Chapter 20: Mock Dungeon (4)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 20: Mock Dungeon (4)
Joo Han-kang looked around and snorted.
“This is supposed to be a dungeon?”
“Tell me about it.”
The path was far too simple. After one or two forks in the road, they had yet to encounter a single proper trap, and the only monsters they’d seen were those goblins from before. At this rate, they’d reach the center in no time.
Ancient-looking patterns were carved into the walls, but they did little to create any sense of tension.
“My buddy said Gaon’s dungeon classes were a real bitch, but this is nothing, huh?”
Han Iri grumbled nonchalantly as he walked on.
“All we have to do is think about which team we'll run into.”
Joo Han-kang said, his expression hardening.
Han Iri stopped for a moment, mulling over his words. Then he asked.
“Who do you want to face? Yohan?”
“I don’t know about a one-on-one with Yohan, but there’s no way we can beat his team.”
The members Yohan brought to the mock dungeon were the same ones he’d team up with after graduation.
A Hero and the Crusader who protects him.
“Then who?” Han Iri asked again.
“Jung Hae-in.”
“Honestly, with Cheon Yeo-wool gone, I thought I’d be the seed, you know? But then some parachute bastard shows up… I heard he was on Yu Hana’s team before, right?”
“Yeah. That’s what they say.”
Joo Han-kang scoffed and spoke again.
“He totally got carried.”
Han Iri chuckled lightly and nodded.
"Who do you want to face?"
At Joo Han-kang's question, Han Iri seemed to ponder for a moment before turning his head away, feigning indifference.
But inwardly, he already had his answer.
To be honest, he’d fallen for her at first sight at the start of the semester. Han Iri was used to being confessed to, not the one doing the confessing.
This time, however, he swallowed his pride and kept trying to approach her.
But every time he worked up the courage to go to her, her answer was always the same.
‘Sorry, I have to go meet a friend.’
On top of that.
‘She told me to use her last name…’
He had once boldly called her by her first name.
‘Call me Ha Sion.’
He could never forget the cold look she gave him that day.
From that moment on, this ‘friend’ she was always going to see became a constant source of irritation.
“Me too.”
He finally answered, feigning indifference.
“Jung Hae-in for me, too.”
He couldn't tell if it was jealousy, anger, or simple competitiveness.
But one thing was certain.
He wanted her to see him defeat ‘Jung Hae-in’.
“Well, I’m just… curious what kind of guy he is.”
Han Iri said with a placid smile, but his eyes were already wavering wildly.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Jung Hae-in's team was in a safe zone.
“Hah… Hae-in…”
Team Jung Hae-in had already triggered the seventh trap.
With monsters thrown in for good measure, Kim Dae-hyun felt more exhausted than he had in any training or battle before.
“Are maze-type dungeons always this hard…?”
-Hahaha, yes, let’s just die!!
Beside them, Yoon Sang-hyeok had lost his mind.
After breaking through the sixth one, an arrow that had grazed past his crotch seemed to have been the final trigger.
“No.”
Jung Hae-in was just as bewildered.
But beside him, Sion caught her breath and answered.
“It’s a maze-type, but it seems to be mixed with an exit-type as well.”
An exit-type dungeon has a clear entrance and exit, with two portals generated on either side.
The path from the entrance to the center is concentrated with obstacles and traps, while the exit is structured for an easy pass with almost no interference.
That's why in actual practice, they're sometimes called 'cakewalk' dungeons, since you can clear them backward by finding the exit first.
Dungeons are usually designed around a single characteristic, but sometimes they appear as a hybrid of two or more.
“I can feel it as we get closer to the center. The center isn’t the end of this dungeon. I think there’s a path leading to an exit, too.”
In other words, this dungeon was a vicious, complementary hybrid, combining a maze-type with few monsters and an exit-type packed with traps and monsters.
As Sion explained this, Yoon Sang-hyeok, who they thought had lost his mind, flew into a rage.
“Wait, so you’re saying we’re on the entrance side, and the bastards coming from the other direction are having a fucking cakewalk?”
“That’s about right.”
Jung Hae-in nodded in response to Yoon Sang-hyeok's frustrated shout.
“What the hell is this…!”
“And…”
Just then, Sion cut Yoon Sang-hyeok off, quietly raising a hand.
“If we can break through just one more time, we should be at the center.”
*
For the students who weren't chosen, the mock dungeon was providing more entertainment than a simple practice session. The video feeds of each team, visible from their seats, were more than just study material—they were the best show in town.
“Whoa, shit. Looks like Yu Hana’s gonna beat Yohan.”
“Is that Kang A-rin even a student…?”
On the center screen, scenes of several teams already clashing in the central area were playing out.
It seemed the intention was to make them fight no matter what.
However, Yong Hyun-seong, a student ranked in the top 100, was watching the feed of a somewhat overlooked team.
The two teams that had yet to meet.
“What? They still haven’t arrived? They’re so slow.”
A student asked him.
“They are, but…”
His gaze naturally shifted to the screen showing the maze-type dungeon.
‘The difficulty for the two teams is just too different…’
At first, he’d simply thought Jung Hae-in’s team was slow, but a closer look revealed a clear difference.
Han Iri’s team’s dungeon was overly simple. There were no noticeable monsters, let alone traps; it looked like they could reach the center just by walking.
On the other hand, Jung Hae-in’s team’s dungeon was completely different.
It wasn't just the combination of traps and monsters; the overall difficulty was clearly on another level.
But at the center of their steady advance through these obstacles was Jung Hae-in.
The way he cut down monsters, evaded traps, and broke through looked less like a practice session and more like a battle waged by pro Heroes.
Yong Hyun-seong’s gaze gradually became fixed on Jung Hae-in’s movements on the screen.
Noticing the quiet around him, Yong Hyun-seong lifted his head and looked around.
“Whoa… what’s this?”
One by one, the students’ eyes were being drawn to Jung Hae-in’s screen.
Even those who had been scoffing at the feed just moments ago were now silently following Jung Hae-in’s every move.
At first, it was just a few of them. But soon, the entire class began to fix their eyes on that screen.
“…”
No one spoke, but the silence was intense.
“What is… that guy?”
Someone muttered in a small voice.
The words seemed to echo like a signal. The surrounding students glanced at each other and nodded in agreement.
That guy—no, Jung Hae-in—was definitely,
something different.
*
We finally broke through the last obstacle and were resting in the final safe zone.
Unlike the others, however, this last safe zone had a timer counting down.
It was probably the instructor’s warm ‘consideration,’ telling us not to rest and to hurry into the center to fight.
“119… 118… 117…”
Yoon Sang-hyeok lay sprawled on the floor, counting down the seconds on the timer.
“I want to die…”
I stared at the tightly shut door leading to the center before finally speaking.
“As you all know, the enemy team is waiting for us beyond this door.”
“And they likely cleared the exit side. They’ll have a lot more stamina left than we do.”
Sion and Kim Dae-hyun listened to me quietly.
Dae-hyun’s shield was half-broken, and Sion, aside from a few stray hairs, was still composed.
“So?”
When I hesitated, Yoon Sang-hyeok lifted his head from where he lay and looked at me.
I was debating whether or not to say what was on my mind.
There was a possibility, but half of me was thinking, ‘No way.’
As my silence stretched on, Sion gently prompted me.
“Hae-in, if you have something to say, go ahead.”
I nodded and said.
“So, how do you think they used their spare time?”
Yoon Sang-hyeok lifted his head and thought for a long moment, then his eyes widened. He flopped back down and muttered.
“…No way… They’re not complete sons of bitches, are they?”
I couldn't say I didn't understand his reaction.
Beside me, Kim Dae-hyun asked with a serious expression.
“Don’t tell me… you’re talking about traps?”
His guess was correct.
Traps were an essential element in person-to-person combat.
They play a major tactical role, especially in situations like domination-style battles.
That's why person-to-person combat classes always teach how to use traps.
But this is a mock dungeon class.
The premise doesn't include threats like outside invaders or Mines; it only assumes an engagement between two teams when they meet.
For them to have set traps despite that means they were more concerned with the upcoming battle than with simply clearing the dungeon.
Besides, traps were an extreme measure, typically used against high-risk targets like vicious wanted criminals, Mines, or monsters.
Using them against other students in a standard combat class was going way too far.
“So, Hae-in, what do you want to do?”
Sion asked me, her gaze fixed on me, her voice still gentle.
The numbers on the timer slowly ticked down, echoing in my ears.
There wasn't much time.
“I…”
*
“Okay, that’s enough. Get up here, quick!”
The center of the dungeon.
Han Iri’s team had already arrived.
It seemed that for the dungeon’s reward to appear, the doors on both sides had to be open.
But no matter how long they waited, the other team didn’t show.
That was when Joo Han-kang proposed an idea.
‘Let’s set up traps.’
At first, his teammates were reluctant.
But Joo Han-kang quoted the instructor’s words—‘You must win’—and gave a long speech, eventually getting his way.
The question of ‘Did the instructor really mean for us to anticipate the enemy’s arrival and neutralize them with traps?’ had already vanished from their minds.
Only the desire to win remained.
After meticulously finishing the trap installation, Joo Han-kang and his teammates hung from the second-floor railing of the ruin-like central area and waited.
Their eyes were fixed on the opposite door.
“But… what if they get really hurt?”
A teammate who had been against it from the start asked Joo Han-kang worriedly.
“It’s just a practice session. They won’t get hurt that badly.”
Joo Han-kang answered dismissively, and Han Iri added with a laugh.
“Besides, isn’t it their fault for taking so damn long to clear a dungeon this easy?”
“True. They’ll probably get taken out by the traps alone, right?”
They looked at each other and laughed.
-KUNG
It was then.
The door on the opposite side of the central area opened, and the dungeon’s reward materialized in the center.
“They’re here.”
In that tense moment, four figures swiftly entered.
And then, moments later.
-KABOOOOOM!
An explosion.
An ear-splitting roar erupted as a sandstorm engulfed the area.
Their vision went dark, and the air shook with the pressure.
“Yeah! That was awesome!”
The effect of the explosion was greater than they’d imagined. It was a good thing they’d set it up for monsters.
The handmade mana bomb, crafted by their alchemist teammate, had perfectly met their expectations.
‘With this, we could even beat Yohan.’
Joo Han-kang waited for the sandstorm to clear, his face filled with hope.
Slowly, the dust began to settle.
Silhouettes emerged from within the half-cleared dust.
And they… were standing.
‘They’re standing?’
Joo Han-kang was stunned.
As the dust cleared some more, he saw Jung Hae-in waving the dust away with an annoyed expression.
And next to him was Ha Sion, who had pinpointed their location in an instant with her sharp gaze. Her lips moved, as if announcing their position.
“Hey, you shameless bastards!!!”
Yoon Sang-hyeok’s voice, erupting from the side, echoed through the training ground.
His hair, matted with sweat, was a mess as he screamed at the top of his lungs.
“Who were you trying to kill with this shit??”
The four of them were perfectly fine. Joo Han-kang swallowed hard and scanned the area.
And then he saw them.
The mangled corpses of trolls, blown to pieces by the explosion.
It hadn’t been four human figures.
‘Ah.’
Four monster corpses, thrown in quickly, had triggered the traps.
‘We’ve been found out.’
Jung Hae-in’s gaze finally landed on them.
His cold eyes locked onto their position as if piercing right through them.
He raised a hand and beckoned with his finger, gesturing for them to come down.
“Come out.”
At his cold, chilling expression, a frigid shiver ran down the spines of Han Iri and Joo Han-kang.