Side Quest: Dungeon Exploration Failure and Strategy (6)
Memory is a slippery thing.
The moment his past life had come flooding back, the memories of the game had felt as vivid as yesterday — yet they were nothing more than faded fragments. Even a life game he had poured endless hours into was, before the relentless march of time, destined to crumble like a sandcastle. That was simply the natural order of things.
So the fact that he had made it this far without any real trouble, relying on those memories of a previous life, was half luck.
Luck. Luck, huh…
Lee Jinhyuk allowed himself a private, bitter smile.
If you wanted to call it luck, sure — it was luck. After all, the monster types, trap locations, and even the idiotic riddles that had surfaced from his past-life memories had almost all been spot-on. It felt a lot like sitting down for an exam and finding that every question was one you had already studied.
And more than anything, the fact that they had reached this point without nearly any encounters with monsters was something you could fairly call fortunate. If this had been the game, they would have had to fight at least three or four more battles by now.
Even granting that they had avoided every place monsters were likely to appear, and that Yu Seolhyeon’s supernatural ability had helped them steer clear, he hadn’t expected things to go this smoothly. The ease of it left him faintly uneasy.
The game and reality were different. Reality could spawn countless variables the game never dreamed of. Hadn’t Jinhyuk himself, not long ago, taken down the Black Hand Monkey in a way that would have been impossible inside the game?
Variables could appear at any time — good ones or bad ones.
Things are going well for now, but I can’t let my guard down. There’s no telling what might happen next.
Jinhyuk’s thoughts only grew heavier. He was weak enough that, without help from others, he couldn’t properly handle monsters or villains, let alone clear a dungeon. He lacked innate talent, ability, family backing — and no amount of effort would let him catch up in those areas.
Only the strong could laugh off the unexpected, good or bad, with a carefree chuckle. Only the strong could be confident that, whatever contingency arose, they would somehow overcome it — or at least survive.
But Jinhyuk?
If a bad variable appeared from here on — something unforeseen, a stroke of pure misfortune — could he handle it alone?
Haa. Seriously. I need to farm items already…
For a weakling like him to become even a little more capable of responding to danger on his own, he needed the item sleeping deep inside this dungeon. In an RPG, it was either levels or item power — that was the rule.
But what good is knowing where all the items are if I can’t go farm them?
Jinhyuk knew perfectly well where items that had never been revealed to the world were hidden. The reason he had never recovered them — no, the reason he couldn’t — was simple. Almost every one of them sat in a dangerous place. Dungeons. Monster dens. Villain hideouts…
How was someone like him supposed to retrieve items from places that perilous?
To actively recover them, he needed someone whose help he could rely on. That was why he had approached Yu Seolhyeon — to feed her information, have her dispatch a hero team to clear dungeons, and split some of the rewards.
Yu Seolhyeon isn’t a bad choice.
She carried a villainess setting, but before her fall she was someone you could more or less reason with. She also had a hero team under her command, didn’t she? Solid personal ability, talent, a powerful family, someone you could talk to, heroes she could deploy… As things stood, she was the most suitable person available.
He had even lied and claimed to have future-sight, so even if he told her what items were where, she wouldn’t grow too suspicious. Yu Seolhyeon would clear dungeon after dungeon, rack up achievements, and earn recognition from her family. Jinhyuk would sit back and collect items and resources. A mutually beneficial arrangement.
In short, Yu Seolhyeon was an excellent business partner.
Once this job is done cleanly, I’ll tell her about a few more hidden dungeon locations and propose splitting the items there. She thinks I’m a future-sight ability user, so she won’t lose her head over a few items and do anything stupid.
Of course, that was something to think about after they cleared this dungeon safely. If they got through this without incident, nothing would crack Yu Seolhyeon’s mental state for the time being, and they could maintain a friendly relationship for a while.
“Lee Jinhyuk? What are you thinking so hard about?”
It was Yu Seolhyeon’s puzzled voice that pulled him up out of the swamp of his own thoughts.
“Just this and that.”
“You’ve got a lot on your mind, I see.”
“Once we take down the gatekeeper, we reach the laboratory. We should start preparing to face Kate.”
“Hmm? Is that so?”
Mad Mage Kate. She had been obsessed with synthesis magic — so obsessed she mixed her own body with monster flesh until she became a monster herself. The result was a body that barely aged, along with overwhelming mana and stamina. But her mind had been corrupted; her intelligence had deteriorated, and her mental age had dropped to that of a child.
If things were the same as in the game, Kate and the missing heroes would be trapped in there.
“With this much firepower, we should be able to subjugate her without taking any real damage.”
By the world’s own setting, she wasn’t that strong a monster, and her weaknesses were clear. More importantly, for a team of veterans like this, Kate was hardly a serious threat. These people were skilled enough to take down even a Black Hand Monkey — well, if they ganged up on it, at least.
He didn’t trust his past-life memories a hundred percent, but after looking into things on his own, he had a decent sense of Kate’s strength. As long as they didn’t scatter and get picked off one by one, they should clear this dungeon without trouble.
“All right, all right. Break’s over. Let’s move.”
“Already?”
Han Seowoo’s voice announced the end of their rest, and Erina answered with a sullen snap. As a mage, her stamina was lower than the other heroes’.
“Erina, I’ve told you to work on your stamina.”
“I guess I’m just not cut out for fieldwork.”
“Enough. Get up already. Aren’t you embarrassed in front of the juniors?”
“Nag, nag, nag. Fine, fine. I’m up.”
Grumbling, Erina pushed herself to her feet and flicked a glance toward Lee Jinhyuk and Yu Seolhyeon.
“Kids, he says it’s time to go. Hurry up.”
“Yes.”
Jinhyuk and the party started walking again — toward the deep dark, toward the dungeon boss fight that was no longer far off, and toward the gatekeeper standing watch before the laboratory.
“This is a really big room.”
It didn’t take long for the party to reach the chamber where the gatekeeper waited.
“About a hundred meters across, give or take?”
A room as open as a sports field, with an exit on the far side.
“Hm?”
Studying the strangely vast chamber from outside, Oh Jeongnam soon spotted the massive silhouette standing in the center.
“Is that an orc? It’s got horns, and it’s pretty tall.”
“Could be a mutant.”
While Header Oh Jeongnam and Team Leader Han Seowoo traded opinions, Jinhyuk looked at the orc as well.
That was the dungeon’s gatekeeper — the Black Horn Orc. One of the monsters Kate had synthesized with her magic before her intelligence collapsed, which made it far stronger than an ordinary orc. Still, an orc was an orc. Against this party, it wouldn’t last more than a few minutes.
The important thing in this room isn’t that orc.
Because a random teleport trap was installed here — the most dangerous and most annoying trap in the entire dungeon. A nightmarish device that could scatter everyone inside the room to random locations throughout the dungeon.
The moment you stepped inside, the magic circle on the floor began to glow, and the random transfer activated five minutes later. As long as you didn’t waste time on anything pointless, you had plenty of leeway. The room was only about a hundred meters across. Kill the orc and stroll to the exit, and three minutes would be more than enough. Or, if it came to it… you could just fall back the way you came.
“Yu Seolhyeon. How’s the room look? Any monsters hiding besides that orc?”
“One moment.”
Han Seowoo directed the question at Yu Seolhyeon. The reason she was asking an amateur was Yu Seolhyeon’s supernatural ability: Detection. Within a certain radius, she could sense monsters — humans excluded. The drain on her anomaly power and mental strength was high, so she couldn’t use it often or for long, but it was a useful ability for dungeon exploration. If any monsters were lurking in that vast chamber, they would register on her radar.
“The room’s too big to cover everything, but nothing’s showing up right now.”
“Is that so? All right, then…”
“Hold on.”
Erina stepped forward and cut in.
“There’s something like a magic circle on the floor of this room. Faint, but it’s there.”
“A magic circle?”
“Yeah.”
She reinforced her mana and began slowly interpreting the circle’s contents.
“…Looks like it’s related to teleportation. Probably the kind that triggers when an intruder enters. It’ll take a while to activate, though. Roughly five minutes?”
In the game, too, it had been Erina the mage who explained it that way — which was why players never wasted time in this room.
“Can you dismantle the circle?”
“Probably not.”
“Even if we smash the floor it’s drawn on?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I guess we need to drop that orc fast.”
“No — why don’t we just lure the orc outside the room?”
“Looks like a gatekeeper… Think that’ll work?”
“Want me to try pulling it with magic?”
After trading opinions, the team decided to try luring the orc out. But—
“Ah, shit. That orc isn’t coming after us.”
“Figures.”
As a gatekeeper, it wouldn’t chase them recklessly. Kate had synthesized it herself, and it obeyed her commands faithfully. In the game’s setting, Kate could issue orders and control her experimental creations through brain waves — though only those she had made, not other monsters.
“Just burned mana for nothing.”
Erina had attacked with magic from outside the room, but the distance was considerable, so her spells barely connected — and as a support specialist, expecting overwhelming firepower from her was a stretch. The only ranged dealers here were Jinhyuk and Erina.
In the end, the team concluded they would have to rush in, kill the orc, and push through the room.
“Everyone maintain triangle formation and break through fast. Watch for any traps we might have missed.”
Han Seowoo and the team stepped into the chamber. The moment their feet touched the floor—
“Magic circle’s activating! We’ve got five minutes — hurry!”
“Got it!”
At Erina’s shout, the team charged the orc.
“Gii, eeeeeeeh, eeeeeek?!”
They say there’s no fighting a dogpile. The Black Horn Orc went down roaring in less than two minutes of combat. It hadn’t been a particularly strong monster to begin with.
In the setting, Kate had a few more monsters, but none strong enough to worry about, and since they never appeared directly in the game, information on them was scarce.
Even if they show up alongside Kate, with this much firepower it shouldn’t be a problem.
That was what he was thinking when—
“Nothing to it. Let’s get out of here and—”
“Wait.”
Yu Seolhyeon’s shoulders twitched. She stared intently toward the exit. From the dark doorway far ahead, something unknown was slowly approaching.
And it wasn’t one or two of them — it was dozens.