The Cobalt Dullahan
Dulla.
Grroan. Grroan.
It was a sound rarely heard inside a dungeon. The creak of cart wheels rolling along the floor.
Right now, Won-goo's crew were hauling an enormous handcart behind them.
"Hye-ji. Swap out if you're getting tired."
"I'm fine. I can keep going."
"Don't be stubborn. If you push yourself and fumble the flow when it actually matters, that costs us more in the end. Trade off with Chul-soo."
"Okay."
Hye-ji stepped back, and Chul-soo took her place at the rear of the cart, pushing. Up front, Hyun-sung was doing the pulling.
"You even anticipated this?"
"Of course I did. Though I didn't expect a haul this good."
"Ah..."
She couldn't help but be shaken. Most of the survivors they had interviewed were turning up as corpses.
"Don't look at me like I'm the devil here. Ralph's party had a big hand in this."
"You said the ones up ahead weren't killed by Sde."
"I did. But think about it—monsters like Sde and Ralph are lurking behind them. You think the ones in the lead wouldn't notice something like that? Even if they don't know what it is, they know something's back there. So what do they do? The urge to strip this place clean and get out grows and grows. But would they turn around to flee? Then they'd run straight into the devils coming up from behind."
"So that's what drove them to overface?"
"Something like that."
Won-goo had ordered everyone to pack spare cart parts into their Subspace Backpacks, just in case the loot turned out to be too much to carry in one trip.
And sure enough, thanks to Ralph's party raising hell up ahead, the dungeon had turned into a bumper harvest.
Survivors capable of entering a dungeon carried gear worth taking. Nothing spectacular, mind you—but plenty of genuinely useful items, and the crew swept up every last one of them.
As a result, the cart had grown so heavy that even the enhanced humans of Won-goo's crew had to haul it together.
The party quickly arrived at the final floor.
"D-Director. Um..."
"What? Something to say?"
"Th-the dungeon, earlier. Whether it's, uh, been cleared..."
"You're worried it might already be cleared?"
"Y-yes. That's it."
"I doubt it."
"Are you certain of that part, Director Gong?"
"Not certain. Just likely. From what I know, most dungeons seal shut once the boss is killed. Why else would those punks have kept wandering around in here? If it had been cleared, they'd never have found their friends."
"Yang Jun-sik."
"Exactly. Yang Jun-sik. And worrying about it when we're standing right at the door is pointless. Open it and we'll know, cleared or not. The reward? We've already picked up more loot than we can comfortably carry."
With that, Won-goo signaled with hand gestures to break out the rations. If something came bursting out of the boss room, eating first was only common sense.
Geum Chul-soo and Jeon Hye-ji hadn't yet memorized all the hand signals the veterans passed back and forth.
The same went for Jo Mu-sa and Su-won. The critical signals were known to every member of the crew. But the finer, more granular ones weren't.
Tap.
Lee Hyun-sung handed out snacks and drinks, and the crew swarmed forward to grab their share.
Even people built to endure for the long haul couldn't ignore hunger forever.
Survivors burned more energy than modern-era civilians ever had, so the pangs hit harder. And in a special space like this, it was essential to eat as much as you could while eating was an option.
"Eat while you listen. Usually there's just a boss inside, but every so often you get a special case. You get funneled into a maze, or everyone gets assigned to different directions. When that happens, use your best judgment. Don't try anything reckless. Staying unhurt and un-dead is how you help me, so be careful. And you all remember the new radios we just got?"
As he spoke, Won-goo held up his wrist. It was an electronic watch with a perfectly ordinary design—and every member of the crew wore the identical one.
"These have a far wider range than the old ones. If it's a true emergency, use them. But don't go pressing them casually. These were expensive. The charging costs alone are no joke. The moment we start burning money on toys like this, we start falling behind. You saw Ralph earlier, right? We're at the point where vicious bastards like him are starting to crawl out of the woodwork. We need to push through too. And to push through, we have to cut the cost of going out. Ttugi."
"Yes, Hyeong-nim!"
"Everyone finished eating?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Then open it."
The door to the boss room swung open.
Someone once said that the real joy of a dungeon was like a gacha pull—that not knowing what would pop out was exactly what made it fun.
Won-goo remembered those words, heard in passing long ago.
And he smirked.
At first, he'd taken it for a kobold. Monsters with defined species occasionally threw out variants.
Like the goblin shaman, kobolds had their own—the kobold warrior, the kobold mage, and so on.
But the thing that appeared before the crew was a little different.
It was far larger than an ordinary kobold. And with that size came an enormous head.
Not only that—the head was floating in midair.
Everyone struggled to hide their shock at the sight.
A Dullahan!
So even kobolds had their Dullahan. The realization swept through the crew.
But Won-goo alone refrained from calling it that.
Because he knew what it actually was.
The Dulla race.
One of the countless species scattered across the universe.
He even knew that the Dullahan was a monster built on the template of that very race.
"Careful! That thing is nothing like the Dullahan we fought before. The head attacks too—something like magic could come flying at you, so don't approach it carelessly."
At Won-goo's words, the crew flinched.
"Hyun-sung."
"Yes, Hyeong-nim!"
"Down that pill bottle. This bastard's strong."
Hyun-sung immediately fished a small bottle from his pocket and emptied it into his mouth.
Inside were exactly five pills.
Pills, strictly speaking—no. Reinforcement Pills.
A set made for moments of desperation exactly like this one. Reinforcers he hadn't even cracked open during the fight with Ralph's crew.
Lee Hyun-sung swallowed them with a hard-set face.
One gold coin per pill.
A criminally priced stimulant—but the effect was undeniable.
"You've got to pin that body down for us."
"Yes, Hyeong-nim!"
With that, Hyun-sung charged at the kobold Dulla lumbering toward them.
"Everyone listen up. This bastard's weak point isn't the body—it's the head, the head. We have to take the head."
"D-Directorrr!"
Just then, Su-won bolted upright and shouted.
And sure enough—a fireball shot from the mouth of the kobold's floating head.
It was a little bigger than a basketball and moved as fast as a striker's shot.
But the crew's reactions were just as fast.
The members, clustered together to await Won-goo's orders, scattered in an instant.
Every face was a mask of alarm. Won-goo, however, waved them down.
"Hey! Hey! This is actually good for us!"
"Is that really the good part? It's coming at us again!"
"Then dodge it."
Whish!
Another fireball came screaming in. The crew slipped past it without trouble.
Fast, yes—but they were all veterans of combat by now.
There was no reason on earth to fail dodging a fireball that flew straight and honest in a single line.
Had the Dulla's body been attached and rampaging alongside it, the story would've been different. In the current situation, dodging was more than manageable.
"That thing's got nothing but its fire pit! Just stay clear of the flames and you're fine. Getting hit is not an option—unless you want to be minced meat, dodge well. Jeon Hye-ji."
"Yes."
"Ignore everything else. Watch only the head. Got it? Geum Chul-soo."
"Yes."
"Dullahan's fully charged, right?"
"Yep!"
"Then go back Hyun-sung up."
Hyun-sung was locked in a fierce duel with the massive kobold Dulla. The clash of steel rang out far enough to echo down the corridor.
The shape of the fight mirrored the Dullahan they'd met on the stairs below—the Dulla swinging its weapon, Hyun-sung turning each blow aside.
"All right! Everyone else, just pull aggro. Move back and forth in front of that head and bait the fireballs out. Understood?"
Three heads nodded.
Even Mu Beob-sa, for once, raised no objection and simply nodded along.
And with those nods, the crew dispersed.
Whish!
Jeon Hye-ji hurled the spear she'd pulled from her Subspace Backpack. The Dulla's head drifted sideways in a smooth glide and evaded it.
"It dodged?"
Then came the incoming fireball.
Hye-ji shouted out.
"Its cooldown is thirty-two seconds!"
They were comrades who had already shared life and death countless times. No one failed to grasp what she meant.
Everyone keyed their watches to thirty-two seconds.
Set to chime on repeat, every thirty-two seconds.
They were practiced at it. Not one of them needed both hands to configure their watch.
The setup took hardly any time at all—and Won-goo finished his in under five seconds.
Chul-soo, however, was still fumbling with his watch even after summoning the Dullahan, and he was taking a painfully long time about it.
"For f—! Chul-soo! What are you doing!"
"S-sorry, sir!"
Bang!
Even as he chewed Chul-soo out, Won-goo hadn't forgotten to keep firing.
But the kobold evaded even his shots.
"Damn it. You seeing this bastard?"
Thud!
A crossbow bolt, timed to the moment, buried itself in the kobold's cheek.
"Nice! Jeon Hye-ji! But we need to pierce the head! Dodge!"
The kobold hurled a fireball straight at the woman who'd hit it.
"That's not the cooldown part, though..."
"Looks like getting hit sets it off anyway. Factor that in when you bait it. Damn it—Chul-soo! Still not done? What are you, conceptually withdrawing from your own name?"
"I'm sorryyy!"
Chul-soo wailed, his hands trembling.
"Sorry my a—! Sorry doesn't wake the guy next to you up! Finish that and go help Hyun-sung, now!"
"Yes! Understood!"
Geum Chul-soo surged the Dullahan forward at full speed.
"Insane bastard... did he reinforce his skull with rebar? Why won't this thing just die?"
The crew was worn to the bone. Su-won had outright collapsed onto the floor.
"Good work, everyone."
Won-goo said it as he ground his heel into the fallen kobold Dulla's head.
The back of it had been smashed to pulp.
"Chul-soo."
"Yes. I'm sorry."
"Haven't you apologized enough?"
"..."
"Never mind. Go collect the reward."
"Me?"
Chul-soo was visibly stunned—and the rest of the crew wasn't far behind at the decision.
"Did I summon someone else? Get a grip. Did I evacuate your brain to the Shelter?"
"I..."
"Anyone can fumble mid-fight. Better to flush it out now than let it fester."
"..."
"You won't do it again, will you? You'll go practice?"
"I will."
"Good. What matters is delivering when it truly counts. Just chalk today up as tuition."
"But me taking the reward..."
"I know. You're not the one keeping it. But we're a crew—a crew that grows by dividing the spoils efficiently. What did we just kill?"
"A Dullahan?"
"Right. And that's your line. That's the path you've chosen. So shouldn't you be the one to draw it? There might be something Dullahan-related in there."
"Yes."
"The real reason is that some rewards absorb into you the instant you take them. If someone else drew it, that would be the whole thing gone, just like that."
Geum Chul-soo walked up to the reward orb and reached out his hand.
Light spilled from within the orb.
"Anything Dullahan-related in there?"
"There is, actually..."
"Then pull that one."
"But there are a lot of other good things..."
"Enough. I said pull the Dullahan-related one. Who knows when a chance like this comes around again."
"..."
"Don't hold back on my account. If you hesitate now, the others have to hesitate right alongside you, and that drags all of us down. Nobody aces everything, every time. Picked one?"
"There are... two Dullahan-related rewards, Director."
"Is that so?"
Won-goo, mid-motion of lighting a cigarette, stepped over beside Chul-soo.