Slapdash Dungeon Building
Something about this Demon God felt seriously off. That consent agreement had read like one of those shady, too-good-to-be-true advertisements...
But with no other options and no way back home, I had no choice but to accept. The moment I did, five new functions appeared on my Status Window.
[Status]
[Skills]
[Camera]
[Shop]
[Dungeon Management]
On top of the stats I already had, there were now Skills, Messages, and even a Shop? New functions had popped up one after another. There were rumors that a hunter's Status Window adapted itself to the individual, but I'd never imagined it would go this far...
"Hmm... well, I already glanced at my stats, and they were pathetic... But why on earth was my Charm so high? Let's look at my skills for now."
When I tapped [Skills], a list of my abilities appeared along with their descriptions.
"Hmm... these descriptions are way more grandiose than the actual performance. And they're all such low level that there's not much I can really put to use yet."
"Still, being able to eat garlic is a plus."
As a former Korean, garlic was an absolutely essential seasoning. This much, at least, I was happy about.
"Blood Kin, huh? So it uses this thing called Blood Qi that I get from drinking blood."
I had just closed the skill window and was about to open the Shop when a message slid up across my Status Window.
"Ugh, aargh... now what?!"
As if being strong-armed into becoming a monster weren't enough, now I was being ordered to open a Gate within a week. No matter how you looked at it, if a Gate opened right here in this empty place and anyone at all wandered in, I was dead.
Slap! Slap!
I smacked both my cheeks with my hands and forced myself to think calmly.
"Right! There was some bonus where I'd get ten Skeletons. Where are those?"
I looked around, but there was nothing but pitch-black darkness.
"Oh! Right, there was a Camera function, wasn't there?"
I turned on the Camera function from my Status Window. Honestly, when they'd said I'd get part of a smartphone's features, I'd gotten my hopes up — finding out it was only the camera was a little depressing. But when I pressed the light button on the camera function, my Status Window cast a beam of light like a flashlight.
"Hmm, let's see... huh?"
A pile of white bones. It didn't take me long to realize these were the Skeletons I'd been given as a bonus.
"Aaaaah! That damn Demon God! He said Skeletons and literally handed me a pile of skulls! Well — okay, fine, I should've expected something like this!"
Rattle... rattle-rattle-rattle...
The moment my words ended, the pile of skulls stirred, the bones slotting themselves together until ten complete Skeletons stood assembled in a neat row before me.
"H-heeeh... it actually worked? Um, excuse me..."
Clack.
The Skeleton gestured at something with its bony hands, but I understood absolutely none of it. It seemed to want something...
"What is it? You want to do something?"
Nod— nod—
"Okay, sure. Go ahead."
The moment I finished speaking, the Skeletons all hurried off in one direction. I shone my light after them, and my eyes went wide as saucers.
"Whoa... it's a huge mansion..."
There stood a mansion that looked considerably large. The Skeletons clattered inside, there was a crash or two, and then lights flickered on throughout the building, brightening the whole area.
"Ohhh! These guys are actually pretty smart!"
In fairness, that was thanks to their dumb master, who hadn't even bothered to look around despite having a light. The Skeletons lit up the mansion, tidied here and there, and gestured for me to come inside.
"This is the bathroom, this is the bedroom... is this the kitchen? Hmm... it's a pretty big place for one person. I suppose the Skeletons will handle the upkeep..."
Then something I'd completely forgotten suddenly came back to me.
"That's right! The Gate. Let's set up the Gate first. Hmm... Korea's probably my best bet — I might actually be able to talk my way through with someone there? Dungeon level's still 1, so... I've picked by nation, but what if it lands smack in the middle of Seoul or something?"
I shivered my way through the deliberation for a while before finally deciding to just leave it to luck. Following the Skeletons' guidance, I got ready for bed.
"Uuuugh... whatever. Shower first."
And so I stepped into the bathroom, and—
"Hiiiieeek! What is this?!"
"My face... it's changed!"
Han Gyeoul's appearance had transformed completely. His original black hair and black eyes had become silver hair and crimson eyes, his canines had grown large and sharp — he had become a vampire, perfect and complete.
"Okay... okay, calm down. I miss my Noona..."
And so, in the pitch-black darkness where not a single ray of sunlight could reach, Han Gyeoul — heart tight with loneliness and longing — sank into sleep in a bed so blissfully soft it could make anyone cry, dreams flooding in one after another.
A week had passed.
Han Gaeul was making arrangements for her brother's funeral when yet another request came in from the Association. Her condition was still terrible, so the Association — that wonderful black company — had drastically reduced her workload, dressing it up as rehabilitation with some nice, easy work.
"Miss Han Gaeul, for this request, based on your external equipment readings, you'll simply need to clear an F-rank dungeon. The Gate in question gives off a wavelength weak enough to pose no real threat, so—"
"..."
Deep in the mountains of Gangwon-do, she listened to the Association employee's briefing with utterly dead eyes. She was a money-making A-rank hunter, but precisely because she was A-rank, the Association's pressure to "broaden her social profile" had left her with no real choice but to take the job. To a woman preparing her brother's funeral, the Association was endlessly cold.
The only reason they could treat an A-rank hunter — someone who commanded considerable respect even within her guild — like this was that the Association held the memory of her dead brother over her like bait. She'd become a hunter on pure impulse right after graduating high school. After their parents died, the obsession with providing for Han Gyeoul had clouded even Gaeul's sharp mind, and in the end it amounted to signing an unfair contract with the Association.
Legally speaking, that contract was plainly problematic — but the fact that the Association, a public institution, had made it at all said everything about how rotten the hunter industry had become.
Remembering her dead brother, Han Gaeul stepped through the Gate.
The scenery inside the Gate was more than enough to stir even her hollow, empty eyes. Before her, along a stream, a meadow like an emerald carpet stretched out without end.
Embroidered with flowers of every color, the field swayed in rippling waves of blue, playing a beautiful melody, while above it rough boulders scattered like silent giants crowned the ridges of a massive mountain range.
Beneath the tallest peak of that range — a great mountain wearing a crown of permanent snow — sat a small cave.
Han Gaeul turned on her GPS and walked toward the cave, thick with energy wavelengths.
"It's really... beautiful."
Even in a heart shattered by Han Gyeoul's death, this scenery offered, for just a moment, the peace of a warmer past. But she severed the feeling and entered the cave, reminding herself that the family she'd lost would never come back twice.
Clack— clack—
Inside the cave there were only a handful of Skeletons. Han Gaeul drew her sword without a flicker of emotion.
"W-wait, just a moment!"
The instant she raised her sword to charge, a young voice pierced her ears.
"A monster that talks? So it's a humanoid..."
While Han Gaeul held her guard, a figure emerged from the darkness.
"I-I'm not a monster, I... Noona?"
'Noona?' A voice she had heard thousands of times — a voice that had made her happy every single time — was coming out of that monster's mouth. Han Gaeul trembled. It sounded so much like her brother, Han Gyeoul.
"Noona, it's me, it's me! Han Gyeoul!"
A face that looked exactly like her Gyeoul. The hair color, the eye color, and the clothes were all different, but that unmistakable, unique, so-very... adorable face — it was her brother.
"Gyeoul...? Is it really you?"
It could have been a mental illusion, or a humanoid monster wearing his voice — but there was no way an F-rank dungeon could produce anything like that, and that certainty convinced her the boy before her was truly her brother. The words that came tumbling out next sealed it.
"Noona, I got sucked into a Gate and suddenly turned into a dungeon monster! What am I supposed to do?"
"Gyeoul... Gyeoul..."
"Mmph— Noona, I can't breathe..."
"It really is you... sob... hic..."
Before he could even finish speaking, she had thrown her arms around the brother she thought she'd lost, hugging him tight as the tears poured out — and the Skeletons, perceptive little things, had wisely scattered far, far away.
Deep in that dark cave, if nothing else, the hearts of the two siblings shone brilliantly bright.