Castle of the Sky
Bucheon Station in Bucheon City, Gyeonggi Province.
As befitting a bustling downtown near Seoul, the area saw heavy foot traffic—and the Engine Guild’s ruin dungeon had appeared right in the station’s public plaza.
There was a reason the Engine Guild had poured so much money into clearing it despite its mere E-class ranking. True to their purpose of protecting people, they had stubbornly spent heavily to do what needed doing.
And now an accident had struck that same ruin dungeon.
"Huff, huff. Haa…"
Having raced over by helicopter after Fernandez’s call, Jeong-Hoon caught his breath while surveying the guild members and military police controlling the perimeter. With nowhere to land at Bucheon Station itself, they had borrowed a nearby university’s athletic field and run all the way from there, leaving him gasping for air.
Yet Steward Joo and Lee Yeong, who had followed him, remained perfectly composed. Even as the strongest among non-Awakened, Jeong-Hoon still fell short of true S-class superhumans. His real strength lay in his unique combat instincts and the power of his suit.
The reason they had run from the university was obvious: the guild and military police locking the area down. An unprecedented major incident had clogged the surrounding roads with onlookers and news vans, and the cordon sealed off all vehicle access completely.
"You’ve arrived, Chairman."
"Yes, Sir Fernandez. Just what on earth is going on?"
Once he had recovered, Jeong-Hoon stepped past the control line. As the owner holding development rights to the dungeon, no one stopped him. Fernandez approached and bowed in greeting, which Jeong-Hoon acknowledged absently while gazing up at the night sky over Bucheon Station.
A massive structure floated three kilometers overhead. Its exterior glowed with a faint light and was unmistakably artificial to anyone who looked. Like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon rebuilt in an Eastern style, a gigantic palace hung in the sky above the station.
"It emerged when the dungeon suddenly collapsed during the excavation work."
"And the people inside?"
"They were all found unconscious in the plaza after the collapse. Only one person remained fully conscious."
Relieved to hear there were no fatalities, Jeong-Hoon shook his head.
"But why did the dungeon collapse? Don’t tell me it hadn’t been cleared?"
"It was definitely a cleared dungeon."
Even if monsters were periodically culled to prevent overflows, leaving a dungeon uncleared was dangerous. The worst outcome of a neglected dungeon was not overflow, but collapse like this. This time a massive castle had simply appeared in the sky without damaging the surroundings, but there had been cases where the terrain itself crumbled. Uncleared dungeons were hazardous for a reason. Yet this time a dungeon whose core had already been destroyed had collapsed—making it an unprecedented crisis.
"Chairman Lee Jeong-Hoon, you’ve arrived? After you so generously lent us the dungeon for research purposes, I’m truly sorry this disaster has occurred."
Kim Sang-Myeong, already inside the cordon, approached and bowed. Jeong-Hoon returned the gesture.
"It isn’t as if you deliberately caused this, Chairman Kim. Please don’t trouble yourself over it."
Jeong-Hoon truly did not blame Kim Sang-Myeong in the slightest as he reassured the apologetic chairman. He simply regarded it as a side effect of the Organization shaking the seal through Anubis.
"No. If I hadn’t gotten excited looking at the mural inside and touched it, none of this would have happened."
"…Pardon? You were the one person who remained fully conscious?"
Jeong-Hoon had assumed Kim had entered using the research rights he had leased him. Learning the man had already been inside when the collapse occurred left him deflated with a sigh. It seemed he would need a detailed explanation.
Because of the Castle of the Sky that had appeared above Bucheon Station, the station itself was closed. Until the situation was resolved, the third floor—where the ticket gates stood—was being used as a temporary response headquarters.
"So Chairman Kim Sang-Myeong went into the dungeon with them?"
"Yes. I do hold a doctorate in archaeology, after all."
"…When did someone who looks this busy with business find time to earn a PhD?"
Jeong-Hoon asked out of pure surprise rather than sarcasm.
"Having the degree helps with business, so I studied hard while running the company. Hahaha."
He claimed he had earned it for practical reasons, but the passion that had driven him to enter a dungeon and excavate in person told Jeong-Hoon it was pure hobby. He simply nodded and took a sip of coffee. Steward Joo had brought it from a café inside the station; after always drinking Lumen’s premium blends, Jeong-Hoon found the flavor distinctly lacking.
"I’m sorry we couldn’t secure proper coffee."
"I’ll contact Lumen at once and have coffee befitting the Chairman brought over."
"I’ll go myself."
Seeing Jeong-Hoon’s brow crease as he drank, Steward Joo, Fernandez, and Lee Yeong each spoke up in turn.
"There’s no need. Just bring me some sugar."
At the request for sugar, Fernandez immediately turned and ran. Helping themselves to the café’s coffee and now taking sugar as well felt a bit like theft, yet Jeong-Hoon remained unfazed. When setting up the temporary headquarters he had already promised every shop in Bucheon Station full compensation for lost business. Beyond mere reimbursement, he had paid outright for every product inside so the facilities could be used freely. In other words, the coffee he was drinking was coffee he had bought and paid for.
"So what exactly happened inside?"
"Well, first allow me to give a brief overview of this ruin dungeon. Our investigation of the site turned up some astonishing facts. Before beginning the full survey this time, we performed a dating method we had never used before. The reason we hadn’t used it previously was…"
Until now, dungeons had been regarded as products of another world, not of Earth. No one had even thought to attempt dating. If research had been more active, a scholar might have shattered that prejudice sooner—but the prejudice existed precisely because research had been so limited. With the generous lease from Jeong-Hoon providing ample funds, they had decided to try everything possible and had run radiometric dating using radioactive isotopes.
"The result was a remarkable discovery. The dungeon ruins date to approximately 4,300 years ago. Of course, that is according to Earth’s dating methods, so the actual period could differ. But the fact that the same methods worked at all excited us. We began a full-scale investigation and made yet another astonishing find. Do you know what it was?"
Kim Sang-Myeong’s rapid-fire words made Jeong-Hoon briefly stare into the middle distance. He had never imagined the man was such a talker.
"Chairman Lee Jeong-Hoon?"
"Hm? Ah, sorry. So… the dungeon’s architectural style resembles that of ancient Earth civilizations?"
The moment he saw the dungeon he had thought of an Eastern version of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon from the internet, so he offered a polite guess. Without some sort of response, the enthusiastically lecturing Kim Sang-Myeong might have wilted.
"Oh! To think of that the moment you saw it—Chairman Lee, you must be quite well-versed in archaeology. Are you interested? If you are, a recommendation from me and a suitable donation to my alma mater could arrange admission. Surely someone of your standing…"
"I’m far too busy with business to have time for university. Even if I went, I’d only be a name on the roster, so I’ll have to politely decline."
Sensing the conversation veering into dangerous territory, Jeong-Hoon shook his head and declined with firm courtesy. Leave even a small opening and he could easily picture himself enrolled as Kim Sang-Myeong’s junior, dragged along on weekend mountain hikes by professors—the classic graduate-student fate.
"That’s a little disappointing. If you ever change your mind about university, please do contact me. Returning to the main point: our excavation team was thrilled. A hypothesis even emerged that dungeons might not be from another world at all, but rather unrecorded ancient Earth civilizations. And so…"
The mere possibility that radiometric dating pointed to Earth 4,300 years ago had produced a hypothesis that brushed against the truth. Jeong-Hoon could only admire that this man was no ordinary doctor and focused on the story. Skipping Kim Sang-Myeong’s excessive knowledge dump and cutting to the conclusion: they had entered the dungeon and begun the survey. In the process they found a mural depicting countless people descending from the sky. Kim Sang-Myeong, convinced it portrayed the descent of Hwanung from the Dangun myth, had been unable to contain his excitement. He approached the mural and, without thinking, touched the three gems embedded in it. A blinding light exploded inside the dungeon, and when he came to, he was outside. He ended his account with a note of self-reproach: the moment he saw the three gems he had instinctively thought of the three Cheonbuin recorded in myth and touched them—that had been the mistake.
After listening, Jeong-Hoon absently rubbed his ear.
"Chairman Lee Jeong-Hoon? Are you unwell?"
"Ah, no. Just something in my ear."
He could not bring himself to say that listening had made his ears ache so badly he thought they might bleed. He merely shrugged and sighed inwardly. His silent vow never again to discuss archaeology with Chairman Kim Sang-Myeong remained a closely guarded secret.
The three vassals who had listened alongside him quickly organized the conversation into a briefing and immediately summoned the guild members and soldiers at the response headquarters. Then they condensed the lengthy tale Jeong-Hoon had suffered through into a crisp five-minute presentation.
"Hello, Chairman. I never imagined I’d see you here."
"…Hunter Han Si-Eun? What brings you?"
When the presentation ended and Si-Eun approached to greet him, Jeong-Hoon looked surprised. She offered a slight smile.
"I’m currently the youngest SS-class and one of the top powerhouses in Korea—officially speaking, at least."
Excluding the family and the Organization, she was indeed among Korea’s strongest, so Jeong-Hoon nodded. Barely promoted to SS-class, she was already at the upper end of that rank and pounding on the wall of SSS-class—a monstrous talent. Naturally, a request for support had come for an unprecedented crisis like this. It was something to be proud of, yet with one foot already in the family as a collaborator, only a self-deprecating smile came out.
"You’ve been put through a lot because of a dungeon I own. Once this is settled, I’ll make sure to compensate you properly."
"…What I already receive from Lumen is more than enough."
Jeong-Hoon’s words carried genuine apology rather than an attempt to throw money at the problem, so Si-Eun shook her head. In truth she felt she owed him a debt she could never repay. Even as the youngest S-class, without Jeong-Hoon’s support she would never already be knocking on the door of SSS-class.
"And if you’re going to give compensation, give it to the guild members working hard outside as volunteers, not to me. We have people from my guild here, but the Engine Guild members came charging in without a second thought, saying they bore responsibility as the ones who originally cleared the dungeon."
Knowing that expressing gratitude would only make Jeong-Hoon push the compensation harder, Si-Eun steered the conversation elsewhere. They had come to resolve the crisis, but the ones truly suffering were the guild members and military police handling the cordon outside.
"I already plan to compensate them fully as well."
He answered so promptly that she realized he had already thought of it when setting up the temporary headquarters. Si-Eun let out a small sigh. Experience had taught her that once he spoke like this, there was no stopping him. So she decided to bring up what she had originally come to say.
"So what do we do about that thing? We can’t exactly scramble fighters and shoot it down, right?"
"…Shooting it down would cause a catastrophe, so we’ll have to think of something else. Going up to investigate, for example."
"How do you plan to investigate? It’d be tough without a helicopter, and we don’t even know if a helicopter can approach…"
Feeling he was making it sound too easy, Si-Eun pushed back. Jeong-Hoon merely shrugged.
"We just take a helicopter carrying S-class or higher Awakened. At S-class and above they can jump clear if anything goes wrong."
"What? Oh, right—you’re the chairman of the Aurora Group now, not just Lumen. Of course you can mobilize helicopters."
"…It would have been perfectly possible even when I was only the Lumen chairman. But sure, all’s well that ends well."
Si-Eun had come hoping to vent her complete lack of ideas on how to respond; hearing Jeong-Hoon produce an answer so easily left her deflated. She had momentarily forgotten that he was not merely rich—he was the kind of ridiculously wealthy man who kept both S-class Awakened and helicopters in abundance.