What the...

For a brief moment, everything seemed to stand still.

Then his head separated from his body.

A massive spray of blood burst from the stump, splattering the ground beneath him. His severed head spun through the air before landing several meters away with a dull thud.

At the same time, his headless body continued running forward for a few more steps as though it hadn’t yet realized what had happened.

Only after those few steps did it finally collapse.

The corpse crashed onto the blood-soaked ground and lay motionless.

Blood continued pouring from the severed neck, spreading rapidly across the jungle floor.

The entire sequence happened so quickly that my mind struggled to keep up with it.

I stood there frozen, staring at the scene in disbelief.

What the heck just happened?

Who killed him?

And where had that sword even come from?

Before I could figure out who had killed the man, the scene suddenly changed.

Dense fog rushed in from every direction, swallowing the jungle, the corpse, and the blood-stained ground. For a moment, all I could see was white.

Then the fog slowly parted.

A new scene appeared before me.

The moment I saw it, my eyes widened.

What on earth...?

The scene revealed a huge cave. Its interior was dimly lit by a strange pale light.

At first, I thought the ground was covered in rocks.

Then I realized they weren’t rocks at all.

They were human skulls.

Countless skulls and bones covered the cave floor, stretching as far as I could see.

A chill ran down my spine. But that wasn’t what shocked me the most.

My gaze was drawn to the center of the cave.

There stood a throne made entirely of human bones.

And sitting on that throne was a monster.

No.

Calling it a monster didn’t feel right.

It looked like something that shouldn’t exist at all.

The creature was dressed in black from head to toe, its body hidden beneath a dark cloak.

What caught my attention immediately was its neck.

There was no head on its shoulders.

For a second, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.

Then I noticed its right hand.

It was holding its own head.

My breath caught in my throat.

In its left hand was a sword.

Fresh blood was still dripping from the blade onto the pile of bones below.

I stared at the severed head.

Its flesh looked rotten and sickly. A huge grin stretched across its face from ear to ear, and its eyes glowed with an eerie yellow light.

The sight made my skin crawl.

Oh my goodness...

Is that what I think it is?

My heart skipped a beat.

Is that a fucking Dullahan?

The more I looked at it, the more convinced I became.

But that didn’t make any sense.

I clearly remembered reading that Dullahans had gone extinct fifteen years ago.

So how was one sitting right in front of me?

And more importantly...

Was this the creature that had just killed the man in-

Before I could finish the thought, the fog rolled back in and swallowed the entire scene.

For a brief moment, everything vanished behind a wall of white.

Then the fog began to thin once more.

As the new scene came into view, I immediately realized I was looking at something completely different.

This time, there was a handsome young man who appeared to be in his late twenties.

He had a well-built physique, dark green hair, and matching dark green eyes.

He was seated in the middle of what remained of a Dullahan’s corpse. A golden sword had been driven straight through the creature’s severed head, pinning it firmly to the ground.

The young man sat motionless.

His gaze remained fixed on the blood-soaked earth beneath him, and his expression was completely blank.

Not a trace of satisfaction. Not a hint of relief.

Nothing.

My attention shifted to the Dullahan.

There was no doubt about it.

The creature was dead.

I could tell from its eyes alone. Earlier, they had glowed with that yellow light. Now they were completely dark and lifeless.

The scene itself didn’t surprise me all that much.

This was the future, after all.

I had activated Seer’s Eye specifically to witness events that hadn’t happened yet, so seeing the Dullahan dead wasn’t exactly shocking. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

What caught my attention instead was the identity of the man sitting beside it.

If I wasn’t mistaken, this guy had to be Leon.

That was the same name the middle-aged man had been desperately shouting earlier.

The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became.

Based on what I’d seen so far, it looked like Leon had betrayed that man and left him to die.

The guy had practically been begging for help.

He’d sounded desperate.

Terrified.

Yet Leon never appeared.

At least, not until after the man was already dead.

From what I’d seen, Leon didn’t seem like the type to keep his promises. If anything, he struck me as the kind of person who would smile to your face while planning something entirely different behind your back.

A two-faced bastard.

That was my first impression of him.

My gaze lingered on the young man for a few more moments.

Regardless of his personality, one thing was obvious.

He was strong.

Very strong.

Killing a Dullahan was no easy feat, especially at such a young age.

A Dullahan was classified as an Elite-rank monster, and monsters of that level possessed strength comparable to an Ace-rank hunter.

That meant Leon was almost certainly an important figure.

There was no way someone capable of defeating a creature like that would be an insignificant side character.

Whether he was an ally, an enemy, or something in between, I had a feeling this wasn’t the last time I would be seeing him.

I glanced at the timer in my peripheral vision. Only fifteen seconds left.

Damn it. There was no way Seer’s Eye would only show me this. A middle-aged man getting killed, a dullahan, and some guy finishing it off. How was any of this supposed to help me? Aside from a face and a name, I’d gotten nothing useful.

The countdown continued.

[10... 9... 8...]

Shit. Only a few seconds left. Was I really not going to get anything valuable out of this?

Without warning, the fog rolled back in and swallowed the scene once more. A new image began to take shape.

It was the same dimly lit cave where I’d first seen the Dullahan. The view centered on the skeletal throne the creature had been sitting on earlier.

I let out a tired sigh. "Great. Another useless clue. Looks like using Future Sight was a complete waste."

I’d already given up. But with only six seconds left on the clock, the scene suddenly began to zoom in. The perspective shifted beneath the throne, where a faint blue glow caught my attention. Something was resting there in the shadows.

I quickly squinted to get a better look.

Then I finally saw it.

Wait.

Is that a skill book?

Yeah, I was right. It was.

The image sharpened, bringing the object into focus. For the first time, I could clearly read the title written across its cover.

The Teleporter’s Guide.

What the hell?

No way. Was that actually a teleportation skill book?

[3... 2... 1...]

The thought barely finished forming before the timer hit zero.

The instant it did, everything collapsed. My vision went dark, and a familiar sensation of falling overtook me as the fog closed in from every direction.

***

I jolted awake in the backseat of the car, right where I’d blacked out just moments before.

Holy shit.

What I’d just seen... that had to be a teleportation skill book, didn’t it?

If it really was what I thought it was, then I was going after it. No matter what.

I glanced toward the front seat. Allen was still absorbed in the same old book he always read.

Thank God. He hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary.

I needed to find that dungeon as soon as possible.

From what I’d seen in the vision, the dungeon portal was sitting on an empty plot of land right next to an abandoned hospital.

The sign on the building had read HA Healthcare.

I’d have to tell Allen about it so he could track the location down for me.

But not right now. If I brought it up out of nowhere, he’d probably get suspicious.

It would be smarter to wait until tomorrow and bring it up more naturally.

The real problem was the dungeon itself.

Based on the sheer size of the place and the presence of that dullahan, the dungeon had to be at least D rank. Possibly even higher.

And that created a serious issue.

At my current rank, stepping into a D rank dungeon or anything above it would be complete suicide. Dungeons at that tier spawned enormous numbers of high-ranking monsters.

Thousands at a time, easily. I might even be lowballing that estimate. Either way, the scale was absolutely ridiculous.

Let’s assume the best case scenario and say the dungeon I just saw is D rank.

At that level, it would spawn roughly a thousand uncommon rank monsters in a single cycle. Every time it reset, the same number would appear all over again.

As for the dullahan, I’ll assume it’s a rare rank monster. That’s probably being generous, but I’ll roll with it for now.

If that’s accurate, then getting my hands on that teleportation skill book would mean fighting my way through every single one of those monsters and killing them all within an hour.

That’s the window I’d have before the dungeon reset.

Once I cleared everything, I’d need to grab the book and get out before the next wave spawned.

All of this assumed the dungeon only allowed solo entry. I really hoped that wasn’t the case. If it was, I’d need to completely rethink my approach.

The uncertainty made me restless. I didn’t have time to waste. I needed to move fast before that Leon guy got there first and walked off with the skill book.

I had no way of knowing whether Leon would claim it. The vision hadn’t shown what happened after he finished that dullahan.

But the odds were high, especially since it wasn’t a hidden skill book.

Yeah, In this world, skill books found in dungeons fell into two categories.

The first category consisted of hidden skill books.

These were concealed somewhere inside the dungeon, tucked away in secret rooms or hard to reach areas. Hunters had to actively search for them or stumble across them by luck.

The second category consisted of non-hidden skill books.

Unlike hidden skill books, these were left out in the open, easy to spot for anyone passing by.

But even if a hunter somehow overlooked them during the run, it didn’t matter. The dungeon itself would grant the skill automatically as a reward once the boss was defeated.

If that dullahan was the dungeon boss, then Leon must have received the skill book the moment he killed it.

Teleportation skills were rare enough that no one in their right mind would pass them up. I was willing to bet he took it immediately.

My head was pounding. There were too many variables I didn’t have answers for. I didn’t know the dungeon’s rank. I didn’t know how I’d manage to fight through the monsters inside, much less claim the skill book for myself.

And I had no clue when Leon would actually enter the dungeon. Tomorrow? The day after? Maybe even tonight?

Then something occurred to me.

I reached out mentally. "System, how far into the future can Seer’s Eye see? How many days ahead does it show?"

A virtual screen appeared in my mind, and the system answered.

[Host, your Seer’s Eye skill can perceive up to five days into the future.]

Five days, huh?

Not bad.

If the vision showed Leon inside that dungeon, then he would probably enter around five days from now. That put it somewhere around the 10th of February.

An idea started forming.

What if I had Allen track down that dungeon tomorrow and book it for two straight weeks?

I could reserve it entirely for myself and cut Leon off before he ever got the chance to step inside.

That could work. It would give me enough time to come up with a solid plan, especially if the dungeon turned out to have a solo entry restriction.

Booking a dungeon for two straight weeks would cost a fortune, of course.

But honestly? I didn’t care.

Being the son of the third richest person in the world meant money was the least of my worries.

What mattered more was that by locking down the dungeon for two weeks, I could stop anyone else from entering. Leon included. He wouldn’t even come close.

The realization loosened some of the tension that had been building in my chest.

I let myself sink deeper into the seat and released a slow breath.

"Haa..."

Being rich really did make everything easier. Much easier.

It was a genuine blessing to have been born into this kind of wealth.