First Dive: Red Devils
I was in no position to feel grateful for this situation.
One of the Awoken under my management had just casually burned a precious skill—one she could only use twice—like it was nothing.
No. She had wasted it...
If I had known beforehand, I should have stopped her on the spot.
"I'm glad you're better."
Lee Donggeul beamed at me with that bright, sunny smile.
This could never happen again.
I needed to drill it into her: recovery skills were for emergencies inside the dungeon only.
Yet for some reason, my tightly shut mouth refused to open.
Kim Isol beat me to it instead.
"You dumbass. Hey, what the hell are you thinking using a skill here? And on just anyone?"
Kim Isol scolded Lee Donggeul.
Just anyone.
She meant me, and she wasn't wrong.
Lee Donggeul's bright expression shrank rapidly.
My gaze was still locked on her, so the change hit me all at once.
Cute, round-faced, the kind of girl who made you want to protect her. There was something strangely magnetic about her.
I cleared my throat a few times and tried to settle the awkward atmosphere.
Taking Lee Donggeul's side right now would only make things worse.
"Uh... next time, you can't use it like that. Save it for more critical situations. Healers are especially precious."
"Yes... I'm sorry."
"Hmph."
This girl might not be the strongest, but at least she seemed ready to listen to me.
Kim Isol, on the other hand, had the personality of a stinging jellyfish.
If those two stayed together, Lee Donggeul would get chewed out by Kim Isol every single time.
Management was definitely going to be necessary.
Finally I turned my eyes toward the Awoken who had been waiting the longest.
The only man among them.
A male Awoken... and just like that, last night's humiliating memory rose up again.
Fuck...
I unwrapped the bandage from my right hand and asked the guy named Jang Yong,
"Your name's a single character, huh? Jang Yong-ssi."
"Yes, hyungnim."
There was real fire in that answer.
Should I be glad he didn't act like a typical Awoken?
"Jang Yong-ssi, your file doesn't list a primary weapon."
"Ah, yes. I handle pretty much everything well."
"Excuse me?"
"There's no weapon I specially can't use."
I couldn't make sense of what he was saying.
Someone that good would never end up at our company.
There had to be some flaw somewhere.
"Still, the one you handle best... no, which way did you awaken?"
"Tanker."
"Then why does the file..."
"I only awakened as a tanker. I practiced as a close-range dealer."
"Why?"
"I don't know. I just followed the Academy's method."
Suspicious.
But I let it go.
I could dig deeper right now, but there was no real need.
We were heading into a dungeon this afternoon anyway.
Anything I asked now might just get me a lie, and I had no way to verify it on the spot.
I'd see it with my own eyes inside the dungeon.
I passed along a few more cautions, and the first meeting ended.
Now it was time for a quick lunch, then head out to the F-rank dungeon I'd already applied to use in advance.
"Um... can I have some cake?"
Lee Donggeul suddenly asked with sparkling eyes.
She had already ordered and eaten two slices before I even arrived.
The table still held the traces of the cakes she had polished off.
She wasn't a kid...
I had no choice but to nod.
She had healed my hand, after all...
The unopened strawberry cake sitting in my fridge at home floated up in my mind and irritated me for no good reason.
"We'll enter the dungeon early this afternoon, so go ahead and eat first."
"What? What time is it even?"
"I'm not hungry..."
I had planned to leave the café for a proper meal, but no one except Lee Donggeul seemed to have any appetite.
They decided to skip lunch and just have a slice of cake instead.
Watching her eat must have made them crave it too.
Whatever.
I couldn't go eat alone, and I had zero desire to shove cake down my throat either.
I also couldn't just sit there staring at them devour cake, so I stepped outside by myself and stopped by a convenience store.
I bought cigarettes.
The first smoke in almost a year tasted sweeter than any cake.
I squatted there puffing away, waiting for the equipment transport company that would move with us.
The whole time, my eyes kept drifting back to the right hand that had been wrapped in bandages.
"Yes. Cool Supporting Company."
"Confirming once more. Entering party is four Awoken and three civilians, correct?"
"Yep!"
"One night, two days schedule. Confirmed. If you are not back by 9 p.m. tomorrow, a missing persons report will be filed immediately. Keep that in mind, and please come forward one by one for eye and fingerprint authentication."
Entry permission came easily.
No—permission had already been granted; this was just the confirmation process.
1 p.m.
We arrived in front of the dungeon gate located at Soyosan.
Most dungeon gates that had been cleared and stabilized were managed directly by the state.
Of course, some of the profitable ones were owned by large corporations.
Either way, small outfits like ours could not enter freely without permission.
But for a legitimate company—big or small—applications were usually approved.
There was no reason to refuse.
More than anything, as a nation that needed to grow its Awoken, we were essentially doing their work for them.
Our party consisted of four rookie Awoken, me, and two company staff.
Higher-rank dungeons would swell the numbers dramatically, but we were a chick kindergarten.
Entering the lowest-difficulty dungeon for training purposes, this many people was plenty.
Cost-cutting was a factor too.
Even so, two transport company employees came along.
Their job was, of course, hauling supplies.
Unlike games, dungeon clears never finished in tens of minutes or a few hours, so the necessary gear and supplies were both varied and massive.
Humans still needed to eat, shit, and sleep...
Especially comfortable sleep—one of the most important factors in recovering an Awoken's mana.
This schedule was set for one night and two days.
Higher dungeons often required even longer stays inside, so getting used to this lifestyle through experience was essential.
Every person, Awoken included, changed into C-rank Mana Suits before entry.
That included civilians like me and the company staff.
The so-called mana-coated equipment that blocked attacks from monsters appearing inside the dungeon.
It was the lowest C-rank gear, but against F-rank dungeon monsters it should stop at least three hits without letting anyone die.
These too were rentals from the transport company—high-end items costing hundreds of millions of won per suit.
The weapons the Awoken carried were even more expensive.
Everything was rented, so making sure the gear returned undamaged to the transport company was also part of my job.
"You've faced goblins before, right?"
"Yeah."
"Yes..."
Was that too obvious a question?
The Academy ran practical classes using artificially cultured goblins, after all.
"You don't need to worry. The monsters that appear here are called Red Devils. Goblins are also called green goblins, so think of them as a similar race. Compared to goblins, their whole body is red and they're a bit bigger. That's the only difference."
If you got into details there were more differences—diet and such—but that information wasn't needed right now.
And even if I didn't say it, they would have learned this at the Academy.
Most of the information I had received came from their materials anyway.
I just wanted to remind these tense kids about the enemy.
"Then stick to the fixed formation. No freelancing. Unlike the Academy, there aren't multiple healers standing by, so one wrong move and you die."
Being their first time, the nervousness was still plain on their faces.
I had chosen this dungeon for their first dive for the same reason.
Familiar monsters. Even if they got a little tense, they shouldn't fall into real danger.
I used the special radar rented from the company to check ahead.
With this radar I could pinpoint monster positions up to several dozen meters out.
"Two visible forty meters ahead. Let's start the way we discussed beforehand."
Jang Yong advanced slowly with sword and shield leading.
Kim Isol followed right behind him.
The Red Devils spotted us from dozens of meters away and prepared for combat.
"Red Devils increased to four."
Ones farther back joined the front line.
From the rear of the Awoken, this was as far as I could confirm for them.
From here on, it was their job.
"Lee Donggeul-nim. Do not use your skill until I give the signal."
"Yeees, understood~."
Maybe it was because she was an Awoken after all.
Judging by her personality I had worried she might tremble in fear, but that had been needless fretting.
Thanks to plenty of Academy experience against goblins, she was tense but not shaking with terror.
While I watched the Awoken fight, the transport company staff were setting up a simple tent dozens of meters behind us.
Normally you moved to a cleared area first and then set up, but we couldn't do that this time.
Unless the spot was as safe as possible, not just the Awoken but we civilians would be in danger too.
Stories of rookie Awoken dozing off on watch were common in the industry.
And nothing put an expedition at greater risk than that.
"Hyungnim. All of them are down!"
Jang Yong's voice reached me.
I followed the sound and moved forward slowly.
As I got closer, the nauseating stench of blood from the Red Devil corpses hit hard.
The four fallen Red Devils were covered in sword cuts, bodies hacked apart.
I pinched my nose shut.
"Please bury them. These corpses are useless."
I handed the metal shovel I had been carrying on my back to Jang Yong.
This too was mana-coated equipment.
Using the shovel, Jang Yong buried the Red Devil corpses.
True to being an Awoken, it took less than a minute.
Annoying as it was, it had to be done.
If left alone the bodies would rot and the smell would grow so fierce we couldn't stay in this dungeon any longer.
This dungeon was a closed underground cave type, so it was especially true here.
I rechecked the combat footage recorded by the cameras attached to the Awoken's bodies.
That was also part of my job.
While I reviewed the video, Kim Isol kept chattering loudly.
"Hmph. Red Devils weren't anything special."
Kim Isol flicked the flesh and blood off her sword and spoke with full confidence.
In the footage I had just checked, she alone had taken down three of the Red Devils.
My head started to ache.
In a word: inefficient.
That was my takeaway from the combat video.
I was at a loss for where to even begin.
"Um, Kim Isol-nim."
"What."
"You can't do it like that. You need to pay attention to coordination with the party."
"What coordination? I could take them all down by myself. Check the video!"
I controlled myself as best I could and spoke as gently as possible.
"This party serves both educational purposes for all of you and as a test of whether you can eventually head into E-rank or higher dungeons."
"So what?"
"It means you cannot freestyle like that. Because of you, we couldn't even check Baek Hwayeon-nim's skill in the back. Individual ability is important, but coordination with the party is more important."
Kim Isol's face twisted as she listened.
Whether she simply couldn't hide her emotions or deliberately chose not to, I couldn't tell.
Cold sweat ran down my cheek and itched, so I scratched my face with a finger.
She started up again, determined not to lose.
"Coordination only works when hearts match and skill is at a certain level! The healer finishes everything with one heal up front, and that archer girl doesn't even say a single word—what coordination?"
"Still, this won't do. And it's not just coordination. Kim Isol-nim's combat style is also inefficient. Even if it's an F-rank dungeon, swinging wildly like that is a waste of mana."
Against monsters on the level of Red Devils, a single slash should have cut straight through to the bone.
An Awoken's sword had that kind of power.
Hacking the entire body to pieces only made the stench worse.
And the mana burned with every swing?
Their mana capacity was obvious without even looking—bottom of the barrel among Awoken—but they didn't know it.
Of course they didn't; that was why they were here.
Hearing my criticism, Kim Isol shot me a sideways glare.
But no proper words of rebuttal seemed to come to her.
Just as I was about to offer one more adult piece of advice,
she opened the mouth she had been holding shut.
"A non-Awoken civilian with no mana."
The moment I heard those words, I could no longer keep the emotions I had been holding back off my face.
Yesterday's events plus all the stress that had piled up until now exploded.
In the end I spat out a single line.
"You talentless Academy reject who can't even get a sponsor."
This damn mouth of mine had caused another accident.