No.104 Black Snake Chamber (1)
For all that this was merely the entrance, the Deep Layer's security was airtight. Guard posts manned by resident faculty stood at regular intervals, and the crystal orbs embedded in the ceiling numbered more than double those of the underground floors.
On top of that, there were two 3rd-year Disciplinary Committee members in plain sight, patrolling a fixed zone in steady rotations as if on watch.
Could we punch through this?
With those two, it might actually work.
With Dang Gyu-young and Chae Da-bin on the job, the odds of success were high. Back when we infiltrated the Temporary Confiscation Storage, getting past even a single 3rd-year Disciplinary Committee member had been a struggle — but tonight was a different situation altogether. That Hell Ax senior had been planted squarely in front of the storage room door, whereas these two had no idea we would be breaking in here tonight, let alone that our target was No. 104.
Stand guard over every dungeon lined across so vast a space, and gaps were bound to open sooner or later. For someone of Dang Gyu-young's caliber, slipping through one would be no great feat.
There was just one problem.
Humps on our backs, though, and it gets hard.
Those humps, naturally, being the first-years — myself included. Aside from Thief's Step, I had no skill or trait for muffling my presence, and Go Hyeon-woo went without saying. Shin Byung-cheol had picked up a trick or two, but his overall level was low. Even the president of the Thief Club would struggle hauling three humps like that around.
Which meant the humps needed to be stowed away.
And if anyone had a way to do that, it was Dang Gyu-young.
"……"
"……"
Dang Gyu-young and Chae Da-bin conversed in soundless mouth-shapes, cross-checking the map they'd brought against the scene before them. They seemed to be tracking the two Disciplinary Committee members' routes, refining their plan for slipping past on the fly.
The instant their brief exchange ended, Chae Da-bin's fingers began hammering away at her tablet like mad.
- Clack-clack-clack-clack-clack!
So fast her fingers were a blur. With the number of crystal orbs doubled, she looked to be twice as busy as well.
Dang Gyu-young, for her part, drew her mana together and readied a spell of considerable scale. The shadows at our feet deepened, blacker by the moment.
Shin Byung-cheol edged in close to Dang Gyu-young and beckoned us over.
"Gather round, over here."
By then she must have neutralized every last one of those countless crystal orbs, for Chae Da-bin's hands stopped dead. And with her single clipped word as the signal —
"All set."
Dang Gyu-young loosed the spell she had prepared.
Shadow Pouch
Shadow erupted from beneath our feet as though bursting from a dam, and an enormous pouch of darkness took shape. The pouch yawned open like some living creature and gobbled us up in one swallow. Pitch black blotted out our vision — only Go Hyeon-woo and Shin Byung-cheol, right beside me, remained faintly visible.
Before long came the sensation of our bodies swaying side to side. Dang Gyu-young was apparently on the move, carrying us along inside the shadow pouch.
Go Hyeon-woo, marveling, started to grope at the walls, but I stopped him.
"Hold still."
"Ahem……."
Kick up a fuss for no reason and we might throw off Dang Gyu-young and Chae Da-bin moving around outside. Keeping absolutely quiet was the wisest course.
A short while later came the feeling of the shadow pouch spitting us out, and my sight returned to normal. The first thing to greet my eyes was —
[No. 104] [Black Snake Chamber]
— the portal of our target dungeon.
I caught Go Hyeon-woo's and Shin Byung-cheol's eyes and pointed at the entrance.
"We're going straight in."
There was no time to dawdle. With no telling when the Disciplinary Committee might come crashing down on us, we had to enter immediately.
Dang Gyu-young and Chae Da-bin each mouthed a final word.
"Come back alive."
"Good luck."
And for Shin Byung-cheol, one more line apiece.
"Bring me a present."
"Bring me a snack."
"……Yes, ma'am."
We bowed our heads in farewell, then stepped straight through the teleport portal.
Our first steps landed in what looked like a weather-beaten old house. It had clearly been abandoned for ages, the floor buried under a thick carpet of dust. Sunlight filtered in through the windows, warm and almost homey.
Go Hyeon-woo, for reasons known only to him, gazed around with a faraway look in his eyes. I let him have his moment and turned to check on Shin Byung-cheol instead.
"……"
Every trace of his usual mischief was gone; his face was heavy with gloom. Apparently the reality had finally hit him — he had well and truly walked into a B-rank dungeon.
It was a genuinely dangerous place, so I couldn't fault him for it. Still, leave him hunched over like that and even a foolproof plan would fall apart. His fighting spirit needed a spark.
And in moments like this, one method worked wonders.
"Scared?"
One syllable to prod a man's pride.
The results were outstanding.
Shin Byung-cheol's expression snapped back into place, and he snorted.
"Pssh, what's that now? Nobody here's scared."
"Your legs are shaking like a leaf, though?"
"Habit, habit. My legs always shake — even standing, that's all."
"Well, can't fight habit."
I feigned grudging acceptance and let it go. Either way, with Shin Byung-cheol's face considerably lighter, I'd call the pride-prodding a success.
We left the old house behind and followed the road. It widened by degrees, and foot traffic thickened — we had entered the tavern district.
Before long, a strange unease crept over us. A street this crowded should have hummed with life and clamor, yet the air hung eerily still, the noise strangely thin. And the faces of the passersby told the rest of the story, brimming with resentment, sorrow, fear, and resignation.
The cause wasn't hard to deduce. When nasty incidents never stop plaguing a neighborhood, this is what it breeds. Say, a sect or gang ruling the area with an iron fist. Or people vanishing day after day. Or bodies being quietly carted off.
And as for which gang — no prize for guessing.
The Black Snake Chamber.
Off in the distance, a colossal hall loomed over the land. The mastermind behind every misfortune in this quarter, and the very heart of the dungeon. Toppling that Black Snake Chamber and cutting down its Chamber Head and Vice-Head was this dungeon's stated objective.
That was the objective, anyway.
With our current strength, it wasn't even a pipe dream. Which was precisely why our goal was to pluck out only the choicest filling and slip away clean.
And so we kept walking the tavern district in search of our first morsel — until we came upon a small, shabby tavern tucked away in one corner.
The paint on the signboard had faded past legibility, and the old wooden door hung half shut, enough to make one doubt the place was even open for business. Even so, I flung the door wide without a moment's hesitation and stepped inside. I was certain this was the place.
The interior proved every bit as aged and threadbare as the outside suggested. As I'd guessed from the street, there wasn't a single customer besides us. We paid it no mind and settled around a table.
As we waited, the young waiter poked his head out of the kitchen. The way he startled at the sight of customers said plenty about how business was going. Still, faithful to his duties, he shuffled over to take our order.
"What can I get you?"
"Three duck soups, and dumplings."
"Of course. One moment."
The waiter vanished into the kitchen and soon reemerged with a steaming plate of dumplings.
"Just came off the steamer."
He set the plate in the middle of the table and slipped back into the kitchen. Shin Byung-cheol watched his retreating figure in silence for a moment, then turned to me.
"We're here to grab that kid, right?"
"Yeah."
Shin Byung-cheol, too, had been half-forced to memorize the walkthrough, so he had a full grasp of everything to come and everything we needed to do. The reason we had sought out this tavern was simple: the Black Snake Chamber's next target was that very waiter.
It wasn't that anything about him made him special. The Black Snake Chamber simply took young men away one at a time, at regular intervals, the way a predator feeds. It just so happened that the waiter's turn had come around.
The three of us waited at our leisure over the dumplings. By the time the plate was nearly scraped clean, the old wooden door creaked open, announcing new customers.
But these customers never came inside — they planted themselves at the threshold and only peered within. Two men clad in dark martial garb, near black. The inky snake tattooed across the back of each hand announced their allegiance.
Foot soldiers of the Black Snake Chamber.
One of the men loosed a sharp, probing pressure in our direction, as if feeling us out, but we gave no reaction and simply finished off the rest of the dumplings.
Just then, the waiter stuck his head out of the kitchen, spotted them — and froze rigid.
The Black Snake warrior curled his lips into a smile that crawled under the skin, and spoke.
"Business going well? Funny — you've actually got customers for once."
The waiter floundered for a reply.
"I-I already paid this month's tribute. All of it!"
"No. We're here on other business today."
"……!"
He seemed to guess what that other business was, for dread welled up across the waiter's face. The smile hooked on the foot soldier's mouth, by contrast, deepened a shade.
"Come along with us."
"Th-that's……"
"You can't!"
From the kitchen, a middle-aged man who looked to be the cook came bursting out in a scramble, shouting. He threw his arms around the waiter as if to shield him with his own body.
"……"
But the moment the Black Snake warrior flared his presence and glared, the man couldn't so much as hold his gaze. Withstanding the pressure a martial artist exerts is a towering task for an ordinary person. Even so, the middle-aged man was desperate. Because not a single one of the young men hauled off to the Black Snake Chamber like this had ever come back.
Trembling head to toe, he finally forced the words out.
"N-not my son. P-please, I beg you—"
- WHAM!
Before he could finish, the foot soldier's outstretched kick caught him square and sent him rolling across the floor. The warrior spared a glance for the man moaning on the ground, then loosed that same cutting pressure toward us once more. A warning, plainly meant: stay out of this.
Then he turned to the waiter.
"Move."
"……"
"Keep stalling and I'll cut you down."
He said it while running his fingers leisurely along the sword at his hip, and for a waiter with no strength to speak of, there was no choice to make. Resist any further, and his next chore would be carting out the middle-aged man's corpse. His only recourse was to be led away to the Black Snake Chamber without a fuss.
"Ahhh……."
The Black Snake warriors and the waiter vanished out the door, and the middle-aged man sat crumpled where he'd fallen, hollow-eyed, staring at nothing but the floor. His son was now one of the gone — never to return.
I walked over to him, slow and unhurried. He sensed me staring down in silence and lifted his eyes to meet mine.
I broke into an easy smile.
"Shall I go bring him back?"
A thread of hope kindled across the man's face. They were Black Snake warriors, after all — he plainly held out little real expectation — but like a drowning man grasping at straws, he clung to the offer anyway.
"If you could truly do that……"
"And if I did?"
"Anything you want. Anything at all."
I grinned.
"No going back on your word later."
[70] The Support Ate It All