#21 Tail Catching in the Dungeon
#21 Tail Catching in the Dungeon
When I opened my eyes, I realized I'd blacked out.
'...What happened?'
The last thing I remembered was the monk shouting about a dungeon.
'Had the park turned into a dungeon right at that moment?'
I wasn't sure. But the number of presences I sensed told me this was definitely not downtown. This vast forest alone was proof enough.
'Feels like I landed in the Amazon.'
It was daylight, so more time had passed than I'd thought. I had to hurry. If the park had been converted into a dungeon, the people from the War Shrine—Gu Ma-jun included—must have been caught up in it.
'Though it doesn't look like any of them are nearby.'
This place was nothing like the Cobalt Mine. It wasn't a labyrinth, and it wasn't dark. There were dungeons like this, too?
'Interesting.'
I'd planned to find a dungeon anyway, but getting thrown into one this abruptly was a strange twist of fate.
'Is this luck?'
A narrow escape from death. I hadn't been confident in my ability to run, so getting swept up and surviving—that alone was luck.
'That bastard probably hasn't left the dungeon yet, either.'
It was a hunch. Ever since my Faint Sixth Sense had evolved into Weak Sixth Sense, I'd had an odd certainty about things that weren't completely far-fetched.
'It's not a guess. It's like my sixth sense is feeding me the information.'
Like when I'd found the first-degree initiate registration book in the shrine office.
'First, I need to find Gu Ma-jun.'
My detection range had improved, too. Not just the capture range—the range in which I could actually distinguish details was now up to three kilometers.
'And yet.'
And yet I still couldn't find him. At least within my distinguishable range, there were no presences I could classify as human. The same was true for my sense of smell.
'...I need to find him. Fast.'
This was an opportunity. And a crisis.
Judging from how we'd been scattered from the people nearby, Gu Ma-jun hadn't been able to regroup with the other shrine members, either. If I found him quickly, I could kill him.
And if I failed to kill him?
'The Prodigal Sons will find out.'
They'd learn there was a wolf interfering. I couldn't afford to be exposed when I hadn't yet grown strong enough to oppose them. I had to kill him before he got out of this dungeon.
***
"Good. Found him."
Hong Yuri's confident words brightened her teammates' faces. The end of the long chase was in sight.
"He went far. The car? You can drive, right? Tell Team 2 to follow when they're ready."
"You sure you're okay to drive?"
"Cut the useless worrying and just drive, will you?"
"Good grief."
Was she saying she couldn't trust her beloved car with anyone else? The team leader firmly rejected Woo-taek's offer to drive.
"Is it okay if I floor it?"
"You moron. If you floor it in this shitbox, does it even go anywhere?"
"...She's really crossing the line now."
After revving the engine to its limit, the team leader hit the gas with a grim look in her eyes. They say a person's personality changes behind the wheel, but the team leader truly didn't hold back. A vein was visibly throbbing on her forehead in the rearview mirror.
"Hunter-only lane...!"
She swerved into the completely empty road. The lane had been created so hunters could move swiftly to other regions in an emergency, and because a hunter's dynamic vision was incomparable to an ordinary person's, there was no speed limit. Her terrified teammates quickly buckled their seatbelts.
"Team Leader! I'll—I'll drive!"
"At this rate, Team 2's going to lose us—whoaa!"
She put her hunter reflexes to full use, tearing down the road. They whizzed past other cars with hair-thin gaps and overtook vehicles that had been invisible a moment ago.
[Speed: 184 km/h]
Who drives an SUV like this? Woo-taek wanted to scream. But Hong Yuri, arms crossed, was fanning the flames, calling him a chicken and asking why she wasn't going faster. Woo-taek was positive—that woman had never been behind the wheel in her life; she had no idea how fast they were really going.
'I should have driven!'
Spurred on by the taunt, the speed hit 200 km/h. 210... 220... On curves, there was no sign of slowing down. On the contrary, she accelerated, yanking the wheel to drift. Tire marks scarred the road, the car skimming the guardrails by a hair.
"Aaaahh!"
The people in the back were flung against the direction of the turn. This had gone beyond driving into the realm of racing. Her foot, glued to the accelerator, showed no sign of coming off.
"Please! S-slow...!"
Someone in the back tried to speak and bit their tongue, and Woo-taek clamped his mouth shut. Hong Yuri only grew more brazen. Having terrified the back seat, she looked insufferably smug.
"Aigo, you chickens~. It's not like hunters get into accidents, right?"
'Don't lecture me if you've never driven!'
And when the frantic race finally ended, they were in Daegu.
"...I'm dying."
It had barely been ten minutes, but Woo-taek had tasted death. For the first time since becoming a hunter, he'd gotten carsick. Though the team leader had slowed down once they hit city limits.
"Where are we?"
"Daegu, Suseong-gu. Need to go farther?"
When the team leader asked, Hong Yuri, who had been studying the ground closely, shook her head.
"No. Let's get out. He's nearby."
They drove another twenty minutes or so and then stopped abruptly.
"Over there. What's with the crowd?"
"Emergency alert just came in. A dungeon's appeared at Ihyeon Park. Telling people to stay away."
"Vice Team Leader. Is it really over there?"
At Woo-taek's question, Hong Yuri nodded calmly.
"Yeah. Looks like he went inside."
"...What a headache. Where's the representative clan?"
"I'll check right away."
***
"Strange."
He could accept that this place was a dungeon. Nowhere else in South Korea would be crawling with monsters like this. The puzzling part wasn't the dungeon itself—it was that he found it unusually difficult to use his magic.
"Is the dungeon hindering magic use?"
In form, it was likely a single-type Forest dungeon.
But Gu Ma-jun had never heard of a dungeon actively hindering magic use. He couldn't hide his confusion. ...Which meant, he wondered, could the drug he'd taken be causing side effects?
"No way... Really?"
Soon his eyes grew hazy, and by the time he came to, he'd already forgotten he'd ever had such a thought.
***
"...And so that's how the War Shrine was entrusted with it."
"No, does that even make sense? The dungeon's been open less than a day, right? How'd they hand it over so fast?"
"Shrine members got caught up in it, plus it's close by. I mean, they're officially the representative clan, but isn't the War Shrine's influence practically stronger?"
"Getting in isn't going to be easy, is it?"
"It's not something we alone can decide. Team 2 is coming too."
Woo-taek had sent them the location since they couldn't keep up with the insane driving, and they'd just arrived.
"You really were flooring it, huh."
"A little? You call that a little?"
The first to climb out of the passenger seat was a man of immense build. It was hard to imagine how a giant over two meters tall had stuffed himself into that front seat.
"Jinha! What's with driving that fast? Our team couldn't keep up."
"Ah, you've arrived?"
"Don't 'you've arrived' me~"
"Let's hear the situation briefing first."
"...Making a guy feel small. Fine. So what's the current situation?"
Shrine personnel were already controlling access to the park. After the team leader explained, Geohan nodded his head.
"Ah~ got it. Wait here a sec."
Team 2's leader, Geohan, pounded his chest like a gorilla as if to say, 'leave it to me,' and headed straight for the shrine. Watching his receding figure, Woo-taek rubbed his temple and Hong Yuri sighed.
"Ugh. That muscle brain."
The two Team 2 veterans shuddered, and the team leader gave a wry smile. Geohan, who had eventually reached the shrine, scratched the back of his head.
"Told them they don't even need to follow me?"
"Team Leader Geohan. This is really not it. We'll head in first, so please wait outside for us."
"...No, honestly, it's fine?"
"......."
Faced with the earnest stares all around, Geohan finally scratched the back of his head again and backed off, telling them to go ahead. Only then did the team leader catch her breath, though she had to stifle a sigh.
'It's a done deal now.'
That reckless muscle brain.
After cursing Geohan internally, the team leader composed her thoughts. They hadn't come all this way just to turn back. The shrine members were already watching them closely anyway. She knocked on the door, and a gentle voice responded.
"Please come in."
They'd probably heard the commotion outside. Just before entering, the team leader looked at Geohan one more time, her eyes pleading with him to stay put.
Dejected, Geohan nodded. "No... you seriously don't need to do this?"
"Ugh, come on. Shut up. Guy with muscles for brains."
"How's your mouth still so rough?"
While Hong Yuri and Geohan were bickering, Ju-gyo welcomed the team leader with a benevolent smile.
"It's been a while. Lady Ju-gyo. I wonder if you remember me."
"How could I forget the renowned Three Swordsman? It has indeed been a while."
"I've been too busy to pay my respects properly."
On the surface, it was a religious order, but in reality, the War Shrine was a multinational clan. This kind-looking old woman was none other than Ju-gyo of the War Shrine, meaning she effectively administered all of South Korea as her diocese.
"You seem to have something you'd like to say?"
"Yes. Since it appears you already know, I'll be direct. We would like you to grant us permission to enter the dungeon."
"And the reason?"
Ju-gyo, resting her chin on her interlaced fingers, faced him with a warm smile that the team leader found more unnerving than comforting.
'A difficult person to read.'
"We are pursuing a certain Wolf. The entity is called Alpha (Jirisan Warg). It was a special species of Warg that inhabited Jirisan, and..."
"I understand. So you tracked that Wolf all the way here."
She replied like she knew everything before the story was even finished, an all-too-knowing look in her eye. No, she'd definitely known beforehand.
"We'll interfere with the dungeon as little as possible and hand over all byproducts."
"......."
"It's only that one Wolf we're after. Is that feasible?"
"Well. I understand the will of Dawn, working day and night as you do, but..."
The benevolent smile appeared ice-cold in the team leader's eyes, though Ju-gyo's expression and voice remained unchanged.
"Is that truly necessary? If it's entered a dungeon, our shrine will handle it."
It was a perfectly sound point.
There was no reason to risk inviting another clan into their dungeon. Even the team leader would have refused, were she in their position.
'...Yet we must enter.'
Looking at that Wolf's trail, she couldn't rest easy. Even if its behavior in the mountains was one thing, having tracked its movements until now, she knew just how cunning the beast was.
'That thing definitely has intelligence. A high level of it.'
Moving through uninhabited areas meant it was deliberately avoiding people. Evading non-hunters meant it knew that stirring up trouble with them would bring hunters.
Moreover, it had even cooperated with hunters to eliminate the Aranea. That was proof of reason, not instinct—proof of higher-level thinking. Would such a creature be caught easily? The team leader couldn't help but be skeptical.
'It might even become untouchable, like the Purple Black Tiger or Disease...'
They had to kill it before then. This might be their last chance. If it broke through another species barrier...
'Just imagining it makes my head spin.'
It was hard to picture what sort of entity a monster with that kind of intelligence would become once it transcended its species. A thinking, strategizing monster.
'...Is there a way to get permission without offending the shrine?'
Money, fame, force—none of those would work on this opponent.
'But we can't just grovel our way in, either. What on earth do we do?'
She was here as the clan's representative. There was far too little time to think. Maybe she should just trust the War Shrine and wait it out?
"If you have nothing more to say, I must ask you to take your leave. This post is busier than you might think."
The explicit dismissal made the team leader's heart grow anxious. And then, at that moment, the door to Ju-gyo's office flew open with a loud bang.
"Team Leader Geohan!"
"Why're you dragging this out so long?"
"Have you lost your mind?!"
Everything had come to nothing. A dizzy team leader tried to pull him out, but Ju-gyo tilted her head.
"Could it be... the Swordmaster?"
"Granny. It's been a while. You still playing boss at the shrine?"
"Oh my! Had I known the Swordmaster would be coming, this old woman would have come out to greet you."
"No need to overdo it. So, about this. We'd like to go into the dungeon. Would that be hard?"
"But... No, I understand. If the Swordmaster wishes it..."
The atmosphere had flipped in an instant. The team leader, unable to follow the suddenly freewheeling conversation, shrank back.
"Done. But we can't all go; they say only five can enter."
"...How on earth did you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Are you seriously asking? You persuaded Lady Ju-gyo in one stroke, didn't you?"
It wasn't persuasion—it was a free pass. Just what was his relationship with this muscle brain?
"Ah~ back in the day, my brother and I helped her out a bit."
"Then you should have told us that beforehand!"
"I definitely said it was fine, but you went in on your own, didn't you?"
"...Damn it."
When she muttered the curse, Geohan laughed heartily.
"Anyway, let's head in now. Gotta catch Alpha (Jirisan Warg), right?"
"Hoo. Thanks to you, things worked out easily. Thank you."
"Hahaha. You little punk. Do you trust this hyung-nim a bit more now?"
"...Only a tiny little bit."
***
[You have consumed a Spotted Hyena. Experience Points and Satiety increase.]
Maybe because it was a forest, or because the dungeon was simply that vast, a wide variety of lifeforms dwelled here. Most of them were monsters, though.
'This is no time for this.'
I had to find Gu Ma-jun as quickly as possible, but there was no sign of him. After running through the forest, I estimated it was a massive circle with a diameter of roughly thirty kilometers. Had our paths diverged, or was he masking his scent?
'This reminds me of a movie.'
The Cretaceous World, I mean. There was a scene where the protagonist, chased by dinosaurs, hides under a car and coats himself in oil to mask his scent. Could you hide a scent that way? Or maybe he'd used a mud pack or something?
'He couldn't have gotten out yet.'
It was hard to believe he'd already escaped this vast dungeon. Unless we'd been extremely unlucky and kept crossing paths without ever seeing each other.
'Going outside recklessly is the first problem.'
A fair amount of time had passed, so the shrine or a representative clan would definitely have the outside locked down one hundred percent. Getting out of the dungeon itself was easy, but stepping out relying solely on a D-rank Stealth would be a death sentence.
'Isn't there a good way?'
The War Shrine would send more people inside, too. The situation was difficult.
'Priority one is Gu Ma-jun. I need to keep growing while I search for him.'
"Cock-a-doodle-dooooo!"
A chicken?
Flapping its comb and wings, it charged at me and started pecking with its beak. I dodged, but I almost didn't. It was clearly treating me like prey.
'What the?'
[Cockatrice]
[Length 5.27m] [Height 2.51m] [Weight 770kg]
[STR 241] [AGI 360] [VIT 215] [MP 145]
'Ah~ you know what a Cockatrice is!'
Any decent novel-reader would know this monster. It couldn't compete with the big three of Goblins, Orcs, and Ogres, but it was reasonably famous on its own. Looking closer, its tail resembled something reptilian, like a snake, not a chicken. Never mind the teeth on its beak—the way its bright red tongue kept darting out and hissing like a snake's was interesting.
'...So a lizard incubates the eggs, then?'
Snake or lizard. Either way, legend had it the creature was born that way.
'It's that big, yet light.'
Didn't they say birds have air sacs in their bodies, making them lighter? The cockatrice flapped its wings and leaped into the air. Shockingly, it was a chicken, but it flew.
'...It actually flies?'
That AGI of 360 bothered me a bit, but looking at the rest of its stats, it didn't seem too threatening. I soon realized that was a mistake.
"Cock-a-doodle-eeeeek!"
It sucked in a huge breath and then blasted it out all at once. Unlike a normal breath, the stream looked gray, and I dodged in horror. Belatedly, I saw the spot where I'd been standing turn gray.
'Did it burn it?'
No, not burned. The petrified grass and flowers were slowly crumbling into powder.
'...Getting hit by that looks dangerous.'
Even with All Damage Reduction, I couldn't be sure. The petrifying breath was far more potent than I'd imagined. Fine. So when is it coming back down?
'This is cheap as hell!'
It was just spamming its breath from a safe zone. Once its mana ran out, it would have to stop, but...
'That bird is bad news!'
I wasn't going to just dodge and wait it out. I used Tentacle Bundle to climb a tree. The moment I reached the top, the creature opened its mouth as if it had been waiting for me.
'Whoa! You startled me!'
I hadn't seen it because I was climbing. Startled, I jumped back down, and the thing cackled.
"Hiss! Hisssss!"
'You really are dead.'
I climbed the tree again, and right before I reached the top, I jumped. Using Elasticity and Charge, I latched onto the thing and dragged it down before it could breathe on me. It staggered a few times and tried to fly back up, but I chomped on its wing joint, and it finally crashed.
"Cock-a-doodle-eeeeek!"
It seemed to decide to throw a tantrum as it fell. The cockatrice twisted its body in midair and stretched out its feet. Sharp claws and a snake's tail coiled toward me. But a body tumbling through the air against me using it as a stepping stone—there was no question who had the advantage. As I stepped on it, I used Elasticity one more time. It was tricky, but mid-fall, I leaped again and caught a branch.
'That must've been about ten meters.'
The cockatrice, which had crashed on its back, couldn't even scream and just writhed in agony. Had its spine collapsed?
"Grrrrrr―"
It let out a low growl, and as I climbed onto it, terror filled the chicken's eyes as it thrashed in pain.
[Intimidation (F) Lv.7 proficiency has reached its maximum. Intimidation (F) Lv.7 -> Intimidation (F) Lv.8]
'Is this because of the title? I feel like it's going up pretty fast...'
It seemed my titles applied in other dungeons, too.
"Cock! Cock-a-doodle-eeeeek!"
It rubbed its wings together without pause, like a fly. It desperately wanted to live—I could see that. So why did it have to pick a fight without any fear?
"Cock-a-doodle-eeek..."
[You have consumed a Cockatrice. Experience Points and Satiety increase.]
[EXP 49602 / 57128]
'Nice?'
I hadn't leveled up, but I'd earned a substantial amount of experience—enough to bring me right up against the next level.
'At this rate, I'm definitely hitting Level 10.'
Although there would be an achievement condition, of course.
'...I forgot for a moment.'
Fighting the cockatrice had made me momentarily forget, but there was a presence caught in my detection range.
'Shall I go check it out?'
Whatever happens, my first step has to be finding Gu Ma-jun.