Chapter 73
**CHAPTER TITLE: Who Betrayed Us? (Part 1)**
Ji Ju-hye’s face suddenly drained of all color.
“W-What? N-No way! How could this be?!”
The look of disbelief wasn’t only on Ji Ju-hye’s face.
Seok Dong-mi and her younger students wore the same stunned expressions.
They even stepped closer to the glass display case and inspected the shards I’d thrown in like they were trying to figure out if they were real or fake.
But there was no chance they were fake.
If they had been, the magic circle inside the case would have blasted them right back out the moment I set them down.
“No way.”
At that moment Seok Dong-mi walked over, checked every shard in the display, and spoke.
“As expected… my guess was right. There’s something in you, Hwang Geumpa student. Right?”
I scratched my head and said.
“Uh, no. I was just really lucky, that’s all. Every time I shoveled, the shards would stick to my shovel with a clank-clank! Plus, Yoo Ji-min student’s Labor Song Bard helped a ton too…….”
But nobody believed a word I said.
“No, how did you pull off seven shards in such a short time!”
“That guy from the Apricot Guild is seriously amazing!”
“People are calling him the ‘138 Savior’ on SNS these days, right?”
Right then Ji Ju-hye suddenly started creeping toward us, then broke down in loud sobs.
“Uuhuuuh… sob.”
I was about to just ignore her—after all, who knew what story she’d weave this time—but her curiosity was killing me, so I tossed her a tiny hook.
“Ju-hye, why are you crying?”
“Sob. Why do I always get the worst luck in the world? When I’m on the twelfth floor at the department store, the elevator always stops at B1, B3, B4, B6… every single day I forget my umbrella and that’s the exact day it pours rain… at the bank ATM, there’s always some weird uncle in front of me with four account books and he drags on for over twenty minutes… uuhuuu~”
“That’s not just you. You just take every bad thing way too seriously, so it hits you harder.”
“No! Look today! Sob. The second I left the group you all got lucky! Waaaaah!”
I said.
“So come back to our group?”
Then Yoo Ji-min spoke up.
“Yeah, come back. We’ll welcome you anytime.”
Ji Ju-hye wiped her eyes with her palms, her expression shocked.
“…Really? You’ll take me in? Me, the traitor?”
I grinned and said.
“Of course. You were always in our group to begin with.”
Ji Ju-hye stood up and hugged me and Yoo Ji-min tight.
“Little Wong, Golden Pa! Yuji-min! I’m gonna work my butt off in this group from now on. I’m burying my bones in this place. Uuhuuu.”
And that afternoon Ji Ju-hye really did lie face-down on the floor, sniffing the sand like a mad dog.
But even with all her effort, after four hours we only dug up one shard.
I hadn’t been trying to torture her on purpose.
Still, the help from her skill made it so much less accurate than the luck-compass I’d used when digging alone.
Carrying one ordinary shovel and doing the same ordinary shoveling as a normal person was also my consistent concept for the lesson.
“Uuuuuuuh~ I really am the unluckiest girl on the planet~ uuhuuu~”
Ji Ju-hye sobbed the whole afternoon away and finished the day in the tower.
* * *
Deep in a shadowy corner of the first floor of the tower.
A beautiful woman was reporting everything that had happened that day to Jang Pomi.
“Today Golden Pa found seven shards in just the morning.”
“What kind of trick is that guy using?”
“…I have no idea.”
“But why only one shard after lunch?”
“…He was probably deliberately limiting his strength so people wouldn’t suspect anything.”
“Interesting guy. Still, he’s just showing off a little. Tomorrow… we start work right at lunch!”
The woman closed her eyes and her lips trembled.
“Why? You look so pale. Are you… feeling guilty?”
She shook her head, put on a mean face, and said firmly.
“No.”
Then she continued.
“…But you must keep the promise. …You promised to clear all my debts and give me freedom!”
* * *
The next morning, twenty-nine students including me, Yoo Ji-min, and Ji Ju-hye gathered together at the base of the tower.
A short while later we walked once more to the pyramid, surrounded by the tight escort of the Jeguk Guild.
“Come on, everyone, let’s have fun working today!”
“Yes, Professor!”
The students split off by group and headed to their respective dig sites.
Since Ji Ju-hye and I had already cleared the seven rooms where the shards were found, simply walking to the work area took a long time.
Each room was thirty meters on every side, so just the distance was two hundred ten meters. And there were mummies sealed inside stone coffins scattered around, so dodging them made the walk even longer.
After a long walk we finally reached the exact spot where we’d dug the day before.
Ji Ju-hye was already burning with energy.
“Everyone! Today we’re breaking yesterday’s record! We’re digging nine today!”
She dropped to her stomach again and started sniffing.
“This way! No, this way!”
I grinned to myself and started digging in places that looked unlikely to have shards. I’d been planning to keep digging fake ones all morning so I could watch whether Ji Ju-hye would run back to the first group or not.
Several hours later.
After I hadn’t found anything all morning, Ji Ju-hye finally snapped.
“Aah. This pyramid must be deliberately trying to mess with us!”
“Like the shards are moving on their own?”
“No, it’s that every single spot has the same chance of containing a shard, but once we dig one spot, the probability for that spot instantly drops to zero!”
Ji Ju-hye’s complaints had one fact that had to be true. There was no reason the universe would go to such elaborate lengths just to fool one person.
It was just humans fooling humans.
Right then Yoo Ji-min, sitting on a half-buried stone slab and singing, spoke.
“Now let’s eat. It looks like lunch time.”
She pulled three bentos out of her bag.
I asked.
“You brought lunch? We were supposed to eat outside together at the entrance, weren’t we?”
“That’s the principle… but the professor said since our group is working deep inside, we should eat here and not come out for lunch.”
Then Ji Ju-hye said.
“Good. My legs hurt from having to walk out. Let’s just eat and clean up together.”
I figured it was no big deal and started eating with my classmates.
I and Ji Ju-hye had regular chicken bentos, and vegetarian Yoo Ji-min had a vegan one.
Halfway through eating, Yoo Ji-min said.
“Oh, I need to use the bathroom.”
Ji Ju-hye said.
“Just go in the corner of the room. Why walk all the way outside when it’s so inconvenient?”
Most excavation sites really were terrible, so it was normal for female members to just solve it anywhere.
Right then Yoo Ji-min smiled and said.
“It’s not that simple.”
After Yoo Ji-min left, only Ji Ju-hye and I remained in the room.
Suddenly there was a loud *thud*, and the four or five mana lights we’d set up in the room all went out at once.
“What?”
“Augh, it’s scary!”
Then the entire room started shaking with a low rumble. Sand and pebbles began falling from the ceiling.
“What? An earthquake?”
The shaking was so strong we might get trapped under the collapsing ceiling.
At the same time, a sound like ghostly wailing started coming from far outside the room.
Uuhuuuhuuuuh~
Uuhuuuhuuuuh~
And a status window popped up.
===
[Shrine’s mummy has been released.]
(99/100)
[Trial ② Choice Quest has been canceled.]
[Shrine’s mummy has been released.]
(98/100)
[Shrine’s mummy has been released.]
(97/100)
[Shrine’s mummy has been released.]
(96/100)
·
·
·
===
“What? The mummy is released? Uuhuuu. What do we do now?”
I said.
“Someone must have accidentally touched the shrine. We have to get out of the pyramid right now!”
“Uuhuuu. What do we do? What do we do?!”
Ji Ju-hye looked panicked.
I grabbed her hand and said.
“Don’t let go of this. And follow me no matter what! Got it?”
“Uhn~ Okay. Uuhuuu…….”
I burst out of the room and started dragging Ji Ju-hye as fast as I could toward the entrance.
Uuhuuuhuuuuh~
Uuhuuuhuuuuh~
===
[Shrine’s mummy has been released.]
(87/100)
[Shrine’s mummy has been released.]
(86/100)
[Shrine’s mummy has been released.]
(85/100)
·
·
·
===
Even during our escape the shrine kept releasing. That many releases from one person’s mistake was too many.
“What do we do? The shrine is coming apart!”
“We have to run faster! The ‘Quarantine Protocol’ will activate!”
“Qua… What?”
“If we don’t get out… they’re going to drop the seal stone!”
At that moment Ji Ju-hye started screaming.
“Help us! We’re still in here! Don’t close the door!”
Although we were deep inside the pyramid, as fast as we could run we still reached the entrance in less than three minutes.
But the sight that greeted us made us despair.
*Crraaang~*
The huge seal stone had slammed down, blocking the pyramid’s only entrance.
A status window popped up.
===
[Seal stone has closed.]
[Trial ① Choice Quest has been canceled.]
===
Ji Ju-hye rushed over and started pounding the seal stone desperately.
“P-Please help! We’re still in here!”
I told her.
“Don’t waste your strength. Save your energy.”
“Why?”
“Because the stone is so thick the sound won’t carry. Besides… even if they know we’re inside, they probably won’t open it.”
“Uuhuuu. Whyyyyy~”
“This seal stone weighs over forty tons. Even the entire Jeguk Guild escort force sticking together couldn’t move it. B-class or higher strength hunters would need a certain number to even try.”
“Fuck! So what the hell are they? Why did they seal us in so fast with people still inside?!”
“…Because of the mummy.”
Ji Ju-hye asked, utterly shocked.
“Uuhuuu. Is that mummy strong? Stronger than those ‘No’ dogs we saw before?”
I said calmly.
“The mummy is slower than the dogs, but the curse it casts is terrifying.”
“What happens if I get cursed?”
“The Miru Curse has many different effects. Some people become weak, others even stronger. Some go insane, others keep drinking water. But every single one of them ends up the same.”
“What is it?”
“Everyone cursed by it ages and dies in just a few hours.”
“W-What? Is there no way to remove it? Like a potion or something…….”
“I heard the only way is to have a high-ranking priest personally bless you. That’s impossible while we’re locked in here. We’d die of old age before we could even meet the pope.”
At that moment Ji Ju-hye grabbed her head and sat down, sobbing.
“This fucking bitch… I shouldn’t have listened to that ‘Woman Jang’… I should have said no clearly… uuhuuu.”
I asked.
“What are you talking about?”
Ji Ju-hye glanced at me and hurriedly swallowed what she’d almost spilled.
“U-Un, no, it’s nothing.”
She had definitely said ‘Woman Jang.’
Was she talking about Jang Pomi?
Had she received some kind of favor from Jang Pomi?
Well, finding out was simple.
I kicked the glass display case filled with pottery shards.
*Kaang!*
Ji Ju-hye jumped in surprise and shouted.
“Eek, you startled me!”
As I scooped up the shards Ji Ju-hye asked.
“P-Pottery shards? Are we going to negotiate with the humans outside with those?”
“No.”
“…Then why did you grab them? We’re about to die of old age from the curse!”
“Forgot? This is the key to the second floor of the pyramid!”
“S-Surely? You……?”
“Yeah. I’m going to complete this sealing pottery.”
“I-I want to go too! Please! Fuck!”
Ji Ju-hye grabbed my leg and knelt.
I said coldly.
“If you want to go, tell me everything honestly about that ‘Woman Jang’ you just mentioned. Think about it after hearing it. But if you even lie about a single word… then……!”
Tears of chicken-peck-size drops fell as Ji Ju-hye said.
“Uuhuuu. Please don’t leave me! I really messed up. But that Jeguk Guild woman said I absolutely cannot tell you. Uuhuhu.”