#17. The Dungeon Master, Aranea
#17. The Dungeon Master, Aranea
[Living Hound consumed. Satiety increases.]
'It's no use.'
No matter how many I devoured, leveling up was impossible. Two days had passed inside the dungeon. I had no idea what was going on out there, but despite Gu Sang-seop's death, the only hunters who'd come in were the ones who'd been at the entrance. No full-scale investigation followed.
Even if hunting is a profession where you stake your life, something felt off about that. Then again, there might be reasons I wasn't privy to. I'd only read the novel — I wasn't actually a resident of this world.
'I need to leave this dungeon, don't I?'
The question genuinely weighed on me. There was nothing left to gain here. More than anything, the Lv.20 achievement condition was the real problem.
'0.1% Karma.'
[Tyrant of the Mountain (Warg (Unformed)) Lv.19] [EXP 36777 / 36777]
[Karma 0.07%]
[Length 1.79m] [Shoulder Height 81.4cm] [Weight 58.5kg]
[STR 123] [AGI 140] [VIT 210] [MP 94] [Willpower 1]
Those were my stats after reaching Level 19. Experience Points were maxed out, but I was still stuck at the threshold because I hadn't met the Level 20 condition.
'Frustrating.'
I pulled up the Evolution List on the off chance, but the condition remained unfulfilled.
The requirement to level up was 0.1% Karma. My current Karma sat at 0.07%.
'Meaning I need another 0.03%.'
Where in the world was I supposed to get that?
Stopping the Sewer Calamity that would plunge Busan into chaos had netted me 0.02%. Eliminating Gu Sang-seop — the cornerstone of the plan to collapse Gwangmyeonghoe — had given me 0.04%.
'And then, after I met Hong Yuri...'
I'd faced a brush with death, gained Willpower, and picked up another 0.01%. What had the actual trigger been? Surviving mortal danger? Overcoming it? Or something else entirely?
[Willpower: The resolve to overcome oneself]
'Resolve?'
I steeled myself and whispered inwardly.
I will stop the Calamities and save the world from destruction... I kept it going for about ten seconds with a straight face, then cringed so hard I had to stop.
'Aghhh. I really can't do this.'
Just in case, I checked my Willpower. Still 1. Honestly, if something this forced could generate Karma, that would be even more absurd. Regardless, the conclusion was clear: I had no reason to stay here any longer. I'd be better off stopping another Calamity or killing someone else on the killing list.
'There's one in Daegu, but I'm not even sure they're there at this point in the timeline.'
I also wanted to see the protagonist's face — at this point in the story, he'd still be an academy student.
'If I could attach myself to his party, earning Karma would be a lot easier.'
The protagonist had failed to prevent the world's destruction in the novel, but he'd stopped plenty of Calamities along the way. If I could join those ranks, racking up Karma would become much smoother.
'In two years, anyway.'
The events before that weren't described in detail. The protagonist was more of a growth-type than an overpowered MC to begin with, so he probably wasn't out there solving every crisis during his academy days.
'But what if I'm there, and I already know the plot?'
I could accelerate his growth.
A surge of excitement filled my chest. Could I really stop the novel's destruction? Knowing the story's course meant I could act one step ahead. Maybe I could drag this damn novel — the one that just barreled along and then slapped you with a "The End (完)" right across the face — into a proper conclusion.
'Maybe this could actually work...'
Real hope flickered to life. I was grinning to myself as I neared the dungeon entrance when a skill flared in warning. Powerful presences — Presence Detection read them as human.
'People? Hunters are coming in? After two days of silence, all of a sudden?'
Heading straight for the entrance was a risk. Gu Sang-seop had already confirmed what I'd suspected: a wary hunter could see right through my Stealth. The same guy who'd been moping minutes earlier about how no hunters were coming had now done a complete one-eighty. I mocked myself for the whiplash.
'My level's gone up, at least.'
Spending two days inside the dungeon had naturally raised all my skills across the board. Stealth was at Level 5 now. But was that enough to fool this many hunters?
'Six... no, ten of them.'
They pushed through with overwhelming momentum, breaking past the labyrinth in one sweep. As if they already knew the path — no, they actually did. Among them were the swordsman and the archer who'd been part of Gu Sang-seop's party.
'Can I slip away?'
In that short time, they'd already reached the point where their group had fled. After that, their breakthrough slowed — they clearly had no guide for the deeper sections.
'Part of that's my fault.'
Over the last two days, I'd done a decent amount of monster cleanup. There weren't many monsters left. On the plus side, that meant I'd memorized every inch of this dungeon's terrain.
'And I've got a rough sense of what's dangerous down here, too.'
Hunters weren't fools.
They always prepared meticulously and planned for the worst-case scenario. It was hard to imagine people like that couldn't gauge the level of a single dungeon.
'The news said the representative clan was handing this off to another clan, right?'
Which meant the hunters now entering were from a clan stationed near the Gyeongsan area.
[Remaining Skill Points: 8]
I ran a final check on my skill levels. Eight points — enough to pick up two D-rank skills.
'What if I push Stealth up to C-rank?'
Stealth was still at Level 5. If I burned all my Skill Points on it, I could probably raise it to C-rank. That would let me slip out leisurely, but...
'What a waste that would be.'
The thought clung to me and wouldn't let go. Until I earned that missing 0.03% Karma, there would be no more growth. Skill Points were my last resort — I had to save them.
'— 0.03%?'
An idea flickered through my mind.
'Destruction — wait. This world is being destroyed because of monsters in the first place, isn't it?'
Not natural disasters or environmental pollution like modern Earth. Monsters were grinding the world toward annihilation. And while some monsters, like the Jirisan Warg or slimes, spawned naturally, dungeons were a major part of that, too.
'So just clearing a dungeon ought to generate Karma, right?'
Why hadn't I thought of something this simple until now?
Because my whole perspective had been skewed. I'd never truly treated dungeons as dangerous — not really. I'd been seeing them through the eyes of a reader.
'Dungeons aren't just hunting grounds.'
They were sites accelerating humanity's extinction. Even though I'd watched the protagonist get dragged through hell in them, my brain had been stuck on the generic, overused dungeon tropes from every other novel I'd ever read.
'I'd been reversing the ends and the means.'
Humanity's goal was to stop destruction by sealing dungeons, using growth as hunters as the means. I, on the other hand, had been treating growth and strength as the goal itself — and dungeons as the convenient hunting grounds to achieve it. A bitter laugh escaped me at the realization that I still hadn't fully internalized this world.
'If I clear this dungeon...'
I didn't know exactly how much Karma it would yield, but the destruction probability would definitely drop by at least 0.03%.
'Why?'
Because of the System. When I replayed everything the System had said and done so far, the answer was clearly somewhere nearby.
'So the most plausible directive is: clear this dungeon.'
Maybe — probably — the dungeon raid had failed in the novel. Hunters would have died for it. Was the System subtly steering me to clear it?
'Most of all, because I can't clear this dungeon by myself.'
But what if I wasn't alone? What if I helped those hunters clear it?
'That's doable.'
I'd already decided I was going to act as an ally supporting the protagonist's growth. I wasn't keen on doing the grueling work myself. I'd use this opportunity as the foundation.
***
"Hey. Were you listening to a word I said? I told you, it's not here."
"It really does seem to be absent."
They'd scoured not just Beopgyesa but the whole of Jirisan. Not a single track that looked like a wolf's footprint turned up. And yet Hong Yuri had said—
"I definitely told you it wasn't here, you son of a bitch."
"Spare me the insults. Let's go over this one more time."
"We ran around in circles all day because of you. Damn it."
At the team leader's words, Hong Yuri let out a weary, heavy sigh. She'd muttered "Gu Jin-ha, that meticulous fuck" under her breath, and the team leader was working hard to pretend he hadn't heard it.
"What about your eye?"
"The traces scattered faster than expected. Normally, with a trail that size, there'd be something left, but..."
Alpha had definitely been at Beopgyesa. She'd sensed the unmistakable traces of a large Warg. But everything after that was unreadable. Alpha couldn't have suddenly lightened or vanished into thin air. Traces dispersing this fast? The whole thing felt wrong.
'Did it evolve and grow wings? Or go on a diet?'
"Although... no, never mind. The point is, it's not on Jirisan."
"......?"
"I said it's nothing. Look, there's no reason for you to be here, right? If that thing's still on this mountain, I'll chop off my own hand."
"If you're willing to go that far..."
The team leader conceded. Search Team 3. If even Hong Yuri — the best tracker among them — couldn't follow the trail, then short of calling in someone like Gowon's Gwanghwi, finding Alpha was impossible. She let her sentence trail off and frowned.
'What keeps...'
There was a faint, oddly familiar presence. Like something she'd encountered somewhere before, and yet not quite. It was so hazy she couldn't be sure. It nagged at her, but if she couldn't place it, it probably wasn't that important. Hong Yuri dismissed it without much fuss.
"Anyway, it's not on the mountain. We should head down and search in a different direction. No point clinging to a dead end."
"...We'll notify Team 2 as well."
Why had Alpha suddenly vanished from Beopgyesa? Where had the other one gone? If it really had descended the mountain, why was nothing happening yet?
Everything was a tangle of questions, but one fact remained unchanged: they had to pursue Alpha.
***
"Should it really be this easy? Why are there so few monsters?"
"What's the problem? It's quiet and going smoothly."
"It's such a cliché, though. Everything's quiet, and then suddenly—bam, it all blows up."
"Ohhh, is that right? Guess you've seen a lot of movies, huh? Instead of the training you were supposed to be doing."
"Ahem."
"When we came before, there were a lot more... are you sure this is okay?"
"Yeah. Stop worrying. When it comes to our girl here..."
"Yes, I get that you're a C-class Hunter."
The dungeon wasn't classified as high-danger, but trying to clear it with barely ten people felt like a stretch. The archer, part of Gu Sang-seop's original party, couldn't hide the unease on his face.
"...I'm starting to think we really did need more people after all."
"Why? It's going smooth, isn't it? There's nothing even here."
True to her word, there wasn't a whiff of a monster's presence. The sum total of monsters they'd encountered so far was two orcs. The archer agreed with her assessment, but the anxiety wouldn't leave him. Not in the dungeon where Gu Sang-seop had vanished.
"Don't you think we should wait and regroup?"
"They'll come on their own."
"It's still a dungeon, no matter how you slice it."
The female Hunter, who had been watching the male Hunter and the archer volley words back and forth, let her expression twist.
"Ha... seriously, you two love the sound of your own voices. Fine, go ahead and leave, then. Our guide job's already done, isn't it? To be honest, you're in no position to be whining anyway."
"Ma'am!"
"And what exactly is that supposed to mean?"
At the female Hunter's sneering words, a vein stood out on the archer's forehead. Regardless, she pushed on.
"No, seriously~ aren't you embarrassed? You throw your money around to poach the spot first, and then later it's 'oh, our friend went missing~ please find him~' — have you imagined how we feel hearing that? Unbelievable. Have you no professional ethics? Forget feeling ripped off, I was just flabbergasted."
"......."
"Fuck. The whole thing was a clusterfuck. Got it? This dungeon was supposed to be our clan's meal. But you lot, you put your slobber all over it in secret and now you're in here with us pretending you're looking for a clan member. Am I wrong?"
"......."
"Ah, ma'am. Why are you doing this?"
The atmosphere had gone ice-cold. The male Hunter rushed to rein her in, but to the archer's eyes, he looked like nothing more than a sister-in-law trying to keep the peace.
"Let go. If I've got something to say, I'll say it. What? You got your pride hurt? If you had any shame, I doubt you'd even know it."
"That was our—"
"Shut your mouth. The poaching alone was baffling enough. And now the dumb bastard who went in with three men and came out with two has the gall to open his mouth? The representative clan that gorged on the money is one thing, and honestly, I'm even baffled by our own Clan Leader for allowing this. But I really can't figure out what the hell your clan was thinking, asking for this."
"...Are you done?"
"Nope. Still got plenty left. Should I say it again? I said get lost if you're salty. I didn't even want your lot doing the guiding in the first place."
The archer's fist trembled. He spent a long moment steadying his breath, but in the end, he had to bow his head.
"I apologize."
"From now on, keep the whining to yourself. Understood?"
"...I'll be more careful."
The party's mood had already soured beyond repair. It was six Hunters, except now it was five looking down on one.
'Fuck. I should've gone looking when that bastard said so.'
But it was water under the bridge, and she wasn't wrong either. If he put himself in their shoes, he'd have said the same. With nothing left to argue, the archer gritted his teeth and followed behind them. Before long, they came across two more orcs deeper in, but they handled them without any trouble.
"In a dungeon this weak... tch."
Pretending not to hear the muttered complaint, they finally reached the dungeon's deepest level. A massive door — unmistakably the boss room.
"There. We'll regroup with the second party here. Not sure if they found your clan's Hunter, but even if they didn't..."
"...I won't say a word."
With a sour look, the female Hunter nodded.
***
"You don't think Sang-seop hyung actually left the dungeon first, do you?"
Another clan member shook his head at the question.
"Nah. If he had, the clan would've sent word."
"This is seriously weird. Normally, even if someone's dead, there'd at least be a body..."
"Hey. Watch your mouth. Spoken words have a way of coming true."
"Ah. Sorry. But shouldn't we be regrouping soon?"
"It's been a while. We've already searched as much as we could, it seems like... well, nothing for it. Let's just go join them now."
The warrior's expression was troubled, but his watch told him it was time to regroup.
"Sang-seop's important, but we still have to clear the dungeon. We're all feeling the same way, but we've got a job to do as Hunters. Right?"
"...Haah. Yeah, I get it."
Persuaded by the soothing words of his senior Hunter, the warrior reluctantly turned his steps around.
"Back then, would it have been better to go in?"
"It's not like you knew things would turn out like this. If you'd gone in, who knows what might've happened to you, too."
Was this really the right answer? Logic understood, but that did nothing to calm the ache in his chest.
"Tch."
The path was a maze, but they were able to regroup by following the markers left by the advance party.
"You're a little late, aren't you?"
The senior Hunter nodded at the words of the female Hunter standing at the front.
"Apologies. Have you confirmed the boss?"
"As you can see."
The female Hunter shrugged. The boss door, firmly shut. A common sight in labyrinth-type dungeons, so the senior Hunter simply said he understood and pressed his ear to the door.
"Oh my. I see you have a Hearing skill?"
"It's E-rank."
"Ah~ Right. So can you hear anything?"
"Hmm... I hear nothing at all. Let's just open it. If we're not turning back, we have to clear it, don't we? Anyone got a better idea?"
"Nope."
The two of them glanced around the party, but no one raised a hand. The archer repositioned himself from the female Hunter's clan group to his own.
"What about Sang-seop?"
"No, couldn't find him."
"...Somehow, I figured as much."
"Alright. Let's go."
The massive labyrinth door began to open, agonizingly slow. And what revealed itself beyond the door was a room filled entirely with white thread.
"This is..."
The moment the man who'd called the female Hunter "ma'am" reached out and touched the webbing, the wide-open door let out a thunderous noise and slammed shut — CLANG! In that brief instant as everyone's gaze instinctively snapped toward the door,
"Aaaargh!"
The Hunter who had touched the webbing was already being dragged away.
"Aranea?!"
"Ji-tae! Kim Ji-tae!"
"It's a spider monster! The door! Won't the door open?!"
"You idiot! How do you expect to leave a boss room?! Hurry up and get ready to fight!"
At the female Hunter's desperate shout, everyone drew their weapons.
One man down right from the start. 1 vs 9. The faces of those facing the dungeon's master, the Aranea, were uniformly rigid with tension.
***
In the end, they hadn't found Gu Sang-seop's body on the way to the boss room. A peaceful dungeon expedition. For the past two days, I'd been the one handling most of the monsters. The few that remained, I'd dealt with in secret, too, without them noticing.
'...It's hard to imagine monsters like these being able to do something to Hunters.'
It hadn't even been difficult. In truth, I probably could've handled the orcs as well, but there was no reason to fight something that didn't give any Experience Points, and I didn't push my luck. After I'd taken down every orc left, the regrouped Hunters at last began to open the door. But the real problem was about to begin.
'The boss is probably...'
No matter how I tried to sense a presence beyond the door, I felt nothing. As the Hunters threw open the door with force, I deliberated whether I should stop them. They couldn't see it, but I did.
'On the ceiling...!'
A giant spider was there. Amidst the webbing that smothered the entire room, eight crimson eyes glowed an angry, vivid red. By pure reflex, I cast Spying on it.
[Labyrinth's Aranea]
[Length 6.32m] [Height 2.61m] [Weight 940kg]
[STR 325] [AGI 438] [VIT 346] [MP 244]
'This is the worst.'
For its bulk, its weight was surprisingly low, which meant it was that much lighter on its feet. Proof of that: an Agility stat exceeding 400. And on top of that, 244 MP... It was far stronger than any monster I had encountered so far. The creature in Jirisan, that thing, the Wolf — the Aranea was far stronger.
'...Can the Hunters beat that?'
Maybe if it were Jeon Woo-taek or Hong Yuri, but these people — against this Aranea?
[Yu Ah-hyeon (Human)]
[Height 172.1cm] [Weight 53.9kg]
[STR 228] [AGI 256] [VIT 252] [MP 196]
[Park Mu-taek (Human)]
[Height 174.9cm] [Weight 70.1kg]
[STR 222] [AGI 234] [VIT 261] [MP 189]
Even the stats of the two most outstanding among them — the female Hunter and the middle-aged Hunter — lagged far behind the Aranea in every category. Comparing a boss's status to a Hunter's was nonsense to begin with, but still...
'This is a bit much.'
At the instant the door slammed shut — CLANG! — my eyes met the Aranea's.
'Fuck...'
It was seeing straight through my Stealth. Should I go in or not?
The door was closing. I could leave the dungeon right now and I'd survive. Karma could be obtained elsewhere. The door was closing fast, and I had to decide now.
'...Ah, to hell with it!'
I threw my skills into motion and slipped through the narrowing crack of the door just in the nick of time. And in that space, the dazed Hunter who'd touched the webbing was already being reeled upward.
"Aaaargh!"
That scream was the starting gun; everyone had their weapons out. The situation was too frantic for the Hunters to notice me while I was under Stealth.
'Goddammit.'
One man dead from the very first move. It was the worst possible start, the worst possible situation.
The Aranea rolled its eight red eyes lazily.
Several of them were fixed on me.
'Ah. I shouldn't have come in...'
A belated regret chased after me, but it was already water under the bridge.