Chapter 208: Bangi-dong Dungeon (3)

TL: SHW

Thump.

Thump. Thump.

The ground trembled. The pulse was barely perceptible.

If we had been outside, I would have assumed it was the vibration of a passing car or subway train. That was how faint it was.

But we were inside a Dungeon. A quiet Dungeon where the only things crawling around were Centipedes no bigger than a person's forearm.

There shouldn't have been vibrations like this.

“......”

Hong Seok-young stared down at the ground, his face rigid. He rubbed some dirt between his fingertips, but there was nothing he could tell from that alone.

We should have brought Kim Chae-min.

If Kim Chae-min had been here, she could have easily figured out what was beneath the ground.

Apparently I wasn't the only one thinking that, because Hong Seok-young spoke with a regretful look on his face.

“We could really use Teacher Kim right now.”

“What has she been doing lately?”

It had been almost two months since I'd properly seen her. Saying she had something important to take care of was an excuse I could accept once or twice, but by now I had no idea what she was actually doing.

Whenever I asked what that important business was, she clammed up and played dumb. Still, every so often, before I could completely forget what she looked like, she would show up to adjust the magic on the Villa... And whenever I asked Lee Mi-seon, she told me Kim Chae-min occasionally turned up at the Pilot High School construction site too, meddling in one thing or another.

“Beats me. I barely get to see her myself.”

“Tsk.”

“She looked completely swamped repairing the Domain Ark destroyed. She'd holed herself up and wouldn't even answer anyone. I barely managed to coax a response out of her just to make sure she was still alive.”

“She's repairing her Domain?”

I looked at Hong Seok-young as though he'd just said something bizarre. Hong Seok-young himself looked like he thought it was bizarre too.

Mages were notoriously particular about their Domains. Even when creating one, they made a fuss over reasons no one else could understand. Almost no one besides the mage who declared it could enter, and if a Domain was damaged by someone else, as Kim Chae-min's had been, mages generally considered it sullied by another person's touch and abandoned the whole thing.

In fact, Kim Chae-min apparently intended to establish a Domain in the new Pilot High School building, because she'd been making a fuss over everything starting from the architectural plans....

Thump.

The ground faintly trembled again beneath my feet, as if reminding me not to forget about it.

“We can't exactly go fetch Teacher Kim now, so let's leave her out of this for the moment....”

Well, it wasn't as though this was the first time a mage had done something strange.

“What do you think?”

I asked Hong Seok-young, who was staring downward with a furrowed brow. He slowly straightened.

We hadn't noticed anything was there until the vibrations started.

Usually, that meant one extreme or the other. Either it was formidable enough to conceal its presence, or it was so insignificant that it barely amounted to more than a passing ant.

Hong Seok-young shook his head.

“Doesn't feel like anything formidable.”

“Are you sure?”

“Hmm....”

Hong Seok-young spun the Wooden Sword around in one hand.

“We're going to close the Dungeon and leave anyway, so we probably don't need to worry about it.... Still, it'd be better to check.”

“I don't mind.”

“I don't know what kind of thing is crawling around underground, but if it's got even a speck of intelligence and opens the door before we destroy the Core, we'll have a problem.”

“Would something intelligent really give away its presence like that?”

“That's what I'm wondering.”

Hong Seok-young reversed his grip on the sword. Its tip pointed toward the ground.

“Normally, you shouldn't go tearing up a Dungeon like this. We're only doing it because the circumstances are unusual.”

“I know.”

“I taught you well, didn't I?”

Hong Seok-young stabbed the sword into the ground. Despite being a Wooden Sword, it sank in as smoothly as if he were slicing through tofu. He drove it down until hardly any of the blade remained visible, then bent over and gripped the protruding hilt.

“You know where the Core is, right?”

“...Why?”

“If one of those things you were talking about jumps out, destroy the Core first.”

I jerked my head up, wondering what the hell this old man was talking about. Hong Seok-young grinned.

“Of course, I don't think it's anything that impressive, so don't get too worked up.”

Boom.

Then the entire Dungeon convulsed.

For an instant, mana leaking from Hong Seok-young blanketed my vision like fog.

“......”

The mana quietly settled. Even the occasional skittering of Centipedes went silent.

A forest without a single sound didn't feel like a real forest at all. It felt like a model, something made entirely from artificial flowers and fake trees.

Rumble!!

The earlier silence must have been the calm before the storm, because the ground began shaking violently. I remembered the corpse of the Centipede that had brought down the Ability Management Agency building. My father, who had left behind nothing but a Dog Tag engraved with his name, came to mind as well, along with Yoo Ji-eun, who had died right before my eyes before I could do anything.

“Hmm.”

Hong Seok-young didn't lose his balance even amid the violent shaking. If anything, he looked dissatisfied as he moved his mana and tore deeper into the ground. The Dungeon's internal mana began twisting wildly after being exposed to mana from outside.

Even Hong Seok-young, who couldn't see mana, had to be able to feel its flow convulsing.

Yet he still hadn't pulled the sword free. Absurdly enough, his utter confidence reassured me.

“...Hmm?”

After a moment, Hong Seok-young tilted his head and pulled the sword out of the ground. At some point, the vibrations beneath our feet had faded away as well.

Hong Seok-young snorted in disbelief.

“This bastard's running away?”

***

‘So... it assessed the locals' combat strength.’

Hope twirled a strand of hair around one finger while speaking.

‘It might be called an Escape Pod, but the plan includes eliminating the Natives of whatever world we arrive on and taking the world over, you know? So naturally, the Escape Pod comes with at least a rough idea of how to eliminate the Natives efficiently.’

‘Then shouldn't you call it something more like a fighter jet than an Escape Pod?’

‘It doesn't have any way to attack directly, though. It's not like it has missiles. Uh, of course, if you want to call opening the door and blindly charging out a suicide attack, I can't really argue with that....’

Considering they died three months after leaving a Dungeon, that wasn't entirely wrong.

From the side being invaded, though, I couldn't help thinking we deserved at least that much of an advantage.

Now that we knew Dungeons were something along the lines of alien spacecraft, we couldn't simply leave them alone. But even though we knew how to get rid of Dungeons, there was no practical way to deal with all of them.

Getting rid of every Dungeon would obviously be ideal. But we didn't even know how many there were, so that was physically impossible. We could barely keep track of the Dungeons that had already appeared, never mind all the ones that would emerge in the future. On top of that, a Dungeon like the one at Mont Saint-Michel couldn't be raided at all.

‘And even apart from that, there has to be some way for us to figure out whether this world suits us, right? This place isn't exactly a perfect fit either, but there was the hopeful thought that maybe we could find some way to adapt....’

Hope changed course under the looks Hong Seok-young and I gave.

‘Let's just say we saw the possibility that we might be able to find a way to adapt. Anyway, that's roughly how it works....’

‘Don't just say “roughly”... No. Keep going. I'll listen to the whole thing first, then we'll talk.’

‘That's what Mom says when she's about to scold me.’

Hope gave a small, nervous hunch before continuing.

‘Anyway, under those circumstances, it screened the Natives.’

‘Screened?’

‘Strong enough to threaten us. Enough of a sense of justice to oppose us and protect their own species.’

Hope tipped the head from side to side, looking equal parts amused and troubled.

‘There are some other conditions too, but after that screening process, a handful of candidates emerge.’

‘Candidates?’

‘Yeah. A Native... or rather, a savior of humanity on Earth. A human Hero Candidate with the potential to wipe us out.’

“Hah-hah-hah! Would you look at this bastard.”

And right now, that esteemed Hero Candidate was laughing like a lunatic.

“Running away? You dare run away? From me?”

I had no idea why he was getting so angry about it.

“Is that the only monster that's ever run away from you, Teacher?”

“No!”

“Then why are you getting annoyed?”

“I'm not annoyed!”

“Then what do you call this?!”

“Righteous anger!”

Wasn't that the same thing?

How the hell had this old man managed to get older without growing up?

“If it'd stayed put, we would've passed right by without noticing it, but it went out of its way to announce that it was here! Then the moment it decides it can't handle  me, it runs! I hate things like this the most!”

“You hate all monsters anyway.”

“Well, yes, but!”

I sighed as I followed Hong Seok-young.

“And how are you so sure it ran because it figured it didn't stand a chance?”

“Hmm?”

“Well, I don't know everything about monster behavior either, but....”

There was one difference between Hong Seok-young and me.

Even if I died and came back to life a hundred times, I'd never be able to beat Hong Seok-young. But even if Hong Seok-young died and came back a hundred times, he'd never be able to see what I could.

I blinked.

Hong Seok-young's mana still lay thick over the area. It meant he had completely seized control of our surroundings.

But thanks to that, the clump of purple mana creeping stealthily along the ground stood out immediately. It was a nasty-looking color.

I'd foolishly assumed I wouldn't need a weapon since Hong Seok-young was with me, so I hadn't even drawn one. Yeah, that had been stupid. My father had taught me never to lower my guard, no matter how low a Dungeon's Rank was. Ranks were assigned by people, after all. If they failed to discover a hidden monster, that was the end of it.

In a Dungeon, he had taught me, I had to be prepared for anything.

I raised my sword. Yoo Ji-eun's sword. We were closing this Dungeon anyway, so just like Hong Seok-young, I tore into it without hesitation.

“Hey! What are you doing setting the forest on fire?!”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why...? Because it's hot!”

“Tough it out with sheer willpower.”

“Good grief, I raised you too tough!”

“Weren't you just saying you raised me well?”

“I did raise you well! That's why you got tough!”

For all his talk about righteous anger, Hong Seok-young wasn't acting serious in the slightest. If anything, he was grinning away and cracking jokes.

It suddenly dawned on me that the old man had probably pretended not to notice that clump of mana because he wanted to see how I would react. Of course. No matter how tiny, cute, and grotesque that mana looked, there was no way Hong Seok-young would miss it.

I was tempted to drop back and leave it to him, but instead I pretended not to have realized what he was doing and let it go. Well, once you're fifty, moving around must be tiring.

“By the way.”

“Hmm?”

“I think we should destroy the Core.”

The flames produced by Yoo Ji-eun's sword were mostly made of mana. They didn't go out easily like ordinary fire.

Hong Seok-young's mana. The fire from my sword. And the mana belonging to whatever that Centipede-like thing was.

The inside of the Dungeon was dazzling, as if someone had set off fireworks everywhere. Yet even amid all that, one presence was stealthily creeping away.

Hong Seok-young narrowed his eyes.

“That's toward the Core, right?”

“You said a monster has to make contact with the Core to open a Gate.”

“Then we can be sure that thing has intelligence, right?”

“I guess so?”

“Let's destroy the Core first.”

At Hong Seok-young's words, I was just about to sprint toward the Core when...

“Hwijae-gun!”

Hong Seok-young caught me by the back of the neck and yanked me backward.

BOOM!

The ground where I'd been standing collapsed. Through the dim haze of mana, I could see beneath the surface.

Click. Click-click. Click.

The Centipede's antennae twitched, making a dry clicking sound.

It was much smaller than the one I'd seen in Seoul, but it was still far too large to ignore.

***

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