Dungeon Practical Training
Thursday's first class was the dungeon practical we'd all been waiting for.
Victoria Academy's motto had never changed: train like it's the real thing. Run nothing but safe, padded drills, and the moment live combat hits, those same movements fall apart. That was why so many of their exercises took place on actual ground rather than in simulations, and dungeon practicals were no exception.
The last one had been a taste. Starting today, this was the real thing.
Once again, the dungeon was a cave type. The difficulty, however, was in a completely different league. The passages were narrower and more winding, the paths harder to read, the monsters more numerous — and every last one of them would be a pain to deal with.
Which was why every team was huddled together, hashing out strategy and pumping each other up.
Every team except ours.
A familiar silence settled over us.
Fuck.
Lee Byung-hoon, the other guy on our team. Seeing this bastard again after so long did not spark joy. Nam Da-eun was staring quietly at her smartwatch. Rumi was looking at me.
Rumi and I locked eyes and started talking without a word.
So... what should we do now?
Just sit tight. Doesn't look like we're planning any kind of strategy anyway.
Okay.
Strategy settled — such as it was — I closed my eyes and slipped into meditation.
We were waiting at the assembly point. Sooner or later a professor would show up, launch into a passionate speech about how dangerous dungeon practicals were, and the cadets would diligently tune him out. Today an accident was actually going to happen, so I figured I ought to pay attention.
A quiet rustle of movement. Nam Da-eun rose from her seat without a word and headed out of the waiting area.
"I'll be right back. Bathroom."
"Alright."
I used the same excuse and slipped out after her.
Nam Da-eun made for the same secluded corner where she'd taken that call last time. Talking to her little sister again, then. The devotion was almost impressive.
Last time I'd gotten lucky and caught a scrap of the conversation, but today she hadn't started the call yet. According to my neural sense, she wasn't focusing any attention on a conversation — which meant if I closed the distance now, she might notice. I stopped following and headed back to my seat.
In a quiet corner of the Academy, a girl was on a video call.
"Sis! What are you doing today?!"
"We're going into a dungeon. They said this one's more dangerous than last time."
"Huk! You're okay though, right??? "
"Of course I am. You know how strong your sister is."
Nam Da-eun smiled and struck a pose, flexing to show off her muscles.
"That's right! Uncle Min-gyu said you're the strongest one at the Academy too! You're so cool!"
Uncle Min-gyu.
The name landed in Nam Da-eun's chest like a stone.
Park Min-gyu, master of the Buyer Guild — the man who had looked after her and her sister since they were children. For a long time, Nam Da-eun's days had been genuinely happy. Kind guild people. A school life she actually enjoyed. And a little sister who, frail as she was, fought every day just to keep living.
A student's pockets could never have covered those hospital bills. Min-gyu and the guild members had stepped up without hesitation, and Nam Da-eun had been grateful — truly, deeply grateful. She had sworn to herself that she would pay back every person who had been so good to them.
Even a girl that earnest had never imagined that the moment she entered high school, they would hand her a slave contract.
The cost of raising two children from a young age, plus her sister's medical bills. The sum came to roughly two billion won. Then, for twenty years, interest had been compounding quietly behind her back, and the total she supposedly owed had swollen to fifty billion.
She had protested the outrageous contract, of course. By then it was already too late. Her sister was admitted to a hospital run by Min-gyu's own guild, and there was no telling what they would do to her. Nam Da-eun couldn't process a transfer. She couldn't go to the police either — her sister was the leash, every time.
These pieces of garbage had been after her body from the very beginning.
And the one at the center of it was the man she had trusted. The man who had always looked after the Nam sisters. That was what made it cut so much deeper.
If there was a mercy in any of it, it was this: the girl they had been trying to claim as property turned out to have an Awakened's talent on her aptitude test. Anyone whose talent surfaced at high school enrollment was required by law to receive Awakened training. The Buyer Guild had sent her off to camp figuring the contract was only postponed.
Nam Da-eun's talent was not the kind you postponed.
She took first in her training class from the start, earned a recommended admission to Victoria Academy, and then became famous on top of it — for her face, and for her skill.
Once things went sideways, the Buyer Guild changed tactics. They took the little sister of a future S-class hunter and made her a hostage.
The guild wanted two things.
First: Nam Da-eun, their contracted prospect, would take first place in every practical exam, graduate at the top, and raise the Buyer Guild's name on her way out.
Second: after graduation, she would sign a lifetime contract with the Buyer Guild.
That was the price of the debt.
She had talent and nothing else — no connections, and a bone-deep terror that if she asked anyone for help, they would take it out on her sister. So she did what they told her.
Acting as rudely as possible and tanking the name "Nam Da-eun" was the only rebellion she had left.
"Sis?"
"Mm. Uncle Min-gyu, right. Yeah. Your sister's ridiculously strong, so don't you worry."
"Okay! I love you, sis! When can I see you again? Uncle Min-gyu said your Academy classes are too packed for you to come."
"...I'll come in a month. I'm sorry. There's just a lot of class, so..."
That, too, was a scheme — theirs — to keep her contact with her sister to an absolute minimum. But she couldn't let it show. She would not put sadness on that innocent face.
"I really have to go now. I'll call again, okay?"
"Aww. Alright. Call me tomorrow too. There's nothing to do here. I'm so bored."
"...Yeah. I promise I'll call."
Even the hours she was allowed to speak to her sister were scheduled.
Nam Da-eun clenched her jaw and cut the hologram.
"Haa..."
A fist slammed into the corridor wall.
She whispered it to the empty hallway. There was no one there to hear her.
By the time I got back, a professor was already standing in the center of the waiting area.
"All right. Gather up."
I hurried back to my team.
"Unlike last time, every team will enter at once. Your primary objective is to escape — but I will award bonus points to the team that slays the most monsters or discovers the most relics."
That single mention of bonus points was exactly why so many teams had gone off on their own last time, and why the number of cadets who'd gotten wrecked for it had gone up with them. This dungeon practical, going solo was absolutely not an option.
"The dungeon you'll be entering today has some fairly strong monsters in it. You cannot let your guard down for even a second. That said, this is still a training exercise, so healer teams will be backing you up from behind. Your lives won't be in danger — but the more treatment you receive, the more points you lose."
Nam Da-eun slipped back into our group while he was still talking.
"Get ready to go in. Entry will proceed in reverse order, starting from Team 20."
We were Team 13. Time to get moving.
"Alright, everyone. Let's get ready."
I said it like a team leader. I expected them to stand up and start preparing.
Everyone except me was already done. Not that there was much to prepare, honestly.
"Next! Team 13, go!"
"Yes, sir!"
Honorary team leader that I was, I took the front and led us in.
We stepped through the portal and found several teams already inside. Because everyone was starting at once this time, they were all standing by, waiting for the rest.
"Hoyeon... are you going to follow Nam Da-eun again this time...?"
"Mm. Hard to say."
Honestly, I needed to attach myself to Baek A-young, so I didn't particularly care how we cleared the place. Rumi, though — I had to keep Rumi glued to Nam Da-eun. That was the only way she'd stay safe once the dungeon went berserk. Nam Da-eun wasn't a bad person at heart. If the two of them ended up isolated together, she wouldn't abandon her.
"Stick as close to Nam Da-eun as you can. This isn't about a fast escape — it's about grabbing as much treasure and as many monster kills as possible before we leave. She won't go sprinting off like last time."
"Y-yes! Understood!"
The bright smile she gave me as she answered put a small, inconvenient dent in my conscience.
Sorry. But it can't be helped.
Then again, considering how many women I still needed to seduce, feeling guilty over something this small was pretty ridiculous.
I headed over to the healer team that had entered ahead of us and was standing by.
"Excuse me. Is the Saint here?"
"Aww, aren't you a cute one. Sorry, sweetheart, but the Saint isn't someone you can just walk up and meet. Try again another time."
I'd asked the nearest healer — a woman who looked a bit airheaded — and promptly gotten the boot.
"Hold on. I know him."
"Oh — you do, unnie?"
Luckily, Baek A-young had been talking with someone else nearby. She heard my voice and came over.
"Hello, A-young."
"Hey. Good to see you. I always think this, but it's so weird how different you feel here compared to back at the orphanage."
"You look really cool when you're in work mode, too."
"Thanks. Hehe."
"So which passage are you covering?"
I slipped the question I actually wanted into the middle of her pleased little smile.
"Hmm? I'll be covering the biggest one. More than one team might end up going that way."
"Ah, got it. Thank you — good luck out there!"
"Mm-hmm. You work hard on the training too!"
I waved and headed back to my team.
"As of this moment, every team has entered! Begin your exploration! If any friction occurs between cadets, you will be disqualified immediately — no exceptions. Do not let that happen!"
Every team was inside, then. It was finally starting.
The dungeon rampage would hit about thirty minutes after the exercise began. The layout was the same cave type as last time. I'd already proven I could find a path, so I had decent odds they'd actually follow my lead.
"Hey, let's try that really narrow one. Places like that always have treasure stashed in them."
"Should we figure out which way looks best before we head out?"
The other teams were still debating routes.
"Listen up. This exam isn't about getting out fast. We need to find as much treasure as we can and take down as many monsters as possible. We're taking the widest passage."
I steered us toward the biggest corridor without a second of hesitation. The reason, of course, was that Baek A-young was the one covering it.
Insight
I flipped Insight on so no one would question how I was scouting, then took the lead and started sweeping the path ahead.
A low growl rolled out of the dark.
We hadn't gone far before we ran into monsters. Humanoid. Green-skinned. The sworn enemy of elves.
Orcs.
"Since when do orcs go grrr?"
"What's wrong?"
"Orcs are supposed to go chwiik!"
"...Pardon?"
Rumi was turning my nonsense over in her head, trying to figure out what it meant. She could have just let bullshit be bullshit. Was she trying to play along because I was the one who'd said it?
The two orcs, unmoved by my feelings on the matter, began creeping closer.
Our team had already been housebroken by Nam Da-eun's hunting. Three of us stood there staring blankly at her, waiting — and Nam Da-eun, for reasons known only to her, did not draw her sword.
The lead orc closed to three meters.
"Nam Da-eun? Hey. What are you doing?"
"H-Hoyeon. Just kill them!"
"Huh? Oh. Right. I can just kill them, can't I?"
Rumi had just slapped my hunting instinct awake — the one Nam Da-eun had trained into a sit-and-stay. Smart girl.
Drool ran in strings from the tusks jutting out of the orc's mouth. I snapped a magic circle into existence and set the filthy bastard on fire.
Flame roared up its body.
"CHWIIIK—!"
Now that was a proper orc noise.
"Figures. Whether it's a busted appliance or an orc, nothing works right until you smack it."
"...What?"
"Nothing."
The burning orc thrashed and bellowed for help from the one behind it. That one made some unholy sound of its own and charged, and I put a fireball straight down its open throat.
Both of them came at me in a last, shrieking rush — and pillars of flame erupted from the floor and reduced them to ash.
"Well. I learned something useful. Orcs don't make the right sound until you hit them."
"O-oh. You're right!"
Rumi had officially given up and decided to play along.
A deep, wet rumble rolled through the stone. The ground itself began to shake, and Lee Byung-hoon — who had been standing there watching the whole time — finally found his voice.
"W-what the hell is that?!"
There it is.
The omen of a dungeon rampage. Within a minute of the first tremor, the dungeon would go berserk. The sudden spike in mana would seize people one by one and scatter them through forced teleportation. If two bodies were physically connected when it hit, they would transfer together.
"Rumi! Grab Nam Da-eun's left arm and stay put! I'm going to report this to the hunters!"
"Y-yes! I'll wait!"
"H-hey! I'm coming with you!"
Lee Byung-hoon yelped, rattled. Come or don't, you bastard.
Nam Da-eun didn't particularly object to Rumi taking her left arm. That was all I needed. I sprinted for Baek A-young, who had been watching us from further back down the passage.
"A-young! Something's wrong with the dungeon!"
"Yeah, I know. This might be... a precursor to a dungeon rampage. We should pull out first, come up with a plan, and then—"
The whole dungeon heaved. The mana density in the air spiked hard.
No more time. I had wanted to take her hand in a way that wouldn't feel awkward. There wasn't a second left for that.
I just grabbed it.
"H-Hoyeon?!"
Baek A-young startled and tried to pull free — but the transfer caught us at exactly the right moment. I felt our bodies come apart from the world.
And then my vision went black.