With the mindset that little by little makes a mountain, she gathered the items from those corpses and stuffed them into her inventory.

Thump, thump, thump.

“Whoa? Wait a minute.”

Haniel held up the ‘Sun’s Wolf Squad Dagger’ and illuminated it slightly with the torch.

This unfamiliar color, this strange luster she had never seen before. Perhaps this is…

Ding!

Haniel’s eyes widened as she read the item description.

This is incredible.

‘I’ve obtained a new metal!’

Soleilite! A metal from Soleil! Her mouth opened as wide as a basin.

New metal means new recipes, new appliances.

Perhaps this alone makes the Rift worthwhile?

‘Purify the core of the Rift with vitality? Fine. But a few spoils like these that I get on the way to purify the core of the Rift… that’s okay, right?’

Having dispelled even a trace of guilt about robbing corpses, Haniel stretched comfortably.

“There are corpses, but it’s still smooth going?”

“Yes. It’s strange.”

Somehow, this ominous peace seemed to have only heightened Regan’s vigilance.

“But, the cause of death for these corpses…”

Unlike Haniel, who was blinded by the spoils, Regan was observing the corpses with sharp eyes, trying to deduce the cause of death.

The first corpse they had seen earlier was too damaged and the cause wasn’t clearly visible from the exterior, but these corpses were different.

One corpse had a large hole in its stomach, and the other had lost almost half its body from below the neck, as if torn apart.

‘What kind of creature could make such attacks?’

A being with tremendous strength capable of tearing apart the sturdy Hume flesh in this way…

It was beyond conjecture. Because the Rift was a place where common sense from the outside world didn’t apply, Regan could only swallow hard as he considered all the weapons and creatures he knew.

At that moment, Haniel, who was examining the corpse, pointed to the cross-section of the wound and said:

“Look at this. There’s something strange here.”

Regan immediately looked where she was pointing, but… there was nothing there.

But Haniel, with eyes that clearly saw something, pressed on a part of the wound on the corpse and picked something up with her finger.

Only then could Regan see something transparent stretching out.

He would swear that what Haniel was touching had absolutely no presence or substance until just a moment ago. At least, even Regan, whose eyesight was several times better than hers, hadn’t noticed it.

But Regan had seen Haniel pick up valuable things from seemingly empty piles of trash before, so he was able to swallow his surprise.

“What is that?”

“Um… it says it’s pheromones?”

What new thing are they telling me to try with pheromones…

Anyway, does this mean that whatever could produce this killed these two Hume soldiers?

Haniel washed her hands as thoroughly as possible to ensure no pheromones remained on her, then read the status window again.

“‘Traces used to mark intruders’… Could this be a trace left by the animal housing the core of the Rift, as you said?”

“That’s a possibility.”

“Intruders… I have a bad feeling about this…”

Haniel scratched her cheek.

The animal housing the core of the Rift was something Regan had told her about.

“The ‘core of the Rift’ can reside in any person, object, plant, or animal within the Rift.”

How did he know such information? To the curious Haniel, Regan roughly explained how he knew such detailed information about ‘Rifts’.

‘He said he had already fallen into one once before and miraculously escaped…’

Surprisingly, Regan had already experienced a Rift before.

His reaction when Haniel said she had been to the Nightmare Forest, where Rifts were scattered everywhere, wasn’t unfounded—it was sincere concern stemming from a survivor’s experience.

The Rift that Regan had fallen into in the past appeared when he was deployed to a remote, dangerous area under Sol’s orders.

A Rift that instantly swallowed him and his unit members.

According to Regan, in an imperceptible instant, everything around them had completely changed.

“It was a hellish time.”

The terrain moved as if it had a will of its own, and monsters never seen before appeared and attacked the unit members at every moment.

What made the situation worse was the madness that gradually began to seep into the unit members.

Regan said there was one subordinate who acted particularly strangely, as if he had eaten something bad.

He had been a friendly person who followed any order well before falling into the Rift, but from the moment they entered the Rift, his personality changed to become strangely aggressive.

In the end, that subordinate tried to endanger the remaining members, and Regan had no choice but to execute him.

But the moment the subordinate died, surprisingly, the Rift suddenly closed, and some, including Regan, were able to successfully escape from it.

That problematic subordinate had been the ‘core of the Rift’ itself.

And despite spending days inside, only 1 hour had passed in the outside reality.

After investigating Rifts since then, Regan learned that the ‘core of the Rift’ could reside in any person, object, plant, or animal within the Rift.

‘I shouldn’t miss any of these clues.’

Haniel, who was about to discard the [Pheromones (Destroyed)] item, put it into her inventory instead.

So far, her vision was still indicating that the core of the Rift was beyond the tunnel, so it didn’t seem like she had missed anything… but you never know how it might be useful.

At that moment, as Regan turned his head in a certain direction, the sound of something stepping on the ground was heard.

Rustle.

“!”

Gasp. Haniel inhaled sharply from within Regan’s shadow, which perfectly concealed her.

Having already taken a stance without her noticing, Regan was pointing his sword toward the front of the tunnel.

A tense atmosphere filled the air. From the direction where Regan was fixing his gaze, a figure suddenly appeared.

What, what is it? Nearly fainting from shock, Haniel grabbed Regan’s elbow and whispered.

“Re, Regan. Regan. A living person, it’s a person!”

“…That one is…”

Regan narrowed his eyes as he caught the scent at the tip of his nose.

In fact, he had noticed that entity, rapidly approaching them from tens of meters away.

If he had any sense, he would have realized that Regan was armed, yet he still came this close…

Regan’s mouth twisted.

Having identified who it was the moment he caught the scent of the stranger, he raised his sword with the intention of piercing his throat if necessary.

…I can’t let Regan face this alone. Haniel also raised her insignificant axe and glared at the unidentified figure.

And, slowly revealed in the torchlight, was the face of the stranger.

“…Regan Fenril.”

He was a Hume man.

Unlike the shrunken corpses lying sprawled on the floor, he was a living soldier of Soleil.

His face, frozen with an expression of shock in front of the tremendous killing intent, resembled a weasel.

“Ha… you’re really alive?”

“…’Rel’.”

“I didn’t expect to see you here in the Rift… Captain, you have terrible luck.”

A soldier of Soleil. The man presumed to be Regan’s former subordinate, ‘Rel’, sneered while showing hostility.

“No, not Captain anymore, but a treasonous son of a b*tch, right?”

Growl. At those words, a threatening sound flowed from deep within Regan’s throat. It was a sound that instinctively terrified prey.

The Soleil soldier in front of them flinched, and Haniel’s hand holding the axe handle trembled, but… she was agitated for a slightly different reason than the soldier.

That reason was…

‘He’s handsome.’

It was for an extremely worldly reason…