The Core's Hidden Gift
The party continued exploring the dungeon with a similar strategy. They steadily advanced toward the center, suppressing small groups of energy workers that wandered the area in much the same way.
"...What happens if it mutates?"
"It's simple. The dungeon often transforms into some bizarre, unknowable world—like a fantasy realm or a futuristic one. The fact that it's only populated by these alien construction servants means this is a low-grade dungeon."
"Ah, I see..."
The party continued exploring the dungeon with a similar strategy. They steadily advanced toward the center, suppressing small groups of energy workers that wandered the area in much the same way.
"Huh...?"
Seong-il, who had been moving silently with the group, suddenly saw the surrounding environment change in an instant. The abandoned Western-style medieval city vanished, replaced by an intricate mechanical architectural world with a construction style he'd never seen before. Smooth metal walls made of a glossy blue-gray alloy he'd never encountered, with ominous glowing orbs that occasionally flowed along their surfaces.
What the...? There are no gaps or seams in the metal walls at all. How are those lights flowing like that...?
Seong-il was bewildered by the utterly alien architecture and the surging, ominous energy of the lights. Seung-jin turned to him and asked,
"Pretty fascinating, right?"
"Huh? Y-yes... But why did an alien structure suddenly pop up out of a medieval city...?"
At Seong-il's question, Seung-jin gave a light shrug and began to explain.
"It's because we're getting close to the core."
"Ah...!"
"That medieval city from earlier was created by the energy workers through reality manipulation. We still don't know exactly how it works, but..."
"Oh... Reality manipulation..."
"Yeah. There are tons of theories about it. Some people claim it's a mixture of reality and illusion created through psionic energy and alien technology. Others think it twists the time axis of a multiverse to forcibly drag in and overlap another world. There are even theories that it's just projecting false information directly into human brainwaves. The theories are endless. The one thing that's certain is that humanity still doesn't understand the exact principle behind it."
"I see."
"Anyway, you can just accept it for what it is. Theory or no theory, the one undeniable fact is that destroying the core will collapse the dungeon. So we can ignore all that academic nonsense and just head straight to the center to smash the core. That's all we need to do."
"Understood."
After listening to Seung-jin's kind explanation, Seong-il nodded and replied before moving back to the front where Ah-hyun was positioned to resume his spot in formation.
After walking for quite some time, a strange scarlet energy sphere about the size of an adult male appeared before the party. The moment Seong-il saw it, he instinctively thought,
That must be the core...!
When the rest of the party casually began moving toward the core, Seong-il panicked and asked them,
"Um... Is it really okay to just walk straight up to it like this in such an open area without any caution...?"
Seeing his reaction, Oh Yoo-joo let out a small chuckle and began to explain.
"It's fine. The core itself has no combat capabilities. You just need to go up and smash it to pieces."
"Ah..."
Seong-il arrived in front of the core. He deliberately hung back a good distance behind the others, watching blankly as his teammates used psionic projection to neutralize and destroy it.
Everything was proceeding smoothly as the team worked on destroying the core.
Then—
ALARM: Game Master
Shit...?! At a time like this?!
The others seemed equally annoyed by the sound. They turned to look at Seong-il and said,
"Huh? Why is a phone vibrating? Communication from outside shouldn't be possible inside a dungeon...?"
When Seung-jin looked at him with a puzzled expression, Oh Yoo-joo frowned and scolded him.
"Han Seong-il. How could you set an alarm while on a mission?! We're lucky there are no threats right now, but what if the alarm had gone off during infiltration? How would you take responsibility?"
Seong-il was rendered speechless by Yoo-joo's pointed rebuke. He bowed his head in apology while thinking,
An alarm...? I didn't set any alarm... What is this...?
"Sorry! I'll turn it off right away. Just a moment...!"
Flustered, Seong-il quickly pulled out his phone and opened it.
Huh...? It's a Game Master alarm?! What the...?!
Realizing the vibration was related to the Game Master, Seong-il pretended to turn off the phone while secretly activating his status window to check the alert.
2) Can view quests from game characters. (Toggle ON/OFF by clicking)
What...?!
The Game Master had never given him direct instructions before, so Seong-il was bewildered by the sudden overall assessment message. However, since the Game Master had never caused him any loss so far, he decided to trust it. With his mind made up, he gritted his teeth, quietly stuffed the smartphone back into his chest pocket, and moved closer to Ah-hyun and Seung-jin, who were destroying the core.
"...?"
Lee Ah-hyun looked puzzled as Seong-il suddenly approached her. He offered an awkward excuse.
"Ah... I wanted to see the first core destruction up close. Would it be okay if I watched from nearby? Since you said there's no real danger..."
In response, Ah-hyun simply gave a light nod instead of answering and continued destroying the core.
The core destruction continued for some time. As the process went on, cracks began to form on the core, and it started radiating energy outward.
The way it's breaking apart looks just like the sun I saw in that documentary the other day...
Once the external energy barrier that had been containing it shattered, the core began spewing energy outward like a burning sun. While Seong-il was marveling at the sight—
Kiiiiiiiiiiiii!!
A sound like nails scraping across a chalkboard spread in all directions as the core's energy began to run wild, exploding outward uncontrollably.
"W-what the?! I've never seen a core act like this when it's being destroyed!"
Seung-jin was visibly panicked by the core's rampage. Sensing that something was seriously wrong from his reaction, Seong-il felt a growing sense of crisis.
KWAAAAAAAAANG!!
Before Seung-jin could even finish speaking, the core erupted, releasing an enormous burst of light and energy in every direction. The party had no time to mount any defensive measures and took the blast directly. The tremendous impact knocked them all unconscious.
"Hey...!! Han Seong-il. Wake up, you idiot...!"
Seong-il frowned at the stinging pain of someone slapping his cheek. Unable to endure it any longer, he finally opened his eyes.
"Ow, shit... What the..."
"'Ow, shit' is what you say to your friends, you know~"
"...Huh?!"
The familiar way of speaking snapped him fully awake. Seong-il's eyes flew open wide as he looked at the person who had woken him.
"You awake now?"
Before him stood a man with a kind, friendly face. Without thinking, Seong-il immediately apologized.
"Ah... Hyung...!"
"Yeah, yeah. Can you get up quickly? I still need to wake the others."
"Ah...! Yes, sir...!"
After waking Seong-il, Seung-jin quickly moved to his girlfriend and began waking her. It didn't take long for the remaining two to regain consciousness, and soon the entire party was awake.
"Haa... What on earth just happened?"
Lee Ah-hyun asked the most experienced senior member of the team. Seung-jin shrugged his shoulders and answered,
"Beats me. Even though I'm a year ahead of you, this is a first for me too. I've never even heard of anything like this in training... Well, no one seems seriously injured, so let's finish up our duties first and think about it on the way back. Since the core's been destroyed, we don't know when the dungeon collapse will start. We'll think about it after we get out."
"Alright. Let's withdraw and discuss it later."
"Yeah~ Let's get out of here quickly~ Yoo-joo and Ah-hyun, you two take it easy and recover a bit. I'll collect the destroyed core. Hey! Han Seong-il. Come over here. I'll teach you how to collect a core."
"Yes? Yessir...!"
At Seung-jin's sudden call, Seong-il hurried over to his side. Once he approached, he asked,
"I'm here. What do I need to do...?"
Seung-jin quietly pulled a leather duffel bag from his pocket. Without a word, he opened it and showed it to Seong-il.
"It's not complicated. Just put the shattered core pieces into this specially treated duffel bag."
"Huh... It doesn't seem that dangerous after all?"
"Yeah. It's already broken. But you still need to handle it carefully—this thing is insanely expensive. Losing it would be a big problem."
"Huh...? Do we get to sell the ones we recover?"
"I wish. But these all have to be turned over to the government. In return, the government gives us a certain percentage of contribution points and money depending on the core's condition... By the way, even though you're a non-combat ability user, aren't you a little too uninterested in all this?!"
Seong-il flinched at Seung-jin's teasing remark. But Seung-jin soon flashed his usual warm, friendly smile and continued.
"I'm just messing with you. Don't look so guilty. It's a joke, man. Truth is, I don't know the first thing about what non-combat ability users actually do either."
With that, Seung-jin gestured for Seong-il to hurry up and put the core fragments into the duffel bag, then kept talking.
"The reason we have to return them is because the government opens these nearly risk-free low-grade dungeons for students to gain experience. That's why the government claims rights to the cores. For higher-difficulty dungeons, though, they usually grant the rights to the hunters instead. So don't feel too bad about it. After experiencing a 9th-grade dungeon today, you can see for yourself—honestly, it wasn't much, right?"
"Yeah... That's true."
Seong-il nodded and quietly reached out to grab the large core fragment with his hand.
"Ugh...!"
The moment he touched it, an intense, burning pain shot through his hand. Something unknown began relentlessly stimulating his palm.
"Seung-jin hyung! Something's wrong—"
Seong-il tried to warn him about the danger, but from that moment on, only his mind remained clear. His body and everything around him had frozen completely still, as if someone had pressed a pause button on a video. He couldn't move a single muscle.
And then.
Ignoring Seong-il's panicked state entirely, the core in front of him began spewing scarlet energy like mad. The energy gathered into writhing tentacles that slowly crawled toward him.
Fuck...! Body, move! You piece of shit...!
The writhing energy looked extremely ominous at first glance. Seong-il instinctively sensed the threat and desperately tried to move his body to avoid it, but his flesh refused to respond to his mind. It remained frozen solid like ice.
Fuck... Don't come near me!! Stay away...!! Get lost...!!
Every second felt like an hour. As the energy drew closer and closer, Seong-il screamed internally in terror—until the energy that had been approaching his face suddenly changed direction and charged straight toward his chest.
What the?!
The ominous energy's abrupt change of course sent Seong-il spiraling into another panic. But regardless of his fear, the energy swiftly plunged into his chest and began to be absorbed.
What... What's happening...? Is it going inside my body?
Seong-il quietly lowered his gaze to look at the energy. But he soon realized his assumption was wrong. The energy had entered his chest pocket and was sparkling in a rectangular shape. Seeing that, he immediately understood where it was being sucked into.
The glowing shape is exactly the size of my phone...? No way?!
Just as he suspected, the energy was violently pouring into his smartphone. Seong-il stared at the scene in a daze and thought,
So... that overall assessment from the Game Master telling me to get within three meters... was for this...?