Dungeon Entry: The Head of the White Zone
The dungeon entrance. White Zone. 10th Floor. The Head.
Those who do not hesitate to set their own bodies ablaze in order to illuminate unknown shadows, seekers of forbidden knowledge, battle junkies, devout believers, get-rich-quick schemers, romantics, pioneers… The world lumps all these fools together under one name: adventurers.
And right here, in this astonishing place where that very tribe of madmen is roaring at the top of their lungs while committing a collective suicide plunge, my contractor and I stand perfectly still, hands clasped tightly together.
—Uuuuung. Uuuuuung!
—Crackle! Cracklecrackle!
“Kyaaaaah!!!”
“Mom!!!”
“Uwaaaaah!”
“Here we gooooo!”
“Me toooooo!”
“....”
“....”
This place, where horrific sounds that would terrify any creature with functioning eardrums play on loop, is the mouth of hell itself—the dungeon entrance known as the Black Hole. Some leap in alone with brave determination, while others clutch their party members’ hands, screaming for their mothers and fathers, throwing themselves into the black pool like moths diving into a bonfire.
Our party is about to follow the exact same suicidal procedure as those lunatics.
Right now.
“Raven-nim.”
My contractor keeps her eyes fixed on the Black Hole, clearly nervous, gripping my hand with surprising strength. In times like these, the older, more experienced one has to offer reassurance.
“Don’t worry, Contractor. Even if my arm gets severed, I will never let go of this hand.”
“…That is genuinely reassuring.”
It didn’t seem to have much effect.
“Everyone ready, nya?!”
Sion the rogue’s voice, overly energetic from a good night’s sleep, barely cut through the colorful chorus of screams.
Still… my condition feels pretty good too.
I’d noticed it since this morning. The more people around me, the more power seems to surge through my body. Every breath I take carries a faint, sweet scent on my tongue…
This is probably a skill effect.
Well, I could figure that out later. Right now the priority was throwing ourselves into that insane maw of hell.
“All right! On three, we jump, nya!”
“Yes!”
“Let’s do it.”
Looking at us like a veteran player watching adorable newbies, Sion began the heart-pounding countdown.
“One, nya!”
Two, three!
And it ended far faster than expected.
—Grab!
“…?”
“Huh?”
By the time question marks popped up over our heads, our feet were already floating in mid-air.
“Uwaaaah!?”
“Here we go, nya!!!”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
Shocked by the feline’s desperate malice—she had skipped the countdown entirely and shoved us like a malicious bungee-jump attendant—our party of grizzled veteran and trembling newbie tumbled into the darkness.
⊳ Pathfinder / Dungeon Sherpa — [Strangler] Sion — 5T (Party Leader)
⊳ No Class — [New Adventurer] Yuri Alcast — 0T
⊳ Plague Doctor / Familiar — [Crazy Demon] Raven — 1T
“Plague Doctor. Raven, huh.”
Another strange one has been sent in. Contractor.
Tap!
“Ugh…!”
Still holding my contractor in a princess carry, I landed lightly on the pale stone floor dotted with sparse patches of white moss. It had felt like we fell for more than ten seconds, yet the impact against my legs was almost nonexistent.
Is this the ten seconds of post-spawn invincibility?
Compared to Terraforming, where spawn-killing was rampant, this system was so merciful it nearly brought tears to my eyes.
“Contractor. Are you all right?”
“Huu… Thanks to you, Raven-nim.”
Because of the veteran’s sudden stunt, the excitement and anticipation had loosened my senses a little. Now they snapped back into razor sharpness. Right. Even in a safe zone, letting your guard down is forbidden. Thanks for the reminder, cat. But next time, could you use a slightly more gentlemanly method? You scared me.
“You soft newbies! Stop spacing out and start the Clearing already, nya!”
Since my contractor and I were stuck together like glue, frozen with tension, Sion’s order came from behind us.
“Y-yes…! Raven-nim, you can put me down now!”
“As you wish.”
Perhaps excited by her first dungeon exploration, my contractor seemed even more energetic than usual. She was positively brimming with motivation.
After gently setting her down, we followed Dungeon Sherpa Sion’s instructions and began scouting the area in pairs. The “Clearing” Sion mentioned was an environmental survey to secure a safe zone inside the dungeon.
The Black Hole randomly drops adventurers somewhere within the safe White Zone. The problem is that the drop point is truly random—it is entirely possible to spawn right at the entrance of the Green Zone, near dangerous territory where Entities might appear. That was why she had ordered a Clearing, to prevent any surprise accidents. Very thorough.
Hm?
While idly touching the area near my chest so I could draw my Injector at a moment’s notice, I heard a quiet murmur.
“Huu… Stay calm. Don’t get nervous. Calm down.”
Following the sound, I looked down. My contractor had pulled a club from her bag and was now diligently self-hypnotizing while warily scanning the surroundings. The clumsy sight reminded me of the newbies I had briefly guided during my short stint as a Sherpa, and a small smile formed beneath my mask.
How cute.
I tore my gaze away from the contractor, who was sweating bullets and rolling her eyes in every direction, and began a proper Clearing of my own.
Small clusters of unidentified light leaped into the air like grasshoppers from the gray-white walls and floor sparsely covered in self-luminous white moss. As the name suggested, the White Zone was dominated by terrain and vegetation in shades of white or gray. The ceiling, which was surprisingly high, had a similar feel to the walls, but the real difference was the transparent, vein-like tubes stretching in long strands across the space, hanging everywhere. Inside those translucent tubes, green, tube-shaped objects reminiscent of human red blood cells bubbled and drifted back and forth. I was genuinely curious what they were.
My contractor seemed to share the same question.
“Sion-nim, what exactly are those things on the ceiling?”
At the question—half tension, half curiosity—Sion, who had been circling us with a small knife drawn (the same one she had used to feed a bug to my contractor), lowered her guard, approached, and answered.
“Ah, those green droplet-looking things are slimes, nya. They’re the most numerous among the ‘Scavengers.’ When they detect a corpse, they drop from the Slime Lord and rush straight over to absorb it. Annoying little pests, nya.”
Oh. Slimes—the famous dungeon mascot that comes to mind right after goblins. Meeting an old acquaintance from my meager fantasy knowledge put me in an oddly pleasant mood.
“Ah, so they’re the famous cleaners of the dungeon?”
“Correct, nya. They have no combat ability and don’t drop any maseok, so there’s usually no need to pay them any mind. However, occasionally an individual that has eaten a high-tier adventurer or an Entity corpse undergoes mutation. If you see a slime that isn’t green, be careful, nya.”
“Ooh. As expected of a Sherpa, you’re incredibly knowledgeable.”
“Becoming a Sherpa requires graduating from the Academy regardless of age, so of course I am, nya! Despite how I look, this body graduated second in her class, nya!”
“…Sion-nim, you were far more impressive than I realized?”
“Far more than you realized, nya? What’s that supposed to mean? Is that a compliment, nya?”
“It is a compliment.”
From what I gathered, Sion was a graduate of the Bastion Academy, the dungeon studies institute. So she was an elite rogue who had accumulated both real-world experience and scholarly knowledge. After another ten minutes of scouting, the only incident was my contractor letting out a startled yelp and falling over when a cluster of light suddenly leaped at her. As expected of a safe zone, it was peaceful.
“Doesn’t look like there are any dangerous elements nearby.”
“I agree.”
“Good work, nya! Now you understand the hardships we guides go through a little, nya?”
“The hardships of guides?”
“That’s right, nya! Clearing is normally a job for quick-footed, sharp-eyed guides, nya! But even if you aren’t a guide, it’s good to develop the habit of performing Clearings, nya. At the very least, you should memorize the location data of each zone so you can quickly understand information given verbally, nya!”
She was right. Memorizing environmental information for each section was extremely important for survival. It helped immensely with risk assessment, strategy, tactics, and planning movement routes. I gave a small nod to show I understood, and Sion continued.
“Also, from what this body can see, the area we spawned in appears to be the White Zone, 10th Floor, Head, nya!”
“Head?”
“Head?”
The moment Sion finished speaking, the questions burst out simultaneously. As we tilted our heads in perfect sync, Sion unrolled a brown scroll with a dramatic whoosh instead of explaining.
The map depicts a wrinkled human figure sprawled like a fallen frog, five fingers spread wide. The area below the lower abdomen is missing.
🏛 Type: Living Organism (The Betrayer’s Body)
📍 Current Location: 10th Floor — Head
⚠ Note: Zones named by combining danger color, floor number, and body part.
“Here! What does this look like, nya?”
“A person?”
“It looks exactly like a human whose lower body has been severed.”
“…You’re not wrong, but isn’t that description a bit too graphic, nya?”
The scroll Sion showed us depicted a wrinkled human lying spread-eagled like a frog, five fingers stretched wide. Nothing below the lower abdomen was visible.
“This is the map of White Zone Floor 1 that dungeon scholars created after wandering the dungeon with Sherpas for over a decade, nya!”
“My god, the dungeon really looks like this?”
“It’s not perfectly accurate, but you can think of it as having roughly this shape, nya. That’s why we usually name regions by combining the danger color, floor number, and body part. White Zone, 10th Floor, Head. Like that, nya.”
“Then if we spawned in the pancreas, would we have to call it White Zone, 10th Floor, Pancreas?”
“…I don’t know what a pancreas is, but anything that isn’t the head, arms, palms, or fingers is simply called the torso, nya.”
“Ooh. I see.”
“Convenient.”
“But that’s not the important part right now, nya!”
Sion paused for a moment, then hardened her expression and continued.
“We have spawned at the very edge of the White Zone, nya! That means we might encounter Entities that have drifted in from the Green Zone entrance, nya! Of course, they’re nothing but trash between 0.5T and 2T at best!”
“What?”
“Hmm?”
Wait… wasn’t that actually good news?
Middle School Black Mage Cosplayer
VS
0.5T Weakest Entity
— 5 Seconds Until Contact —