Expedition Preparations
I headed straight for the expedition headquarters.
“You’re here,” the one-eyed supervisor, Gawin, said the moment he saw me.
He used to be a renowned Raider back in his prime. After losing sight in one eye, he retired and took this desk job. It was rotten luck that forced him out, but he’d built a solid reputation as a supervisor. In the end, things had worked out for him.
“Rest up nicely?” Gawin shoved the documents he’d been reading to one side of his desk. Then he used my nickname, clearly amused. “The Necromancer Who Calls Death.”
“Uh. Yeah.”
I had no clue how the higher-ups were evaluating me. If even Gawin was calling me by that bizarre title, it meant someone had definitely tossed it around during a meeting. The expedition leaders really were something else.
“Back from the dead again, I see.”
The blunt remark hit me immediately. What, was I supposed to have died there? When I shot him a crooked look, Gawin—surprisingly—lifted the corner of his mouth and gestured to a chair. First time I’d ever seen the man smile.
As soon as I sat, he slid a document across the desk. The paper, signed in hasty cursive, was an official confirmation of the investigation team’s activities.
“The investigation team returned this morning.”
Those words made my chest tighten all over again. I’d tried to drown the memory in alcohol, but what was done couldn’t be undone. The party that went to clear the Goblin Nest—Daro and the others—had been wiped out. Everyone except me. The investigation team Gawin dispatched had simply verified my statement and come back.
“There was quite a stir from above. Even I was a little surprised.”
I’d expected noise, but the part that surprised Gawin wasn’t what I anticipated.
“The bodies…”
“We recovered all three. Daro, Jian, Somi. Identities confirmed. There’s one annoying detail, though.”
“What is it?”
“That friend of yours, Daro. Remember him?”
“Yes.”
“He was a noble.”
“Sorry?” For a second I thought I’d misheard. But Gawin stared at me with perfectly steady eyes. This wasn’t a joke. He wasn’t testing me. He was simply asking whether I had known about Daro’s real identity.
“Looks like you didn’t.”
“I had no idea.”
Come to think of it, there had been signs. He was strangely polite for a Raider. Efficient at handling tasks. And damn good at writing exploration logs. I’d just assumed he was an eccentric. Gawin continued as if he’d expected my reaction.
“Daro was an alias. Real name was Daim. Son of the noble Doil. Ran away from home a year ago and vanished. Joined the Raider Guild and became an explorer.”
“Did the Raider Guild know?”
Gawin snorted. “What would those bastards know?”
Fair point. The Raider Guild was founded by thieves, beggars, and murderers—a place for criminals to launder their identities in the dungeons. Any sane person would refuse to descend into those cramped underground hells to fight man-eating monsters, no matter how much they were paid. But the so-called Raiders were all half-mad lunatics who lived for bloodshed and coin. With so many coming and going—most of them dying—it was the perfect place to hide who you really were. Daim had probably slipped in without raising a single eyebrow.
It made sense, yet questions remained. Why would a noble’s son choose to become an explorer? That wasn’t something I could solve right now. The man was dead; there was no one left to ask.
The truly important part came next.
“Doil had a standing request with the expedition. Turns out he’s paid over four hundred thousand ron in sponsorship so far. When he heard Daim died yesterday, all hell broke loose.”
I could picture it clearly. A noble hires the expedition to find his missing son and keeps pouring money into it with zero results. He stays patient, only to discover his boy had been an explorer the whole time—and was now a corpse. Anyone would lose their mind.
“The leaders held an emergency meeting. I only poked my head in.” Gawin’s voice rose with clear enjoyment. “Your name came up.”
“Ah…” So that was it. Goddamn it.
One of the leaders must have called me “The Necromancer Who Calls Death.” The necromancer who drags parties in and returns alone after everyone else dies. It was so unfair I protested even though I knew it was pointless.
“Why pin it on me? The leaders never cared about finding Daro in the first place! What the hell did I do wrong—”
Gawin finally let out a chuckle. “Heh heh heh… Exactly. They didn’t give a damn. They just pretended to search while milking the sponsorship money. Figured finding him later wouldn’t matter. They assumed it was just another noble family power struggle. But the mistake was theirs. Still, you think those bastards would admit fault? Not a chance. They needed a convenient scapegoat to feed Doil.”
It was a shitty situation.
“And wouldn’t you know it, the party just happened to have a necromancer in it.”
Really shitty. Of all things, I’d been marked by the expedition leaders. Wouldn’t surprise me if I got fired tomorrow and ended up wiping corpses next to Seoha noona. But Gawin looked like he was having the time of his life, so I wasn’t too worried. Nobody laughs while telling you you’re fired. That would just make them a psychopath.
“I know you’re not deliberately screwing over your teammates. You’re just cursed with terrible luck. People die in dungeons. It’s not exactly news.”
I asked anyway. “So what happens to me?”
“Doil demanded your explorer license be revoked.”
Thud. Gawin tossed a small badge onto the desk in front of me.
◈ Seniority Promotion granted
◈ Access to mid-tier dungeons expanded
“This is…” It was the rank badge that proved explorer qualification. There were five grades total—from the lowest, Grade 5, to the highest, Grade 1. I had been the lowest of the low: a Grade 5 Copper Badge explorer. The new badge Gawin gave me was a Bronze Badge. Proof of Grade 4 status. A promotion.
“Do you understand why I’m giving this to you?”
I was confused, but my brain still worked. After failing a mission and losing my entire party, what possible reason was there to promote me? Then it clicked—the Dungeon Overseer leveling system. In that game, you gained experience just from completing expeditions. Even tagging along and doing nothing earned EXP. Eventually your level rose. The system existed purely for speedruns. Dungeon Overseer was ultimately about retrieving the Crown of the Forgotten. The faster you did it, the more of a veteran you were considered. Skipping mobs, farming only what you needed, and rushing to the ending—that was why expedition EXP existed.
What had they called this in the game again?
“Seniority promotion,” I muttered. Gawin nodded, satisfied.
“Exactly. You lasted two whole years. Consider it a reward.”
No matter how many teammates died or missions failed, EXP still accumulated. Your rank rose. And since rank determined which dungeons you could enter, my options had just widened considerably.
Another thought surfaced—a certain balance patch related to promotions.
“You already know what your disposition will be, right?”
Of course I did. “A three-month prohibition on contract termination… and I’ll be assigned a new mission.”
Gawin pulled out another document and handed it over. It was a contract confirmation. The forced extension upon promotion was also the result of a balance patch. In Dungeon Overseer, explorers earned higher wages as their performance grew. Early contract fees varied by ability, but they were manageable. Raising strong characters made the game easier. The real headache for players was the salary of half-grown explorers. If you hired someone cheaply early on and they grew into an expensive asset, it hurt. So players would fire their C-to-B rank explorers the moment they ranked up and hire fresh A-rank ones instead. It was a playstyle that ignored playtime and focused purely on farming and growth.
But the balance patch killed that loophole. Grinding didn’t fit a roguelike, they said. It drew criticism from those who hated the grind, but veterans like me welcomed the faster game pace. The so-called Forced Promotion Contract Extension. I never dreamed it would save me when I was backed into a corner.
I thought this was the end… but I still had one chance left. Only one, but it was luck I’d take.
“Hajun.” Gawin spoke to me as I stood there dazed. “I don’t dislike you. I’m not fond of the fact that you’re a necromancer of all things, but I’m sure you have your reasons. You’re sharper than you look. You don’t act like a thug just because you killed a few monsters in a dungeon, unlike the others. That alone makes you a decent explorer. You work hard, too.”
I lowered my head at his words. On the surface Gawin seemed cold and indifferent to explorers, but he had been looking out for me.
“Even if your luck is absolute dogshit.”
…Yeah, that was more like him.
“Take the mission.” He tossed me a recommendation letter. “If Doil finds out, he’ll try to kill you. Just know that the old man wanted to assign you a quest to retrieve a yeti pelt from the snow mountains.”
Snow mountains? Was he insane? That was basically telling me to go die.
“Well, assigning missions is a supervisor’s authority, so I told him to shove it.” Gawin suddenly burst into laughter, as if remembering something. He had blocked the ridiculous order and chosen a mission I could actually complete. Gratitude was all I felt.
“Thank you.”
“If you’re that grateful, don’t go dying out there. And try not to lose any more teammates.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Hajun.”
“Yes?”
“This is your last chance.”
“…I know.”
Yeah. Fuck. There was nowhere left to run. Whatever mission I received, I had to succeed. No matter what.
Gawin returned to shuffling the documents he had pushed aside earlier. “You can go. Your new party is waiting at the explorer lounge.”
It was time to head back into the dungeon.
The explorer lounge was packed even in broad daylight with people drinking their pay away. These were the ones without work. They traded information, made connections. The place was always loud and full of energy.
In a corner, three people had a map spread out and were murmuring among themselves. Must be them. As I approached, the bald middle-aged man noticed me first.
“Oh, did Supervisor Gawin send you?”
The other two looked up. One man who seemed around my age, and a woman who looked quite a bit younger. No reason to be rude. I greeted them first.
“Hello. I’m Hajun, sent by Supervisor Gawin.”
The man looked wary. The woman showed interest. The bald man offered a handshake.
“I’m Jangcheok. Raider Guild. What’s your affiliation?”
“Necromancer Guild.”
“Ah. A necromancer?” The woman immediately became guarded the moment I finished speaking. If she hadn’t, I would’ve been disappointed. This was the normal reaction. Damn it.
Jangcheok was the leader of this party. He introduced the others.
“This is Sion from the Iron Brotherhood.”
“Hello.”
“And this is Roa from the Guardian Order.”
“…”
The Iron Brotherhood and Guardian Order were the official names for the Ironclad and Guardian classes. All the organizations in Dungeon Overseer had names like that. The Raider Guild’s full name was something like “Plunderers of the Streets,” for example.
Ironclad and Guardian. Not a bad combination. Ironclads were classic tanks who fought on the front line with shields. They carried parties hard in early battles and boss fights. Their weakness was that they fell off in the late game, but at this stage that wasn’t an issue yet.
Guardians were crossbow-and-dagger dealers. Their strong single-target damage made them powerful in the early game and against bosses, but they struggled when facing large groups of weaker enemies. Their lack of area-of-effect skills meant they had to rely on stealth and efficient clears in the later stages. They excelled in speedruns, but were weak for standard dungeon progression. That was the kind of class they were.
Jangcheok laughed heartily and offered me a seat. “Sit down. We just started.”
The moment I sat, I checked the map. We weren’t going to hunt goblins again. The Goblin Nest had been handed over to mid-tier explorers after an Orc Warrior appeared. This time our enemies would be insects. Big ones. Lots of them. Disgusting ones.
“It’s the Ant Cave.”
The dungeon we had to clear was indeed the Ant Cave. The difficulty was still low and the enemy specs average, but the dungeon’s defining features were its vastly expanded size and overwhelming numbers. The real game was starting now. The Ant Cave was incomparably harder than the Goblin Nest.
The biggest difference was whether it could be fully cleared. The Goblin Nest had maybe a dozen rooms at most. You could sweep it quickly if you grinded. Looting was fast too, and there weren’t many enemies. But the Ant Cave had dozens of rooms. Thirty in small versions, over forty in large ones. You couldn’t possibly search forty rooms in one run. Your mental state would collapse and supplies would run out.
From here on it was a series of choices. Which direction would lead to the mission objective? Should we fight the swarm of ants waiting in the next room or avoid them? Where was the ants’ treasure storage? Should we raid it? Was this room a treasure vault or a larvae chamber?
It was the point where things became genuinely difficult. I needed to stay sharp. From now on I would be clearing this dungeon not as a supervisor, but as a character.
Jangcheok began the briefing. “The mission is to recover a jewel pouch. One week ago, a merchant caravan from the Kolodo Jewelers was heading to the capital to sell raw gemstones. But right around here on the map—on a narrow ridge path—the entire carriage sank into the ground. Giant ants had dug new tunnels to expand their nest and caused the accident.”
“What happened to the people?” Roa asked in a quiet voice.
“Two explorers critically injured. Two missing. The leader of the escort party tried to get the rest of the members out, but only two managed to escape.”
The two who returned had survived, but the other two… Sion, who had been listening with a bored expression, muttered as if it were obvious.
“They’re probably all dead.”
I thought the same. Missing persons sometimes returned if an event triggered, but they were usually treated as dead. If they went missing in the Ant Cave, there was no mercy. No dramatic prisoner scenario—they’d just become larvae food. They were probably nutritious mush by now.
While I was thinking that, Sion tapped the table.