Chapter 46
Chapter 46
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 46
Chapter Title: Camouflage Dungeon-2
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[24 hours later, the dungeon entrance will open.]
“Huh? Oh? It looks like we can get out in 24 hours! A new message just popped up!”
The other hunters were in the same boat.
They exchanged opinions, wearing expressions of relief at having survived, suggesting they just wait quietly at the dungeon entrance.
“If it were a regular dungeon, that’d work fine, but this is a camouflage dungeon. The dungeon itself is a monster. In cases like this, we should head toward the center instead.”
“Ah….”
Kim Minjun directed the hunters to follow him.
They hesitated for a moment but soon fell in behind him.
This group only had privates and upper privates.
With hardly any dungeon clear experience under their belts, they figured it made sense to follow Sergeant Kim Minjun’s lead.
“Speaking of which, the dungeon itself being a monster… that explains the message that popped up earlier.”
“We investigated in advance just in case, but I never dreamed it’d be a camouflage dungeon.”
“From what I know, camouflage dungeons only show up with a one-in-ten-thousand chance… and of all places, this one….”
The message telling them to return the magic stone to its original position.
They’d gone and flipped a switch they never should have touched.
Step, step.
They hadn’t been walking into the depths of the dungeon for long.
“Everyone, freeze! Stop!”
“Yes?”
Kim Minjun issued a halt order to the hunters.
“Don’t move a single finger.”
They looked puzzled but adopted a rigid stance upon seeing the serious expression on Kim Minjun’s face.
“It’s here.”
Whoosh!
Kim Minjun glanced around before kicking at the ground near a private.
Boom!
“W-What is that?”
There had clearly been nothing around, yet something flew through the air with a whooshing sound.
“It’s a stealth monster. There are more still lurking, so don’t move.”
“Y-Yes, sir!”
“Got it….”
At the mention of stealth monsters, the hunters’ faces went pale.
Stealth monsters.
Exactly as the name implied: monsters that couldn’t be seen.
Among them, low-grade stealth monsters were easy to detect by presence, but the ones they were facing now were not.
That meant at least mid-grade monsters or higher.
“Where do you punks think you’re hiding.”
“Kieeeek!”
Kim Minjun bashed the monsters lurking near the hunters, and their forms soon revealed themselves.
They were dark goblins, monsters with appearances similar to regular goblins.
“Human! How did you know we were here! Kieeeek!”
The black-skinned goblins panicked at the unexpected counterattack and put some distance between them.
“Human! You don’t have any weird tools! And yet you spotted us!”
The “weird tools” they referred to were special detectors designed to pick up stealth monsters.
“Hey. Forget that—why’d you guys just pop up out of the ground like that?”
Kim Minjun’s curiosity got the better of him for a moment, and he tossed the question their way.
The goblins hadn’t been tailing them from afar.
They had literally just sprung up from the ground out of nowhere.
“Kieek! A mere human, questioning us!”
“Humans! They’ve got no weapons! Kill them all!”
“Kiiiiieeeek!”
“Tch. Can’t even reason with you lot.”
Kim Minjun told the hunters to fall back before dealing with the goblins one by one.
Dark goblins might sound tough, but once their stealth was nullified, they were weaker than regular goblins.
“Kieeeek! Ignore that human and target the weaklings first!”
As the goblins dropped like flies, the survivors went stealth again, aiming for the hunters hanging back.
“That’s exactly why you’re goblins.”
Such cowardly tactics were never going to work on Kim Minjun.
He used his Grasp of Demonic Energy to yank the charging goblins toward him.
Splurt! Pow!
And just like that, the dozen or so dark goblins met a pathetic end.
“Wow… the dark goblins didn’t even get a chance to fight back….”
“Were goblins always that weak? Nah, that can’t be right.”
It had all happened so fast that the hunters stared at the goblin corpses in stunned silence.
“Hold on a sec. You’re Kim Minjun, right?”
“Yeah. That’s me.”
In the midst of it all, one hunter peered closely at Minjun’s unit insignia before opening his mouth as if struck by a sudden realization.
“Sergeant Kim Minjun of the Invincible Hunters Unit! I know you! You went from private to sergeant in record time, and they say all your stats—including strength and agility—are close to 100! You’re a total monster, right?”
“Nah, 100’s way too much. That’s just exaggerated rumor.”
Looks like rumors always get blown out of proportion.
If all his stats were really 100, he’d have been an officer by now.
“Anyway, thanks a ton for the help! Honestly, when I first saw you, I thought you were just some lunatic.”
“I am pretty obsessed with promotions. More importantly, stuff like this is gonna keep happening for the remaining time, so stay sharp.”
“Yes, sir!”
**
At the same time,
the Hunter Army was in an uproar.
Because the dungeon packed with a massive haul of magic stones had turned out to be a camouflage dungeon.
There were ten hunters trapped inside.
And on top of that, Sergeant Kim Minjun from another unit had charged in to rescue them.
“When’s the special equipment arriving? Have we requested additional support from HQ?”
“It’ll be here in 30 minutes! Additional gear will take 10 hours!”
“Damn it all! 10 hours? Have you reported to the 104th Division?”
“Yes, sir! The 104th’s 2nd Battalion commander is on his way!”
The 107th Division’s 4th Battalion commander had rushed to the scene the moment he heard the news.
‘This is bad… of all things, an empty dungeon turns out to be a camouflage one?’
Cold sweat beaded on his forehead.
Because a huge part of why things had escalated this far was his own responsibility.
Normally, when securing byproducts from a large-scale dungeon, they conducted meticulous investigations ranging from a minimum of one month to as long as two.
All to prevent even the smallest variables from snowballing into a major incident.
The problem was that the 4th Battalion commander had skipped nearly half the scheduled investigation process and pushed ahead with securing the magic stones.
‘Ugh… I got too blinded by promotion.’
He’d wanted standout results in a short time to pave the way for his promotion to general.
The odds of a camouflage dungeon spawning were one in thirty thousand.
He’d ignored a tiny variable, and now it had blown up into this.
“Hey! 4th Battalion commander!”
Amid the chaos, a voice called out from behind, addressing the battalion commander.
Colonel Lee Sangjin whipped around and saluted at the familiar voice.
“Sir! Colonel Lee Sangjin!”
Standing before him was the 107th Division commander, Son Taeho, scowling fiercely.
“This place was a camouflage dungeon, huh? Did you even do a proper investigation? The reports will show everything later, so spit it out straight.”
Under the division commander’s threat, Lee Sangjin answered truthfully.
“To secure the magic stones stably, we conducted a two-week investigation before moving them….”
“Hey! You idiot! Two weeks? Do you have any idea how many personnel we sent in there, and you skimped on the investigation like that?”
Son Taeho flew into a rage at Lee Sangjin’s report, spewing curses.
Dungeons requiring company-level personnel needed a minimum four-week investigation period.
This mess was all because of the 4th Battalion commander.
“S-Sorry, sir! The magic stones are fragile to external shocks, so we needed to move them as fast as possible….”
“Shut your mouth! Don’t give me that lame excuse! Do you even grasp how badly you’ve screwed things up? If even one soldier dies in there, it won’t just be you getting reamed—I will too, you fool!”
Son Taeho grabbed Lee Sangjin by the collar and glared at him.
A soldier getting seriously injured and one dying were entirely different matters.
Even a single death would rebound all the way to the division commander.
“We’ll deal with you after this blows over. Forget about getting any stars. Got it?”
“Yes… Understood.”
“Then get moving!”
“Y-Yes, sir!”
“Back in the day, I would’ve beaten you bloody! You moron!”
Son Taeho chewed out the 4th Battalion commander for a bit.
“Sir! 2nd Battalion commander from the 104th Division reporting!”
The battalion commander, having heard about Kim Minjun, arrived and saluted the division commander.
“Phew… So, Sergeant Kim Minjun was on leave, right?”
“Yes, sir! According to previous reports, he charged into the camouflage dungeon to rescue the trapped hunters!”
“This is a headache. No matter how skilled he is, clearing a camouflage dungeon with zero gear is impossible.”
Son Taeho immediately contacted Hunter HQ to request permission to use mana bombs.
“We’ll try breaching the entrance with special equipment first. If that fails, we go with mana bombs. I’ll take responsibility and get the approval.”
“Yes, sir! Please!”
Mana bombs cost as much as a whole apartment just to fire once.
They were unstable too, requiring at least two explosives experts to handle.
“That money’s nothing. Lives come first.”
Son Taeho stared at the camouflage dungeon’s entrance for a long while.
**
Half a day had passed since Kim Minjun and the hunters got trapped in the camouflage dungeon.
Splurt! Crack!
The camouflage dungeon periodically unleashed monsters to threaten the hunters’ lives.
“Ah, stats going up feels great. No more coming?”
Compared to regular dungeons, it sent out more monsters, and they were stronger too.
But to Kim Minjun, they were still just one- or two-punch fodder.
[Strength stat increases by 1.]
[Stamina stat increases by 1.]
[Stamina stat increases by 1.]
He even yelled at the dungeon to send out more monsters already.
“Hey! Is that all you’ve got as a camouflage dungeon? Send some tough ones! These stat gains are too measly!”
Hundreds of monster corpses littered the area around him.
The hunters marveled at his inexhaustible stamina.
Half a day in, and he didn’t look tired at all.
They could hardly believe it even watching it firsthand.
“I feel like my stamina drops just from breathing in a dungeon….”
“That’s normal, man. Kim Minjun’s the exceptional one.”
Staying in a dungeon for any length of time built up fatigue.
The sensation varied by person, but it was at least three times worse.
That’s why Hunter Army folks obsessively trained their stamina.
‘Hmm. About 12 hours down now. Just gotta hold out another half day to get out.’
Kim Minjun scanned the hunters hanging back.
Their stamina was visibly depleted at a glance.
Even though he’d minimized movement for their sake, this was the state they were in.
‘Every time like this, I get jealous of healer classes.’
As a black mage, he had zero skills for healing targets.
“You guys look beat, but just 12 more hours and we’re out. You don’t have to do anything—just endure. Anyone here flunked a hunter mobility drill before?”
At his words, a few privates cautiously raised their hands.
“Just treat it like training. This is way easier than a mobility drill. All you gotta do is hang in there.”
“Yes… We’ll endure, sir!”
Kim Minjun encouraged the hunters and sharpened his senses for a few more hours.
“…Finally here.”
He sensed the presence of the monster he’d been waiting for from deep within the dungeon.