The Cheonji Overflow
"What are you talking about? Even if you go, there's nothing you can do. You haven't even received proper training yet."
"I know... but..."
I grabbed Senior's arm and immediately drained her mana. There was no other way. As an Awoken, she could shrug me off and sprint out the door at any moment — I had to act fast.
Only once I was sure she couldn't run did I speak, my voice firm.
"You know perfectly well I didn't make you an Awoken so you could throw yourself into something like this. Don't make me regret it."
"Junghyeok..."
"Are you thinking of revenge? You said you'd forgotten all of it..."
"I had forgotten. But now that I have the power to—"
"No. You don't have the power for revenge. That dungeon was under the management of Awoken far stronger than you. Something must have gone wrong. There's nothing we can do. And you don't even have a weapon. What exactly do you plan to accomplish walking in bare-handed?"
"They said it overflowed... There are bound to be casualties. Unlike other places, that's right in the middle of the city. No matter how hard the government tries to lock down the area..."
"So you're going to go rescue civilians? If civilians are getting hurt, that means monsters are already running wild. What can you do out there with no gear? You think registering as an Awoken two days ago makes you ready for anything? You haven't completed a single day of training. You have zero combat record. Who's going to lend equipment to someone like that? Calm down."
"......"
"And that was a B-Rank dungeon. A B-Rank overflow means the skilled Awoken inside couldn't hold the line. That means either A-Rank or higher monsters appeared, or there were simply too many of them. There is nothing for you to do out there. Please — get a grip!"
"......"
Senior pressed her lips shut. Tears began to well in her eyes.
What was I supposed to say to her?
I was suffering too. Those same monsters had taken my entire family. I wanted to run out there and take revenge right now. But I still didn't have the strength...
"Senior. I'm sorry. Please understand. I don't want to lose you to them too."
I pulled her into a tight embrace, stroking her hair, trying to soothe her. She broke down and sobbed against my chest.
That talk about forgetting was a lie. How could anyone forget losing their family? She'd simply pretended to forget because she had no power — resigned herself to it. Same as me.
Even as I held her, the television kept feeding us new information. Civilian reporters couldn't get any closer, so most of it was worthless noise. But mixed in among the filler were a few scraps of real intelligence. A gate-specialist reporter would have connections on the government side, after all.
What?
Suwon?
My eyes met Senior's. Her tear-streaked face was frozen in shock — because she was the principal party and victim of the Suwon Hwaseong Gate incident.
"What do you think?"
"I don't know. But if it's the same as what I went through..."
"Another gate connected inside the dungeon, and new monsters poured out from there — right?"
"Yeah... Government people came and told me never to speak of it to anyone. It's almost certainly the same."
I wiped her tears with my thumb. But my mind was locked on the breaking news.
What Senior described was entirely plausible. A government-managed gate had overflowed without any prior warning. If there'd been even a hint of trouble, the government would have mobilized the military or the top-tier Awoken from the major corporations and sent them inside to stop the overflow. They hadn't. Either the monster population inside had exploded too suddenly — or monsters from somewhere else had appeared. One of the two.
I had no example for the first. The second had happened just recently.
Sand Garden...
A dungeon that normally spawned giant desert scorpions had been suddenly overrun by plant-type monsters. Enormous flowers and vegetation that had never existed there before filled the land as if they'd always belonged. An E-Rank dungeon flooded with higher-tier species — and a lot of people died.
If this was the same as Sand Garden...
I didn't take my eyes off the news for a second. The networks were already airing drone footage, and camera crews crowded every tall building near the site. Through that footage, I was looking for one thing: whether any monsters appeared that weren't native to the Cheonji Department Store Gate.
"Think we'll see different monsters?"
"If it's the same as the Hwaseong Gate... probably."
Neither of us could look away from the screen. The tension sat so heavy in my gut I thought the eel I'd just eaten might come back up. Senior clutched my arm and wouldn't let go. Having her beside me was a mercy — without her, the anxiety might have broken me. I might have collapsed again. Sharing the same wound with someone made all the difference.
Then new information came through.
Lightning Sword Park Yuri?
A world-famous figure. But her appearance only made Senior more anxious. The government was clearly using Park Yuri's name to reassure the public — which, flipped around, meant the situation was bad enough to require a Transcendent.
Deploying a Transcendent for a B-Rank dungeon? What kind of monster had shown up?
The camera covering the Cheonji-dong scene suddenly cut back to the studio. The evacuation order had probably forced the camera crews to pull out — and the government had almost certainly ordered the networks to stop broadcasting the footage. Part of that was to keep people from watching others die in real time. But the real reason was that they couldn't air combat footage of top-tier Awoken and Transcendents. A Transcendent's abilities especially could not be casually revealed to foreign nations.
"...A Transcendent is on site, so try to relax, Senior."
I said it to calm her, even though I didn't believe it myself. She knew that — but the weight of a thought kept inside and a word spoken aloud were different things. She understood better than anyone that if she kept pushing while knowing I was worried, our relationship couldn't hold.
"Okay..."
I turned off the TV. Then I pressed my face against hers — her cheeks still wet with tears — and nuzzled her gently. The soft warmth of her skin came through fully.
"Senior. Don't die."
"Okay..."
We kissed, and our clothes came off as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Sex in a state like this. Getting hard in a situation like this. I was out of my mind. But I had no choice. I needed to get stronger. Strong enough that the next time news like this broke, I could run straight to the front. And if I couldn't do it myself, I wanted people like that standing at my side. For that, I needed to have sex with Senior.
She knew. She knew I wasn't just some sex-crazed dog in heat. That was why she was taking me in.
I had sex with Senior.
I never imagined that sex begun under a cloud of despair would turn out to be the best of my life.
I had sex with Senior.
Monday morning.
The world was loud. My immediate surroundings were quiet, of course. The noise lived on the other side of my smartphone. On the other side of the television. A world that seemed intimately connected to mine — and yet might have nothing to do with me at all — had been roaring since Saturday afternoon.
I went to work as usual and headed out on a dungeon expedition. As if the world's chaos changed nothing.
On the other side of the phone, the buildings across Cheonji-dong — the massive high-rises — had been reduced to rubble. That was why the world was so loud. The only mercy was that the rapid evacuation order had kept the civilian death toll low. Just a few dozen civilians dead, they said. The final count wasn't in, so it could climb higher — but looking at the ruined landscape of Cheonji-dong on the news, you could call it a successful defense.
Of course, for the victims and their families and friends, it was a wound that would never heal. Ah — and the insurance companies and building owners should be added to that list.
Fortunately, I hadn't heard of any damage among people connected to me. As a citizen of South Korea, I felt deep sympathy for the victims' pain. The economic indicators would tank, so there was an indirect connection there too. But the world would go on as if nothing had happened — just as it had when my family was wiped out.
"Team Leader-nim!"
Lee Donggeul came running and latched onto my arm. A heavy, soft mass pressed against the surface of my arm. She really was the kind of person who didn't think too hard — smiling brightly even while the world was in uproar.
"Is everyone else still asleep?"
"Yep! I got here first. Did good, right?"
"You did well."
I set my hand on her round head and ruffled her hair. Wanting to be petted like a puppy was one of Lee Donggeul's defining traits.
Surprisingly, she hadn't been a virgin. She'd told me after the first time I pushed into her — an Academy instructor had suggested they "experiment" on whether her hymen would regenerate if she used Heal after sex, and then proceeded to take her. Not once or twice, either. That bastard. Even so — going after a minor...
I'd get a chance to make him pay eventually.
Fortunately, that past hadn't left a scar on Lee Donggeul. Whether that was because she was dense, or because the pleasure had been overwhelming from the very first time, I couldn't say. Judging by how she was with me, the latter seemed more likely.
While I was thinking that, the rest of the team arrived. I asked Jang Yong first — curious whether his older sister had said anything about me.
"Nope? She didn't say a word..."
"Really? She mentioned she might come observe one of our expeditions."
"My sister's busy. Because of the Cheonji-dong Gate overflow..."
Ah. So she wouldn't be showing up for this one. That actually meant I could focus on growing the people in front of me without worrying. Think positive. But caution was still essential.
"You've all heard about the incident, right?"
Everyone except Lee Donggeul seemed to know. Of course they did — they all lived in Seoul. Even if you tried not to care, you'd find out. Families would be panicking.
I explained the situation to Lee Donggeul, then addressed the whole group.
"Nobody knows what can happen inside a dungeon. Just because we're entering an E-Rank doesn't mean we'll only face E-Rank monsters. Stay sharp, all of you."
Only Lee Donggeul and Jang Yong answered out loud, but everyone understood the stakes. Their lives were on the line — they wouldn't do anything stupid.
We hurried to the equipment vendor, geared up with rental kits, and headed straight for the dungeon. This week's expedition was scheduled for five full days, but I planned to finish it in three. It wasn't that I was desperate — I just had no intention of staying chained to a company like this forever. I was going to climb fast.
The gate inside Daejeon Namsun Park.
The park had been closed for a long time since the gate appeared. It was one of the highest-difficulty E-Rank dungeons — and also one of the safest. Here's why.
The difficulty came from the sheer number of monsters, and from the fact that they were flying types. The safety came from the fact that those same monsters almost never descended to ground level. If you had a ranged attacker with C-class or higher mana, you could farm this place for free. The difficulty would drop to the level of popping balloons floating in the sky. But anyone with that kind of mana would head for higher-tier dungeons that actually paid, not this place.
For low-rank Awoken with weak mana, on the other hand, it was a bit of a struggle. You had to carefully lure them one at a time, and since they never came all the way down to the ground, melee fighters had a miserable time finishing them off.
So why had I chosen this dungeon?
Simple. It had to do with the monsters' name.
Long-bearded Sky Ray.
Their long tendrils hung so far they nearly brushed the ground. That's right — the beards. The moment I touched them with my hands, their mana would vanish.