The Underground (5)
The stems that had been belching heat like radiators were all dead now, so the passage no longer felt like a steamy sauna. Shade had fallen instead, and a cool breeze whistled through.
Hye-mi wiped the sweat-soaked forehead with the back of her hand as she watched the sunlight grow steadily more distant behind them. She already felt a creeping chill. It was like stepping into a cave full of ghosts. Her pores prickled hard enough to make every hair stand on end.
A strange smell hung in the passage—an old, stale stench that had settled deep into the stone. Negative feelings rose in her chest at once.
Huff, huff. The only sounds filling the tunnel were the steady tramp of footsteps and the rhythm of breathing. After a few sharp corners, the sunlight vanished completely. From here on, like it or not, they would be living with nothing but these lamp flames for days.
Belita frowned and rolled her eyes left and right, up and down, scanning every surface. With her fastidious nature, a filthy, grimy place like this could never sit well with her. That was why she normally avoided labyrinths whenever she could. The same reason she had never sucked a man’s cock—because they looked dirty and smelled bad. …Though she sucked Kang-jun’s like candy all the same.
The withered stems crumbled underfoot like dry autumn leaves with every step. The air seemed to grow colder the deeper they went. …No—it really was colder. Everything down here, untouched by sunlight, had gone ice-cold.
Whenever a lamp flame wavered, the people’s shadows wavered with it. Timid Hye-mi startled every so often at those flickering shapes.
Kang-jun’s team walked the passage for a long time before they finally stepped into a vast cavern. The place was familiar to both Kang-jun and Jang Hwa-young—it was exactly where they had killed the queen monster.
The team members stared in wonder at the dozens, hundreds of holes punched densely into the walls of the hemispherical chamber. …If they had ever seen monsters pouring out of those holes in a living swarm, their reactions would have been very different.
A brief hold-up formed there. Kang-jun noticed a single enormous hole in the center where the queen had once been. Originally the massive stems had all converged there; once they withered and shrank, the hole had simply appeared.
“Looks like that hole leads underground.”
“Seems so.”
Kang-jun and Jang Hwa-young both gave small nods, remembering that day. The stems must have continued straight down. Beyond that, nothing more could be guessed.
This place is close to the 52nd District where the great catastrophe hit.
Kang-jun thought that as well. Perhaps the events of that day and whatever was happening here were connected somehow. …Of course, that was not why they had come.
Team 5 soon began descending the hole, and then it was Kang-jun’s team’s turn. Three sturdy ladders had been fixed in place. They climbed down one person per ladder. Judging by the lights visible below, the drop looked about five or six stories high.
Kang-jun’s team reached the bottom. Several signal amplifiers stood in the center—devices meant to keep communications smooth between the teams.
From here on, even Kang-jun knew nothing of the geography. Already a dozen or so holes were visible around them, each marked with a numbered sign. Hye-mi spun around quickly, checking the numbers.
“There’s number six over there!”
Seventeen passages, seventeen teams. They had already been told upstairs that the numbers had been deliberately matched.
“Form up from here.”
Kang-jun set the formation order.
Dealer Lee Kang-jun.
Guard Park Hana, Dealer Liang Zixu.
Dealer Belita, Healer Kim Hye-mi.
Porter Troll Woman, Guard Ogre Man.
Dealer Jang Hwa-young.
Kang-jun stepped slowly into passage six. He first spread his mana in a wide sweep. Thanks to the scouting party’s earlier sweep, no monsters were nearby.
Traces of the withered stems were here as well—proof that the ones connected above had reached this far. …He found himself wondering what had been happening down below at the time.
Dried mucus clung to the passage walls. The strange smell was the same above or below. And the deeper they went, the stronger that stench seemed to grow.
Kang-jun checked the electronic map. Almost no terrain had been drawn inside passage six. Apparently the scouts had simply passed through and come back out again.
Current time: 9:19 a.m.
Outside, the sun would be beating down mercilessly, but down here it felt like walking into a cold storage room. Not freezing, but cold enough.
The passage grew steadily wider the farther they went. Soon they emerged into another vast cavern. The interior was enormous.
Hye-mi craned her neck until it nearly snapped, staring up at the high ceiling. The rest of the team swept their gazes through the darkness the lamp light could not reach.
Kang-jun decided to keep following the stem for now. This entire area was unexplored. There was no way to know exactly where they should go. Every judgment fell to the team leader. Survival rates diverged sharply between teams with experienced leaders and those without. Kang-jun, of course, belonged to the former.
They continued deeper along the stem. Unlike other labyrinths, this one was rather dry. There was almost none of the expected dampness. Not a single common water pool was in sight. He did not know why. Even Kang-jun could not know everything.
They walked for a long time. The clock had already passed ten. Kang-jun finally ordered the first rest.
Haaah. Everyone dropped onto the mats with groans of relief. Hye-mi and Belita immediately began kneading their calves. They took a sip of water and chewed a bite of energy bar.
It was not a full rest, so they soon brushed off their backsides and stood again. At that moment the speaker on the comms unit crackled.
"This is Zero. Six, respond."
Kang-jun lifted the handset.
“Six, confirmed.”
"What is your current status?"
“No problems. Over.”
"Understood. Over."
The transmission cut off. So far the signal was clean. What would happen once they went deeper was anyone’s guess.
Kang-jun powered on Jang Hwa-young’s phone, which was linked to the comms unit. Areas explored by the other teams were being uploaded one by one. The map was steadily expanding.
Kang-jun’s team moved out again. Park Hana, facing a labyrinth for the first time, looked more tense than the others. Kang-jun gave her arm a couple of light pats.
“Just do it the way you trained and you won’t die. Don’t worry.”
“Yes, Team Leader….”
Besides, her trait was specialized against monsters; as long as she did not freeze up and take a fatal hit, she was almost impossible to kill.
“Ah! A wall!”
Hye-mi pointed at the stone wall reflecting the lamp light. They hugged the wall and followed the stem.
And there was another passage entrance. Kang-jun glanced briefly toward Jang Hwa-young, then lifted the handset and tuned to channel zero.
“This is Six. Zero, respond.”
"Zero, confirmed."
“We’ve found another passage. Entering now. Over.”
"Understood. Over."
The call ended and they stepped into the new passage.
Kang-jun kept spreading his mana at regular intervals. At the very edge where the mana thinned, he sensed a presence. …Of course it could only be a monster.
The distance was too great to read the level clearly. After they cleared the long passage he spread his mana again. Roughly level 200.
That same kind of monster from back then.
How could they expand their territory this far? Kang-jun clicked his tongue at their grip on the area. They looked like ant spawn and acted just like them too.
“It’s huge.”
Belita, scanning the surroundings, muttered the single remark. Everyone seemed to agree. Other labyrinths were spacious as well, but this was the first time they had seen one species hold such a vast domain.
“Everyone, combat ready.”
Kang-jun ordered them into battle stance. Quite a few monsters were nearby. They were beginning to enter the creatures’ main nest. The stems remained dry and withered, yet the mucus had not dried; it still held a sticky viscosity.
“Once combat starts, switch formation the way we trained.”
Everyone tensed. Park Hana tensed even more. Her body was trembling in fine shivers. Kang-jun offered no more encouragement. This was something she had to overcome herself. Guards especially needed to be almost numb to pain.
Next time maybe I’ll just beat her with a club.
A bare palm might have been too soft. Getting thrashed until the dust flew might finally get her used to pain. Of course she had no idea he was entertaining such a dreadful thought.
As they drew closer, the monsters sensed Kang-jun’s team and began to move. One… two. Two of them. Not a bad number for the opening fight.
“Form up.”
The loosely mixed team members snapped into position. The two guards planted their shields at a proper distance. Behind them the two magic-type dealers took their places, and Healer Hye-mi stood at the very rear.
Kang-jun and Jang Hwa-young held freer positions. Physical dealers could not attack from a fixed spot the way mages did; they needed to move fluidly.
“Senior, let’s send one of them to the back.”
“Why?”
Instead of answering, Kang-jun flicked a sidelong glance at the rest of the team. Ah—got it. Clever Jang Hwa-young instantly understood his intent.
The two monsters came charging on their twin pairs of hind legs with a heavy thudding rush. The bright lamp light revealed their hideous forms in full.
“Ah…!”
Park Hana fell straight into panic. She had seen monsters in photos many times, but this was her first living specimen. Of course she was terrified. Even if she was a complete pervert when it came to sex, her common sense was no different from an ordinary person’s. Wondering what kind of pleasure she might feel if those things tore her limbs off was not perversion—it was pure insanity.
Jang Hwa-young skillfully lured one away and engaged it. The other charged straight at the team without a shred of fear. These monsters strangely lacked any real will to survive.
Experienced Ogre Man stepped in for the panicking Park Hana and blocked the creature. They slammed together with a heavy crash. The monster tried to shear through Ogre Man’s shield with its pincers, but the shield—reinforced with monster bone—refused to cut easily.
Belita immediately used her psychic power to drop a mass of mana onto the creature’s head. It toppled forward. Zixu, quick on the uptake, formed a fireball and dropped it onto the fallen body.
Even a monster could not shrug off a direct hit from a seething fireball. The struck area melted at once. Because it happened to be the waist, the hind legs splayed uselessly and stopped moving.
The creature thrashed its upper body, pincers flailing wildly. Guards Ogre Man and Park Hana stepped back a little. Belita and Zixu struck again at its head. Only then did the monster’s pincers drop limp as it died.
The team had taken the monster down more cleanly than expected. Of course it would have died to a single blow from Kang-jun or Jang Hwa-young, but these were still monsters over level 200.
“Well done.”
Kang-jun offered light praise. Park Hana, however, could take no pleasure in it. She had done nothing but freeze and tremble.
“Hmph. This much is nothing.”
Belita’s nose went high again, as if it had been trivial. The combination of psychic power and fire magic was solid. Slowing the enemy even briefly with psychic force made the slower fire magic far more likely to land.
Their synergy’s pretty good.
Kang-jun gave the team a short rest and led the thoroughly cowed Park Hana a little distance away from the others.
“Do you know what you did wrong?”
“I couldn’t do anything….”
“No. Not being able to do anything is fine. It’s your first time.”
He closed in on her with deliberate menace. Park Hana flinched.
“You backed off because you were scared.”
She hung her head low.
“I’m sorry….”
Kang-jun clamped a hard grip on her shoulder. She winced.
“Because it’s the first time, this is as far as it goes. Next time I won’t let it slide. Got it?”
He brought his face right to her ear.
“If you don’t want to cry in front of the kids… steel yourself.”
He released the shoulder, gave her breast one firm squeeze, then tapped it lightly and turned away.
Park Hana bit down hard on her lip.
Kang-jun, you bad little brother. So scary….