The Wolf (1)
Whether you were familiar with the space called a dungeon or not, any human would naturally feel crushed by its overwhelming sense of scale. Yet its true nature was surprisingly narrow, quite unlike what the eyes perceived.
(Just as I thought… it’s blocked.)
I’d tested it on the off chance that something might have changed in the past year, but sure enough, it was exactly the same. I slipped my hand into the square hole in the wall, only to find it stopped cold, as if an invisible transparent barrier stood in the way. This blocking phenomenon—where objects ran into unseen walls—applied to every dungeon, not just this one. At the same time, it proved that dungeons were not infinite spaces but enclosed areas with fixed specifications.
“Oh… You already know about the blocking phenomenon?”
“Huh? Ah… no, I just saw it in a vlog once.”
“I see. That’ll make the explanation quicker, then.”
“Watch… If you cast magic like this…!”
With a bold, confident shout, a flaming arrow sliced through the air. The crimson blaze that should have plummeted endlessly into the bottomless sea of sand instead shot upward the moment it left his hand, burning vertically as though it had struck a wall—just like my own hand moments earlier.
“Something like that. It’s easiest to picture it as a tunnel inside a giant box.”
“So what you’re touching right now would be the tunnel wall, Team Leader Kim Minhyuk.”
“They’re usually divided into entrance, central passage, and dead end… then you look at how many branches there are, whether there are multiple layers, collapse risks, and so on…”
“There are all sorts of patterns, but in the end they’re all tunnels trapped inside the same box.”
“If I had to classify this one, I’d say it follows a 1-3-1 structure.”
“...”
1-3-1. One path on the way in, three now, then one again. Those numbers represented the number of forks inside this dungeon… which meant I would end up running into that bastard again.
“...”
“What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing… It’s nothing. Just…”
It’s because I’m tense. I forced the rage boiling in my chest back down and looked at Team Leader Kim Minhyuk with a calm face. He must have noticed my unease, because he smiled and offered me a cigarette.
“Want one?”
“If you’re nervous, smoke up before we get started.”
Feeling the dungeon’s heavy air for the first time in a long while, I moved forward with every nerve stretched taut, as if I had stepped back into last year. This was the real thing now. Monsters would start appearing soon, and the situation would spiral out of control. Yes, that was exactly how it was supposed to go…
But…
“...”
“...”
Why wasn’t anything showing up? A year might have passed, but the fundamental rules of dungeon spaces couldn’t have changed. So why hadn’t a single trash mob appeared in thirty minutes?
Thanks to the lack of tension, I was now stuck making pointless small talk with this guy.
“So you’ve been at that company for a full year now, Minhyuk?”
“Yeah… I guess so.”
“If I’d known the work was this brutal, I would’ve picked something else…”
He was only doing it because the pay was good. Somehow I’d ended up absorbing all his whining with my entire body. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him to focus on the job, so I just smiled awkwardly.
(Ha… Fuck. There were so many things I wanted to test.)
(At the very least, if I could catch a single trash mob like a dire wolf…)
I had thought I might hear that voice again, just like the day I was thrown into the dungeon, or like yesterday at the café. But nothing was going the way I wanted. Before I knew it, I was listening to a litany of troubles I had zero interest in hearing.
“Uh… yeah… that sounds rough…”
“Right? Ha… My direct superior is S-rank, you know?”
“It’s something you get just by piling up experience, but every time I do anything he says I lack mental fortitude or whatever…”
“...”
Fuck… I’m losing my mind. Was he starting again? If he hated it that much, he should just quit. Why the hell was he dumping it all on me?
Thanks to his endless complaining, I kept walking across the sand desert with a thoroughly exhausted expression, my soul half-checked out. Just then, the idle radio began screeching.
“Ah… One moment, please. Just a moment.”
“...”
Ha… Son of a bitch. Freedom at last. If he’d been a subordinate I knew, I would’ve shut his mouth with a fist. But he was paying me, and he was basically my superior, so I had to endure.
I watched the team leader walk away, pulled out a cigarette, and after one long drag, carved the word endure into my heart once more.
(Ha… Fuck. It’s finally quiet.)
(Was this place always this quiet…?)
Silence. No—more than silence. Only desolation flowed through the desert. I’d thought it would feel peaceful without the constant chatter beside me, but instead a strange unease lingered. I flicked the cigarette butt into the air and watched the red embers scatter forward on the growing sandstorm.
(The air feels heavy…)
Was it just my imagination? Or had it always been like this? Now that the yapping voice was gone, the silence felt almost ominous. Suddenly, the old man’s warning echoed in my head—always be wary of silence in a dungeon.
(There’s nothing good about a dungeon being quiet… That’s what the old man used to say.)
“...”
As if possessed, I flicked the ash from my cigarette again and looked at the once-talkative team leader. It was strange. Earlier, no matter how much he complained or threw tantrums, his bright face had never crumpled. Now his expression was gradually hardening. I instinctively knew something was wrong. I hurled the still-burning cigarette toward the sandstorm, toward the figure staggering through the wind.
“Hey. Never thought I’d see you here again…”
“Nice to see you, right?”
A man with a tattoo on his right arm, a short sports cut, and a thick gold chain. He was the Black Sand team leader—the bastard who had thrown me into a dungeon—and the same one who had harassed Elphy.
“R… run…”
“Run…”
“...”
But his condition looked terrible. The arrogant glint in his eyes, the condescending stare—none of it remained. He didn’t even seem to register my presence. He looked like he had seen a ghost, completely out of his mind.
“What the hell happened?! Answer me…!!!”
“The wolf… the wolf…”
“Wolf? Wait—what about the rest of your team? Where did all the Black Sand people go?”
“I… I don’t know. I don’t know either…”
“What do you mean you don’t know!! Answer me right now!!! You’re the team leader!!!!”
Team Leader Kim Minhyuk grabbed the man by the collar, his face twisting into something terrifying. Ah… fuck. This situation had gone completely to shit. Since it had come to this, I might as well find out exactly what happened.
I decided to use the same method I’d learned in the military, partly to vent my frustration.
“Team Leader Kim Minhyuk. Step aside for a second.”
“Huh? What… what are you going to do…?”
Before he could finish, I casually kicked the man’s shin. He let out a short scream and crumpled to the ground.
“UAAAAAK!!!!”
“Answer the questions properly. If you don’t, the next kick lands on the other leg.”
“What happened? What the hell do you mean by wolf?”
“White… white… wolf…!!!!!”
“...”
White wolf? You idiot, the white wolf was the one that appeared in the dungeon I cleared a few days ago… Telling him not to whine when it didn’t even hurt, I slammed my foot into his stomach with everything I had. As he coughed and groaned, I asked again.
“What about the white wolf?”
“What the fuck is a white wolf… Did it eat every last one of them? Huh?”
“...”
My question was answered only by primitive, dying groans, as if his mouth were stuffed with paper. Staring into his terror-filled eyes—completely broken—I realized instinctively.
(Fuck…)
(This feels really, really bad…)
Whenever someone lost their mind like this, something catastrophic always followed. I gazed into the sandstorm, trying to imagine what could have happened beyond it, but only vague, ominous thoughts surfaced. Team Leader Kim Minhyuk’s frantic voice made it clear just how serious things had become.
“Speak! What happened…!!!”
“What about the others?! What happened to everyone else?!!”
“Th… th… the all-powerful p… pu… purple god… s… sa… save… me…!!”
“What are you even saying?! Answer me…!!!”
His desperate plea disappeared into the howling sand. While the two of them struggled, I turned my gaze toward the storm as if drawn by some invisible force. There was no special reason. Habit… Yes, this was probably just habit. When someone was panting from a gunshot wound, someone else always had to watch the rear. I was used to situations like this.
But the pair of red eyes approaching through the sandstorm was something I could never get used to. Even from a distance, its massive presence was unmistakable. At the same time, it was a monster that carried a terrible, unforgettable grudge against me.
“White wolf…”
Enemy detected ahead.
Quest: Eliminate Silver Fang (0/2)
No. 12. The Silver Fang has tracked Lee Chaeman’s scent and arrived.
Forced transition to combat readiness. Activating Super Account unique skill Lv. 1 Future Sight.