I Only Baked Bread, but I Was Mistaken for the Best - Chapter 131

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 131. Bearing a Dark Lantern (4)
“Forget. Obey.”
“No, but just because you say that doesn’t mean it gets forgotten….”
“Forget. Obey.”
“Understood….”
Faced with Soo-min’s words that radiated an endless chill, Seung-hyun fell silent.
Could it be that Hani had always spoken this way? That this was her true manner of speech all along?
Bewildered by this unexpected reality, he walked forward in a daze, and the world around him appeared different than before.
“All this from eating just one piece of bread….”
To be precise, he wasn’t actually seeing anything.
He was merely sensing the act of perception itself.
‘This is an extraordinarily strange sensation.’
His five senses remained paralyzed.
Neither his eyes nor nose nor ears—no organ functioned properly.
Yet he felt it.
An indescribable sensation flowed through the skin of his entire body.
‘So this is… ah, there’s a tingling. That’s not the right direction.’
As his thoughts continued, an unpleasant sensation emerged.
Feeling as though needles were piercing his body, Seung-hyun stopped walking and changed direction.
Only then did a strange sense of relief wash over him.
This was how it worked.
The senses he normally relied upon were absent, yet paradoxically, he could still walk—a bizarre situation indeed.
He grasped the principle not long after it began.
“Mechanism understood.”
“Ah. Have you discerned the principle?”
“Easily discerned through comparative analysis.”
Soo-min spoke while gazing precisely at where Seung-hyun stood.
She fed the remaining bread to Whitey, her companion creature, as she explained.
“Consciousness and emotion sharing.”
“You mean consciousness and emotion are being shared?”
“More precisely, that information is converted into tactile sensations and the like.”
Soo-min’s explanation was thus:
When they first ate the bread, they could only taste it.
Merely that single flavor alone.
“That sensation originates from the consumer’s consciousness.”
“Consciousness… you mean?”
“Affirmative.”
So in truth, neither of them had actually tasted the bread.
They had only felt Yeon-gi’s anticipation about the bread in the form of taste.
“Subsequently, after Whitey consumed the bread, more refined sensory perception became possible.”
“So that means… ah!”
It was at this point that Seung-hyun could finally piece it together.
After Soo-min ate the bread, Whitey must have picked up and consumed the leftovers.
And while Whitey appeared to be nothing more than a harmless little puppy, he was fundamentally a monster.
Because of that, he could partially adapt to the laws that the Gate imposed.
“So Whitey was able to share all the sensations he experienced one by one….”
“Affirmative. After that, all sensations became perceptible in the form of tactile sensation.”
“Wow… how could you even come up with something like this….”
It was truly a method beyond imagination.
Where in this world could there exist a being capable of resolving a situation where all senses are lost in such a manner?
Conceiving of such an idea was remarkable enough, but actualizing it in reality was even more astounding.
‘Truly a remarkable person!’
Seung-hyun, feeling a renewed sense of awe toward Yeon-gi, pressed forward once more.
How much further they advanced, he couldn’t say.
“Woof!”
“Whitey has detected something.”
“I felt it as well.”
A chill flowed smoothly down my spine.
Beyond mere stinging, a searing pain coursed through me.
This was unmistakable.
A warning, and with it, fear and dread.
“Keeee….”
“There is definitely something here.”
We had ventured deep into the cave, and now such a reaction—it was telling.
Discerning what lay before us was not difficult.
“This must be where the boss is, wouldn’t you say?”
“Affirmative.”
Depending on the type of Gate, the form and location of the boss varied wildly.
However, based on the manner of their appearance, they could be broadly divided into three categories.
The first was the autonomous type.
The boss monster roamed freely throughout the Gate.
The second was the rule-based type.
By sequentially resolving the Gate’s own laws, one would eventually encounter the boss monster at the end.
And finally….
“The dungeon type….”
The dungeon type was the form most dreaded by Hunters.
Much like the dungeons that appeared in online games, the boss monster was situated in the deepest reaches of the Gate.
In such cases, the boss monster typically occupied what was known as the Boss Room.
And in most instances, this boss monster was far more formidable than any monster encountered in other Gates.
“We must remain vigilant.”
“Affirmative. We need solid preparation.”
“I was trying to escape, but the direction shifted like this, so…”
After taking a few more steps, what I felt was a massive Door made of black stone.
Its surface was carved with numerous patterns and images.
People groaning in agony.
People pierced through by spits.
People burning.
People freezing and shattering.
An ominous Door covered with carvings of countless people experiencing death and suffering through various cruel methods.
Before it, Seung-hyun stroked the scales of the friend who had accompanied him all this way.
“Ready?”
“Kyieeeeek!”
“This side is prepared.”
“I am also ready.”
Even amid sensations she couldn’t quite adapt to, Soo-min had learned how to tie mana knots somehow, and she nodded.
All that remained was the charge.
Seung-hyun stepped forward first, his muscles rippling as he pushed against the thick Door.
Creeeeak.
With a spine-chilling sound, the Door groaned open.
What unfolded inside was nothing other than a Room.
A Room that looked as though the Cave had been carved out in a circular shape.
The walls were covered with carvings identical to those carved on the Door from before.
The ceiling and floor were the same.
And floating alone in the very center was a single entity.
“What… exactly is that?”
A massive lump of flesh suspended in the air.
With a form as if people had been rounded together and crushed, both Seung-hyun and Soo-min lost their words.
Simultaneously, it dripped with viscous bodily fluids.
The pulse of the Creature, beating as if alive, filled the entire Space.
“What… exactly is that…”
“Incomprehensible.”
“Grrrrrrrrgh.”
Perhaps because I was borrowing Whitey’s consciousness.
The emotions he felt transmitted directly through both of them.
It was bewilderment, resentment, and regret, compassion, and rage.
An overwhelming flood of countless indecipherable emotions poured forth.
It was far too intense for merely a Puppy, no—a single Monster to feel.
“Whitey. Calm down. Shh. It’s okay.”
“Arrrrrr…”
Still growling at the lump of flesh floating in the air.
By the time the foul-smelling bodily fluids dripping from the mass had thoroughly soaked the ground.
Writhe.
It moved.
Flesh tearing horizontally with a grotesque undulation, splitting wide.
And beyond the flesh folding upward and downward, what revealed itself was….
Squelch.
“An eye?”
A single enormous eyeball.
Or rather, could it even be called a single eyeball?
That thing, possessing dozens, hundreds of tiny pupils within one eye.
“Battle stations.”
“I’m going in first! Hyaaaah!”
Though Seung-hyun typically operated solo, his position was closer to that of a tank when it came down to it.
With a body brimming with overwhelming musculature, he had considerable skill in enduring all manner of rushing attacks through sheer force and imposing stature.
Even in ordinary combat, he favored a style of trading blow for blow.
“Let’s start by taking one hit!”
His fist, now clad in gauntlets, swung with tremendous force.
Just before his punch connected directly with the creature’s eyeball.
“Ugh!”
In that instant, his vision twisted violently.
As though the world itself was warping, Seung-hyun’s fist cut through empty air.
Staggering to regain his balance, the sensation of the world contorting left Seung-hyun unable to take another step forward.
“Be careful! It appears to be applying a debuff that distorts perception!”
“Understood.”
The moment Seung-hyun reported his findings, Soo-min manipulated mana to weave knots.
Creating small knots beside the twisted mana she sensed throughout the space to neutralize it, her vision returned to normal.
But it was only temporary.
“Grrrrgh….”
Each time the enormous eyeball blinked, the mana distortion she had painstakingly corrected manifested anew.
An ability that was utterly relentless and absurd.
Not content with stripping away all sensation, it even twisted the perception of those who had overcome such trials and reached this place.
The killing intent was so unmistakably clear that her mouth had gone completely dry.
The creature, dripping with viscous secretions, rolled its eyeball until it stopped at….
“I never expected you to find your way here, Erixdoter.”
“Urrrrgh….”
“So you’ve taken on such a form and rekindled affection for humans?”
The creature spoke toward Whitey, who stood blocking Soo-min’s path.
The eyelid folding slightly upward resembled a mocking sneer.
“I harbor no regret for the choice you made. Yet I cannot help but find it pitiful and wretched.”
“You can… speak?”
“Is there truly reason to be so startled?”
Of course there was reason to be startled.
A monster capable of mimicking human speech posed an exponentially heightened danger.
And if it could further replicate human behavior, the threat multiplied accordingly.
But to possess human-level intelligence, make reasoned judgments, and wield language itself?
‘Yeon-gi didn’t receive such a high danger rating for nothing!’
Yeon-gi, registered as S-rank and subject to the Association’s constant vigilance and observation—was that not proof enough?
Even if she had yet to harm humanity, having instead proven helpful through her actions, the potential danger alone warranted that classification.
Then what was one to make of this mass of flesh and eyeballs before me?
“Danger rating… S-rank….”
“I am conversing with an old acquaintance. Your noise is unwelcome—silence yourself, if you would.”
Those words alone were all it took.
Soo-min felt her breath catch in her throat.
An overwhelming terror.
A helplessness that enveloped her like a swamp from which she could not escape, no matter how she struggled.
“Gaaaahhhhh! Die! You bastard!”
Seung-hyun, who had overcome his own muscles through sheer will, charged forward alongside his friend Sandworm, but….
“Did I not ask you to be quiet?”
The attempt was effortlessly thwarted.
As the creature twisted their senses once more, both Seung-hyun and Sandworm plummeted helplessly to the ground.
“Now you have reached a perspective more familiar to me. There are limits to what one can comprehend and accept, after all.”
I felt no curiosity about how it could hear without a mouth.
Only an endless revulsion at its very existence.
“To move and raise your head within the space I arranged—you must have received the Witch’s aid. The fact that the ice beast followed as well only confirms my suspicion.”
It extracted long capillaries from its eye and lifted Sandworm, Whitey, Soo-min, and Seung-hyun—all bound together—into the air.
“Yet it matters not. What transpired here shall soon be as though it never was.”
It was then that Seung-hyun remembered.
The monster that Kim Ri-a, the captain of the Hunter’s Association’s Special Investigations Team 1, and three S-rank Hunters had discovered and hunted not long ago.
‘It looks identical. I heard a living person had been transformed into that very shape!’
A single enormous eyeball suspended alone—did it not match that description perfectly?
Yet remembering now changed nothing.
“The time has come for me to become more complete. You shall become my vision.”
Corrupted blood flowing through the capillaries.
A violent, searing pain.
They understood instinctively.
The moment they accepted this, they would become identical to the creature before them.
But what could they do against it?
‘Think. You must think!’
‘Ugh! This damned blood vessel!’
Despite their efforts, consciousness grew increasingly dim.
The last thing they heard within that consciousness was….
“I had a hunch, and it turned out to be right.”
“I was uncertain. Sorry for telling you so late, Owner. Meow.”
“No, it’s fine. I’m just glad you made it in time.”
Familiar yet eerie voices—the grotesque tone and the meowing of a Cat.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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