Into the Dungeon (7)
With a wet, choking sound, a bright red clot of blood burst from Instructor Nike’s mouth.
The crimson spear had driven itself between his ribs and clean through his heart.
The fanatical zealot who had fallen for a cult was now staring death in the face.
"At last."
Instructor Nike murmured it while looking up at the sky with empty eyes.
"So this is where I’m going. To Cheonyang."
A religion that claimed to transcend death itself.
Even now, the madness of it was sickening.
Cheonyang was supposed to be the world where a person’s soul went after death, the place it lived on.
At a glance, it sounded like a peaceful, beautiful utopia.
But the Cheonyang-ji cult leader preached that only the people he chose were allowed to remain there.
The cult leader’s word was truth. If you didn’t listen to him, you would never reach Cheonyang; you would be condemned to wander the Nine Heavens forever, suffering without end.
What a load of bullshit.
A long shadow stretched out in front of me as the sun slowly sank toward the horizon.
I had no idea where this dungeon was in the galaxy, or whether it was just a virtual reality copy of Earth, but monsters and the seven emotions of man existed here all the same.
Instructor Nike lifted his head and looked at me. Blinded by the backlight, he narrowed his eyes and muttered, "Hunter Choi. Maybe you really are my savior. You saved me, after all."
The same man who had bared his eyes with bloodshot rage and threatened to kill me was now wearing a look of strange relief.
And then I remembered the rumors I’d always heard about him inside the Dio Guild.
For 365 days a year, he wore shabby clothes and insisted on eating only the bare minimum.
Nike the miser.
Even though he was an A-class hunter with a huge salary, he spent money like it was poison.
That must have been the only way he could live.
The Cheonyang-ji cult took most of its followers’ income and surrendered it to the cult leader.
What a believer owned was essentially the cult leader’s property.
After taking everything except the money needed to maintain the most basic life, they stripped the rest away as if by force.
Maybe he had been living in hell all along.
"...Jyejye. I’m sorry."
The focus left Instructor Nike’s pupils as the spear lodged in his heart.
Jyejye?
At the very end, what he thought of wasn’t the cult leader, but someone named Jyejye.
Who the hell is that?
After a moment, the hardened alloy liquefied back into its original state and turned to blood.
Covered in that blood, Instructor Nike collapsed to the floor as a cold corpse.
A heavy silence settled over the dungeon.
I had punished a traitor, and yet this time I didn’t feel satisfied at all.
Disgusting.
Instructor Nike had been nothing more than a puppet, manipulated into committing murder.
That didn’t mean he was innocent.
But there was still one more bastard who absolutely deserved to die.
I turned my head and looked at Ha Se-na.
The Cheonyang-ji cult leader had wanted her.
That was why he had ordered Nike to massacre the interns and bring her back alive.
"Ha Se-na. Do you know anything about Cheonyang-ji?"
Ha Se-na drew in a ragged breath.
"Before I awakened, I met the cult leader once. The chairman of the high school I attended was connected to Cheonyang-ji."
The Cheonyang-ji cult leader especially liked standing in front of young students.
When he gave speeches in front of them, he must have made contact with Ha Se-na there.
"He said he’d support my living expenses if I came to Paradise Garden and joined him."
Paradise Garden was the enormous estate where the Cheonyang-ji cult leader lived.
There, he had built his own kingdom with thousands of believers.
"Of course I said no. The fact that the bastard even put a hand on my shoulder made me want to puke."
I had no idea why the Cheonyang-ji cult leader wanted Ha Se-na so badly.
If I trace it back through Ha Se-na, maybe I can get to the cult leader.
As if she had read my mind, Ha Se-na said, "Choi Yongki. I’ll help too."
Her gaze was fixed on the dead Instructor Nike.
"There can’t be any more victims."
Bang Su-hwan, standing beside her, chimed in as well. "Me too! Hyung-nim! Just tell me what to do."
Everyone’s eyes naturally turned to Lee Ji-jun.
After all, he had been the one who provided the practical help in bringing Nike down.
"Well, if the boss says so."
Lee Ji-jun shrugged.
Before I knew it, the interns had all started treating me like their leader.
Thinking back to how we’d bickered when we first met, it felt like our teamwork was slowly coming together at last.
Lee Ji-jun pointed toward the gate.
"By the way, is it true? They say it’s a total wasteland outside."
Maybe it was a coincidence.
Unfortunately, the cult leader’s prophecy had turned out to be right.
No need to let them know I already know the future.
I shoved White Revenge back into its scabbard.
"We’ll find out when we get out there."
We had come in as seven.
But only four of us were heading for the exit.
The floor was slick with blood that hadn’t yet dried.
That was the true face of a dungeon.
No matter how people dressed it up as an unknown world or a gold mine that would advance science, in the end it was nothing more than a horrific scene of human beings dying by the dozen.
With me in the lead, the interns followed behind.
"Let’s go."
Leaving the tragedy behind us, we were swallowed once again by the world of light.
Sure enough, when we emerged from the gate, Gangnam had become a scene of utter chaos.
Bird-type monsters were flying through the sky, slamming their wings into the sides of buildings.
Shattered chunks of concrete and glass rained down like hail.
"Su-hwan."
"Yes, Hyung-nim!"
Bang Su-hwan raised his shield and blocked the falling debris.
On the ground, monsters were rampaging.
A Big Lava had curled itself into a ball and was bouncing around like a cannonball, crushing hunters beneath it.
Cerberus was drooling all over itself as it chewed on a pair of legs that didn’t even seem to belong to anyone.
I had expected this, so I stayed calm, but the rest of the team was not so composed.
"Damn it!"
"What the hell happened...?"
"Pretty obvious. They failed to suppress the multi-gate."
There had been thirty-five gates in the Gangnam area alone.
Even if they had blocked thirty-four of them, if they let one slip, this was the mess that would follow.
A Hydra spat out a mass of thick saliva.
"Watch out!"
I shoved Ha Se-na aside to pull her out of the line of attack.
The acidic spit melted the asphalt.
"Th-thanks."
"Keep your head on straight."
Looking around, I could see that a fair number of Dio Guild personnel were mixed in among the people fighting.
"Where’s Hunter Na Sang-min?"
"The other guild masters aren’t here either."
"I don’t see Bong-seon or Vulkan."
Everyone was unconsciously looking for the S-class hunters.
That was also why the damage from the Gangnam Station multi-gate incident had grown so severe.
It was later revealed that they had wiped out the boss monster in a short time, but then gotten lost inside the dungeon and wandered around for ages.
During that time, innocent victims kept piling up.
Hunter Regulations, Article 1, Clause 1.
First: protect civilians from monsters.
Even if I wasn’t a hunter, I still had a direction to move in as a hero.
"Let’s clear this area first."
"Okay."
At my words, Lee Ji-jun conjured a Blood Knife.
We split up and moved to subdue the monsters.
Lee Ji-jun drove his blade into a beast’s neck, while Bang Su-hwan used his shield to smash a goblin’s body apart at the torso.
Ha Se-na was also doing her part, healing the injured as she went.
The only silver lining was that the monsters here were, comparatively, on the lower end of the scale.
That was when it happened.
Out of nowhere, a horned ogre tore apart four hunters and came charging straight at me.
"GRAAAAH!"
A truck caught on its sharp claws was ripped apart like paper.
The ogre was a high-tier Ruins-class monster.
It would take several A-class hunters working together just to bring one down.
A monster that powerful had suddenly appeared.
And there wasn’t just one.
Five ogres charged me all at once.
"Hyung-nim!"
From a distance, Bang Su-hwan called out to me, veins standing out on his neck.
Shit.
I still had a restriction on me.
Instructor Nike’s special talent was still in effect.
Because his sword had wounded me, my hero abilities had been sealed for twenty-four hours.
Judgment of the Superhuman and Infinite Acceleration from Super Kid and Speeder’s Infinite Acceleration were both out of reach.
The only thing I could still use right now was Mr. Eden’s illusion magic, Allusia.
It had been a devastating blow that threw Instructor Nike into confusion, sure.
But just making an illusion would only buy time.
I couldn’t kill the monsters with that alone.
"RAAAAH!!"
The five ogres rushed in from every direction.
They raised claws that jutted out like blades.
No. I can do this.
I reached both hands out into the air.
Ten orange magic circles formed and were sucked into the ogres’ pupils.
It was the same kind of illusion magic as before, but this time there was one difference.
The ogres hesitated and lifted their heads.
They no longer looked at me.
Instead, they turned their eyes toward the other monsters in front of them and began attacking.
"GRAH!"
"KUAAA!!"
"KHEH!!"
Claws pierced throats, horns stabbed into bellies, and jaws tore out necks.
Like snakes devouring one another and then devouring again, the five ogres each dealt fatal wounds and killed themselves off instantly at the same time.
Thunk.
And in the middle of it all, I alone remained standing.
Allusia wasn’t just the simple act of showing hallucinations. It had another function too.
It could forcibly impose specific commands. In other words, brainwashing.
The command I had forced onto the five ogres was simple.
Kill each other.
The operation had succeeded perfectly.
Brainwashing didn’t work on intelligent humans, so I couldn’t use it on Nike.
But monsters? I could use it on them as much as I wanted.
That gave me enough room to keep fighting for the next twenty-four hours, no matter what.
I climbed onto the corpse of the fallen ogre at my feet.
A cool breeze blew by, sending my hair fluttering.
I had only just come out of the dungeon, so I hadn’t even had time to wipe the purple blood from my face.
The people watching were left with their mouths hanging open.
"Who is that guy?"
"He’s from the Dio Guild."
"...I’ve never seen that face before."
Since there were all kinds of large and small organizations gathered in the battlefield besides Korea’s three major guilds, it drew attention instantly.
Just then, someone emerged from the gate.
It was Na Sang-min and the people with him.
"Fuck! I got dragged all over the place because of that shitty formation!"
The strongest hunter from the Dio Guild had come out of the gate and quickly assessed the situation.
"What the hell are these stragglers!"
His silver spear flashed.
That was all, yet the monsters were shredded into pieces as neatly as if they’d been sliced by a cube cutter.
With his skill, he could have wiped out every beast here and still had energy left over.
But—
"Why the hell are there so many? Fuck!"
Because the gate still hadn’t closed, monsters were pouring out without end.
So this was the so-called monster wave.
If things kept going like this, even if we fought all night, fresh ones would just keep coming.
Na Sang-min stopped swinging, gripped his spear properly, and then slammed it into the ground while shouting, "Everybody gather up!"
With his order, everyone gathered in one place at once.
When Na Sang-min spotted the interns, he asked, "Why are only you guys here? Where’s Nike?"
"......"
No one answered, but Na Sang-min understood it anyway.
It was common for people to enter a dungeon and never come back out.
In other words, he was dead.
"Good. From here on, we’re going to clear the other gates. We’re reorganizing the team. You, you, and you!"
As befitted his simple, blunt personality, Na Sang-min chose the straight-ahead solution.
He planned to take the multi-gates in Gangnam one by one.
Of course, it wasn’t the wrong answer.
If all the gates were closed, the situation would settle down.
The problem was—
It would take too long.
When it came to gate closure, time was everything.
The longer we delayed, the more lives faded into the dark.
Since there weren’t enough people, Na Sang-min even selected the interns.
"The rest of you four, follow me."
"Hunter-nim."
Na Sang-min and I met eyes.
"What? Choi Yongki. Scared shitless already?"
Slowly, I wiped the violet blood from the corner of my eye.
"I won’t be going in."
"What?"
Na Sang-min’s face twisted in anger, as if he was about to explode.
"Send me somewhere else, alone."
The truth was, I already knew.
The only solution capable of suppressing a multi-gate in one stroke.