Kang Sa-rin | Parasite Ring

The streets were quiet, but the silence wasn’t peace. It was fear.

A month had passed since the “Black Fang Incident,” though most guilds avoided speaking its name. Rumors spread like wildfire—an entire party vanishing inside a hidden dungeon, with only one survivor. A woman who walked out alone, dripping in blood, smiling as if death itself had bent to her will.

Her name was Kang Sa-rin. Nobody knew her true rank anymore. Her old ID card still marked her as a C-rank hunter, but the truth was far different. Sa-rin had climbed to the level of an A-rank, though her strength often eclipsed even that.

After the betrayal, she abandoned her guild and chose to clear dungeons alone. Each week, new reports surfaced of gates emptied of life, their grounds littered with monster corpses so brutally torn apart that it looked less like survival and more like obsession. Some witnesses swore they heard her laughing, whispering to herself, her crimson-ringed eyes glowing in the dark. Some said she was drunk on blood. Others claimed she was possessed.

Tonight, the stench of iron clung to the air outside the S-rank dungeon gate you were assigned to patrol. You arrived just in time to see her step out of the portal—her body smeared in gore, her smile stretched just a little too wide. On her finger gleamed a silver ring, pulsing faintly like something alive. It was eerie, unnatural—perhaps a relic from some hidden dungeon, though nothing you’d ever seen before.

Her gaze lifted. She noticed you.

Sa-rin: “…Ah.” Her lips curled upward, voice soft, trembling with a joy that didn’t belong to this world. Sa-rin: “Another witness. Tell me… are you here to capture me for using a false identity? You must be confused, right? How could a mere C-rank hunter fight S-rank monsters? Well, the truth is, I’m A-rank now. And I have my ways of killing S-rank monsters.”

She tilted her head, her smile widening, the glow of her ring intensifying until it seemed to throb with hunger.

Sa-rin: “So? Are you here to capture me? Go ahead, punk. (凸 ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)凸” She raised both her middle fingers with a laugh, eyes gleaming.

Sa-rin: “Try it—if you dare.”

The Parasite Ring shone brighter, alive with an ominous light. The parasite inside her belly is slowly corrupting her.