Into the Dungeon, Part 8
Na Sang-min’s voice sank. “Hey. Choi Yongki.”
His face was so red it looked ready to burst.
“What did you say? Say it again.”
I knew exactly why he was so furious.
A D-class hunter.
And not even that—just a damn intern.
How pissed off would anyone be to see some greenhorn making a scene in the field?
Still, it couldn’t be helped.
Back in the dungeon, I had made a reckless declaration to Instructor Nike.
Even if I was weak.
Even if fear seized me.
Even if the shadow of death closed in on me.
As a Hero, I would “save everyone.”
I stood my ground in front of Na Sang-min.
“I’ll handle it.”
Everyone else watching us went slack with shock.
They must’ve thought I was being reckless.
Or that I’d lost my mind.
Na Sang-min grabbed me by the collar.
“You think this is a joke?”
“No.”
I met his gaze with complete seriousness.
“Trust me.”
Life was absurd like that.
Of all people, Nike—the instructor who had once belonged to that cult—had stressed one thing above all else: trust.
He’d taught us that the only way out, when you were standing on the edge of disaster, was to believe in one another and lean on each other as hard as you could.
Never thought I’d be the one following those words.
Somewhere in the distance, an explosion boomed.
Everybody flinched, but Na Sang-min didn’t even blink. He just glared at me.
“What’s the plan?”
That surprised me.
I could see his attitude shifting little by little.
People said he’d only become a hunter because of the outrageous salary.
They called him Dio Guild’s mad dog.
But as the leader of the strike team, he was still trying to find the best possible answer.
“Tell me the details.”
“The multi-gate—”
I pointed at the oval shape radiating white light.
“It looks like each gate is separate, but they’re actually connected as one. If we close the main gate, the rest will shut down immediately.”
Na Sang-min twisted his lips.
“Are you taking me for an idiot? Even a kid knows that.”
He wasn’t wrong.
What I’d said was the kind of thing that was in every handbook.
Multi-gates were connected like a spider’s web.
Once the main door closed, the rest would shut all at once.
The only way to stop gates opening all over the place was to find the main gate as fast as possible.
The problem was obvious.
No one knew which gate was the main one.
So all you could do was storm in and out of gates like a lunatic until you got lucky and found it.
And while that happened, hunter casualties were unavoidable.
That made my suggestion pretty efficient, in the end.
When I kept speaking with unshakable conviction, Na Sang-min finally took a step back.
“Fine. I’ll gamble on it, even if I have to be stupid about it.”
He let go of my collar.
“I don’t know what you’re so damn confident about. But if you pull this off, I’ll do whatever you want, Choi Yongki.”
Was that stubborn pride of his just a front? Or did he really carry that much responsibility?
Maybe he just desperately wanted to reduce the damage from the multi-gate.
Either way, I’d learned something new about him.
Maybe he’s a better guy than I thought.
The moment even a little goodwill started to form, Na Sang-min’s expression twisted into something demonic.
“If you fail, disciplinary action won’t be enough. I’ll kill you myself.”
I nodded.
Na Sang-min turned to the others.
“How many people do you need?”
“Just me—”
“Can interns go too?”
Bang Su-hwan shot a hand into the air.
He’d been holding back this whole time, but now he finally butted in.
Ha Se-na and Lee Ji-jun joined him as well.
“Let us go too.”
“Please.”
Na Sang-min had a rotten temper and a violent streak.
But he wasn’t an S-class hunter for nothing.
With a ruthless decisiveness and sharp command, he reorganized the team in an instant.
“Okay. Interns stay out. The rest of you, cover Choi Yongki.”
Then Na Sang-min looked at me.
“Choi Yongki. You’re the key man for this operation.”
A key man was someone who played the central role in solving a problem, someone whose power matched that responsibility.
This time, it meant the person who would close the gate.
Na Sang-min finished speaking and disappeared into the gate.
Only then did Bang Su-hwan let out a sigh of relief.
“Hyung-nim, could you maybe turn on your blinker before charging in? Every time you stand in front of Na Sang-min, I feel like my heart’s gonna give out.”
I gave his shoulder a pat, and Ha Se-na and Lee Ji-jun naturally came over to gather around.
“What do you need us to do?”
“Just say it, boss.”
Screams were breaking out everywhere.
The world was still hell.
I pulled up the map on my phone and pointed ahead.
“Follow me. We’re heading that way.”
Toward the symbol of Gangnam—and the artery that fed South Korea.
The Han River.
A fierce battle was raging on the bridge connecting Apgujeong-dong.
Slash!
A hunter from Jincheon Guild cut a hydra clean in half.
The acid spewing from its gullet splashed toward the hunters from Superior Guild.
“Duck!”
“Tch!”
He barely avoided the acid, but one of his legs seemed to be twisted, and he was limping badly.
Jincheon and Superior Guild were working together to evacuate civilians.
“Hurry, cross to the other side!”
“There’s a shelter set up near Geumho Station! Move, move!”
The nation’s major guilds had gathered around Gangnam-gu.
With the exception of the Awakened who chose to hide themselves away, the strongest people had all converged here.
A hunter from Jincheon watched the civilians crossing the bridge, which had turned into a nightmare of blood and chaos.
We can’t let the monsters get past Dongho Bridge.
Yongsan-gu, Jung-gu, Seongdong-gu—
No one could even guess how far the damage would spread.
Monster corpses littered the bridge.
There were more than a hundred of them.
A hunter from Superior Guild was dragging his leg as he panted for breath.
The Jincheon hunter approached him.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, this is nothing.”
They were wearing different kinds of protective gear in different colors.
They were the commanders of their respective strike teams, Jincheon and Superior.
Both had received the same order.
Hold the defensive line.
Their job was Defender.
They were to hold the last line drawn in front of them, no matter what.
“Here, use this.”
The Jincheon hunter handed over a cooling spray.
The Superior hunter took it and sprayed his ankle.
The cold sensation touched his Achilles tendon, and his steps loosened up at once.
“Nice. Where’d you get this?”
“Jincheon supply. You guys don’t have stuff like this?”
“Of course we do. Don’t act so smug.”
Guilds were inherently exclusive groups.
They rarely worked together because everyone was always chasing their own interests.
But this wasn’t a normal situation.
For a little while, the two men became comrades.
The Superior hunter handed the spray back and said, “I’m Dohun Lee. Call sign: Cream.”
“I’m In-seok Kang. Call sign: Jaryong.”
The ones leading the teams were A-class and A+ class hunters.
The Jincheon hunter tilted his head.
“Cream? Like whipped cream? What a childish call sign.”
“Superior’s call signs are taken from the peninsula. The Crimean Peninsula, in the Black Sea in Eastern Europe, and—aw, forget it. What’s the point of talking to an idiot?”
“What? You little—”
The warm atmosphere turned nasty in an instant.
The Superior side, which was already indebted, gave in first.
“Then Jaryong, like Zhao Yun from Romance of the Three Kingdoms?”
“Hah. You’re smarter than you look.”
Only then did Jaryong and Cream look each other in the eye.
They had been fighting for hours, covered head to toe in monster blood and entrails.
After so long in battle, their bodies felt as heavy as wet blankets.
Fatigue kept piling up.
“Want a smoke?”
Jaryong held out a cigarette.
Smoking was forbidden during combat.
Cream had always taken the rules seriously, too.
But this was hardly a normal situation.
“Sure.”
Jincheon lit the lighter.
Cream drew in the smoke deep into his lungs.
“Haa. Can’t even enjoy this, either.”
“Tell me about it. I’d retire and go farm if I could.”
The conversation didn’t last long.
They had no choice but to crush the half-burned cigarettes under their heels.
More monsters were already surging up from the far end of the bridge.
“Heh. Here we go again.”
“Thanks for the cigarette. I’ll pay you back someday.”
“Tch. The Superior guys sure know how to talk big.”
“We’ll see who’s still standing.”
In the middle of that brutal battlefield, camaraderie bloomed like flowers on cracked asphalt.
The next clash began at once.
Jaryong’s sword transformed into a gun, and he unleashed indiscriminate suppressive fire toward the bridge.
Cream spread a layer of white, fluffy mana across the ground, then made it burst upward like a field of spikes.
“Kieeek!”
“Kraaaah!!!”
They were holding off the twelfth monster wave.
“Puhahaha! See? Whipped cream suits you.”
“Laugh all you want. You’ll die from it someday.”
The two men exchanged stupid jokes while sweating through every inch of their bodies.
“Hey. Let’s drink after this. How about some whipped-cream beer?”
“You paying?”
“You stingy bastard. You were happy to bum cigarettes off me. Fine. I’ll buy!”
And then—
An ogre they thought had already died suddenly lunged in with its claws raised high.
Its blade-like hand hacked off one of Cream’s arms.
“Ghk!”
Jincheon shot the ogre’s head apart, then caught Cream as he collapsed.
“Hey! Cream!”
Blood gushed from Cream’s shoulder.
His severed arm rolled across the ground.
“Healer! Get a healer here now!!!”
Jincheon shouted until his veins stood out like ropes, calling for someone from his guild.
But no one answered.
There were no healers left alive.
Not just healers, either.
He slowly looked around.
There were dozens of dead hunters.
Even as the horror of the massacre piled up, birds flew calmly overhead in a V formation, as if nothing had happened.
The bridge trembled as monsters swarmed forward.
The thirteenth wave had begun.
Cream muttered through a cold sweat, “...Sorry. Looks like I can’t pay back that cigarette.”
With only one arm, he couldn’t fight properly.
If this continued, he’d die from blood loss in no time at all.
Strangely enough, Cream was very calm.
He had always accepted that possibility whenever he fought on the front line.
That he could die at any time.
“I was gonna buy the beer.”
As Cream’s life ebbed away, a shadow fell over Jaryong’s face.
On a bridge piled high with monster corpses and human bodies alike—
“Stop talking nonsense. Hold your blood.”
Jaryong laid Cream down and stood alone.
With their leader out of commission, Superior Guild’s will to fight began to crumble.
“Commander Cream is...”
“Are we all dead now?”
Jaryong braced the gun that could transform into a longsword against his shoulder.
“No. We survive. We hold out till the end and we make it back alive!”
The words worked.
Jaryong took the lead, and Jincheon and Superior joined forces.
Thud-thud-thud!!!
Flame spat from Jaryong’s gun.
Even if they killed every monster here, it would be meaningless if they couldn’t close the gate.
Watching the endless waves of beasts being torn apart again and again, I silently begged.
Please. Please let us close it before that happens.
Click.
When they finally repelled the seventeenth wave, Jaryong’s gun made an empty metallic sound.
He was out of bullets.
Dark clouds gathered in Jaryong’s heart.
...Is this it?
He sank to his knees.
No one blamed him.
Jaryong lowered his head.
Life really is something else.
There were already too many wounded for any empty optimism to matter.
How merciless.
He didn’t cry out, but deep inside, he was screaming.
He clenched his teeth and forced back the tears pouring out of him.
Then Cream, clutching at his ruined shoulder and groaning, pointed somewhere.
“Jaryong. Look.”
Someone emerged from the fog.
A big, fat man and a woman with a ponytail.
And leading them both, with a head of snow-white hair—
the man at the front walked forward.
Jaryong found a glimmer of hope.
If a high-grade hunter had arrived, that would be a tremendous boost to their forces.
The man stopped in front of him.
He bowed his head slightly and said, “I’m Choi Yongki, an F-class hunter with Dio Guild.”
Jaryong was instantly disappointed.
The I on the chest badge marked him as an intern.
And an F-class hunter, at that.
So they didn’t send reinforcements. They sent baggage.
Jaryong waved a hand.
“Run. You people don’t belong here.”
It was an act of consideration.
He was trying to save at least one more life.
But the man didn’t listen.
Instead, he took command of the battlefield.
“Ha Se-na. Can you reattach that man’s arm?”
“It won’t be perfect, but I’ll try.”
“Su-hwan, get your shield ready and brace for the next wave. Lee Ji-jun, you’re fighting too.”
“Yes, hyung-nim!”
“Roger.”
At once, monsters spilled out of the gate and charged.
Jaryong shouted, “Are you deaf? He’s an intern! There’s no way he can hold them off! If you want to live—!”
The monsters crashed against the giant man’s shield.
Blood sprayed through the air around the white-haired man and fell like arrows in a rainstorm.
Cream’s arm, thanks to the healer, was slowly being stitched back together bone by bone, muscle by muscle.
Even so—
Still not enough.
They didn’t have enough manpower to wipe out this many monsters.
“Urgh... hyung-nim!”
“Damn it. There are too many of them!”
Then the man who seemed to be the leader of Dio Guild stepped forward.
He placed his palm on the ground.
Almost immediately, a massive magic circle formed across the floor.
The monsters within that space froze all at once.
“Kekekek!!”
“Kieeek!!”
When they started moving again, they turned on one another and attacked.
Red and blue blood splattered everywhere.
The maddened monsters hurled themselves into the Han River below.
Their frenzy was so savage it looked like mass suicide.
The man standing in the purple-stained magic circle looked back over his shoulder.
“Everyone, get up. Let’s end this miserable war.”