Chapter 20
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 020
Chapter Title: Dormitory G Ghost Story
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Under the lush trees, a balmy afternoon.
Yet somewhere beneath them, the chill-inducing air created a stark sense of disconnect.
Creak—
Creeeak—
A bizarre sound accompanied the scene creeping into the edge of my vision.
A woman swaying, hanged from a massive tree.
I turned to look, but there was nothing there.
'It's starting to show already.'
I forced myself to ignore it and scanned around for the dormitory.
'The sign said it was here, so it should be.'
Why couldn't I see it?
No matter where I looked, nothing but the forest scenery came into view.
The moment that thought crossed my mind,
a building hidden seamlessly within the woodland landscape revealed itself.
Vines had entwined so thickly around the dilapidated wooden structure that it was nearly impossible to recognize it as a building.
'Roots all the way down... This place has held up surprisingly well.'
Normally, you'd feel a chill at a sight like this,
but why would I get spooked right in front of my honey pot!
With that in mind, I approached the door.
'A sliding door you open yourself, straight out of Awakening to SSS Hunter Academy. Looks ancient.'
Slide—
The door opened surprisingly smoothly.
I took a deep breath just before stepping inside.
'From here on, it's another world.'
Dormitory G.
This building was, in fact, a kind of dungeon.
Not one with real monsters that could harm the body, though.
It eroded the mind and showed you things you shouldn't see.
'But its culprit is the opportunity I'm here to claim.'
I cautiously stepped into the building.
Unlike the eerie atmosphere outside, the interior was a cozy wooden structure bathed in warm sunlight.
Far too peaceful to feel like the inside of a dungeon.
'Spotless. Exactly as I'd hoped.'
There were six rooms in total.
By the rules, of course, only one was assigned to me.
But who cares?
I was the only resident anyway, and no one was around to monitor this place.
'Meaning this spacious, pristine wooden house is all mine.'
Plus, rundown as it was, it was still an academy dormitory.
It even had training facilities and a study.
"A-dong's special rooms have nothing on this."
I suppressed a rising smile and turned my gaze down the long hallway.
'Time to evict the holdout tenants who won't leave.'
The hallway stretched out like a long passageway.
At its end was the study.
Creak—
Creak—
I started walking toward the study.
Each step on the wooden floor produced irregular noises.
Toward the study.
One step.
One step closer, and the atmosphere began to shift.
Still, I ignored it and kept walking straight ahead.
Kept.
Walking and walking.
"..."
It was a long hallway, but no more than about 20 meters at most.
I'd walked far enough that the end should be in sight.
Yet the study remained distantly at the hallway's far end.
'This is a new one.'
On top of that, it hadn't even been five minutes since I'd entered the dormitory, subjectively speaking.
Blue moonlight from the windows illuminated the hall.
'This must be how they chased people out.'
Back when Dormitory G wasn't just an administrative ghost like now.
The "Dormitory G ghost story" still existed then, but cheap rent probably drew some students.
'No matter how many moved in, tricks like this would make anyone think twice about staying.'
I ignored the bizarre phenomena and kept pressing toward the study.
Creak—
Creeeak—
The only sound echoing was the creaking wooden floor, without a source,
and with each step, the darkness thickened.
—!
In that instant, jumbled groans from people reached my ears. Sounds laced with agony and terror.
"What bullshit."
I ignored it and kept moving forward.
Something dark writhed along the hallway walls.
Human faces.
Twisted in pain, with grotesque movements.
It wasn't just the walls.
From the ceiling to the floor beneath my feet.
They twisted into each other, fell apart, and moved irregularly.
'In that moment, anxiety and fear raced up their spines, sending them fleeing outside in panic.'
That's the development it wanted from me.
The entity showing me this spectacle now.
'Screw that.'
No way in hell.
Why should you lot block a student from living in the dormitory?
What are broke students supposed to do, sleep outside?
You get out of my house.
'I'm not sensitive enough to fall for pranks like this.'
Three years working haunted houses.
Everland's Horror Maze was at least 3.3 times scarier.
'Well... that place was weirdly terrifying.'
I ignored the black masses and stepped right over them.
Or stepped on them, I suppose.
Even touching my feet, there was no sensation or sound of contact.
"Illusions, so of course."
Everything I saw in this dormitory was just an illusion.
Illusions that couldn't harm my body in any way.
In reality, it wasn't even night yet, and the hallway only seemed long—it wasn't.
That said, no student would want to live in a place pulling stunts like this.
Considering that, the culprit behind these phenomena had achieved its goal.
Thud—
Something hard like a wall bumped my head, halting my steps.
The distant study had vanished,
and right before me stood the study's door.
'Made it.'
I'd somehow reached the door to the study.
The culprit behind the dormitory's state was inside.
"And that's my treasure."
I grasped the study door handle and opened it.
What lay inside was a completely empty room, nothing more.
"As if."
I lightly sliced my palm with the dagger I'd prepared.
"Ngh..."
Damn, that hurt.
As my focus sharpened, the room's true appearance finally emerged.
"Found you, my opportunity."
There, floating midair in the center of the study, was a book with its pages autonomously flipping, as if powered by something.
Standing silently before it like a guardian was a little girl.
'This one's actually kinda creepy.'
That book was the source of it all.
A skillbook containing a skill that produced illusions with no real effect.
It was the power sustaining this dungeon.
'Without an owner, no less.'
The girl stared at me silently, as if warning me not to come closer.
She was the owner of that skillbook.
Or rather, an illusion of the owner.
The real owner was probably long dead.
This girl was merely the image conjured by the book.
Like the Myth of Ashte that Lee Seong-hyeon obtained, or the Empty Skillbook I got.
Dungeons didn't always have skillbooks, but those with pages intact enough to form books—and tremendous narratives behind them—always created dungeons.
'This one's the same.'
Just as the Myth of Ashte's narrative birthed the [Tomb of Myths] dungeon.
The book before me had turned this place into a dungeon.
Across eight regressions, Lee Seong-hyeon acquired only eight skillbooks total.
Excluding Ashte and the Empty Skillbook, that left six.
This was one of them.
'Though it's a bit different from the others.'
The girl before me had been its owner.
Just an ordinary girl—no hero, no grand achievements.
This was the dungeon born from such a girl's skillbook.
'So it could only exist as a parasite on reality.'
The skillbook itself was nameless and tattered, pages torn to shreds.
Lee Seong-hyeon became aware of this skillbook in his third regression.
He took it, ignoring the girl.
Now in the fifth, he already knew about it, of course.
As I approached the skillbook, the girl reached out as if to block my path.
"Don't worry, I won't do anything."
Not that an illusion could understand me.
Even after acquiring this skillbook in his third regression, Lee Seong-hyeon never returned here in later ones.
'Because it's crap.'
The skill gained from a skillbook was identical to the original owner's.
No way this girl had anything impressive.
The reason her skillbook endured.
'Sacrifice.'
The most noble act a human could perform.
That narrative allowed her story to linger in reality.
In the chaotic early days of hunter treatment, a C-rank rogue hunter murdered six academy students.
Security wasn't what it is now back then, apparently.
The girl drew the C-rank's attention to buy time, hiding her dormitory siblings and sacrificing herself.
It might seem noble up to here.
But in the end, the C-rank raped and killed her, then brutally murdered the remaining five children.
The traitor was swiftly captured, of course.
But he never revealed the bodies' locations, so even their ashes went unrecovered.
This was the backstory behind Dormitory G's closure and its transformation into a dungeon.
'Not the whole story, though.'
No matter how noble the sacrifice, it couldn't compare to a hero's epic.
Her skillbook persisted because its content—illusions—allowed it to mimic a dungeon without a physical form,
thanks to the girl's intense grudge,
and her will to protect 'Dormitory G,' where her beloved siblings' remains lay.
In short, the skillbook couldn't reach completion due to the girl's powerful lingering attachment at death.
'Even accounting for that, it remained an incomplete skillbook.'
Now dungeonized, it showed absurd illusions, but acquiring it would yield...
'D-grade skill [Subtle Illusion]. Something lame like that.'
At best, conjuring flowers in your hand.
No wonder Lee Seong-hyeon never came back.
So why was I bothering to claim it?
Because I knew how to complete this incomplete skillbook.
"Just you wait."
I pointed at the girl with my index finger and said.