The Deceptively Peaceful Routine (2)
It was during the third attempt that I began to sense something was off. Having learned from my previous mistake, I paid a bit more attention to my Mana stat on the second try. My Residual level dipped slightly as a result, but I didn’t think much of it. After all, I hadn’t struggled with insufficient Residual during the first attempt, especially during the crucial boss fight.
Following the same pattern as before, I cleared all the floor bosses without issue, equipped their abilities, and challenged the boss once more. Yet the outcome was shockingly the same as the previous attempt—a failure by the narrowest margin. I managed to push the boss back to the brink of death, only to be vaporized by the sudden barrage of flames from the corrupted mages that appeared afterward.
Even at that point, I didn’t attach much significance to the failure. Unlike the first attempt, the raid hadn’t gone exactly as planned, and I’d made several regrettable mistakes. I steeled myself, carefully reviewed the butterfly’s combat feedback, and analyzed every shortcoming. That led straight into the third challenge.
Well… the result was, as expected, another frustrating failure almost identical to the second attempt. By now, a sense of unease had settled in. Back on the first day, when I’d confidently declared an early clear, I had overlooked one critical fact: this special training’s boss raid didn’t end with simply neutralizing the boss. There was another stage after that—one far more difficult to handle than a one-on-one fight with the boss itself.
One failure could be dismissed as bad luck, but when it happened twice in a row, I had no choice but to accept it. The reason every attempt kept failing at the same point was obvious: the special mobs that spawned once the boss’s health dropped below a certain threshold. Those mages were the problem.
Honestly, when I first faced them, I thought I could easily take them out with my own long-range magic. During the first attempt, I’d run out of mana before I could even properly engage them. But from the second attempt onward, when I actually fought them directly, my expectations were completely shattered. Their positioning was flawless, as if they could read every move I made. Their coordinated, almost synchronized combat style far exceeded anything I had anticipated. On top of that, each one possessed exceptional individual skill, making them incredibly troublesome opponents.
One handled defense, another offense, while the rest focused on healing the boss. With clearly defined roles, there was nothing a single body like mine could do against them. I tried switching to close-quarters combat using my Swiftness ability instead of magic, but even then, breaking through their tight-knit formation proved difficult. Even if I somehow managed to eliminate them, the boss would have already recovered to near full health thanks to the healing spells. Having already burned through most of my mana in that fight, facing the restored boss was simply impossible. In the end, with no mana left for magic, I was forced to rely on sluggish physical attacks until the time limit ran out. It was a truly hopeless situation with no visible way out.
Of course, if I had a full party, we could have overwhelmed the annoying mages with sheer firepower. But the task given to me was to clear the boss alone. Only then did I realize something I had momentarily forgotten amid the smooth progress: dungeon raids were fundamentally meant to be done in parties. Attempting it solo naturally led to these kinds of obstacles—unless you possessed overwhelming strength capable of overturning such unfair conditions.
I truly felt how difficult it was to clear a dungeon alone right after the third attempt ended in failure. While I was stalling for time as my depleted mana recovered, the time-limit notification appeared. The sense of futility that washed over me as all my accumulated effort turned to nothing was indescribable. Later, when I confronted Ulthar, I hurled every curse I could think of, demanding to know why he’d made something like this for me to clear. His reply was always the same.
Instead of sympathy, I got a smug reaction from the black cat, who seemed to take a certain pleasure in my suffering. Since there was some truth to his words, I couldn’t really argue. When I asked if he could at least extend the time limit a little, he firmly shook his head. Doing so would defeat the purpose of the special training, he said. The only answer I received was that he had no intention of changing the current setup.
Still, even though I hadn’t cleared it yet, my combat abilities were steadily improving. While the process of clearing the massive six-floor dungeon remained largely the same, the time it took to reach the boss room was gradually decreasing—that was the biggest achievement. Notably, I could now handle regular mobs to some extent without the butterfly’s help. On the other hand, it seemed I would need to devise an entirely new strategy from scratch to defeat the boss, which would clearly require considerable time.
Meanwhile, my life outside the dream was continuing with an almost suspiciously peaceful routine. As Ulthar had said, there was no sign he intended to let me out of here, but neither did he seem interested in causing me any harm. Thinking back, it had actually been the opposite from the start. Every staff member who entered the room was blatantly cautious around me. If I mentioned any inconvenience, it was immediately resolved, and anything I needed was promptly provided. It was the very definition of VIP treatment.
The only thing that bothered me was that the two people who had brought me here never showed their faces. I could somewhat understand that. If I thought about it coldly, the man’s reaction right after I was suddenly impaled wasn’t something he could have intended. It had been an unexpected situation even for them. If they had even a shred of conscience, facing the survivor wouldn’t be easy.
That said, did that mean I was so furious with him that I wanted revenge? That was… ambiguous. It was true that I felt unpleasant about it. Because of him, I’d gone through quite a headache, and the sensation of something piercing through my body was definitely not pleasant. But that was as far as it went. There had been no pain to begin with, and I’d had a good impression of him.
The woman who had introduced herself as the director of this underground facility was different. Her name was Jeong Ha-yeon, if I remembered correctly… Just thinking about her face made me frown. After all, wasn’t she the one who had led the experiments conducted on me here? It seemed only right to hold her responsible for the root cause of that incident. Even now, recalling her calm face as she assured me that “nothing would happen” made anger rise within me. From the very first impression, something about her had felt deeply ominous, and she truly was a dangerous woman in many ways.
Honestly, I had been quite worried about what might happen after exposing part of my abilities to someone who clearly wasn’t in her right mind. But at least for now, things seemed fine. Contrary to my fears of being subjected to strange biological experiments right away, the staff only came occasionally to perform light checks. The most invasive procedure was drawing blood with a syringe. Given that they had witnessed my miraculous regenerative ability, I would have expected them to be eager to study it in various ways, yet their reactions were strangely lukewarm. Of course, that was very fortunate for me, but it also left many suspicious points.
Thus, this outwardly peaceful yet inwardly turbulent life continued far longer than I had initially expected.
Another ordinary peaceful afternoon. Lying leisurely on the bed, I held a phone in one hand and tapped away with my fingers. Before I knew it, a week had passed since this strange lifestyle began. I had attempted the raid more than ten times by now, but I still hadn’t achieved a clear. In this ambiguous situation where success seemed just out of reach, I found myself pondering new strategies even while awake. But with more than half the day spent awake, I couldn’t spend all that time thinking about it. And being forcibly confined here, there wasn’t much else to do. If I hadn’t obtained this smartphone through the staff, I might have seriously considered planning an escape.
While scrolling through newly uploaded videos on NewTube, I briefly recalled what had happened a few days ago. The boring daily life of being trapped in a room was far too harsh for an ordinary modern person like me. At least if I had internet access it might have been bearable, but the only thing in this room—which looked like a medical office—was the bed. Of course, seeing my situation, the staff had brought me some toys suitable for children to play with, but none of them caught the eye of a man in his thirties. Still, I fiddled with them for a while out of desperation, only to give up within a minute when the post-nut clarity hit. In the end, what they finally handed me was this smartphone.
It looked like an older model, but it had all the basic functions. Most importantly, it had NewTube. That alone was enough to completely transform this maddening daily life. The long-unseen red button was like a ray of light sent down by the gods. The emotion I felt when something that had been a part of my everyday life returned was indescribable. At first, the staff had looked doubtful, but once they saw that I could handle the smartphone without any issues, they seemed relieved. After all, there was nothing better for killing time than lying around alone and staring at a phone. Just having a small device in my hand made my previously monochrome days feel colorful again. As expected, a smartphone was an indispensable item for modern people.
Moreover, after examining it thoroughly, I noticed that this smartphone had a slight peculiarity compared to ordinary models. Functions related to external contact, such as calls and messages, were completely blocked. That part was understandable. From what I’d heard, this place itself was a massive classified facility, so security would naturally be extremely strict. Aside from that, however, there was no major inconvenience in using it. As a result, I didn’t even need to work, I could use my phone freely, meals of the highest quality were served three times a day, and I could stay in a place that was neither too cold nor too hot. This place was practically heaven. Compared to my past self, who had barely escaped being homeless while struggling with overdue rent, my current life was quite comfortable.
Ulthar, who had appeared out of nowhere, stared at me for a moment before speaking with a look of disgust. I didn’t even spare him a glance as I replied with a mocking expression.
“There’s so much to watch here. How could I get tired of it? NewTube is god!”
My exaggerated reaction left Ulthar speechless. He continued to stare at me as if I were pathetic, lying comfortably on the bed while fiddling with my phone. I snorted at him. I already knew exactly what that wicked cat wanted from me. Before this savior-like phone had come into my hands, when I had been struggling with boredom, his words were still vivid in my mind.
“……”
Along with that, the surveillance camera in the room offered a detailed suggestion that he would conveniently manipulate it as usual. Naturally, my answer to that was a firm rejection laced with all sorts of curses. Ulthar whined in the dream, asking why I refused when I wore it every time, but I responded by casually flipping him the middle finger. That alone made it clear what he wanted. And I had zero intention of fulfilling that sinister, personal request of his.
Leaving the still-sulking Ulthar behind, I spent quite a while browsing through the newly trending videos. Then, I discovered a freshly uploaded video that caught my eye. At that moment, my eyes widened. The video was surprisingly related to me—actually, quite significantly so.