The Drifting Transport Ship

The very first thing that assaulted the senses of Bennett and his party was the sharp, briny tang of salt in the air.

"What on earth is that smell?"

Bennett recognized it immediately from his past visits to the coast, but the others had no such frame of reference. Never having laid eyes on the ocean, they pinched their noses in bewildered disgust.

Bennett surveyed their immediate surroundings. They stood inside a sealed, cavernous chamber with unadorned industrial walls, resembling a cargo hold or an austere storage bay. Across from them, a solitary door hung slightly ajar, through which filtered a chilly draft and a sliver of blinding, brilliant light.

When the party finally noticed the glare, their eyes went wide.

"S-Sunlight?"

"Could it really be daytime?"

Bennett reached a hand toward the beam. Startled, Kyle and Edgar instinctively moved to hold him back, but the warm brilliance had already washed over his fingers before they could reach him.

"...It's warm."

"Are you all right, Bennett-nim?"

Bennett turned back and gave them a steady nod. "It doesn't seem to be anything like the Blue Moon."

"What a relief," Erika murmured softly.

Stepping forward, Bennett shoved open the heavy, crude steel door until hinges shrieked in protest.

Screeech!

Waiting a brief moment for his vision to adjust to the daylight, he stepped out onto the open deck.

"...It really is the sea."

Stretching endlessly before them lay a deep, dark blue expanse. Just as he had felt years ago back in his homeland, the sheer vastness of the ocean commanded an uncanny, hypnotic pull on the eye. Tearing his gaze away with deliberate discipline, Bennett swept his eyes across the rest of the environment.

The dungeon's title—Drifting Transport Ship—had given him some inkling of what to expect, and they were indeed aboard a vessel. Yet it bore virtually no resemblance to any ship he had ever seen. The first thing that struck him was its sheer, staggering scale.

It dwarfed the fishing boats and merchant galleons of his homeland beyond all comparison. The entire hull was forged of solid steel, bristling with bizarre structural towers and industrial cranes. Stacked across the deck in precise, orderly grids were countless gigantic rectangular boxes—resembling massive rooms crafted entirely from iron. The enclosure Bennett's party had just exited was merely one of them.

Every single container was identical in dimension, stacked atop one another with machine-like precision that radiated an unsettling, oppressive weight. The only discernible differences lay in their individual paint schemes and the cryptic symbols stenciled across their outer panels. Though Bennett and his companions had no word for them, they were looking at intermodal shipping containers—standardized steel freight boxes engineered to haul cargo across the globe.

"I see other parties," Kyle reported in a low murmur.

"Mm."

They clearly were not the only scavengers spawned in such an area. Figures had begun trickling out from adjacent containers one after another. Having emerged into broad daylight in the dead center of an open ocean, the scavengers were gawking at the horizon with wide, incredulous eyes.

Bennett pulled his gaze away from the rival teams and looked down at an adjacent freight unit. "Kyle."

"Yes, Bennett-nim?"

"Pop this one open."

Bennett pointed toward a closed container whose double doors were secured by a heavy iron padlock. Gathering mana around his blade, Kyle drew his sword and swept it across the shackle.

Clack!

The severed lock hit the deck with a heavy thud. Edgar stepped in, grabbed the locking bar, and wrenched the doors wide. An appalling stench rushed outward, slamming right into Bennett's face.

"Rotten food."

The interior was packed with unfamiliar foodstuffs, but so much time had elapsed that the entire shipment had decomposed into an unidentifiable, putrid sludge. The party systematically breached several adjacent containers across their tier, but the haul was thoroughly underwhelming. The only item of any value was a single carton of canned modern dungeon beverages discovered in the final crate.

"Let's head down."

Thud!

Dropping onto the main ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠deck below, Bennett immediately swept his perimeter. While the upper tiers had offered an open, refreshing panoramic view of the sea and the endless horizon, the ground level plunged them into an entirely different atmosphere. Lofty walls of rusted steel boxed them in on every side, exuding a suffocating, claustrophobic pressure thick with the sharp odor of weathered iron. Towering stacks rose high into the sky, bisected only by narrow, shadowy corridors that formed a dizzying, labyrinthine grid.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Kyle and Edgar landed smoothly right behind him, instantly taking up flanking positions to secure opposite directions. Once Bennett assisted Erika down to the deck, he turned his attention to the ground-tier containers.

The stencils painted on the corrugated steel were written in a foreign Dungeon Language distinct from Korean, yet a laminated paper manifest hung clipped beside the locking latch. That document, at least, was printed in clear Korean text.

It laid out a brief string of alphanumeric codes alongside shipping origins and destination points.

Electronic devices?

On the off chance that it held something usable, Bennett severed the seal and pulled the door open.

Within the dim interior rested neatly palletized cargo. Tearing open an outer carton, he uncovered a collection of sleek, minimalist white product packaging that exuded an unmistakably premium finish.

— iPad Pro 13.

Beneath the English lettering was a photograph of the sleek device inside—an item Bennett recognized on sight.

"Tablets."

Though the model differed slightly from the devices they had retrieved inside the Closed Police Headquarters, its flat, ultra-thin profile confirmed it was the exact same category of hardware. And there were dozens of them packed neatly into the pallet.

Bennett opened his sub-space storage and swept the entire haul inside. Given how lucratively the previous batch had sold, this crate alone promised a substantial return.

Outside, the rest of the party continued breaching neighboring containers to inspect their contents. While several were fortified with multiple padlocks or wrapped in thick chains, they posed no real obstacle; a single clean slash of an aura-clad blade sheared right through them.

"Bennett-nim," Kyle called out from an open container. "We found more shoes and handbags, similar to the ones from the department store back then... Should we take them?"

"Luxury goods?"

"Yes, they carry the exact same brand emblems as the merchandise we recovered previously."

Kyle asked out of caution because past transactions had taught them that Earth's so-called "luxury designer goods" were surprisingly inconsistent in value within the city's markets.

"Pack them for now," Bennett instructed. "We can always dump them later if inventory space runs tight."

"Understood."

With no way of knowing whether this expedition would yield an extraordinary jackpot or modest scrap, Bennett preferred to leave nothing of potential value behind.

Shweeet!

As Kyle stepped out of the container carrying a crate of designer apparel, his expression instantly turned glacial.

CLANG!

A whistling projectile shattered against Kyle's parrying blade. In the same breath, Bennett raised the Shooting Star, pivoting toward the source of the trajectory.

"Aaargh!"

The distinctive rapid mechanical clicks of the repeating crossbow overlapped with an agonized shriek from above. Edgar stepped in front of Erika with his reinforced shield locked in place. A javelin whistled through the narrow corridor and clipped his shoulder, but—

Ting!

The steel tip skipped cleanly off his armor with a bright metallic chime, repelled entirely by the heavy pauldron he wore over his standard kit. Seeing Edgar deliberately throw his bulk into the line of fire to shield her, Erika gasped in surprise.

"I'm fine, don't worry about me!" Edgar roared.

Shoving Erika safely behind the bulkhead of an adjacent container, Edgar braced the shield with both hands.

THWACK! BANG! BANG!

Unlike the initial javelin, a barrage of heavy steel ball bearings began hammering against the shield face like hail.

"Edgar."

"Give the word!"

Falling back behind Edgar's massive frame, Bennett issued terse orders: "Hold this position with Kyle and Erika."

"On it!"

His anomalous psionic energy rippled outward from his core, reading the layout of the containers and tracing every living signature across the narrow corridors. Having pinpointed the shooters' elevations and formation in an instant, Bennett triggered Flash Sprint.

Fwip— Fwip—

Like a shadow bounding up a staircase, Bennett flashed upward—vaulting from the first tier to the second, and from the second straight to the third.

One of the ambushers caught a blur of movement out of the corner of his eye and swung his weapon to re-aim, but there was nothing there.

"Did I see things?" the shooter muttered.

"No, your eyes were working just fine."

"Wh—"

A heavy bolt punched straight through the crown of the shooter's skull. The ambusher crumpled like a puppet with its strings severed.

The dead man wore the distinctive garb native to one of the distant continents, but Bennett didn't spare him a second glance as he vaulted toward his next target.

Crossing the gap with another mid-air leap, Bennett closed the distance in eerie silence. Across the container roof lay another foreign scavenger, prone on her stomach and launching heavy ball bearings from a tactical sling. Despite her slender frame, her wiry, corded arms drew and released the sling with mechanical rapid-fire rhythm.

Bennett drifted up behind the unknown woman and clamped both hands firmly around her head and chin. Startled by the sudden grip, she parted her lips to cry out, but he gave her neck an uncompromising, violent twist.

CRACK!

"Urgh..."

Her breath snuffed out instantly, the woman slouched forward onto the metal roof, her open eyes glazing over into lifeless glass.

Securing the highest vantage point in the immediate sector, Bennett pulsed Detection once more. Spatial telemetry flooded his consciousness, painting the exact coordinates of every hostile. There was an unusually large pack of foreign scavengers gathered here—far too many to constitute a single standard raiding party. Bennett swung the Shooting Star toward the nearest cluster.

Thwip! Thwip!

"Ghk!"

"Aaargh!"

One by one, the snipers harassing his team from elevated perches dropped out of the fight. With the relentless hail of javelins and steel bearings finally drying up, Edgar and Kyle seized the initiative below.

Scores of melee fighters were converging on their position, attempting to overwhelm them with superior numbers. But Edgar and Kyle used the narrow container corridor to their complete advantage, funneling the clash into a series of brutal, one-on-one choke points.

Dual stone lances manifested simultaneously beside Erika, hurtling forward in parallel trajectories to impale the approaching vanguard. In a single spellcast, five men were violently skewered. The sudden display of high-tier dual-casting sent shockwaves through the remaining attackers, while Kyle and Edgar pressed their momentum with ruthless efficiency.

Kyle channeled his esper ability into his blade, suddenly extending its metallic reach to skewer enemies right through the chest. Unprepared for a sword that lengthened without warning, the vanguard coughed up crimson spray, hanging limp over the extended steel.

"Come and get it!" Edgar roared.

Relying on his colossal bulk, Edgar charged forward behind his reinforced shield like a runaway battering ram. Facing that mountain of armor and muscle, the ambushers could mount no effective resistance.

CRUNCH!

Those struck head-on by the shield were hurled backward, crashing into the men behind them and triggering a cascading domino of broken bodies.

"D-Damn it all!"

Even so, the attackers did not break easily. In the frenzy of the brawl, desperate men hurled daggers and swung blades at every opening. Most strikes lacked the leverage or precision to pierce plate, yet combat always invited unpredictable misfortune. A haphazardly thrown trench knife whistled directly toward Edgar's exposed face—a vulnerable gap unprotected by his plate helmet.

"Got yo—!"

CLANG!

Expecting the steel to bite flesh, the attacker's eyes flared in horror as sparks exploded from Edgar's cheek. The thrown blade bounced harmlessly away against gray, hardened skin. It was the defensive product of Edgar's esper ability—metallic skin hardening—though the attacker never had the chance to comprehend it. A crossbow bolt slammed between his eyebrows a fraction of a second later, extinguishing his consciousness on the spot.

Thump. Crack. Splat.

"Clear on my side!" Kyle shouted, shaking the blood from his blade.

"All done here too," Edgar grunted.

As the pair reset their stances over the fallen, Bennett dropped lightly down between them, both hands laden with high-grade spoils stripped from the snipers on the upper tiers. Since they couldn't carry everything, he had selectively looted only the most ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠valuable equipment.

"Good work, everyone."

"Thank you, Bennett-nim!"

Though the ambush had caught them unawares, the party's expressions remained bright. Surviving a skirmish like this invariably brought a rich harvest of spoils. Bennett immediately sent Kyle, Edgar, and Erika to scavenge the bodies while he climbed back to a high vantage point to stand watch against secondary ambushes. Despite the sheer body count, the disciplined team cleared the corpses with swift efficiency.

It was right around then that Bennett's senses picked up a new disturbance.

"Another party is heading this way, drawn by the commotion," he called down. "They're still some distance away, so let's move."

"Yes, sir!"

At first, Bennett assumed they could easily shake off their pursuers within the maze of container corridors. That assumption, however, proved mistaken within minutes. No matter how many abrupt turns Bennett took or how cleverly he routed through the alleys, the approaching group adjusted their trajectory like bloodhounds locked onto a scent.

A scent tracking skill? Or tracking magic?

Leaning toward the latter, Bennett glanced over at Erika. "It feels like we've been tagged with a tracking spell."

"J-Just a moment!"

Sprinting alongside them, Erika swept her short wand in intricate diagnostic arcs. Her brow furrowed almost immediately.

"From what I can tell... there's nothing on us. No mana traces at all."

"So it's not tracking magic?"

"...Or the caster tracking us is vastly superior to me," she confessed, biting her lip in quiet frustration.

Bennett refrained from jumping to conclusions. Dungeon scavengers possessed all manner of tracking methods—from the shamanic curses of the foreign continent to the esoteric miracles of religious zealots. And if not that, the tracker might simply possess an abnormal esper sense of smell.

The gap between them continued to shrink.

Pulsing Detection at regular intervals while calculating their next defensive stand, Bennett suddenly froze, his brow knitting tightly.

Wait...

The ambient temperature was spiking.

Slowly at first, then with unmistakable, terrifying speed, the surrounding air grew sweltering. The sunlight beating down from the sky felt noticeably, unnaturally scorching.

Bennett snapped his head upward to scan the sky.

Without an instant's hesitation, he unholstered his Chainsword and severed the heavy padlock of the nearest freight container with a single screeching slash.

"Inside! Move, now!"

Shoving Kyle, Edgar, and Erika bodily into the dark interior, Bennett threw himself in last and slammed the heavy iron doors shut behind him.

"B-Bennett-nim?!"

Bewildered by his sudden urgency, the party called out to him, but Bennett was already pulling heavy dwarven steel chains from his dimensional storage. He wrapped them tightly around the interior locking bars and cinched them down with ruthless speed. Though the links were slender, they were forged from premium dwarven alloy of exceptional tensile strength.

"Erika, ice magic. Now!"

"Pardon?" Bewildered as she was, her training kicked in, and she instinctively began weaving mana into a frost matrix.

"Bennett-nim, what is going on all of a sud—"

Kyle's question died in his throat as a prickling wave of heat washed over his skin.

Drip!

A fat drop of sweat rolled down his jawline and splattered against the metal floor. Not just Kyle—every single one of them was suddenly drenched in sweat. Perspiration poured off them like rain. The interior of the sealed container had transformed into a suffocating sauna in mere seconds, the air baking with oppressive heat.

"Erika!"

"I-Ice!"

Erika unleashed two layered frost spells in rapid succession. A crisp wave of sub-zero chill blasted through the chamber, temporarily knocking the escalating temperature back down. Yet the reprieve was agonizingly brief. The rime of frost coating the container walls hissed and evaporated into steam almost immediately, and the sweltering heat rebounded with twice the ferocity.

Sssssss!

"Gah!"

Edgar recoiled violently from the hull, clutching his hand. The back of his knuckles, which had briefly brushed against the corrugated wall, were blistering bright red.

"A-A burn?!"

"Drink a potion immediately—"

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The entire party whipped their heads toward the door. Someone on the outside was pounding against the steel panels with frantic, terrifying ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠desperation.

"O-Open the door! Let us in!"

"It's burning! It's burning out here!"

Furious, maddened attempts were made to wrench the latch from the outside, but the dwarven chains held the steel doors completely rigid. Outside, the desperate pleas rapidly devolved into bloodcurdling curses and shrieks of raw agony. And then, through the thin seam of the door, drifted the sickening, unmistakable stench of scorched meat.

"Aaaaargh! AAAAAAAAGH!"

"M-My body... I'm on fire! I'M BURNING ALIIIIIVE—!"