A Sherpa's Hunting Ground
Musaeng had chosen the 22nd Dungeon for several reasons, but the primary factor was simple: entry was completely unregulated.
As a general rule, the higher a dungeon's corresponding Tower floor, the more likely a powerful syndicate held a monopoly over its gate, restricting public access. However, under the international treaty mandating that dungeons corresponding to the 30th floor and below could not be privatized, the government directly oversaw the 22nd Dungeon. Anyone could walk right through the gate.
In other words, while Musaeng had the freedom to enter whenever he pleased, One Way Group enjoyed that exact same freedom.
"Anyone who hasn't climbed past the 22nd floor, down your Mana Pressure resistance potions first," Section Chief Park Dohyun ordered.
At his command, six employees drained their glass vials.
Leading an assault force of thirty employees, Park Dohyun was an elite climber whose personal record reached the 37th floor. Under his command were three other climbers who had cleared into the thirties, eleven sitting comfortably in the mid-to-late twenties, and ten ranked in the low-to-mid twenties.
"...Section Chief, I don't see the target."
Awakeners equipped with tracking and detection skills searched the perimeter with laser focus, but they couldn't turn up a trace of Musaeng.
One employee frowned. "Could he have just pretended to step inside and immediately slipped back out?"
"If he had, the men stationed outside would’ve radioed us by now."
"Then maybe we didn't land in the same instance—"
"Don't be an idiot."
Just like the Tower, dungeons operated on instance mechanics. However, unlike the Tower, where individuals were required to form a party beforehand to share the same spatial zone, dungeons shared their instance with anyone who entered within twenty minutes of the initial party's arrival.
They had pursued Musaeng immediately after he crossed the threshold. Had he retreated, their lookouts outside would have entered to deliver the report. In short, Musaeng was unquestionably still inside the 22nd Dungeon.
"If he's not in sight, we track him down. Split into six squads. Designated comms officers, keep your radios active at all times."
Following Park Dohyun’s instructions, the employees swiftly organized into squads based on their cleared floors. Even if Musaeng dismissed them and Geumseong looked down on them, these were still trained operatives from a major corporate guild. In a dense jungle where towering broadleaf trees choked out all visibility, all thirty-seven of them knew that marching as one giant clump was utterly useless.
"Don't be stingy with ranged defense scrolls, either."
They had to prepare for any sudden ambush. Once preparations were complete, Park Dohyun reinforced their objective one last time.
"Never forget: our top priority is securing the antidote. After that, capture him alive if possible, but if he resists too violently, kill him. Naturally, dead or alive, his body must be brought before Managing Director Lee."
They fanned out and began to sweep through the foliage.
Crunch... squelch...
They did not lower their guard simply because their quarry was a lone dungeon sherpa. Aside from the eerie calls of unidentified birds, only the muffled footsteps of each five-to-six-man squad rustled through the undergrowth. Despite the suffocating, sweltering heat so unlike the world outside the gate, none uttered a word of complaint.
"Maintain watch over your assigned sectors. He's a dungeon sherpa. At the very least, he knows every path like the back of his hand."
"Understood."
Their communication was crisp and disciplined. They remained acutely aware that this was no ordinary jungle. It was a dungeon. That meant the terrain, landmarks, monster varieties, distributions, and even the boss were identical to the Tower's 22nd floor.
Over the radio came the shrieking roar of a Red Howler Monkey, one of the 22nd floor's signature monsters, yet Squad 2 sounded thoroughly composed. The rumbling thunder of skills detonating crackled over the channel, accompanied by frantic, lunatic screams echoing across the dense canopy.
As the squads drifted farther apart and expanded their search perimeter, the radio chatter grew increasingly brisk. Yet the members of Squad 1 wore subtle smirks.
"Looks like the other squads are taking care of all the major monsters for us."
Aside from the floor boss, the most dangerous threat in the 22nd Dungeon was the chimera jaguar. Next came the bloodsucking mosquitoes; small as they were, a single bite drained five hundred milliliters of blood in an instant. If dizziness struck without warning, it meant your veins had already been siphoned dry, leaving you to collapse from acute anemia and perish in agony.
The Red Howler Monkeys were also troublesome due to their sheer numbers. Flitting through the high canopy with effortless agility, they were notoriously hard to pin down and even harder to defend against when dropping in an ambush. Yet these Awakeners could suppress all of them without breaking a sweat.
Against a mere dungeon sherpa who had climbed no higher than the 4th floor, their confidence was sky-high.
"Still, don't let your guard down," Park Dohyun muttered.
He, at least, was far from relaxed. If anything, he was wound tighter than anyone else.
He won't suffer from mana pressure, either. Back then... that was the 66th Dungeon. Damn it, the bastard crawled out of there alive. There has to be something more to him.
Park Dohyun had experienced Kim Musaeng firsthand. Had the sherpa actually cleared that place? Impossible. But he had survived regardless. Had he accomplished something using that absurd, incomprehensible resistance to mana pressure?
On top of that, he chose the 22nd Dungeon himself... which means he calculated that he could take us on here.
As if to validate his anxiety, an abrupt disturbance shattered the silence.
"Ack?! What the hell—"
"What is it?!"
The man covering Squad 1's rear jerked violently. Park Dohyun and his men drew their weapons and pivoted into combat stances, only to see the rearguard clutching his shoulder and stomping something into paste beneath his boot.
"I-I got bitten. Urgh..."
Park Dohyun leaned in for a closer look. "Is that... a snake?"
Its head was already crushed beyond recognition. A regular civilian might have panicked, but these men were seasoned Awakeners.
"Pfft! You let a regular snake sneak up on you? Man, you really do it all, don't you?"
"Clerk Im, what was your highest floor again? Maybe you should surrender your license."
"No, seriously, I couldn't sense it at all!"
To Awakeners, an ordinary serpent was a non-threat—nothing more than a punchline for a bit of harmless teasing.
"Of course you couldn't sense it, it's just a common snake! If it were a Great Anaconda, I’d cut you some slack, but that little garden noodle? You should be ashamed of yourself."
"Look... seriously, that's not it, I swear—"
It wasn't even classified as a monster on the 22nd floor. While the colossal serpents lurking near the jungle river were legitimate monsters—and extremely lethal ones at that—this crushed specimen was nothing of the sort.
"Enough! Shut up, all of you. Clerk Im, take an antidote potion immediately."
Park Dohyun reeled in their slack discipline. The bitten staffer bowed his head contritely.
"Yes, sir. My apologies."
"Even if it's not a monster, humiliating mistakes like this can happen. Stay sharp, everyone. We didn't come here on a picnic."
"Understood, sir!"
Rebuked by Park Dohyun, the squad tightened their focus once more. In truth, they were only hunting down a lone sherpa. Even if Musaeng had pulled off something shocking against Lee Eunwoo, there was no way he could sustain that kind of power indefinitely. That unshakeable assumption had kept them lighthearted.
Until now.
"—Krhk, look out! Sna... glrrk..."
"—Hrk, hah... h-hblrg, gyurrr—"
"—Ssssshhk... Chhhrrrk...!"
"Hm? What's that? Which squad is this? Speak clearly!"
A bizarre transmission burst through the receiver. Incoherent syllables dissolved into wet bubbling and sickening gurgles, followed by a harsh burst of static that cut the channel dead.
"W-What?! Who is that speaking?! Don't you know comms protocol?! Who the hell is fooling around—"
Park Dohyun opened his mouth to bark an order, but froze.
Thud.
A heavy sound behind him cut the words from his throat.
"...Clerk Im?"
Someone had collapsed. The employee bitten by the snake lay twitching violently on the forest floor, white foam bubbling from his lips.
He drank an antidote! I watched him swallow it!
Ordinary venom didn't spread this fast in an Awakener's body in the first place. More importantly, this wasn't how snake venom manifested!
"Ow, sharp! What the hell, is there another snake?!"
Before they could process the sight, another member flinched, clutching his back. In the midst of this escalating madness, a shrill scream tore through the canopy.
"Wait, look up! Look up!"
Every head jerked skyward.
Above them, traversing the thick canopy of broadleaf trees, were hundreds—no, thousands—of undulating silhouettes.
"Sn... Snakes! They're dropping from the—!"
Serpents slithering through the branches plummeted like rain.
Thud, thud, thud, hiss—!
Dodging every single pair of fangs was an absolute physical impossibility.
"Get inside, now!"
Fzzzzzzzzzt!
Park Dohyun unleashed his B-rank ability, Wall Builder, expanding a radiant barrier over his squad. A manic pattering hammered against the shield like torrential rain on a windowpane. Knowing each impact was a writhing serpent crashing against the mana barrier, the sheer number of them was sickening.
"...Clearing all these will take time. One of you grab Clerk Im and tear an escape scroll. Report the radio failure to command outside."
"Y-Yes, sir!"
The junior-most climber instantly drew an escape scroll and ripped it down the seam.
Rrrripp!
"Ah... Ah? Ah?!"
His voice rose in pitch with every gasp.
The color drained from Park Dohyun's face, matching the horrified expressions of his subordinates. The employee stood frozen, holding the two torn halves of the parchment.
He had torn the escape scroll, yet remained right where he stood.
"D-Don't tell me...?"
Gulp. Park Dohyun swallowed dryly.
This felt like a waking nightmare repeating itself.
"T-The scroll isn't working, Section Chief!"
"What? Let me—"
Rip! Rrrripp!
Several others tore their own scrolls in panic, but nothing happened. A dead spatial field. No rift opened. No teleportation took place.
Watching the unraveling chaos, Park Dohyun forced his mind to snap back into gear.
"Stop wasting scrolls! Hold your ground! We're walking back out through the gate together!"
Reining in his panicked men with a bellow, Park Dohyun rallied what composure he had left. Even without escape scrolls, the physical gate remained. There was still a way out.
"First, wipe out the vipers right in front of us—"
"Section Chief! B-Behind us! More are swarming from the rear!"
The only problem was how they were supposed to reach the gate.
Sssssss... Rustle, rustle...
Fight them all off? When standard antidotes did nothing against their venom?
Suffering even one or two bites among thousands would prove fatal. A direct breakthrough back the way they came was suicide.
"...Damn it! Hoist Clerk Im onto your back! Move, quickly! We'll bypass the swarm and flank around to the gate! Prepare to breach!"
A detour was their only viable option. Park Dohyun's tactical assessment was sound.
"Y-Yes, sir!"
"On my count of three, fire your skills! Focus all firepower on a single point! Three, two, one—!"
The air erupted in a tempest of mana, blasting open a narrow path through the underbrush.
The only flaw in Park Dohyun's calculation was that he had never experienced just how perilous it was to navigate the sprawling, unmapped expanse of the 22nd Dungeon's jungle with dead radios and blocked paths. It was a brand of sheer torment that ordinary Awakeners never endured—a nightmare only veteran dungeon sherpas understood to the marrow of their bones.
And now, Park Dohyun and the rest of One Way Group were about to receive their first lesson.
Navigating an untamed jungle under normal circumstances was grueling enough.
"Haaah... haah... haah..."
Sssssssss...
"S-Snake sounds! They're coming again!"
"Damn it all! We can't even catch a breath! What the hell is going on?!"
Worse still, they were being pursued by serpents whose single bite meant total incapacitation. Having anticipated a quick, routine operation, they had entered with minimal supplies. Dressed in stiff company suits, dragging paralyzed comrades across mud and roots, their discipline rapidly collapsed.
"Urgh... move! Quickly!"
"Y-Yes, sir!"
Hours slipped away in a blur of frantic flight.
No matter how durable an Awakener's body was, physical stamina and mental resolve frayed under the relentless pressure. Squad 3's leader had cleared up to the 34th floor, yet that distinction meant virtually nothing here. Unloading skills was out of the question when merely running for their lives consumed every ounce of breath.
He carried one paralyzed man on his back, while his subordinate hauled the other two across his shoulders. Had they died, he could have justified abandoning the corpses, but he couldn't leave living, paralyzed subordinates behind.
"S-Snakes ahead too! Squad Leader, we're—"
"Haaah... haah... whew..."
Through the dense vegetation ahead, a sea of black scales surged toward them.
Fight back? Against a tide pressing in from the front, rear, and flanks, with more dropping from the branches above at every step?
Thud.
Squad 3's leader set his paralyzed colleague down on the damp earth and let out a defeated exhale.
Then, something struck him as odd.
The serpents were maintaining a fixed perimeter, halting their advance. In fact, the writhing carpet of snakes parted to both sides, as though... clearing a path?
"Ah."
It was true. The vipers were clearing a path.
Just not for them.
"Well now, you've certainly worked hard. Other than Section Chief Park's squad, you held out the longest. Let's wrap this up."
Through the corridor opened by the deadly reptiles, Kim Musaeng strode into view with an easy smile. Gripped loosely in his hand was what appeared to be a whip, though the One Way operatives had no way of discerning its true nature.
CRRR-AAACK!
Musaeng snapped his wrist, tearing through the humid air with a sharp sonic crack. And with that single signal, tens of thousands of venomous serpents surged forward, engulfing them whole.