Red Portal (3)
The unease that had been spreading at the mention of the Death Reaper lasted only a moment.
"No time to dawdle."
Jeong Sowon's cold voice snapped everyone back to their senses, and they all turned to look at her. Whether they had recovered or were still standing there slack-jawed made no difference to her. She started walking forward again.
She did glance back once, but she turned her head away immediately, so maybe she really wasn't paying them any mind. Then again, she kept looking this way every so often as she went, so it wasn't that she didn't care.
At the sight of Jeong Sowon striding ahead, the team members hastily abandoned their rest and scrambled after her in a gait that was neither quite walking nor quite running. Having set out after her early, I watched the whole procession from up ahead.
It didn't quite fit this dangerous dungeon or the atmosphere hanging over us, but they looked like a flock of chicks trailing after a mother hen.
Well. Just a useless thought.
Honestly, I was genuinely curious how she could be so composed in a dungeon of this unimaginable difficulty. If you had the leisure to rest, if you had the leisure to let your imagination spin out worst-case scenarios, the right move was to take even one more step forward.
Were these guys just simple-minded, or did they have some actual reason to be this relaxed? No matter how I looked at it, simple-minded seemed more likely.
"W-wait a second!"
Watching them come running like that only confirmed it.
We were walking through the cave again. Every so often a grotesque wail would echo through the dark. The sound of something in the cave being smashed apart. And those unsettling footsteps following us from behind.
"Ugh..."
Someone beside me groaned — a sound that even our footsteps and breathing couldn't cover up.
"What's wrong?"
Alexa asked the frail-looking guy. Sowon was the leader, no question, but nobody could expect her to look after the team, so Alexa had naturally taken on that role.
"I-I need the bathroom..."
Did he really need to announce that he had to go? We weren't walking that fast. Even if it took him a while, he could have just gone off on his own and caught up. He could have gone ahead and rejoined us later, even. The reason he was saying it anyway was simple.
"What are we, your babysitters?!"
Jennifer's voice came out harsh, and maybe she was being a bit much — but I agreed with her.
"If that's all it is, handle it quietly."
Dang I-yeon chimed in as well.
"We don't have the luxury of worrying about that kind of thing."
Softer than what the others had said, but the meaning was the same.
"Just shit yourself. Who cares in a dungeon?"
"I don't wanna..."
Jennifer's words might have sounded bizarre, but apparently people soiling themselves in high-stress situations wasn't uncommon. That said, it was still extremely rare for something like this to happen at the Academy.
"There's a Death Reaper chasing us from behind, and that's what's on your mind."
Dang I-yeon's words were the finishing blow. Silence. In the end, the guy who didn't get to go to the bathroom followed along in a markedly quieter state. He was probably just waiting until the next rest stop.
I felt a little bad, but we couldn't wait around for him either. Checking the state of your own guts was an important part of dungeon work, after all. He should have taken care of that before we even entered the dungeon.
"We're almost there."
After walking and resting and eating and, yes, making bathroom stops, Jeong Sowon said it out of nowhere.
"Really?"
The one who lit up the most was, of course, the timid guy. The dungeon's atmosphere itself had become familiar enough after a while. I hadn't felt all that exhausted, but not knowing how long we'd have to keep walking had been wearing on me. I just hadn't expected him to be that happy about it.
"This godawful dungeon is finally over."
Honestly, this gloomy atmosphere had been hard to endure.
"I didn't say it was over."
Jeong Sowon poured cold water over the brightening mood.
"It's not over...?"
To be fair, if it ended with just walking, it wouldn't really be a dungeon. I'd thought maybe an instance dungeon would wrap up like this, but apparently not.
"Boss."
"There's a dungeon boss too?! This is an instance dungeon!"
Jeong Sowon gave a slight nod and started walking again.
How long did we walk after that? It wasn't that long. After what felt like ten minutes at most, we found ourselves facing a massive door.
"This is supposed to be an instance dungeon..."
"This doesn't make any sense! How is this an instance dungeon?! How is this a practical exam?!"
"We might need to have a word with the instructor."
The team members each had something to say, but complaining to the instructor was something you could only do if you made it out alive.
"Do you happen to know what kind of monster the boss is?"
Throughout this whole ordeal, Jeong Sowon had been acting in ways that were genuinely hard to understand. And for good reason — how did she know this dungeon in such exhaustive detail?
The way she'd been tense even before we entered this Red Portal, as if she'd already known something was wrong with this instance dungeon. And after that — knowing how long each fork in the path would take. Knowing what monsters would appear at those forks. On top of that, she'd even been aware of the Death Reaper chasing us from behind. Combined with the way she moved as if she could see what lay ahead, and the fact that she knew there was a boss at all...
Jeong Sowon was acting like someone who had already been through this dungeon.
Simply knowing the information wasn't enough to explain it. Movements this natural didn't come from visiting once. It meant she'd been through this dungeon enough times for it to be burned into her body.
So she probably knew what the boss monster was, too. She definitely knew.
I couldn't even begin to guess what Jeong Sowon had been through, but getting out of this dungeon came first. And all of these thoughts were meaningless anyway. It wasn't like I'd have anything more to do with Jeong Sowon after this.
The peculiar nature of the Academy as a place. It accepted students purely for the purpose of education, without regard for status, origin, or strength — that was the only reason we'd even met. The peculiar makeup of this team had played its part too. The freak pairing of the top student and the dead last. Without that, even if we were in the same Academy, even in the same Marksman Department, I probably never would have even seen her face.
So she was someone I wouldn't have any more business with. Whatever Jeong Sowon's circumstances were, I had no reason to care. No need. All I needed to know was what the boss monster was. And once we took it down, we'd go back. Go back... and see Kang Areum, or Amelia. Go back to everyday life.
"You asked what the boss monster is."
But Jeong Sowon's tone changed in an instant. It wasn't the cold, line-drawing voice she'd been using until now. The moment the words left her mouth, she shoved the door open.
Light flared brightly ahead of her, and far in the distance, as if greeting us, a single chair came into view.
"What is this..."
Don't tell me Jeong Sowon was the boss of this dungeon. Was that why she'd been acting like this? But there were too many things that didn't add up. If Jeong Sowon was the boss, how had she gotten out of the dungeon? And a dungeon boss attending the Academy? Then again, I hadn't expected this scene either.
"Don't tell me... you were the boss all along?!"
Jennifer started shouting, a look of realization dawning on her face.
"Yeah. The way you moved like you knew this whole place. I thought it was weird."
Dang I-yeon agreed. So something had been bothering her too — but suspecting Jeong Sowon?
"Knowing the length of the forks was already strange. But the boss..."
Even Alexa had bought into it. I'd thought these guys were dumb, but I hadn't realized they were this dumb...
"Hey. Yeonho."
"M-me?"
She pointed at me with her finger as she asked, and Jeong Sowon nodded. How did Jeong Sowon know me well enough to single me out? Sure, I was famous for being dead last, but we'd never had any contact. Watching me fluster, she continued as if it were nothing.
"The Marksman Department practical team has five members."
Five...?
"Five? But there are six of us—"
The moment I registered that fact, goosebumps erupted across my entire body.
"Kyaaaaah!!"
A chill shot up my spine, and at the scream I whipped around.
"You... you knew, didn't you?"
A grotesque grin. A tongue licking blood off a hand. And Jennifer clutching her arm.
That was...
"The dungeon boss. A Doppelganger."
A Doppelganger. A shapeshifting monster. It didn't devour people and take their place like in comics or movies, but its unique mana had the power to distort the memories of those around it. That was probably why I'd been calling that thing "the guy." A pathetic bastard who couldn't even use mana, yet still got hit with the full effect...
"Don't blame yourself so much, Yeonho. At least I know."
Those words, as if she could read my mind, sent another wave of goosebumps through me.
As she drew a bow nearly her own size from a fiercely rippling space, those words weren't a guess or a plan.
A declaration.
To Jeong Sowon, it was already a confirmed future.
Over there, the Doppelganger was transforming with a sickening crunch into something grotesque. It looked every bit the monster it was. But Jeong Sowon, radiating mana that surged visibly through the air, staring the Doppelganger down with ice-cold eyes — she looked even more like a monster.