The Core's Touch
Today we’re only marking the survey range and pulling out. Don’t push toward the center.
The investigation team always moves one step behind the combat team. The danger is relatively low, but if we miss anything, that burden falls straight onto the next team.
The SUV stopped in front of the gate. The moment we stepped inside, the resonance meter gave a brief tremor. The readings stayed within normal range, yet the graph wavered ever so slightly. The fluctuation was too short for anyone else to notice. I wasn’t certain enough to report an anomaly either, but the brief tingling at my fingertips remained clear. Even so, the meter showed no change.
“We’ll split the search lines. I’ll take the south, Jaehoon the northern outer wall, and Jihoon the center.”
“Cheongpyeong E-07 is a stabilized dungeon, so the risk is low, but the center is the oldest section. Keep your distance.”
“Beginning full-area search.”
Team Leader Yoo Mira’s orders came down. I ran my hand along the wall, following its grain. A metallic chill seeped from the cracks, leaving a faint warmth on my fingertips.
“Jihoon, don’t go too deep.”
“Just checking.”
The instant my palm touched the wall, the thin outer layer cracked with a sharp sound. My hand stiffened for a moment. Fragments scattered, and from the widening gap, a blue light slowly seeped out. The glow carried warmth; the closer it came, the hotter my fingertips grew.
It was a dungeon core. Fist-sized, its surface rippled like liquid while holding its shape. Every time the inner light pulsed, pressure leaked through the cracks, making the nearby air tremble.
I had only heard descriptions before. Seeing it in person felt far stranger than any image in my memory.
“Team Leader, over here—”
Before I could finish, my fingertips brushed the surface. Pressure burst outward and drove straight into my palm. Heat raced up my arm; my muscles locked reflexively. The sensation spread inward. My heartbeat lagged a beat, then a current-like tremor raced along my spine. Light and heat overlapped, and the surrounding sounds seemed to cut off. Sensation remained, yet my body no longer felt like my own. A brief flash passed, vision went dark, and a high-pitched ring echoed inside my skull while my inner ears twisted in dizzying waves.
“Jihoon!”
Team Leader Yoo Mira’s voice reached me from far away, wavering. My body tilted; balance slowly crumbled. The last clear sensation was the density of the air. When that faded, all light vanished at once.
Right before consciousness cut off, I felt something foreign settling somewhere inside me. Even that blurred and sank into complete darkness.
Time passed. A dull vibration reached me first. Only then did awareness slowly rise to the surface. My eyelids trembled heavily before parting. The air inside the car felt pressed down and heavy. Moisture on the window trembled faintly, and the engine’s vibration traveled through the seat and into my bones.
At the edge of my unfocused vision, I saw Team Leader Yoo Mira’s face reflected in the rearview mirror. She was focused on driving, yet her brow was deeply furrowed. The glance she threw my way carried unmistakable worry.
Following that gaze, Oh Jaehoon leaned forward from the back seat.
“You awake?”
Only then did the fact that I had fully woken up register, delayed like an afterthought.
“You were out for about two hours. Looked like dehydration.”
A water bottle was pressed into my hand. The first swallow left a faint metallic taste.
“Drink slowly.”
“Jaehoon hyung, what was the situation on site?”
I spread my palm and checked the sensation.
“Nothing unusual. You were just tracing the wall grain. Readings were stable. Only after you touched it and collapsed did the heat around you spike for a second before vanishing.”
From the driver’s seat, Team Leader Yoo Mira continued.
“No core reaction was detected. There was a brief response right after Jihoon collapsed, then it stabilized. The gate disappeared an hour and a half later.”
A short silence followed, broken only by the steady engine hum. Outside the window, dense mountain shadows streamed past without end.
A faint warmth still lingered at my fingertips. It wasn’t hot enough to call burning, yet it was a temperature I had never felt before. There was no pain, and my body felt strangely calm inside, but the change itself was unmistakable. I couldn’t explain exactly what had shifted, only that the sensation now was not the same as before.
My name is Byun Jihoon. Twenty-four years old. F-class Awakened. First-year dungeon investigator. My ability is telekinesis. I can lift a five-kilogram box for three seconds before my nose bleeds. Not much combat value, but my precision control is reliable. That’s why I stayed on the investigation team instead of combat. My hands are the fastest with equipment in the team. Others draw swords; I turn on the resonance meter.
I wanted to be a hunter at first. Enter dungeons, clear bosses, see my name on the news. I failed the exam twice and got rejected at the document stage on the third try. The clerk at the reception desk glanced over my papers and said, “F-class is safer in records than combat. Other people will do the fighting anyway.”
After hearing that, I chose records. Someone fights; someone records. I was the latter.
Twenty years ago, the sky first split. A lightning-shaped crack froze in the air, and darkness bloomed from within. People scattered; some raised cameras. From that day on, my standards changed. Looking back, that was when I first truly understood what a dungeon was.
What had seemed like a simple crack hardened over time into an oval gate. Inside lay an unfamiliar sky and land overlapping. People called that space a “dungeon” and the gate itself a “gate.” The unknown energy flowing from it came to be called “mana.”
About two months after the gates opened, the first monsters poured out. Cities fell into chaos in an instant. Amid that chaos, Awakeners began appearing one by one—those whose bodies had changed after accepting mana. Their power brought the cities back under control. Still, roughly thirty percent of the country was eventually taken by monsters. People called those regions Dungeon Break zones and began treating them as resource-gathering areas for hunters.
Awakeners were ranked from F-class at the bottom to S-class at the top. The standard was simple: how much power they could endure and how widely they could handle mana. The strong entered deeper dungeons; the weak cleaned up after them. Roles divided, and ranks rose naturally. F became E, A eventually reached toward S. Growth was not complicated. It came down to how long you could last and how much you could accept. That was the only difference.
Danger became money, so people kept going in. Rank became a person’s worth. Dungeons were no longer mere threats. The strong survived, and the survivors built a new order. I stood at the center of it—an F-class dungeon investigator in an ambiguous and dangerous position.
Dungeon investigators always enter one step behind the combat team. Our main job is recording mana flow and residual reactions through the resonance meter and quantifying mutation possibilities. It might look like quiet work, but missing even one detail passes the risk straight to the next team. We rarely fight directly, yet the danger does not decrease. We are often the first to step into zones with unstable mana and mutation responses, sometimes placing us in greater peril than the combat team.
Simply put, a dungeon investigator is both a technical records role and a high-risk position. A single line in a report or a single number can decide the survival of the next team. That is why this job can never be done carelessly.
“Stabilization reading 4.6,” I reported after checking the meter. “Below the 5.0 baseline, holding in the stabilized range.”
“Residual mana coefficient 1.2, within error margin.”
The numbers were normal, yet my mood felt strangely light.
“Good. No dungeon core reaction, and the mana lines are stable.”
We moved along the passage. Metal dust coated the floor; the wall ores had already cooled. Residual mana had dropped, but air currents remained irregular—a faint pull unique to less stabilized sections.
“At this level we can call it a fully stabilized dungeon, right, Team Leader?”
“Yes. In the 4-range there’s no risk of rampage. Contamination is also below baseline. Today should be quiet.”
I picked up a fragment of mana stone from the floor. “This one’s ours for bonus, not recovery team, right?”
Team Leader Yoo Mira turned her gaze. “Jihoon, you’ll get scolded if headquarters hears that.”
“We just won’t write it in the report.”
“Still, this much counts as hazard pay.”
I pressed the meter screen and checked the readings again. The graph sat in the stable zone, yet one line wavered briefly—a light ripple that barely brushed my fingertips. The value dropped from 4.6 to 4.4. This time the descent was slightly faster.
“The flow is a little quicker.”
At my words she looked up, took the meter, and scanned the numbers once more.
“Still within range. Let’s wrap up before it fluctuates more.”
We finished checking the final section. No remaining reactions, and the graph settled near the baseline again.
“Once recording is complete, withdraw,” she said, handing back the meter and walking ahead. Her short hair, large eyes, and sharp features made a strong first impression. Though her build was lean and solid, her movements carried natural curves. The balance honed through training showed in every step. Twenty-four years old, A-class flame user. Her tone was gentle, but her judgment was swift; on site she always took charge first. The team trusted her because of that speed of response.
When the comms went quiet, his voice followed.
“Jihoon, signal acquired. Sending now.”
Oh Jaehoon. Twenty-five years old, C-class power-type user. Not especially tall, with rounded shoulders. The build of someone who pulls too many all-nighters, always in a hoodie and jacket, hair roughly pressed down so he looks a bit blurry from a distance. His hands, however, are different. Unlike his unkempt appearance, when he handles equipment his speed is precise, and when focused his eyes sharpen.
“Value transmission complete. Signal’s clean this time.”
“Last time the laptop blew up.”
“I triple-checked so it wouldn’t happen again.”
“Hyung, you’ve gotten more careful since then.”
“I paid for the equipment myself.”
From behind came another voice. “You two, once you’re done, we’re withdrawing.”
The inside of the dungeon was quiet. We had finished checking the designated zones; now we only needed to transmit the records and today’s work would be over.
Even as we loaded the equipment into the vehicle, the faint vibration lingering in my fingertips refused to settle. It was not searing heat but a strange sensation, as though the air itself were being compressed and pressing down on my palm.
That night.
I dragged my exhausted body back to my studio apartment and closed the door. With the click of the door lock, outside noise was instantly shut out. In the silence that filled the room, an old dumbbell lying in the corner caught my eye, as always. As if drawn, I reached out without thinking. Or rather, it was less reaching than simply casting my will.
Whoosh.
The dumbbell on the floor rose into the air without the slightest friction sound. Just a month ago, floating a five-kilogram dumbbell for three seconds had been my limit, something I could only achieve by pushing my entire body to exhaustion. But now it was different. Without even twitching a fingertip, the dumbbell hovered motionless in the air.
I turned my gaze aside. “One more.”
At the low murmur, another dumbbell in the corner responded. Two lumps of metal began tracing slow orbits at eye level. Their movement was impossibly smooth, as if mocking gravity.
“……”
This was no illusion. Something vast was awakening inside my body. The pitiful label that had bound me—“F-class”—might have been entirely wrong.