[Breaking News] The Mad Newbie Who Soloed a Dungeon Break
Woooooo—!
A red surge erupted from deep inside the Gate and shook the dungeon to its core.
Still sprawled on the floor, I stared at the horde of monsters blocking my only escape route, my whole body trembling.
Warning: Dungeon Break imminent.
Remaining monsters: 341
Every time those numbers flashed before my eyes, it felt like my heart was plunging straight through the floor.
Goblin miners, mutant vampire bats, venomous spiders. The cannon-fodder we’d left alive and walked past earlier had all gone berserk from the mana surge and were now flooding out in a single wave.
“Please save me... please...”
I tried to crawl toward the Gate, but the goblin in front lifted its rusted pickaxe and threatened me with it.
“Kieeeeeek!”
I couldn’t run.
The rest of the party had already fled out that door long ago, and I’d been left alone in this hell because I tripped over my own bulky pack and went down like an idiot.
The monsters were baring their killing intent, ready to tear me apart on the spot.
And yet the blue window floating in my vision had a completely different mood.
“You crazy bastards! I was the one who got abandoned! Stop saying I’m holding it back—I can’t even stand up because my legs have gone weak!”
I was crying bloody tears on the inside.
But my desperate protest only seemed to heat the chat up even more.
The viewers' intense desire is concentrating.
Gaze Pressure is surging to upper C-class levels.
Woom.
The air itself trembled.
It felt as if the conviction of thirteen thousand people was pressing down on my back all at once and forcing me forward.
“...?”
The goblin at the head of the charge, the one who had been about to lunge at me, suddenly hesitated.
Confusion flickered through its bloodshot eyes.
Its instincts, driven wild by the mana surge, were screaming at it to rush out through that Gate and slaughter the humans outside.
But its savage senses had picked up the overwhelmingly predatory presence pouring out of the human slumped right there on the threshold.
“Ki... kik...”
The goblin dropped the pickaxe in its hands. Its legs began to shake, and then, with a soft thud, it collapsed to its knees.
Upper C-class pressure. For a low-ranked D-class monster like a goblin, it was a gravity that allowed no resistance at all.
The monsters behind it were no different.
As if they’d slammed into an invisible wall, hundreds of them slammed on the brakes right at the ten-meter mark before the Gate.
Skreeeeech!
Kieeek!
The ones pushing from behind and the ones frozen in front tangled together, and the whole place dissolved into chaos.
But none of them could cross that invisible line.
In fact, the monsters in the lead had already started to back away in terror.
An absolute territory formed around me, an upper C-class domain.
It had utterly overwhelmed the horde of monsters.
“Uh...?”
I blinked. Huh?
Why weren’t they coming?
Just a second ago they’d been charging at me like they meant to chew me alive, so why were they suddenly pressed flat to the ground and trembling?
The chat was celebrating a victory.
I still had no idea what was going on, but with the overwhelming relief of still being alive, I somehow managed to straighten my trembling legs and get to my feet.
Okay... get out of here first.
I cautiously began backing away from the tangled mass of monsters.
The moment I took a step back, the monsters that had been lying flat on the ground flinched and took a step back too.
I backed toward the Gate.
The monsters retreated inward, away from me.
That bizarre standoff continued until my back brushed against the Gate’s rippling membrane.
I swallowed hard, then threw myself backward and tumbled out through the Gate.
The reporter’s voice on KBCN News was tight with urgency.
On the right side of the screen, police tape, ambulances, and evacuating civilians were being shown live around the dungeon entrance.
Yes, this is reporter Kim on location. Just moments ago, mana surge phenomena were observed at Crater Cave, a D-class dungeon, and a Dungeon Break warning was issued.
The five-party members who attempted the raid have confirmed safe escape, but one hunter who came along as a porter is believed to have failed to get out and is now isolated inside the dungeon.
The Hunter Management Bureau immediately requested the dispatch of an S-class hunter... oh, wait!
The reporter’s voice suddenly shook.
The camera zoomed in on the management bureau’s special CCTV monitor installed at the dungeon entrance.
It was a thermal image, faintly revealing the situation inside the Gate.
On the screen, hundreds of red dots—monsters poised to rush out—had all come to an abrupt stop before a single blue dot standing at the threshold, an eerie sight as if they were facing a human they feared too much to approach.
Esteemed viewers, an unbelievable situation is unfolding!
The one hunter we believed to be trapped alone... is completely sealing the dungeon entrance! Hundreds of monsters are so afraid of that hunter that they can’t take a single step outside!
The anchor in the studio was visibly flustered as well.
Is that even possible? Just who is that hunter? Is he an S-class?
After checking, the hunter has been identified as the porter assigned to that party: F-class hunter Kang Minsu.
Silence.
Even though this was live news, a long three-second silence hung in the air.
...F-class? Reporter, isn’t there some mistake in the information? You’re saying an F-class hunter is single-handedly stopping a break?
I can hardly believe it myself, but according to the Management Bureau database, he is undeniably F-class. However, as you can see in the footage, he is suppressing the mana surge with nothing but his overwhelming presence. Experts are strongly suggesting that he may be a transcendent concealing his true rank!
And the instant that blue dot disappeared, the mana surge inside gave one huge ripple and then settled down completely.
The signs of the break went out before our eyes.
Breaking news! The mana surge has calmed, and the signs of a Dungeon Break have completely vanished! Hunter Kang Minsu has... saved this city!
“Hah... hah...”
Tumbling out beyond the Gate, I sucked in ragged breaths. I’d made it.
I was really alive. The cold asphalt under me felt so welcome it almost made me cry.
“Minsu-nim!”
The party members who had escaped first came running toward me.
The warrior who led them grabbed both my shoulders, nearly in tears.
“I’m so... so sorry! And thank you! We had no idea you’d stay behind alone to save us and hold the Gate shut...!”
“Huh? No, I just tripped over my bag and fell—”
“That noble spirit of sacrifice! That heroic decision to risk your life and protect the civilians! I’ll engrave this debt into my very bones!”
The leader didn’t even hear me; he was too busy drowning in his own tidal wave of emotion.
The other party members were also teary-eyed as they bowed ninety degrees to me.
“Minsu-nim, we admire you!”
“You’re a true hunter!”
I stared at them with a dazed expression. A hero?
Self-sacrifice? I’m just an idiot who tripped on the strap of his own bag.
Then, far off in the distance, I saw reporters surging through the police line like a swarm of hornets.
“There he is! Hunter Kang Minsu!”
“Hunter Kang! KBCN News here! How do you feel about single-handedly stopping the break?”
“Is your F-class rank a cover identity? Where do you really come from?”
Dozens of microphones and cameras were shoved toward my face.
Flashes exploded like mad.
“Uh, uh...”
The light blinded me, and I raised a hand to shield my face.
I was so flustered I couldn’t get a word out.
“Move aside! The hero is tired!”
The leader and the others stepped in front of me and shoved the reporters back.
Escorted by them, I slipped away toward the ambulance like I was running for my life.
And at the center of all that chaos, the blue window in my vision was updating at a record-breaking pace.
“......”
I sat dazed in the back seat of the ambulance, staring into space.
I was screwed.
This was really over.
My pathetic little mug had gone out on national broadcast.
With the tag attached to it: the crazy newbie who stopped a Dungeon Break alone.
From now on, I would never be able to go back to being a normal part-timer.
Because thirteen thousand viewers—and fifty million citizens—would remember me as “the hero wearing the mask of an F-class.”