Dreaming of the Death Dungeon
“Heh, so what about those kids?”
“They’re probably moping around right now, thinking about retaking the exam.”
Both women burst out laughing at Kim Jun’s words. Kim Ji-hyun stomped her feet in delight.
Kim Jun savored this moment.
He hoped for more times like these. But that didn’t mean he could give up on his father. If the worst had happened, he wanted to at least bring back his remains and hold a proper funeral.
In truth, he believed his father was still alive.
Kim Jun turned off the light and lay on the bed, cradling his head in his arms as he stared up at the ceiling.
Now it begins.
He felt like his efforts had finally been rewarded. Two years ago, he’d been a troublemaker, ranking 35th in his class. His teacher had told him top universities in the capital region were out of reach—he should aim for local schools instead.
Yet in just two years, that same student had aced the college entrance exam with a perfect score.
His mom had worried he was studying too obsessively. But it wasn’t for academics. It was to enter the dungeons.
If he couldn’t even conquer the barrier of studying, there was no way he could enter a dungeon. With that mindset, he’d battled math like a monster, tore into Korean literature like prey, and memorized subjects by ripping through page after page.
Of course, that still only made him a carrier.
People—especially those who’d experienced dungeon raids firsthand or armed themselves with related data, like critics—dismissed carriers or treated them as expendable.
And they had reason to.
Anyone could sign up and do it.
In fact, plenty sneered that carriers were just people selling their lives for cash.
One raid could net ten million won; if luck was on your side, even a hundred million.
The average haul was around five million, but that could multiply several times over depending on the cores you extracted.
It was peanuts compared to raiders’ earnings, but half a million in a single day was no small change.
Sure, anyone could become one, but carriers had ranks too.
Jang Won-seop, the carrier who always accompanied Yoo Wan-seop on raids, was famous in his own right—nowhere near Yoo Wan-seop’s level, but still a celebrity.
Jang Won-seop’s income last year had topped 1.3 billion won.
Kim Jun dreamed of becoming a carrier greater than Jang Won-seop.
If he was going to lack abilities anyway, he wanted to reach the absolute peak as a carrier. Earn big money, carve out his own domain, and show the world that carriers could be a profession of value.
He’d chosen carrier work to find his father, but that wasn’t the only reason.
His immediate goal was finding his dad, but further down the line...
His true dream—the stuff of legends—was conquering one of the world’s only seven S-rank dungeons.
The dungeon that had turned Korea into a raider powerhouse was in Daejeon.
It had appeared where KAIST once stood and was infamous as the Death Dungeon. Seven top-30 global raiders, as ranked by a U.S. dungeon intel firm, had led 1,400 others into that S-rank hell.
Not one had returned from what was now called the Death Dungeon.
That was ten years ago.
After raid systems took hold, everyone agreed it was the greatest failure and tragedy in history. Broadcasters dubbed it “Despol.”
Post-Despol, small recon teams ventured in, but they never stayed longer than an hour.
Any longer, and survival odds plummeted.
With such limited range, the dungeon’s depths remained a mystery.
Thick fog, swamps, colossal trees blocking sight and movement—and testimony from Jeong Cheol-dae about apex monsters like Gratius, Porasaurus, Raiposaurus, and Nuclataurus swarming the gate entrance—meant no one dared push further.
Imagining himself plunging into that pitch-black dungeon, Kim Jun drifted off to sleep.