Chapter 147
Chapter 147
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 147
Chapter Title: Georyongdae's Monster - 3
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Next up after greetings is fighting.
I had to bolt straight to the main building the moment the battle kicked off.
If I stuck my neck out unnecessarily and drew the Sniffer's attention, it was game over for everyone.
The first to charge in were Dajeong's enhanced zombies.
Thanks to all the losses yesterday and today, their numbers had thinned out considerably, but gathered in one spot, they still looked like a lot.
The moment they started charging from all directions, the Sniffer reacted immediately.
And then the arrows began to fly.
The Sniffer flinched as an arrow struck it.
It wasn't much beyond a flinch, but hey, that was something.
I realized while running that it was Mi-kyung who had fired it.
Not bad.
She'd grown up sheltered, so she probably hadn't had many chances to show her combat skills.
"Sex!"
Seok-hyeon was getting in on the action too.
I sprinted full tilt toward the main building.
Behind me, the thudding footsteps of Bulk followed.
I couldn't lift the concrete cover alone.
I raced down to the third basement level of the main building and found the secure room.
"Here it is."
The secure room was sealed with sturdy wood.
I stepped aside slightly, and Bulk slammed his fist into it with all his might.
Bam!
A clean hole punched through, revealing the reinforced plastic seal door.
I summoned the scarabs.
"See this? Just break through it."
They swarmed it immediately and got to work.
Even after they chewed through the seal door, we couldn't just waltz in—not with the concrete covers in the way.
p>According to Lee Beom-seok's intel, it wasn't as good as a government shelter, but there were supposed to be ten covers.
Normally, you'd need a crane to haul them up, but no one knew where it was.
Well, things were total chaos back then, so everything must've been a mess.
I tied a rope around Bulk's waist, and the scarabs chewed through one seal door.
I hauled out the smoking seal door and shoved it aside.
I was truly grateful for the scarabs gnawing away diligently.
"Without you guys, I'd be dead already."
The lead scarab poked its head out briefly and met my gaze.
It looked like it had a lot to say, but being a scarab, it couldn't talk.
Anyway, they chewed through all three seal doors.
"Good job. Go inside and rest."
I sent the scarabs back through the dimension gate and peered into the seal door opening.
A fairly spacious area with concrete covers and a corridor came into view.
"That must be some VIP room or something."
As the presidential retreat bunker at Georyongdae, it was probably pretty luxurious.
But first things first—getting down into the bunker.
I tied the rope to a lid and went back up top to fire off a flare.
Pheew—boom!
There was a risk it'd draw the Sniffer's aggro, but it was too busy fighting.
Down below, Bulk was pulling on the rope.
Creak—
The massive concrete cover lifted up.
I pulled up the auction house and typed a comment.
No point ordering Bulk directly—he wouldn't listen anyway.
Letting Dajeong know this way was top priority.
She couldn't focus solely on the auction house, so there was a considerable delay.
I got needlessly anxious.
"They better fight well..."
Fighting well here meant dragging things out as long as possible.
Dealing serious damage to the Sniffer with our combat power was a tall order.
As long as Seok-hyeon didn't go berserk, we'd be fine.
The auction house being quiet suggested no major casualties.
Finally, all the concrete covers were hauled up.
It took 18 ropes in total—nearly 180 meters.
Since I was on basement level 3, that meant the bunker was about 200 meters deep.
"200 meters feels a bit shallow..."
Both Joo Seung-cheol's shelter and this one seemed like the minimum depth to evade the metal plague.
At last, the pitch-black hole was revealed.
I typed into the auction house and grabbed the rope to descend.
I pulled out a glowstone and walked into the bunker, spotting wooden crates in the dimness.
That was it.
.
.
.
My imagination of an enormous stockpile of weapons was way off.
A few wooden crates sat there pathetically in the bunker.
"This is it?"
The crates were big, but nowhere near the inventory list from the government shelter.
Where were those rooms full of ammo and heavy weapons?
"No time to stock it properly, huh..."
I pried open one crate, revealing stacks of ammo boxes.
This alone had to be tens of thousands of rounds at least.
"No grenades... got a grenade launcher... only M72s for anti-tank rockets..."
Damn it.
Rage boiled up, but this wasn't the time to vent alone.
I had to take this stuff and deal with the Sniffer quick.
I cracked open another crate and pulled out an M72 anti-tank rocket.
"Why's it so light?"
It weighed about as much as a rifle.
Suspicious, I opened the cap—there was the rocket, tucked in like a mole.
If it's this light, the power must be weak too.
"Still, for the Sniffer, it'll do."
My thinking was that flesh-and-blood monsters couldn't withstand modern weaponry.
I studied the diagram nearby to memorize the firing procedure.
"Open the cover first, pull out the tube..."
Pulling the tube made the sight pop out.
Now remove the safety, aim, and hit the firing button.
Ridiculously simple.
The hard part was probably aiming at moving targets.
"Wonder if I can hit it."
The target wasn't a big, lumbering armored vehicle—it was just a 2.3-meter lifeform.
My stats were decent, but this was my first time handling one of these.
The sight only had crosshairs and numbers like 200, 300.
I stared at it for a while before realizing it was distance to target.
"At 50 meters, line up the crosshairs here."
Backblast means no indoor use...
Shaped charge, so small kill radius...
Good.
I memorized the precautions and loaded several M72s into my dimension slot.
The metal plague hadn't fully subsided, but as long as it held during firing, it'd be fine.
I itched to grab more stuff, but killing the Sniffer came first.
Then, a frantic comment popped up in my view—not in code, just plain text.
The Sniffer was coming here?
To get here, it'd have to go through basement 3's secure room?
In that instant, I remembered the flare.
If it could even smell the gunpowder...
The moment I thought that, the sounds of fighting echoed from above.
Not clear, but Bulk was definitely battling the Sniffer.
Grrraaah!
With a roar, the rope tumbled down.
The Sniffer's ugly mug briefly appeared in the black hole, then vanished.
It looked like it was smirking.
"Smirking?"
I'd forgotten the Sniffer had intelligence.
With Bulk dead, Dajeong's losses were massive.
I wanted her to get the kill if possible, but first, assess the situation.
I grabbed the glowstone, created a dimension wall, and ascended.
"Where do you get off interrupting..."
Even with smarts, it wouldn't know about my dimension walls.
A comment said the Sniffer had gone back up and was fighting Seok-hyeon hard.
If I killed the Sniffer, I'd get the exp and points, fine—but the skill would change.
Paralysis Poison Resistance 2 would vanish, replaced by something new.
"Kinda hate losing Paralysis Poison Resistance..."
It was a unique skill only I could have.
But honestly, its priority had dropped.
Fewer chances of goblin attacks now.
Whatever new skill came, it'd be way better than paralysis resistance.
I'd never seen a Sniffer before, so no clue what skill it'd drop.
"Regeneration would be nice."
I hurried up top.
The Sniffer... was gone.
Outside the main building, ghoul corpses littered the ground.
Dajeong had only a few locusts left and was locked in a grueling fight.
Seok-hyeon's performance was dazzling too.
"Sex!"
That guy's "sex" was still going strong.
He zipped around, slashing the Sniffer's body to ribbons, and the beast looked pretty worn out.
It wasn't even pulling out the arrows stuck all over it.
I took position and opened my dimension slot.
Pulled an M72, disarmed the safety, and aimed at the Sniffer's back.
"Get clear!"
The moment I yelled, Seok-hyeon dodged an attack from the Sniffer and bolted.
Kruk?
The Sniffer seemed puzzled.
Soon Mi-kyung and Dajeong fled far off too, and I hit the firing button.
Foom!
A heavy recoil and smoke hit simultaneously.
I saw the rocket's trajectory.
For an anti-tank rocket, this slow okay? I thought—then.
Flames erupted, blowing the Sniffer's upper body clean off.
Boom!
Smoke cleared, leaving only a twitching lower half.
The power was legit.
The lower half spurted some bloody fluid, writhed, then collapsed with messages scrolling up.
"100 points?"
How high was its level?
More importantly, though, Heightened Senses.
The moment I got it, faint heartbeats started echoing around me.
That was Seok-hyeon's heartbeat.
Even with my back turned, I sensed him approaching.
The low sigh, the sound of him fiddling with his hair.
Not bad.
Unlike the creepy knife-edge feeling when I briefly became a killer.
Seok-hyeon clapped a hand on my shoulder.
"You got it."
"Don't jinx it."
"Huh?"
Check if it's fully dead first.
We approached the Sniffer's lower half cautiously, one after the other.
Mi-kyung and Dajeong blinked back from afar.
Something shiny caught my eye on the ground.
"Isn't that... an etherstone?"
Dajeong picked up the glittering stone.
Small, but definitely an etherstone with its golden glow.
She showed it to the others.
"Any monsters drop these?"
"Nope."
"None."
"No idea..."
Not even ogres dropped etherstones.
Brutes or... unknown monsters from expansion packs—I hadn't caught any, so no clue.
"We took it down, but at a huge cost..."
Dajeong muttered bitterly.
She'd lost 20 zombies, and Bulk's death hit hard especially.
The silver lining: most of the locusts she'd recently acquired survived.
I comforted her.
"Tell me if you need anything. I'll drop everything else to help."
"Thanks, even if it's just words. Anyway, we'll rest here for a bit. I'm heading to Daejeon."
Replenishing 20 would take 20 days.
Raiding backup shelters could wait.
"I spotted a comfy spot in the bunker. Rest there."
"Oppa, I was so scared..."
Mi-kyung tugged my collar, and I patted her back.
"You did great too, Mi-kyung. Saw you fighting well earlier."
She jumped up.
"You saw that?"
"Briefly. Keep that distance in fights. Blink's a killer weapon."
"Y-yeah, I felt that. At first I was terrified... but keep blinking away..."
From the Sniffer's view, an untouchable archer sniping from afar would drive it mad.
Dajeong pinched Mi-kyung's cheek.
"Happy 'cause Oppa praised you, huh? When I needed help, you just ran."
"Eung."
Meanwhile, Seok-hyeon clenched and unclenched his fists, unable to relax.
"Sucks I couldn't go all out."
"Next chance'll come. Feels like that's not the last of 'em."
The unidentified monster guarding Georyongdae bunker.
Coincidence?
I didn't think so.
Its intelligence, dropping an etherstone...
Couldn't dismiss it all as chance.
Too many holes for full planning, but someone behind it for sure.
Probably the devs.
The ones who gave Joo Seung-cheol the resurrection scroll and knew about us veterans.
Need to watch out going forward.
We patted each other on the back for a job well done and headed inside the main building.
I glanced back at the Sniffer's lower half last.
No way it'd get up, right?
Its regen was insane, so even with system confirmation of death, I wasn't at ease.
I lit a flame canister and tossed it on—the lower half started smoldering.
Now it's done.
.
.
.
This bunker's name was the U-3 Archive.
A facility for the president in wartime, its scale and luxury were insane.
We wandered the corridors, opening doors and gasping in awe.
"Never seen a bed like that..."
"Looks like something European nobility would use."
The stockpiled supplies were no joke either.
Most were military rations, but in this situation, it was more than enough.
The bathrooms were so fancy they felt undeserved.
The higher-ups lived like this even in war, huh.
After checking everywhere, Seok-hyeon said curtly,
"It's ours now."
Right.
Plans aside, it was in our hands now.
No one to complain.
We sat in chairs fit for a chairman and discussed next steps.
"Everyone, good work... We'll make this our base for a while."
"Yay! Resting here!"
Mi-kyung asked,
"What about us?"
"Seok-hyeon, do the entry quest here if possible."
"Entry quest?"
"Gotta do the entry quest to enter my dimension gate. Open it."
Seok-hyeon stood and poked his head into the dimension gate.
"Message popped up."
"Your exclusive dimension gate should open now."
As I spoke, a blue dimension gate opened in front of him.
Mi-kyung's eyes went wide.
"Looks just like a real dungeon entrance..."
"Mine's similar. Secure 3 etherstones inside, done."
"I'll head in."
"Wait, hold on!"
I desperately stopped him.
Seok-hyeon was great, but he had this thing where he thought he wasn't directionally challenged.
Here, he needed Dingo and the scarabs.
I summoned them, packed gear, and handed it over.
"You can handle it solo."
He grinned wide.
"Thanks. See you later."
Once Seok-hyeon vanished, Mi-kyung got fidgety.
"Gotta fight monsters inside, right?"
"Think you can?"
If yes, I'd send her right in.
But she shook her head.
"No confidence... Feels like I'd die... Hing."
Dajeong sneaked up behind her.
No way she's forcing a quest.
Before I could say anything, Mi-kyung noticed and blinked away.
"Unni!"
"Doing this for your sake."
"I-I really can't..."
She was genuinely scared.
Needs more experience.
I told her,
"Tell me when you're ready. No penalty for going in later."
Dajeong rested her chin on her hand, muttering,
"So much good stuff inside, and Mi-kyung can't use any."
"Like what?"
"Cool ocean, valleys, watermelon patch in the veggie garden. Total countryside life."
"Plenty of monster teachers to train cocky entrants too."
Mi-kyung shook her head harder, terrified.
Looks like it'll take time for the Dogseom crew to enter.
Dajeong slyly asked,
"Couldn't ask earlier... what'd you get?"
I listed them in order.
She shrugged at level and points, but gawked at Heightened Senses description.
"You can hear my heartbeat?"
"If I focus."
I tapped the table in time with her pulse.
Dajeong shivered.
"Creepy skill... You know everything even from afar."
"Hear your toes wiggling too."
"Whoa."
I heard Mi-kyung's nervous fart but pretended not to notice.
Time passed, and Seok-hyeon emerged from the dimension gate.
Eyes bloodshot like he'd pulled an all-nighter.
He rubbed his eyelids and grinned.
"Fought a troll. Manageable."
Nice.
Now my turn for the shelter.
Seok-hyeon paid 100 points and passed through the dimension gate.