Chapter 176
“Kyaaak! Save me, please save me!”
A desperate voice rang out from somewhere.
“Please! Save me! Sob, sob, sob!”
Her cries were laced with terror—desperation so raw it was unmistakable.
“First, let’s run!”
Bong Jaeyoung shouted as he took off at a sprint.
“What are you doing? Everyone, follow me!”
Rustle, rustle…
The dark forest was still cold, bleak, and oppressive.
“Yes.”
“Yep!”
Kwon Soye and Im Sujin followed close behind him.
Swish! Swish, swish!
Ki Soyul and I also stepped into the darkness.
It wasn’t hard to find her.
She kept making noise, giving away her location.
“Sob, sob! You heard my voice and came! Th-thank you!”
Crouched beside a large boulder, an adult woman who looked Russian was shedding tears.
The wrist she used to wipe them was unnervingly slender.
Small scars and wounds covered her body, making any onlooker frown instinctively.
“What on earth happened?”
Bong Jaeyoung asked, pity in his eyes.
“I had… companions. We were wandering through the strange mist scattered around this place when… one by one, my comrades disappeared… Sob, sob.”
“What are all those wounds? Did someone attack you?”
“…Yes. It was a strange monster. It kept attacking, but I think it ran away when it heard you all coming… Thank you again. Sob.”
“I see.”
Bong Jaeyoung, nodding with a grave expression, gave a faint smile.
“First of all, I am the world’s 101st-ranked hunter, Bong Jaeyoung. I’m from the Republic of Korea.”
At the same time, he gallantly extended a hand toward her.
“I plan to clear this Dungeon, so you can rest assured now.”
She flinched at his words, then her eyes widened.
“R-Rank 101?”
“Hahaha, that’s right. Hey, Kwon Soye!”
“Yes?”
“What are you doing? We have a survivor. Hurry up and bring some emergency rations and a blanket to wrap her in. It’s cold, isn’t it!”
“…”
The druid, Kwon Soye, pouted and raised her hand.
Rumble, rumble, rumble!
A strange plant shot up from the ground, its leaves gently wrapping around the woman.
‘Look at him, playing the hero all by himself.’
Mouthing the words, she pulled out some hardtack and a strip of beef jerky from her backpack and thwack! tossed them over.
“Th-thank you.”
The Russian woman bowed her head and accepted them.
Glare!
Bong Jaeyoung shot Kwon Soye a sharp look for her insolent attitude.
Then he sat beside the Russian woman and began asking questions.
How did she end up here?
Who were her companions?
What had she seen in this Dungeon?
“When I heard this was a Dungeon no one had ever returned from alive, I honestly think I got a little greedy…”
“Oh, dear.”
“That’s why we pushed forward when the strange mist rolled in. You never know, right? There’s always that lightning-strike chance of a fortuitous encounter…”
“Hmm, I see. Well, that’s a moment many hunters dream of. Ah, where did you say the thing that attacked you went?”
“That way. It disappeared along that path. Since you’re a ranker… you’ll avenge the unjust deaths of my comrades, won’t you?”
“Hahaha, well. That much isn’t difficult. You don’t have to worry anymore.”
While Bong Jaeyoung and the woman spoke—
“Donghoon-ssi.”
Ki Soyul came up beside me and whispered.
“Yes.”
“Is it really okay to just accept a survivor like that inside a Dungeon?”
“…Hmm, I wonder.”
Even if his rank was lower than mine, he was still 101st in the world.
I figured he had his own know-how, so I watched for now.
‘He’s more disappointing than I thought.’
Some might call it justice.
But I wasn’t the type to trust people easily inside a Dungeon.
Especially after learning that intelligent monsters existed within them.
“There are a few strange things, aren’t there? A woman is the sole survivor in a Dungeon this tough?”
“The energy I feel from her is strange, too.”
“Right.”
I nodded.
“It’s like she has only a faint aura… but something about it doesn’t fit.”
The results of my scan with the Supreme Azure Mind Method.
I could feel almost no energy in her body.
That was even stranger.
A woman with no power at all, attacked by something, and still alive.
Also, while her voice was soaked in tears—
If you listened to what she was actually saying, there wasn’t a trace of fear or despair.
In short, her tone was about as convincing as an acting-school applicant.
Right.
In moments like this—
Thud!
I lightly tapped my staff on the ground.
“You’re going to… call him, aren’t you?”
Ki Soyul asked, as if she already knew.
“Yes. Whatever it is, it’s better to be certain.”
[Using the skill, ‘Legacy of the Ten Thousand Arts’ (SS-Class).]
[Consuming 20 Energy.]
[The ‘Master of the Ten Thousand Arts’ appears.]
– Hoo.
The Elder looked around and let out a light breath.
– What is this place?
“Why, what is it, Elder?”
– It’s just that a rather familiar smell is in the air.
A familiar smell?
Swish!
The Elder shot up into the air and slowly rotated, scanning the terrain.
– As I thought, it’s that mist. Hah. How can something like that exist in this world, too?
“What is it?”
I asked, curiosity rising.
– There’s something like it. Long ago, in the world I lived in, there was a fellow named Dang Hwi-pyeong. He was a master at handling poison bugs.
“Poison bugs…”
– Yes. Venomous insects and the like. Aren’t there some in that Toxin Mist of yours?
“That’s right.”
– It’s similar to what that fellow made. That mist.
“…”
– The farts those poison bugs he bred would release looked like that.
“Farts?”
So that stuff wasn’t mist.
It was bug gas?
Either way, one thing was certain.
Summoning the Elder just now was the right call.
“Hmm…”
As I narrowed my eyes, the Elder clicked his tongue.
– That dreadful thing manipulates a person’s psyche, so I eradicated it completely in our world… Seeing it again isn’t a pleasant feeling.
“What about that woman?”
– That foreign wench?
The Elder gave the Russian woman a brief glance.
– What’s there to say? I can tell she’s hiding a sinister heart just by looking at her.
As I thought.
My intuition wasn’t wrong.
“Why, why?”
Ki Soyul stared at me with curious eyes.
I gave a small nod.
“Ah.”
As if she’d expected it, she nodded silently.
Right.
That woman—
“You said your name was Bong Jaeyoung? That’s a really cool name. But… when are we leaving? I want to get out of this place quickly.”
Before long, the tears on her face were gone, and she spoke like it was only natural.
“…”
Grip!
Ki Soyul clutched the dagger I had gifted her.
“Just a moment,” I whispered. “Let’s leave her be.”
“Pardon?”
Ki Soyul tilted her head.
In sync, the dagger tilted slightly as well.
“We don’t know where to go anyway. There’s no point striking now, is there?”
“Ah.”
She nodded.
“You’re saying we should wait and see where she takes us?”
“Yes. If we move rashly, we might just cut off the tail.”
This place was vast.
And the fact that someone like her existed in a Dungeon was suspicious in itself.
If she was bait—
I’d rather step into it and see what lay at the bottom of this Dungeon.
“I can tell you’ve grown a lot.”
Ki Soyul loosened her grip.
“This is a method only hunters who are truly confident in their skills use.”
“Confidence? Well. I’ve always had plenty.”
My gaze shifted from Ki Soyul back to Bong Jaeyoung.
Just then, he stood and looked at me.
“Hey, Joo Donghoon.”
“Yes.”
“That path seems suspicious. Better to move right away than rest here. Get ready.”
“Hmm… sure. Let’s do that.”
I answered coolly.
I had no intention of relaxing here.
Sleeping with the enemy, that is.
—
Someone once said that more than a Dungeon—
More than a monster—
What might be scarier is a person.
That it could be a fellow hunter.
‘Villains.’
The world is wide, and people are countless.
Villains are inevitable.
Hoping every single person in the world is good and moral—
Statistically, isn’t that the more nonsensical belief?
“…”
We—more precisely, the Russian woman, Bong Jaeyoung’s party, and Ki Soyul and I—stopped at a certain spot.
To be exact, we had no choice but to stop.
“What is this…”
Bong Jaeyoung muttered, his expression dark.
“Ugh.”
Kwon Soye covered her mouth, as if disgusted.
Im Sujin and Ki Soyul also turned their heads slightly away.
Grrrrr!
Gurgle, gurgle!
The path we followed opened into a wide clearing.
And in that clearing, countless iron cages were stacked high, and inside them—
“H-how?”
Kwon Soye murmured.
“How can you lock people up like this?”
That’s right.
Was it human experimentation?
The things drooling behind the bars of those cages were people.
The Elder spat out a curse.
Damn it all.
– It’s the same effect as the poison bugs I saw in the past. Feed them poison and they lose their reason, but in exchange, their innate strength is amplified until it burns out. With one of those poison bugs, even a third-rate warrior can become first-rate in an instant. Tsk tsk. What a truly wicked art.
“…”
The sight was horrific.
People with bloodshot eyes gripped the iron bars and crunch, crunch! chewed on them.
Their fingernails and toenails were already mangled and bleeding.
And yet their tear ducts weren’t dry, showing just how much pain they were in.
“…”
Why was it?
In that moment, I looked into the Russian woman’s eyes.
As expected, her pupils didn’t waver at all.
Thump, thump!
My heart pounded.
My blood boiled.
“Excuse me.”
So I stepped closer and asked.
“Yes?”
She looked at me with an innocent expression.
Sure enough, she had the kind of mysterious beauty that could captivate Bong Jaeyoung.
But to me, she wasn’t pretty at all.
Because within that faint aura of hers, I could feel a killing intent she couldn’t fully conceal, no matter how hard she tried.
Right.
She was treating this moment as an opportunity.
Waiting for us to be shaken by this hideous sight.
But that only works when I don’t know.
Now that I did, I couldn’t let it play out.
“You said you came into this Dungeon with your comrades, right?”
“Ah, yes… that’s right. Sob. Could it be my comrades suffered the same fate as those people over there…?”
A detestable tremble in her voice.
I grinned.
“Then what were your comrades’ names, by any chance?”
“My comrades’ names…? Why do you ask…”
“Why? Having trouble making something up on the spot?”
“Pardon…?”
Her eyebrow twitched.
At my question, Bong Jaeyoung stepped forward.
“Hey, Joo Donghoon. That interrogative tone toward a survivor who’s clearly in a fragile state of mind—”
“Are you seriously calling her a survivor in a fragile state of mind?”
“Huh?”
“Hmm. I thought a ranker would have better situational awareness, but it looks like you need to work on your judgment.”
I’d made my decision.
There was nothing left to learn from Steel Fist, Bong Jaeyoung.
No room for respect, either.
There was no reason to force courtesy on someone like this.
They say the boughs that bear most hang lowest, but bowing to just anyone lowers my own value, too.
“What did you just say…”
Bong Jaeyoung, dumbfounded, started to speak, but I ignored him and looked back at the Russian woman.
“It’s strange. You can’t answer a simple question like their names, and yet you’re pretending to be frail when you have such immense skill.”
“…”
At my direct accusation, the Russian woman clamped her mouth shut and clenched her fists.
Bewilderment was clear on her face.
As Kwon Soye and Im Sujin stared back and forth between me and the Russian woman in disbelief, I grinned.
“Hmm. Do you prefer a physical conversation over a verbal one?”
Fwoosh!
In an instant, I raised my arm, summoned the God-Slaying Spear, and thrust it at the woman without hesitation.
Whooosh!
“Wh-what! What are you doing!”
Bong Jaeyoung shouted, trying to stop me.
But it was already too late.
The Russian woman had revealed her true form.
She slipped past my spear by a hair and twisted the corners of her mouth into a bizarre smile.
“Kekekeke, how did you know?”
Wow.
What kind of laugh was that?
Even though I’d suspected it, the sound was so grotesque it made my skin crawl.
“I knew you were extraordinary the moment you came through the mist… but you’re quite something, indeed?”
The instant she unveiled herself—
Swish! Swish, swish! Swoosh!
Figures began appearing from every direction around the clearing.
Every single one of them radiated a heavy presence.
“Hoo.”
I let out a short breath as well.
Finally.
Maybe now—
Would the real clues to this Dungeon start to surface?