Instant Dungeon (2)
“Monster movement…?”
Choi Yeon muttered in a voice that held no certainty. The way the sand and dust were shifting did not look like any ordinary natural phenomenon. It could have been some quirk unique to the dungeon, but he was leaning toward another possibility—that the monsters were chasing after the people who needed rescuing.
It might have been nothing more than wishful thinking. Maybe he was just spinning empty hopes, praying that the people he knew and the child with them had not come to harm. Even so.
Choi Yeon leapt from the pine treetop. Betting on that slim chance, he sprinted toward the rising dust. The moment the cause came into clear view, he skidded to a halt.
“Sung-yoon…!”
The long ears of the rabbit mascot costume flapped wildly. Orc spears and blades swung, aiming to slash and pierce those ears. They came close—so close they nearly connected—yet never quite landed, and with every near miss dozens of pounding feet trampled the ground in frustration, kicking up more sand and dust.
The possibility had not remained a mere possibility. It was an enormous relief, but Choi Yeon did not let himself get carried away; he moved. Sung-yoon was still all right for now, but the instant his running speed faltered, those orc blades would stab and carve into the rabbit without mercy.
Choi Yeon pulled a flare and a mana smoke grenade from the holster at his waist and hurled them into the surroundings.
Piiiii—bang! Puh-ung! Bang…!
Light and smoke saturated with mana burst from the flare and grenade. A rising red flare and an ashen smoke that began to swallow the wasteland caught Ko Sung-yoon’s eye; he immediately changed course. Flare and smoke. Figuring out what the two signals meant was not difficult. The orcs chasing him hastily wheeled around to follow.
Their organic flow looked almost like the body of a streamlined animal trailing after its head—until the moment Sung-yoon plunged into the smoke, and the connection snapped.
“Halt! Fog has appeared! Strange fog!”
“But the rabbit went inside!”
“Chwik! Stop for now! It might be poison smoke!”
“Chwiiik! Hate poison!”
Unlike Ko Sung-yoon, who had charged in without hesitation because he understood what it was, the orcs balked at entering the sudden smoke.
“Chwik, surround it for now!”
“Don’t let it escape!”
“Rabbit’s huge! Bound to taste good, chwik!”
Shapes spread out wide, encircling the fog. Confirming they had not come in, Ko Sung-yoon stopped and caught his breath for a moment. Every inhale and exhale left a metallic, bloody taste in his throat—not from the fog, but from having run almost without rest until now.
“Hah… hah…”
“I’m glad you’re safe, Sung-yoon.”
“Hiiik!”
Ko Sung-yoon jumped at the sudden voice. Maybe it was the mascot head, but he looked exactly like a giant rabbit startled by a predator. Of course, the moment he recognized the speaker, the rabbit transformed into one overflowing with joy.
“Yeon-i hyung…! Uwaaah, I’m alive! I missed you! The smoke makes it hard to see, but still—running into you inside a dungeon is so welcome it almost makes me cry!”
“I’m glad to see you too. But… where’s the little girl who was with you?”
Choi Yeon’s voice dropped a fraction. The child who had been dragged into the dungeon with him was nowhere in sight; only Ko Sung-yoon stood there. The parade of grim possibilities that flooded his mind one after another was not simply because he had a negative personality.
Surely not…?
Ko Sung-yoon answered the suspicious Choi Yeon with bright cheer.
“Chae-eun’s in a safe place!”
“A safe place…?”
Where in a dungeon would that even be?
The obvious question rose, but he held it back and waited for Sung-yoon to explain. The orcs were only hesitating because the sudden smoke had thrown them off. The moment they realized it was nothing special they would charge in, so cutting unnecessary talk was wiser.
Ko Sung-yoon pointed back the way he had come.
“If you go that way there’s a forest. There’s a spot blocked by something like a transparent wall, and it’s safe there. Orc attacks don’t even scratch it!”
“That’s…”
Choi Yeon swallowed the rest of the sentence. A transparent wall that stopped orc attacks. He thought he knew what it might be, yet he could hardly believe something like that existed inside a dungeon. It almost made more sense to assume the child named Chae-eun had come to harm right in front of Sung-yoon and driven him into a delusional state.
If such a place truly existed and the child was unharmed, that would be wonderful—but then why had Ko Sung-yoon been fleeing across the wasteland pursued by orcs? He could simply have waited for rescue together inside that safe zone.
“…Why weren’t you in there with her, Sung-yoon?”
“I couldn’t get in.”
“What…?”
“The transparent wall blocked me. Chae-eun passed through fine, but I couldn’t, so I was running away.”
“What do you mean…”
Unbelievable words piled on top of unbelievable words. Was Ko Sung-yoon telling the truth, or was he raving from some mental break? Choi Yeon would have liked to talk it through slowly, but—
“Sniff, sniff! This is just fog!”
“It’s fog, not poison!”
“Charge! Chwiiik!”
“Food! Giant rabbit meat!”
—the orcs gave them no time. Watching the shapes of orcs plunging into the smoke, determined to devour the rabbit, Choi Yeon drew a pair of daggers from his waist.
Then he whispered softly.
“Rest for a bit. It’ll be over soon.”
With that, Choi Yeon’s smiling face vanished into the smoke. Only his voice settled quietly, and the questions he had not managed to voice circled inside him before scattering.
“…….”
The surroundings were hard to see because of the smoke. Choi Yeon was nowhere to be found, and only intermittent sounds—whether orc snorts or speech—drifted through. In the ashen fog where even an inch ahead was impossible to make out clearly, Ko Sung-yoon was alone.
He carefully drew his body in, wary that the mascot-clad form might be spotted by the orcs. He could not let his guard down. Unlike a week ago, simply following Choi Yeon’s words was far harder in a place like this. For an ordinary civilian who was not even a hunter, resting even briefly inside smoke filled with dozens of orc legs pounding the earth was no easy feat.
“Chwik, find it!”
“Rabbit’s in the fog!”
“Rabbit meat! Rabbit meat!”
The orcs’ voices reached him. The ones bellowing at the top of their lungs overflowed with a warrior’s confidence. Ko Sung-yoon clamped a hand over his mouth. The mascot head kept him from sealing it properly, but it still brought a little relief—it felt as though it would muffle any groans or screams that might slip out unbidden.
Thud!
That was when it happened. The sound of something large and heavy slamming into the ground rang out.
What was that?
“Chwik, what was that noise!”
An orc shouted as if voicing Sung-yoon’s own question. No answer came. Only the same sound returned, like a reply.
Thud.
“What was that noise!”
“I ask you, answer!”
“Enemy…! There’s an enemy! Find it!”
“Chwiiik!”
Angry orc voices rolled through the fog. Yet it was the barking of frightened beasts. A hunter would have recognized it at once, but Ko Sung-yoon was only an ordinary person swept up in a dungeon’s birth, and the situation left him nothing but confused.
What? What is it? What’s going on?
Thud!
The sound slammed into the ground again—right beside him. Ko Sung-yoon praised the version of himself from a few dozen seconds earlier who had covered his mouth. Without that, he would have screamed at the noise just now.
“Gather!”
“He’s right, gather!”
“Come to me! There’s nothing here!”
The orcs were stupid, but they understood how the situation was unfolding. They were being hunted. Excellent warriors like themselves, inside the smoke, by someone whose face they did not even know. Wanting to cluster together, the orcs stamped their feet noisily.
Thud, thud! Thud, thud, thud!
Between the stamping, a similar yet distinctly different sound slipped in.
“Chwik! Hurry!”
“If we’re separated we’ll get hit!”
“Hur—”
The orc’s words never finished. As if taking their place, the ground itself screamed with a thud!
“Fox…? No, human! Not a rabbit!”
An orc who had finally spotted the hunter shouted. He had not found the hunter himself. He had simply happened to see a comrade who had dashed up beside him get his throat pierced by a blade.
A faint smile. The hunter grinned, then vanished into the smoke without attacking further. That alone was enough to strip the warriors of their warriorhood.
“…Get out! Everyone out of the fog! Chwik!”
He screamed in terror. Had the others failed to hear the fear in his voice?
“Fight where we can see!”
“He’s right! Let’s go out! If we can see, we—”
His comrades boldly agreed. Before long, though, the now-familiar noise returned. Only after several more thudding impacts did the orcs fall silent. They realized, belatedly, that the ones who had been shouting the loudest had died first. But silence did not guarantee survival, and the orcs knew it. What protected them from the blades was not quiet.
Thud!
“…I’m out!”
Even so, it was not completely useless. One orc who had run quietly burst free of the ashen fog. Flushed with triumph, he thrust both arms high.
“Come out this way! This wa—chwik!”
The orc screamed. A dagger flew out of the fog and buried itself in the upper part of his pectoral muscle. Seeing it, another orc sneered as if the scream had never happened and let out a confident snort.
“Chwik! A little knife like that won’t work! We are the great—”
Thud!
The orc collapsed mid-shout. He had not died the way the ones inside the fog had. An orc’s body was packed with fat like a pig’s, so the dagger never reached the heart. However—
“Body… body won’t move!”
—it could not stop the poison coating the blade. The fat layer would have slowed the toxin’s spread to some degree, but the small knife was long enough to punch through it.
“Poison! Chwik! The human used poison like a coward, gkhhrrk…!”
A dagger flew from the fog and stabbed into his neck. After confirming the orc’s death, interest seemed to vanish; the weapon withdrew back into the smoke, the wire attached to its hilt coiling sinuously.
“…….”
At some point Ko Sung-yoon had stopped covering his mouth and was covering both ears instead. It was so loud he felt his eardrums would burst if he did not. Yet even with his ears blocked the sounds still reached him. Listening longer, he realized they were not the sounds of orcs falling. They were not even coming from the invisible smoke in the first place.
They were ringing from his own chest—from his heart.
Thud—an orc fell, thud—his heart beat. Thud—his heart beat.
Thud… Only his heart was beating.
The moment he noticed that only a single sound remained—
“Sung-yoon…?”
—Choi Yeon returned. Just then the ashen fog dispersed into the air, revealing him clearly. It was the same peaceful face with its naturally sleepy eyes that Sung-yoon had seen handing out flyers on the street.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt somewhere?”
Looking at the questioning Choi Yeon, Ko Sung-yoon thought—no, he decided. He had never done so before, but from now on he would never talk back to Yeon-i hyung.
That was the resolution he made.
The pounding sound no longer reached him.