Underground 3rd Floor Part 3 – The Bonds of the Two Women

Chapter 53. Underground 3rd Floor. Yu Dahui and Airi. The two of them had spent time getting to know each other.

To be precise, it had been Yu Dahui learning everything there was to know about Airi.

‘If I regress, all memories will vanish….’

To regress Airi, I had to know her deeply. What her weaknesses were, what she excelled at, every little quirk and habit of hers. I believed that understanding those details would open the door to possibilities. In the end, every action would serve as fertilizer for conquering the Tower of Struggle, so it was no trouble at all.

No hesitation. Unlike Elena, Airi wasn’t the least bit proactive toward Kim Jinwoo. How could she have developed any feelings for him? Yu Dahui had asked Airi all sorts of questions. What she did and where she lived in the home dimension. “I went looking for my mother. To find my mother who was dragged away by Pluto, I scoured the entire continent. In the end, I couldn’t find her.”

What she did after being summoned to the Tower of Struggle. “I climbed the tower just like the other players. It had been about seven months since I was summoned to the tower. I could have gone up to the 3rd floor, but I just wanted to stay on the 2nd floor.”

It was mostly small talk. And through that, Yu Dahui learned more about Airi.

“Did you find your mother?”

“No. I still don’t know where she went with Pluto….”

While they chatted lazily on the bed, Airi forgot that she was a dragon. They simply talked back and forth like best friends. “Want to go to the city and play tomorrow?”

“…Sure.”

They had fun like normal people and came back.

While I was eating out the succubus queen, that is.

***

Yu Dahui, Elena, Airi, and me. The four of us formed a party heading toward the underground dungeon. On the way, we ran into Rai.

“I’d like to talk to you.” Rai looked at me and suggested a conversation. When I didn’t show any hostility, Rai started acting relatively normal.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“I want to talk to you alone.”

His tone was actually creepy. A gentle smile like a saint, but it screamed deception. Rai had raped an elf knight. A guy forcing himself on another guy. That fact planted a seed of caution in me. I too could be next…

“No thanks.”

At least a minimum level of caution. Nothing more. I wanted to kill him right then and there. But I held back for the sake of the elf knight. For a moment I wondered why I was holding back, but my body didn’t move.

“Pluto, you know, don’t you? I sense his familiar power….”

“I don’t know anyone like that.”

When I refused to talk, Rai brought up Pluto’s name.

“No, you’re definitely a black magician. A black magician completely different from anyone else, with a thick scent of Lord Pluto.”

He had already drawn his own conclusion. The conversation with me was one that had a set ending planned.

‘It’s even better.’

From next time on, I could kill him the moment I saw him. Since there was nothing more I could get from the bastard.

“If you have something to say, say it here. I have no desire to follow you.”

Following a gay with a past. Where would that kind of dumb move lead? Rai’s face twisted. He didn’t know exactly what kind of secret conversation I wanted, but he was clearly annoyed that things weren’t going his way.

“If you quietly come along, you won’t get hurt.”

“My middle is ready for exactly this kind of thing.”

When I jabbed a woman’s vagina or shot at a guy’s face, I always carried the law. Rai’s smile curdled.

Perhaps because Elena had hidden her power, Rai boldly drew his sword. His face, confident of victory, looked subtly ugly.

“…That bastard looks like he’s about to fight back. What should we do?”

“If I kill him, what about Eloin?”

“He can’t get revenge then.”

“It’d be better to just regress right after the awakening trial, right?”

Yu Dahui had already made up her mind. After the awakening, regress. Start over from scratch. Return to a world where the elf knight was never raped.

“Well, I don’t mind either way.”

This wasn’t care for the elf knight. It was simply giving him a chance in the name of revenge. Because of that, the elf knight was training all day long. Swinging his sword and rolling on the dirt floor, he was trying to get stronger.

“Then may I kill him directly, Lady Dahui? As a black magician, I’m sick of it and can’t just stand by.”

“Yes. It’s fine. We’re not the opponents we can beat anyway….”

Yu Dahui happily sold out Rai. She had judged that we couldn’t fight him right now.

“Elves… It seems there are a lot of elves lately.”

Elena pulled out her sword as usual. With her power hidden, Rai couldn’t gauge Elena’s level.

“Elves have a special taste. Did you taste that other elf woman too? What was it like?”

Rai’s neck flew off with a comical flourish. Elena had cut it off.

“Let’s go.”

Elena brushed the dust off her blade. Not a single drop of blood clung to it. It had been that fast.

Rai’s head rolled across the floor. Receiving a miserable death with the same expression he’d worn earlier.

We headed into the underground dungeon. Perhaps because the purpose was different from yesterday, the atmosphere felt twice as sinister. We quickly descended to underground level 2. Judging by combat power, it was top-tier, so there was no hesitation in the underground dungeon. Slime was slime, ghost was ghost. We slaughtered every monster that appeared as we moved.

“Where are we here?”

It was just that we’d been looking for the way for too long. If I had known, I’d have brought a guide. Self-confidence was the problem wherever we went.

“J-just a little farther.”

I believed Elena when she said mana would find the way. As a result, we were wandering and couldn’t reach underground level 3.

Searching a dungeon the size of the kingdom and not finding it immediately seemed strange. This was well within expected range.

‘Plus the location changes every day.’

The entrance to underground level 3 was fickle. It rarely appeared in the same place. So intuition was important. There were people sensitive to the dungeon’s changes. If I’d brought such a guide, I would have found today’s entrance right away. But since it wasn’t urgent, I didn’t hire one separately. It wasn’t a sloppy party that would be threatened by life if night fell.

Whenever it was, all I had to do was enter the underground level 3 trial. No matter how many days passed in the trial, the real world was just a moment. I would simply return slowly.

“Here.”

Elena had finally found it. The entrance to underground level 3, the awakening trial. The entrance to underground level 3 emitted an atmosphere completely different from before. A sinister aura that screamed not to enter.

“So if we go down here, the trial starts?”

“Yeah. If you keep going down, at some point you’ll be alone. After that, depending on the trial, you’ll live with your own personalities.”

Similar to the narration in the novel. This staircase connected exactly to the courtyard. A 30-pyung courtyard. Players receiving the trial spent that instant on the courtyard. Whether they spent years in the trial or not, in underground level 3 it was an extremely short time. Of course, memories of the trial remained faintly. Except for the impressive parts, they were forgotten.

“It’s nerve-wracking.”

Nerve-wracking. I couldn’t help but feel tense. ‘The System’ would scan my memories and poke the weakest part. Maybe I’d even sink into nightmares buried in my unconscious that I didn’t even remember.

“Shall we go?”

Yu Dahui asked cheerfully. She was tense but didn’t show it. A bad attitude. Appropriate tension actually raised success probability.

“…Handle the awakening yourself.”

No one could help. Far harder difficulty than the solo raid with the black eel. You had to awaken on your own. We descended to underground level 3. Step by step, one step at a time, down the stairs.

“It still isn’t yet.”

Yu Dahui and Airi were on either side of me. Elena had decided to guard the entrance and hadn’t come down. In Elena’s eyes, it was still just an instant. We wouldn’t be back up for a while.

“Want to keep talking while we descend?”

“Follow along noisily.”

“Aaaaaaaa….”

At some point, the sound disappeared. But presence was felt.

“Yu Dahui?”

Yu Dahui and Airi were walking with blank eyes. I chased after the two who kept descending. As we continued down, the underground level 3 courtyard appeared.

Yu Dahui and Airi walked straight to the center of the courtyard and collapsed.

“What?”

I was dumbfounded. We were supposed to undergo the trial, but nothing happened.

‘That bastard… ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠did he already pass and awaken…?’

His trauma was erased in an instant. I thought of that hypothesis. But I had no memories. Recalling the novel’s content, everyone had remembered the trial details. No one forgot. I was the special case.

Looking at the system messages, it seemed we hadn’t experienced the trial itself. Standing stupidly at the starting line. That was how it could be described.

Checking messages kept popping up. I waited blankly for a long time. Ten minutes, twenty minutes, time kept passing.

I sat beside Yu Dahui and fiddled with her soft hand.

Alone in the dark courtyard, all kinds of nonsense filled my head. Brilliant light erupted from my body. The sign of awakening.

The system messages were arguing while looking at me. For some reason, it couldn’t assign the trial. But to awaken, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I had to pass the trial. Could it simply deny the freedom of awakening just because it couldn’t assign the trial? Absolutely impossible.

‘The System’ was impartial even if it seemed unfair.

The light grew stronger. The system’s opinion seemed to lean one way. Toward supporting my awakening…

Stars appeared. Four stars (★) spun above my head and then absorbed into me. A satisfying sense of growth washed over me. I had grown quite a bit.

But I still didn’t understand. I didn’t understand the situation. What the hell? Why did I pass the trial this way?

The trial had lit a flame of doubt in me. The thought I’d heard before, the hypothesis I’d concluded with excessive self-awareness, protagonist correction. Women who slept got stuck. Even after being raped, she looked at me positively. That wasn’t normal. The correction that made men chase women had noticeably decreased. She was still pretty, but the indescribable charm was gone. If the correction that made men chase women had disappeared, it would be acceptable.

‘No way.’

I had fallen into the novel. In a way, the guy who made the Tower of Struggle was higher than the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠‘god’ who created it. Even though I was the only one reading the novel, the reader was the reader.

‘Is that possible?’

Even while thinking that, ‘what could possibly be impossible.’ Considering everything I’d done so far, it was impossible to say no.

I dropped the thought. My head hurt too much. I didn’t want to think anymore.

‘I should just ask the god at the top.’

When I asked what the hell happened, would he kindly answer? Thinking of such a light thought, I was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠chuckling when…

Yu Dahui and Airi woke up. No one had awakened. Only, “Jinwoo! Jinwoo! Jinu, Jinu! My wrist, the mana oath, it’s…! Clear, ugh, ughaaaa!”

Yu Dahui rushed toward me.

“Uaaaa! Kruu! Ehehe…! Hic!”

With tears and snot running, she sobbed loudly.