Chapter 87
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 87
Chapter Title: Min-ji's Disappearance
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Hoyoung Guild.
"Min-ji's gone?"
Yeo Sun-woo looked up from his documents with a puzzled expression.
"Yes..."
"What do you mean by that? Tell me the details."
Yeo Sun-woo had confirmed that his daughter had entered her capsule before logging in today.
So it didn't make sense for her to have vanished.
She must have just logged out.
But as the reporter continued, Yeo Sun-woo's expression grew grave.
"The last signal we picked up was from Prunum."
Prunum.
Yeo Sun-woo's face hardened coldly.
"So... Min-ji went to search the area where the guild members' traces cut off, and now her trace has cut off there too?"
"Yes."
If her trace vanished inside the dungeon, something must have happened in there.
"Sigh, Min-ji's not the type to get in trouble in a place like Prunum."
Prunum was only level 139.
And Yeo Min-ji was a ranker over level 300.
There was no way his daughter could run into problems in a mere Prunum.
"Yes. That's why it's even more suspicious."
The reporter thought the same.
It was a dungeon at toy level for Yeo Min-ji, who had completed her fourth job change.
"Could it be a trap?"
"A trap?"
"Yeah."
Trap.
They were rare now, but in the early days of the New World Korea server, all sorts of traps were discovered daily.
As an early user himself, Yeo Sun-woo had stepped on plenty while clearing dungeons.
Some were vicious ones that had given him real trouble escaping.
If it was a trap, it would explain why even his daughter was struggling.
"But do traps even still exist...? Prunum is a dungeon that's still being run by tons of users."
The problem was that traps only triggered once and never again.
They were one-shot pitfalls, literally.
If there was a trap in Prunum, it should have triggered long ago.
His gut feeling wasn't good.
Yeo Sun-woo drummed his fingers on the table, lost in thought.
'Min-ji's at a level where she can handle herself.'
He loved his daughter dearly, but he couldn't always protect her.
As a ranker, Yeo Min-ji needed to overcome obstacles on her own.
Still, he couldn't just sit back and watch.
"One day. We'll wait one day and then move."
"One day...?"
Yeo Sun-woo nodded.
"Yeah."
"Understood. We'll send people to Prunum in 24 hours."
The reporter turned to leave the guild master's office after receiving orders.
But Yeo Sun-woo tilted his head quizzically.
"Hm? What are you talking about?"
"Pardon?"
"I'm going myself."
Jeong Hoon hurried toward the Rohais territory.
Lv.139 Prunum
"This is the place."
Who would have dreamed this dungeon would be the cause of Hoyoung's downfall.
You're living way too frantically. What's wrong with taking a little break?
"I did rest."
What? When?
"Eight hours is plenty, isn't it?"
Master, I'm asking seriouslyare you ex-delinquent or something?
"What nonsense is that?"
Your vibe is straight-up thug. If you make someone work, you give them rest!
Always nitpicking.
"Fine. After this, we'll take a day off."
Two days.
"One day. Take it or leave it."
Wow, you're gonna be that stingy?
"Yeah. Take your time thinking it over. I can head right in without you."
Jeong Hoon grinned.
Mukho clamped its mouth shut, anger rising at that relaxed smile.
Yelling here would just backfire, obviously.
'Getting smarter now?'
Jeong Hoon passed through the portal and entered the dungeon.
You have entered Lv.139 Prunum.
Upon entering, monsters roaming the plains caught his scent and began slinking toward him.
Prunum wasn't too hard for its level, thanks to the terrain.
A vast plain with nothing but weeds and grassno cover possible for users.
Over 200 Silver Hawkboars roamed atop it.
No cover for them either.
So one wide-area attack could thin their numbers fast.
Just like now.
Lightning Bolt
The epic-grade lightning spell struck the Silver Hawkboars.
"Squeeeeek!"
"Squeeeeeeak!"
Seven turned into electrified roasts per bolt.
It could hit up to seven targets at once.
Jeong Hoon kept casting Lightning Bolt, reducing the Silver Hawkboars.
"Squeeeek!"
"Squeeeeek!"
The last ones screamed as they became roasts.
Using Intermediate Healing.
He recovered his depleted stamina with Intermediate Healing.
"Let's go."
Master! Hold on.
About to head straight to the boss zone, Mukho stopped him.
"What? Something there?"
Yeah. I think I found it. That grass over there.
The spot Mukho pointed to was a patch of grass a bit away.
"Over there, huh."
Jeong Hoon's eyes gleamed as he approached it.
Mukho had sensed the faint trap energy keenly.
Keep going. Left from here, right.
Thanks to that, spotting the trap was easy.
Trap activated.
With the discovery message, Jeong Hoon stepped into the trap.
Why?
Why did he keep looping the same paths?
'No matter which way I go, I end up back at the start... Can we really get out?'
Yeo Min-ji was barely suppressing her growing confusion, but even that was reaching its limit.
Days had already passed.
Having crossed to another dimension, time might flow differently, but plenty could have passed outside too.
'Dad must be worried...'
She worried about her father.
He was already swamped with guild matters, and now she'd become a burden. She bit her lip until it bled.
"Miss... This doesn't look like a path either."
"Sigh, what do we do...?"
Three guild members followed behind her.
Emergency rations and water from her inventory.
The once-full rations were nearly gone, and only two 2L bottles of water remained.
If only logging out were possible...
"Ha... I really feel like I'm gonna die now..."
One guild member collapsed on the spot.
He had long passed his physical and mental limits.
He needed to log out to rest his body, but trapped, overload was setting in.
At this rate, his body in the capsule wouldn't hold, and he'd collapse here for good.
"Get up! We can't give up here!"
Yeo Min-ji forcibly pulled him to his feet.
Giving up meant the end.
She refused to crumble to this damn maze.
"...Miss, do you really think we can make it out alive?"
"It feels impossible now..."
Everything was white around them.
Days of walking with no scenery change was driving them mad.
"We'll get out for sure. I'll make it happen."
Yeo Min-ji didn't want to crush their hope.
All she could do now was escape this maze with her own power.
But they kept looping.
In the end, Yeo Min-ji and the guild members returned to the maze's starting point.
'Why?'
Yeo Min-ji slowly retraced her paths.
No answer came, no matter how she thought.
A maze with no solution...?
Her thoughts reached that point when
Boom!
A small explosion echoed from nearby.
The area was so silent, it rang vividly.
"Huh? Looks like someone else is here besides us."
"Yeah. Who could it be?"
"Breaking the walls here seems impossible though..."
The guild members had tried smashing the maze walls.
But they were too sturdynot even a scratch.
"Let's go check it out first."
Yeo Min-ji hurried over.
Soon, she spotted the figure standing there.
"Who's that?"
One guild member recognized him.
"Jeong Hoon!"
Yeo Min-ji ran up to him.
"Min-ji, you okay?"
Jeong Hoon smiled warmly, checking on her.
Seeing that, Yeo Min-ji felt a lump in her throat.
Her urgent whisper message had been sloppy, yet he'd come just from that.
"Thanks for coming."
"It was the least I could do."
He needed Hoyoung alive as a shield for his mother's growth.
And he had one more favor to ask from this.
Jeong Hoon had all his calculations done.
"Of course..."
Yeo Min-ji smiled back.
Oh man, look at this flirt. Makes my hands and feet curl up.
'Talking to me?'
Oh man, look at this master. Flirting like an artist. He'd be the talk of high society as a playboy.
'Hold on. Say that once more and you're gone?'
...Just kidding around. Fun, right?
He could see why Siegfried sealed Mukho.
Jeong Hoon pointed to the wall he'd just broken.
"Let's get out quick then."
"Pardon?"
The wall was breached.
"How did you even...?"
"No way..."
The guild members gaped at the hole.
"How'd you do it?"
Yeo Min-ji was shocked too.
She'd tried brute-forcing the walls but failed.
Yet Jeong Hoon had broken through solid ones.
"Feel the mana flowing in the wall slowly. You'll sense an empty spot."
"You can sense that?"
"Yeah."
Easier said than done.
Sensing the mana circuits required sharp senses.
Jeong Hoon had his past life's experience, plus sensory buffs.
And breaking it needed not just mana, but holy power too.
Only a fused mana-holy energy strike would collapse the wall as designed.
'No wonder even Yeo Sun-woo couldn't break through.'
The worst trap that doomed Hoyoung.
Now crumbling under Jeong Hoon's hand.
"...Wow."
Unaware, Yeo Min-ji stared at him like a monster.
In New World, level was absoluteyet he defied it.
"That's the miss's disciple..."
"Now I get why she brought him to Hoyoung."
"And a hidden class too... Jackpot."
The guild members marveled nonstop.
She'd called him her disciple with guild members nearby.
"Right? Shall we keep going?"
Jeong Hoon moved through the hole.
A new path appeared.
"...So we break through like this."
"Yeah, exactly."
Jeong Hoon kept smashing walls ahead.
Right! Left!
His relentless pace came from Mukho's constant directions.
After five hours, Jeong Hoon reached the maze's end in triumph.
"Can't pass here."
Lv.156 Clone A
It was a black shadowy clone of Jeong Hoon.
Not the end.
Lv.352 Clone B
A clone of Yeo Min-ji.
Plus three more copying the guild members behind.
Five clones total blocked the way.