23. Training Dungeon (1)
A clear blue sky stretched beyond the window, and beside it lay a vast, pristine sea of clouds.
A strangely familiar sight.
Naturally so—in my past life as a mercenary, I'd seen it every time I boarded a plane for a mission. The only difference was that this time, I was on a train.
Its official name: the Endurance. Its nickname: the Sky Train.
Since I hadn't ridden it once since getting expelled, this was the first time in over a decade I'd set foot aboard.
Memories of being sent back down to the surface after only half a year came flooding back, and with them, I made my resolve all over again.
This life, I would never allow anything so disgraceful to happen.
No expulsion,
no death of someone dear to me,
no end of the world.
I would make sure no one ever defeated me, either. Having centered myself with that fresh vow, I finally regained my composure.
I swept a hand down my face and turned my gaze to the women seated just ahead of me.
"It is truly regrettable that there are no in-flight meals."
The future leader of the Heavenly Demon Cult, Cheon Yuha.
The red-haired girl had been beside herself with excitement at first that the train could fly through the sky, but once the novelty wore off, she'd turned sullen and started blaming the train's abysmal onboard service.
"The ride's too short, what do you expect? And you're already stuffing your face as it is, so quit whining."
The green-haired elf, Elenor Andersen, chided her friend with a sharp-tongued drawl.
Still, the faint curve creeping up at the corners of her mouth betrayed that the teasing was only possible because they were close.
Cheon Yuha, for her part, didn't seem bothered by it in the slightest.
All of her attention was devoted solely to chomping down the muffin she'd extracted from the crew.
No, is she just completely thoughtless?
Just as I was about to voice my disappointment at the Heavenly Demon Cult's image, which had somehow begun to plummet in my mind, Cheon Yuha continued the topic she'd been on earlier—still munching away.
It was about the weekend suburban volunteer work I'd done without her, and the so-called internal energy drive.
"Borrowing internal energy, you say. Did that professor truly pull off such a remarkable invention? I heard the Sorcery Department's craft was impressive, but it seems the rumors were true."
Cheon Yuha, who hadn't experienced the device herself, tilted her head with a puzzled expression.
Admittedly, it was hard to believe just from hearing about it.
It had been an astonishing technology, one even I—who had lived through what came a dozen years later—was encountering for the first time.
Even I, who had survived to the Great War's end, knew nothing of it. A truly unprecedented innovation.
So this is another part of the future that's changed.
Despite the fact that I hadn't really done much of anything, the future kept shifting on its own.
Damn butterfly effect. I supposed I must have influenced something somewhere again.
Still, could an invention really come together that quickly?
"Then again, that pumpkin-headed professor might secretly be a genius of the century."
"Hm, that is true. Whether it be martial arts or magic, a single catalyst is enough to make a leap forward—so technology would be no different."
Cheon Yuha seemed roughly convinced by my words, nodding along.
Elenor only twitched her characteristically pointed ears, showing no particular reaction—though she kept chewing at her own honest lips, as if she too wanted to say something.
What a hopelessly dishonest creature.
And so, with Cheon Yuha serving as our relay, we carried on a string of idle conversation.
She looked quite busy reacting to the conversational scraps the elf and I tossed out while working through her muffin, but that didn't last long.
Clunk.
At last, the train reached the ground.
Seoul, the city of skyscrapers.
It wasn't some hall arranged inside the academy solely for duels. It was a real city, right before my eyes.
The capital of a nation that had grown by drinking its full of the runoff from Seondo, the floating island drifting near the East Sea.
It was advanced enough to rank among the world's top ten cities, but since my companions were all scions of renowned families, none of them showed a flicker of surprise.
"Where is Gyeongbokgung Palace! Is there time to visit or not!"
That is, everyone except Cheon Yuha, who was fussing up a fresh storm.
Shaking my head, I gazed out at a city that felt like the hometown I'd once lived in.
By the measure of my stay, it hadn't been long—but it was still a place where I'd bought a home with my own hands.
It's peaceful.
The traffic-clogged roads and the air thick with fine dust were a far cry from leisure or comfort, and yet they felt peaceful to me all the same.
Ever since the Great War broke out, I hadn't even been able to see a scene like this.
Somehow I was feeling sentimental today, but I decided it was time to stop.
There was no more time to stand still.
Dwelling on the past was one thing—and it was, in fact, time to move.
"Keep both eyes open and watch closely—no wandering off. Alright, line up and follow your teacher."
The lecture: The Ecology of Dungeons and the Demon Realm.
Ordinarily a theory class held on Wednesdays and Thursdays, but this time we'd come down to the surface for hands-on fieldwork—actual dungeon exploration.
For all that Seondo had almost everything, dungeons were the one thing it couldn't offer.
So in their place, we would be exploring a dungeon within the territory of the Republic of Korea.
The Training Dungeon.
Except it wasn't the experience of a naturally occurring dungeon, not exactly.
There were simply too many unpredictable variables for that, and managing a group through one would have been a nightmare.
Instead, a fully cleared dungeon had been specially treated—preserving its original functions while being completely renovated.
A space designed to let students experience a dungeon's dangers in full, while still remaining within their handlers' control.
The crowd of cadets, moving under their professor's lead, soon filed into a building somewhere in the city.
A structure whose exterior looked perfectly suited to serve as a museum or memorial hall.
After passing through stern security at the entrance, we arrived at a wide-open space.
A semicircular lobby.
And at its center shimmered a cluster of glittering light.
The so-called portal—the dungeon's one and only gateway.
It was the notorious Training Dungeon, where first-timers were guaranteed to suffer.
Before sending the cadets in, the ecology professor walked us through the material from previous lectures one more time: the monsters' behavioral patterns, the traps set into the walls and floors, and other defining features.
Then, finally, he tossed out a remark meant to stoke the students' enthusiasm.
"Now, this field trip comes with a prize on the line. Generously, all the way down to third place. Winners will receive elixirs crafted by the Hestia Workshop."
He quickly added the predictable lecture about how safety mattered more than breaking records, but I couldn't have cared less about any of that.
Third place? No—I'm taking first. Without question.
Part of it was wanting something from the Hestia Workshop, famous for its elixir crafting—but more than that, my competitive fire was burning hotter.
...Because in my past life, I had died an absolutely ignominious death in this dungeon.
Was it third from last? Or fourth?
My skills had been poor at the time, for one thing, and while the other cadets had all experienced a dungeon at least once with their families, that had been my very first time.
Yes, I had a whole stack of excuses back then.
And every one of those excuses was worth absolutely nothing to the me of now.
I had long since shed those pathetic, unskilled days, and I carried the history of surviving countless dungeons of every shape and miserable variety imaginable.
There was no need for excuses anymore.
The only goal was first place.
I intended to finish it before anyone else, without question.
A perfect, flawless run.
Apparently, I wasn't the only one thinking that way.
"Hey there, Gangjun."
When the voice reached me and I turned my head, I found a warrior with smoldering eyes.
Known as the future Heavenly Demon and young master of the Heavenly Demon Cult—but even setting that aside, she was a genius already bearing the epithet of Martial Dragon.
Cheon Yuha raised the corner of her mouth with perfect composure and held out her hand to me.
"Doing it plainly would be dull. Shall we not wager on who clears it first?"
She meant for us to compete over our clearing records.
Her voice was as light as ever, but the strength and resolve in her eyes were dead serious.
This girl. She genuinely intended to beat me.
I stared down at Cheon Yuha's outstretched hand for a moment—then, wearing the same smile, clasped it firmly in mine.
"Alright, you're on."
I had staked my wager on myself.
After waiting our turn, we entered the dungeon.
Crossing the portal brought a brief sensation of weightlessness, and by the time I got my bearings, I was standing in a cave.
A rocky cavern with only a single path forward, and no one else in sight.
Just as I finished taking in my surroundings, a message flickered into view in the corner of my vision.
You have entered the Training Dungeon.
One of my old colleagues from back in the day had once said it reminded him of a VR game.
That it felt just like a game message.
I'd been too busy scraping by back then to know much about the man's accursed game systems, but there was one thing about them I understood perfectly.
That the process of playing a game always comes with an objective.
And dungeons were no different.
Reach the exit before anyone else.
"Simple as can be. What's not to love."
This was exactly why, back in my mercenary days, dungeon runs had been my favorite jobs.
No one to kill, and no compensation to pay for smashing the city's public property.
"How long did it take me last time, I wonder."
Had I escaped in about an hour?
Rummaging through my memory, I nodded and set a concrete target.
"Ten minutes."
Any more than that was time I didn't need.