Hidden Dungeon: Arachne's Labyrinth (Part 2)
In the mountains of Gangwon-do, I gazed at the dense forest that had once been lush and verdant in early spring but was now suffocatingly thick with trees. Violet spoke to me with a voice heavy with suspicion.
"Is this really the way here?"
"Yeah, that's what it is."
Seeing the mountain packed with grass and trees like a jungle stirred a strange feeling in me. It brought back memories of the off-hours when, weed eater in hand, I would go mad cutting down the undergrowth. The thick scent of grass only deepened those recollections.
Shaking off distractions, I turned to my beautiful women and said, "Come on, let's go up."
"What do you mean, what's there?"
Violet whined.
"Hey. If Jojun says go, then just go."
Alice shot Violet a glance, clearly displeased by the whining.
"What? Then if that guy dies, are you going to die too?"
Violet's question hung in the air, but the answer came from beside her, not Alice.
"Neee~"
"That's right."
Bianca and Rebecca answered without the slightest hesitation. Violet stared blankly at them.
Unable to cheat on the president and vice-president, she turned to me.
"You didn't create some kind of cult, did you?"
"No way. Let's just go up."
I stood at the front of the party and began climbing the mountain with steady strides.
Alice darted forward and pressed against my left side. The president and Rebecca naturally fell in on my right as we started the ascent.
"Haa... I'm amazed."
Violet followed behind me with an equally stunned expression, and we began our hike.
In this vast mountain expanse, what I needed to find was the cave.
Normally I would have wandered for hours, but I had a far better method.
I drew my iron sword and summoned the wind and earth spirits.
The sword wrapped in wind and earth, a sleek wind spirit with a slender face and a brown-skinned earth spirit materialized.
I had worried when the earth spirit was dismissed upon awakening Levatein, but it had only shrunk slightly, nothing more.
"Hey, find a cave on this mountain."
At my words, the two spirits smiled and scattered in opposite directions to search.
Summoning spirits consumed a fair amount of mana, but with my mana overflowing, I could manage it for five hours easily.
"You've been muttering to yourself a lot lately. Are you sick?"
Violet, unable to see the spirits, tackled me.
Yeah, if others saw me they would think I was weird.
The angel and spirits were invisible to everyone else, so it looked like I was simply talking to myself.
"Operator. Can you stop pestering Jojun?"
Alice shot Violet a glare.
"Operator~? Operator? You lost to me! What right do you have to call me Operator?!"
Violet, provoked, started yelling at Alice.
"Hmph. Then you should line up like me."
Alice snorted and grabbed my sleeve as if to show off.
"Eeeek!!"
Violet, stripped of words, puffed up and charged up the mountain with renewed vigor.
As expected from Alice.
As vice-president, she was motivating our Operator to climb the mountain enthusiastically.
After about twenty minutes, the earth spirit returned and reported the location.
Ten meters to the right.
It was close.
"We're almost there."
Encouraging the women, I advanced a bit farther to the right. A small cave hidden among weeds and trees came into view.
"There! There!"
Found it.
The cave that blended so seamlessly with the surroundings was today's destination: the Hidden Dungeon.
"What kind of cave is this?!"
"Just a bit, Operator."
"Eeeek!"
From behind, Violet and Alice clicked their tongues as we reached the cave entrance.
"Everyone, don't be surprised when you enter."
I smiled confidently and took a step toward the cave.
Then.
The sunlight that had just bathed the area a moment ago vanished in an instant. The clear vision was replaced by one shrouded in darkness.
The light air gained weight and pressed down on the body.
At the same time, the familiar sensation returned and the interface appeared.
Ding!
You have entered the Hidden Dungeon 'Arachne's Labyrinth'.
Okay! Found it properly!
"Eh?"
The women who had followed me were suddenly startled by the changed vision. They looked around, then stared at the text that had appeared in their interface windows.
"Hi.. Hidden Dungeon?!"
Violet shouted in shock.
Exactly the reaction I wanted.
Proud of myself.
Alice was not as shocked as Violet but seemed amazed, glancing around.
Bianca simply smiled while looking at me cutely, and Rebecca stood there expressionless.
"President didn't react?"
"After entering this mountain, I roughly expected it~"
As expected from the owner of the Dragon Eyes, Bianca's deduction ability was excellent.
Then what about Rebecca?
I turned my gaze to her, and she said, "I just follow when the president and Jojun go."
"Yeah?"
I smiled awkwardly.
It was a shame Bianca and Rebecca hadn't given that reaction.
As expected, the third-years were experienced.
Sisissit!
At that moment, a sound of something crawling on the wall above the cave reached us.
I looked up to the ceiling and saw the familiar figure entering.
Sisissit.
A body covered in bristly fur and eight legs. Eight eyes stared at us as two sharp jaws twitched.
Arachne's baby spider.
"Alright! Let's start the hidden dungeon Strategy!"
The women who saw the spider, like me, heard my words and hurriedly drew their weapons and activated their abilities.
As students of the Great Demon Subjugation Academy, our heroines showed no fear at all when faced with such a creepy spider.
"Everyone, stand in an arc about three meters behind me."
The party members quickly lined up behind me.
This party was truly blessed.
In the original Ero Genius Shooters game, standing in the frontline was extremely rare. Especially for players. Because the game was originally long-range focused.
So people who stood in the frontline were usually heavily geared normal citizens or ability users with protection-related jobs, which were rare in the game.
But me?
I was a Swordsman class covered in skills for the frontline.
Moreover, not a tank that just took damage in front, but a bruiser who did both damage and tank.
A perfect bruiser who knew every monster pattern and could even parry.
I placed the iron sword in the inventory and quickly drew Levatein.
Honestly, even if I used the iron sword in this dungeon, but since it was hard mode, just in case.
The dungeon was full of darkness, so the faint sunlight of Levatein stood out even more.
Pretty my baby.
Sisissit!
The guy flipped his body with a tearing sound and brought his belly toward us.
An annoying pattern of shooting webs from far away.
In the past I had struggled a lot with this pattern, but now it was different.
"Spirit."
The sword wrapped in the wind spirit flew to the ceiling.
Screech!
Four legs on the left side of the guy were cleanly severed.
When the leg that had stepped on the ceiling was half cut off, the Arachne's baby spider fell powerlessly to the floor.
Confirming it had fallen, I looked at the party members standing in arc above and said, "Alright! Number 1 from the right. Number call!"
"1~"
The president standing on the right smiled cutely and said, "2."
2 was our blunt vice-president.
"3..."
Violet gave a reluctant look.
"4!"
Alice was full of motivation.
"Alright, from now on the battle starts. Number 1, finish it off."
Jeong Jojun's bus departs.
A golden wave appeared from behind and the spider lying on the floor shattered.
Demons in the dungeon did not leave corpses. They only dropped items.
The shattered spider disappeared with a sizzle, leaving only white spider webs in its place.
These spider webs were the core item of this dungeon.
Squatting down, I rolled the spider webs into a ball.
"What are you doing?"
The president withdrew her Dragon Eyes and approached me.
"We're the guides."
When this dungeon first appeared, no one could clear it. Not because the monsters were hard, but because we couldn't find the way.
No matter how much we circled, we could never find the path to the boss room, and no one could escape this dungeon.
But who were the users?
As people who always found answers, they recalled the origin of Arachne, the spider in Greek mythology, and the labyrinth of the Minotaur. Eventually they found a breakthrough.
The method was to gather the threads dropped from this spider and roll them up while advancing, revealing the real path.
Roughly, after rolling the spider webs, I grabbed the protruding thread at the end and rolled the ball on the floor.
Now I just needed to keep going forward, killing all the spiders and gathering the spider webs.
Sisissit!
Three spiders crawled from the ceiling and floor.
Aww, these cute exp gains.
"Alright, this time prepare to finish off 2, 3, and 4!"
I'll suck you dry for the heroines.
"Player-nim fighting!"
In a corner of the planning team in the heavenly world, Operator 14, called 'Angel' to Jeong Jojun, stared at the screen with her small hands clenched.
Usually, when Jojun didn't need her or when he was concentrating, Angel would come up to the heavenly world and monitor him with a screen illuminating the world.
"Cyah! As expected, player-nim!"
Angel cheered with a significant reaction even without Jojun next to her.
The sight of Jojun swinging the Levatein beautifully and slicing through the coming spiders in the frontline was too fatal to the angel.
"Wow, player-nim is parrying that."
Suddenly, a spider popped out from the gap in the cave and swung its front leg, but Jojun calmly found the intersection of the spider's front leg and the timing without flinching and swung Levatein at perfect timing.
Originally, the player-nim who cleared the hard mode with just simple control.
With the spirit sword skill giving wings, and boosting with Levatein, this dungeon would be cleared easily.
The angel looked at the Jojun on the monitor with pride.
At the end of the angel's vision, who was leaning back on the chair with some leisure, Operator 1101 appeared pouring coffee.
Operator 1101 pouring coffee in front of the coffee machine with another management team operator.
Eh? Why is that guy smiling?
Operator 1101, whose face was ugly, made the angel's mood worse naturally as she chatted.
Now, seeing 1101 talking and laughing, the angel felt a strange unease.
Is it possible that like last time, she let out her resentment in this hidden dungeon?
Slyly lowering her body, the angel approached behind 1101.
"Huu~ This time, I can finally suck some causality~"
"Yeah! Honestly, after releasing such a monster-like thing, it's strange not to suck causality."
"That's right, just clearing the demon king wouldn't be enough. We can suck twice as much...."
A chill.
Instantly feeling killing intent, 1101 turned around.
"You bastard, what?"
Operator 14, who even tigers listened to, glared at 1101 with flashing eyes.
"No, that's not it..."
1101 stumbled and slowly backed away.
Glancing at the side, trying to ask the management team junior for help, but the junior had disappeared.
As soon as seeing the crazy dog 14 spreading rumors in the management team, she ran away.
"What is it then."
Creak.
Seeing 1101 approaching slowly with fists open, 1101 cried.
'Save me, you crazy woman.'
So, the excuse for 1101's life began.