Paths That Shift and a Dungeon That Seals
Rookie: Baek Jaesung 34
We rejoined the group and proceeded with our return as normal. We cut straight through, taking down the evil bat variants along the way. Before long, we reached the door leading to the next room.
"We're almost there. It hasn't been that long on the clock, but damn, it felt like an epic journey."
Kim Seonuk said it without hiding his exhaustion. True to his words, he looked a solid ten years older. The dark shadows under his eyes and the sagging wrinkles told the tale of how much mental hell he'd been through.
Meeting those Demonic bastards and watching his girlfriend get raped—yeah, he was probably at his breaking point mentally. Right now, Kim Seonuk was like a balloon one poke away from popping. I wondered if he'd hold it together until we got out of the dungeon.
Hwang Minjun, leading the way, opened the door to the next section. As it swung wide, a new world unfolded before us. The first thing I spotted was a penguin waddling around. It was ridiculously cute, and somehow familiar.
"Huh?"
Hwang Minjun tilted his head and checked the map. According to it, this should have been the swamp area.
"Ah! Isn't this the room we came from!?"
Yeonji's words jogged my memory of the rooms we'd passed. We'd definitely gone through that snowy chamber with the massive lake. These penguins were the ones we'd seen there. Unlike the other hostile monsters, they hadn't attacked us even when they spotted us, so they stuck in my mind.
"What the... This is definitely the right spot, though?"
Kim Seonuk checked the map in a panic. I pulled mine out too. No matter how many times I looked, this was supposed to be the swamp room. We hadn't gotten lost in some cave tunnel.
"City to desert, desert to cave, cave to swamp—that's the sequence... Did the paths change!?"
Kim Seonuk threw the question into the air with a bewildered look. He probably knew the answer already. If the paths hadn't shifted, this room wouldn't have appeared.
One of the ways Level House ramps up the challenge is by shuffling the connections between rooms.
"Look over there! There's the frozen lake! We skirted around it earlier, right!?"
Rina pointed at the massive frozen lake, which looked like a reservoir blanketed in frigid ice. Seeing it confirmed we were back where we'd started.
"So... what now?"
Kim Seonuk asked me with a worried frown.
"For now, we'll reset our route with this room as the baseline. Lucky for us, it's one we've already cleared."
"Hmm... There's no rule saying only one path changes. What if others have shifted too..."
Kim Seonuk trailed off. But I could guess the rest: we might get trapped in here forever.
Still, the odds weren't that high. From what other dungeon hunters who'd explored and escaped Level House reported, it was rare for multiple paths to change all at once.
"Hoo... It's freezing. I need to bundle up."
Jang Hana huffed into her hands. The temperature had already dropped what felt like twenty degrees, and with all of us soaked in sweat-drenched clothes, our body heat was draining fast. We couldn't just stand around—we needed to regroup.
"Everyone, grab your outer layers from your packs and layer up. We can't risk frostbite, so if your socks are wet, change 'em."
"Hehe. What if other spots are wet?"
Jisu sidled up to me and whispered a sexy pun under her breath so no one else heard. I flicked her forehead hard.
"Ow?"
Flutter flutter—!
A bird's wingbeats sounded nearby. I turned to see a black bird—the baseball-sized bat from before—taking off into the sky.
"Bats live in this kind of cold too?"
Maybe it was like the mascot monster of Level House. We kept spotting them everywhere.
*-*-*
Chairman: "Hmm! Comms are good. Alright, this emergency video call's caught everyone off guard, but it's no small matter, so bear with me. Kim Section Chief, give us the briefing."
Kim Hoseok (Dungeon Research Section Chief): "Yes, sir. Briefing commencing. At 07:13 AM Korean time today, a powerful mana pulse was detected from the new dungeon 'Level House' in Gwangju."
According to the on-site researcher's investigation, the dungeon's mana density has risen from the previous 1.8G to 2.5G.
Mana density is measured against standard atmosphere at 1G, indicating how much mana is present in the air. Below 1.5G is safe for normal human activity; above that, symptoms like abdominal pain, dizziness, hallucinations, and delirium can occur.
Most dungeons exceed 1.5G, varying wildly. It's a key metric for raid difficulty—generally, under 2.0G suits 7-rank or lower dungeon hunters.
Executive: "2.5G... So that's 6-rank level, right?"
Kim Hoseok: "Raid difficulty isn't determined by mana density alone. It's a composite of multiple data points."
Another Executive: "Then what's Level House's current raid difficulty?"
Kim Hoseok: "We lack full data, but estimates put it at 6-rank. Mana density is all we have for now."
Executive: "...So it's the same damn thing."
Vice Chairman: "Continue the briefing, Kim Section Chief."
Kim Hoseok: "Yes, sir. The investigation HQ has dispatched survey and research teams. Externally, a dungeon mutation has been observed, and the entrance is sealed. No entry or exit is possible."
Executive: "Entrance sealed? Did the dungeon close itself?"
Kim Hoseok: "Affirmative. Precedents exist—once sealed this way, we can't reopen it."
The executives groaned, grasping the gravity.
The dungeon had shut itself—not vanished via full clear, but just sealed its mouth. Mana density around it remained high, but no hunters could enter for a raid. Worst of all were the dungeon hunters already inside.
Executive: "How many dungeon hunters are trapped inside?"
Kim Hoseok: "...We've confirmed fifteen teams. All five-man parties."
Executive: "Fifteen..."
Seventy-five elite hunters locked in. Even for the talent-rich Korean Hunter Association, that was catastrophic.
And this wasn't just manpower loss. The association had spearheaded this large-scale exploration of the national highway dungeon. If all fifteen teams wiped, public backlash would be nuclear. As a Korea-based public entity, they couldn't ignore opinion.
Executive: "You mentioned similar cases. Any solutions?"
Kim Hoseok: "Five reported in Korea, all small-scale. They reopened automatically, but timelines ranged from a week to a year."
In short, time was the only fix.
Hoseok skipped mentioning that all trapped hunters in those cases had died. No need to fan the flames.
Video or in-person, ass-chewings sucked. No point volunteering.
Vice Chairman: "No real solutions, then? What's causing this? Any known triggers?"
Kim Hoseok: "No confirmed causes for incomplete closures."
The meeting circled endlessly. Meant to brainstorm fixes, it ended as unresolved as the sealed dungeon.
Hoseok sighed and stood. Do Jaekyung, head of Research Team 1, approached with a sympathetic look.
"You okay?"
"Got roasted hard. Worse than I thought."
Hoseok's face twisted in irritation. Jaekyung probed.
"Did you bring it up? That report from last time."
"What?"
"The correlation between missing dungeon hunters in Level House and rising mana density around it... You think this mutation ties in?"
Hoseok sighed. Observations showed Level House's mana density ticked up fractionally each time a hunter vanished—like the dungeon feeding on them to grow.
"You know how it'd go over if I pitched fringe theory as 'observation.' It fixes nothing anyway."
The idea that dungeons grew by devouring hunters' mana dated back over a century. It faced instant backlash: hunters' mana was negligible compared to a dungeon's. How could it drive mutations?
Debunked by data, no mainstream academic pushes it now. Though some argue certain dungeons exhibit that trait.
"Anyway, priority's rescuing those inside. Ngh... This is bad."
Honestly, Hoseok saw no hope. Without a twist, the association would hemorrhage credibility. Heads would roll—maybe his too.
He pinched his brow, pondering the mess.