Collapsed Root Cave (5)
The three of them moved along a hidden path, pushing through the thick smell of mold and the damp, heavy air.
As Do Yoonchae walked quietly at Lee Seonho's side, her assessment of him had shifted considerably from what it had been before they entered the dungeon.
'So he really does have skill, like they said about the entrance exam second rank.'
That wasn't limited to combat ability alone. If ranks were awarded purely for combat prowess, there was no way this man would have placed second above her in the first place.
Rather, it was his feel for handling dungeons — or to put it precisely, his aptitude as a party leader — that stood out.
"Let's take a short break here. We should log our progress too."
"Whew... yeah, okay."
"……"
The way he noticed Han Sora's breathing growing slightly ragged and suggested a rest. The way, even while resting, he never forgot to scan their surroundings for monster tracks or traps.
-Scribble, scribble.
As if he refused to waste even this downtime, Seonho took a swallow of water, then immediately pulled a notebook from his breast pocket and began jotting something down.
"...What are you doing?"
"Since we've come this far, I thought I'd sketch out a rough map. In case we need to explore here again, or someone else ends up coming down this route after us."
"...It's a cave full of nothing but trees and moss. I doubt any map would be worth remembering."
"I made a point of memorizing broken tree stumps and especially large rocks. Those are landmarks that don't change even after a long time. As long as I mark the directions properly, at least no one reading it will get lost."
The map he drew in the notebook as he spoke was surprisingly clean, detailed enough that even Yoonchae, glancing at it sidelong, could roughly follow it.
He was nothing more than 'Combat Support,' yet he seemed determined to do every single duty that role entailed without missing one.
It wasn't just his knack for avoiding traps and combat or harvesting monster materials, either. Yoonchae caught herself thinking, almost absently, that if anyone embodied the very pinnacle of combat support, it would be this man.
'If only this man had been in Do Yoon-sung's party back then.'
That day's exploration — the reckless push forward with no regard for the rear guard's stamina, refusing to avoid drawn-out fights and instead chaining one battle into the next.
...And then, the 'trial' they faced while already worn down by those successive battles and traps.
Yoonchae still could not forget the memory of that day, when every party member except her had been torn apart so brutally that not even their bodies could be recovered.
'...Then again, considering Do Yoon-sung's personality, I suppose it wouldn't have changed anything even if this man had been there.'
Even if Seonho had mentioned the need to rest or to explore carefully, would Yoon-sung have so much as pretended to listen? The man who brushed off even his lover's words would never have lent an ear to the opinion of a mere combat support.
In that sense, perhaps it was a kind of fortune that she had enrolled in the academy in Yoon-sung's place. At the very least, she could properly recognize this man's worth.
...Lewd-minded and rotten to the core, yes — but as a comrade, he was certainly someone worth trusting.
"If we rest too long our bodies will stiffen, so let's get moving soon. You're alright, Sora?"
"Ah, yeah. I've rested enough."
"...Good."
'If a man like this were the leader, I can fully understand how he became second rank in the year.'
With that, Yoonchae filed away one more of the strange questions that had lingered in her mind, and fell into step behind Seonho.
Around the same time, Seo Woojin's party.
-Trudge, trudge, trudge.
"……"
"Woojin, are you sure this is the right way?"
His party, still swimming in doubt and simmering resentment, was pushing forward at a pace clearly faster than Seonho's.
Thanks to a forced march that ignored their allies' fatigue, and a bold advance that paid no heed whatsoever to traps or monsters.
"Hey, Seo Woojin! Slow down already! Chae Eunbi's about to collapse!"
"Haaah... haah... haaahh..."
"...Tch."
Even with one party member visibly at the end of her rope, Woojin simply clicked his tongue in displeasure and kept moving forward.
Since the two vanguards were setting the pace, the rear guard had no choice but to grit their teeth and follow. No matter that this was a D-rank dungeon — getting isolated in a place like this on their own skill alone would be a fairly dangerous affair.
So they advanced, and advanced again, and had closed a fair amount of the distance to Seonho's party when—
-Snap.
A vine with an unusually blue sheen caught across Seo Woojin's foot and broke.
-Pop! Pablak!!
"Ugh— khh?!"
"Kehak— wh-what the hell?!"
The moment the trap triggered, poisonous gas bloomed outward with Seo Woojin at its center.
The acrid air crashed down over the vanguards, Woojin and Lee Hayeon, first.
But the gas, spreading fast, lunged at Yoo Ahrin and Chae Eunbi, who had been trailing behind as well — and in the end, all four of them were swallowed whole by the fumes rising from the trap.
"Khhak, kek! Keheakk!!"
"My— my eyes...!"
"Hey, Chae Eunbi!! Wind magic!! It's your specialty, isn't it?!"
"Kof, hah... kof, hah, haah..."
Even under Woojin's snapping urgency, Eunbi staggered, unable to manage her incantation.
Had she not been so exhausted, she could have responded quickly, before the smoke spread further — but keeping pace with the vanguards' stride while leaning on Ahrin's shoulder had already taken everything she had.
In the end, she forced her mana together and chanted her spell while still half-smothered in smoke.
"Kehak— Wi, Wind... Khok— C, Cyclone...!!"
-Whiiiiirrr!!
A small vortex formed around her and her party members as she finally spat out the spell.
Thanks to the roaring wind, belated as it was, they managed to blow away the gathered gas — but that was all it accomplished.
"Kehak— hey, Chae Eunbi! Why are you so damn slow?! If you'd just cast faster—"
"...Ah, seriously, fuck. I can't stand watching this dick-driven bastard whine anymore."
"...What did you say?"
"If you asswipes up front hadn't gone stomping into the trap, we wouldn't have gotten caught up in it either, you fuck! You were all ready to say 'do whatever you want' and leave us behind, but now you dump the blame on Eunbi?!"
"Yoo Ahrin, who the hell do you think you are, ordering me around—"
"Then who are you?! Why have you been running your mouth like you're the goddamn leader this whole time?! You coast on your face one or two times, sure, but forgive you a couple times and you forget your place and start climbing?!"
"...Unbelievable. Just—unbelievable."
"W-Woojin. W-we should, um, try to make peace first—"
"Hah, haahh, kehak..."
With Woojin and Ahrin at the center, the air between them turned openly hostile.
The four of them were a party marching toward ruin — near enough to disbanding that it hardly mattered — but unfortunately, their misfortune did not end there.
'Grrrrrrr...'
'Woof! Woof-woof!!'
The peculiar scent, the distinctly shifted flow of mana, the visible magic and the rising volume of their argument.
Everything a pack needs to be deliberately lured in a dungeon — and so, with Seo Woojin's party as the perfect lure, Poison Spike Wolves were closing in from every direction.
"You cursed.... If you, if you hadn't started yelling first—"
"You were the one who screamed first, you son of a bitch..."
Entangled in emotions they hadn't even begun to sort out, Seo Woojin's party entered the battle.
'It should be around here.'
About an hour since entering the dungeon with Han Sora and Do Yoonchae.
I'd been moving forward while retracing memories from my past life... but by this point, even my confidence was starting to waver a little.
'Did I take a wrong turn somewhere? Or did we come in wrong from the start?'
By my memories of the original novel, it had to be here.
Broken tree stumps, abnormally huge rocks — I'd spotted those landmarks along the way, so I figured I was probably right... but with the point that should have appeared by now still nowhere in sight, a strange unease was quietly taking root inside me.
'...Maybe it'd be better to turn back before we go in too deep.'
Today wasn't the only chance we'd get. If anything, I'd scheduled this expedition a little earlier than the original timeline because I wanted to secure the Seed of Manaroot as soon as possible.
Maybe visiting earlier than the original story had thrown things off. Or maybe the problem was simply that I was the one visiting, instead of Seo Woojin.
The further we walked, the more noticeably the traces of human passage thinned out. This dungeon had never been especially popular to begin with, and the few students who did come once or twice all took the main path toward the dungeon's center anyway.
'I'll decide whether to go further once we check the illusion fork. Nothing more, nothing less.'
It should start showing up around here, most likely.
I told myself that if it hadn't appeared after five more minutes of walking, I'd conclude we'd definitely taken the wrong path and turn back. I'd been walking for about three minutes when—
'...Found it.'
The moment that unnatural stretch of forest, warped from twisted mana, appeared before my eyes, I could finally let go of the anxiety that had been building.
What a relief. No need to traipse back and forth through here twice because of the Seed of Manaroot after all.
"Whoa, what is this? There's a path even back here?"
"That's a fake path made of illusions, Sora. The real one comes out when you turn left here."
"Oh, i-is that so? Ahaha..."
"……"
At my words, Han Sora followed with an embarrassed smile, while Do Yoonchae walked beside me, still silent, wasting no unnecessary words.
Just a few steps past the illusion fork, we finally left the tangled forest maze behind and emerged into a wide-open space.
"So this is..."
"Beats me. Couldn't say, but it looks like we found something."
"……"
Apart from the entrance, the space was sealed by tree trunks woven so densely they might as well have been walls, and beneath them clung damp clusters of mushrooms, layer upon layer.
-Shup, shushushup.
"Uh, uhh?! W-wait, Seonho! The path we just came in through is gon—"
"...Stay calm, Han Sora."
"Huh...?"
"...It seems what we found isn't exactly a treasure chest."
Along with Yoonchae's grave words, she quietly drew her sword — and in the center of the open space, the 'mass' that had been sitting there began to move.
-Groan, crrreak...
"Wh-what is that thing...?"
"Looks like a plant-type monster. Probably the boss of this space, I'd say."
The Corrupted Vine Guardian.
The hidden boss of the Collapsed Root Cave.
Facing a monster that didn't even appear in the Academy's monster ecology classes, both of them carried a palpable tension in their expressions.
"I've never heard of a monster like that living in the Collapsed Root Cave... Then again, we might be the first people to have ever made it this far."
"...Well, it's a monster, so I suppose we just have to kill it?"
Yoonchae, who had intended to fight from the very start, and Han Sora — who had looked a little lost just before, but now that it was time for battle, seriously nocked an arrow to her bow.
As for me, I quietly readied myself for the fight as well, taking the items I'd prepared in advance and the Ring of Samsara in hand.