Chapter 16: Second Dungeon, The Art of Escape
“Hunter Kang Minsu, this way, please.”
A staff member from the Hunter Management Bureau bowed politely and opened the back door of a black sedan for me.
I flailed my hands awkwardly at the overwhelming treatment.
“N-no, really! I can just take the subway!”
“Now, now, we can’t send a hero on the subway. Please, make yourself comfortable.”
With the staff’s firm insistence, I ended up crammed into the back seat like a lamb headed to the slaughter.
Ever since yesterday’s KBCN news report, my life had gone completely off the rails.
A rookie F-class hunter who single-handedly stopped a dungeon break.
Thanks to that title, the Bureau had started treating me like a VVIP.
But it was all surface-level courtesy.
In the end, today’s assignment was deployment to the assault party for the D-class dungeon in Capital Zone 7, the Shadow Forest.
They’d stuck me in as a “porter” out of consideration for my disguised identity, but the party members’ eyes already saw me as their savior.
The scenery whipped by outside the car window.
And as always, a blue window floated in my vision.
Current Viewers: 12,841
Viewer numbers hadn’t dropped below 10,000 since yesterday’s stream.
If anything, more people were tuning in to watch my every move.
Sponsorships in the chat were rarer than expected, though.
Viewstream notifications occasionally flashed “Irregular broadcast detected, some sponsorships temporarily held,” and I still wasn’t sure if that money was real.
“Haa…”
I let out a heavy sigh.
I’d lucked out yesterday, but today might actually be life-threatening.
A D-class dungeon was no joke.
Today’s survival goal: no matter what, avoid the boss room at all costs.
We arrived at the entrance to the Shadow Forest dungeon.
The B-class party handling this raid stood in a neat line, welcoming me.
“Minsu! Please take care of us today!”
The B-class swordmaster party leader bellowed heartily.
The dealers and healers behind him stood at rigid attention like fresh recruits.
“I-I’m just the porter, so… please, treat me casually… please…”
I clutched my 40kg backpack and mumbled in a shrinking voice.
Of course, they didn’t hear a word.
All I got back were awestruck gazes, as if thinking, ‘He’s thoroughly role-playing as a porter to hide his presence!’
The dungeon interior lived up to its name: a dense, eerie forest pitch-black, without a single ray of light.
Black leaves rustled against each other with a chilling whisper, and damp mist clung to the ground.
The party advanced cautiously.
Naturally, I stuck to the very rear.
A group of skeletons appeared ahead, but the leader and dealers turned them to bone dust in under five minutes.
I huddled behind a tree, holding my breath while they fought.
We’d reached about the midway point of the forest when it happened.
“……!”
A foul stench grazed my nose.
Not fishy or rotten.
The air itself grew sticky, stinging my lungs with every breath—a displeasing sensation.
I knew this feeling all too well.
The giant golem from my first E-class dungeon.
The flame golem from yesterday.
The thick mana density unique to areas near the boss room.
That’s it up ahead. Straight that way is definitely the boss room.
My survival instincts screamed in alarm.
I halted abruptly and called out to the party leader ahead.
“U-um, Party Leader!”
“Yes, Minsu! What is it? Did you spot an ambush?”
“N-no, it’s not that, but…”
I hesitated, glancing at the numbers in the corner of my vision.
The moment they spiked, the darkness in the front forest seemed to press down lower.
I didn’t know the mechanics behind it.
Just… that side reeked, the air felt wrong, and the chat reactions soured me on it.
I pointed to a narrow, winding side path veering right instead of straight ahead.
“That main path feels off somehow. How about we detour through this narrower one?”
The party’s eyes flicked between the wide front path and the gloomy side trail I indicated.
The front was obviously the main route; the side was choked with vines, dark and foreboding.
Standard strategy would be to push straight through.
But the leader nodded without a second’s hesitation.
“Minsu’s sensed something ominous ahead! Understood.”
“Change course! We take the side path!”
Yes! I’m saved.
I inwardly cheered and stepped onto the side path.
Just loop around safe routes like this, grab my porter pay, and head home.
But my shallow survival plan had overlooked the Shadow Forest’s horrific ecosystem entirely.
Rustle.
Just ten minutes after turning onto the path.
The black underbrush surrounding us shook.
Enormous shadows burst from the darkness.
“Grrrrr…”
Bull-sized bulk, eyes blazing red.
Shadow Wolves—the forest’s apex predators and mid-boss-tier monsters.
Three of them, no less.
“Eek…!”
I gasped and froze in place.
This side path wasn’t a safe detour around the boss—it was a patrol route threading through the mini-boss nests.
“Th-three mini-bosses!”
The party panicked, raising their weapons.
Even a B-class team struggled against three mini-bosses at once.
The worst route change ever. The whole party could get wiped.
Terror glued me flat against the tree trunk behind me.
I wanted to run, but my legs wouldn’t move.
That instant, the blue window in my vision flashed wildly.
Viewers are awestruck by your perfect route design.
Current Viewers: 13,592
Hunting route my ass! I didn’t even know they were there!
I just smelled boss and dodged—and of all things, I turned into the tiger’s mouth. Who could’ve known?!
I screamed internally, shedding bloody tears.
Observation Density rising.
The chat exploded, and the air around me grew heavy as lead.
My vision narrowed slightly, breathing turned labored—that familiar discomfort.
The conviction and hype from thirteen thousand viewers warped into physical killing intent, crushing the forest darkness and bursting outward.
“Gr…?”
The first Shadow Wolf lunging at me halted mid-air.
Confusion flickered in its red eyes.
Like slamming into an invisible wall, its front paws hit the ground and trembled violently.
“Yelp…”
The beast’s roar turned to a whimper in an instant.
The first wolf tucked its tail between its legs, flattened to the ground, and slunk sideways.
The second and third followed suit.
They didn’t advance a single step toward me, instead shoving their snouts into the brush to clear the path.
It was like beasts prostrating before an emperor’s procession.
“Wha…?”
I blinked against the tree bark.
Three terrifying mini-bosses parted like a carpet, opening the way on either side.
The party’s jaws dropped.
“M-mini-bosses clearing the path on their own…!”
“The forest predators have totally submitted to Minsu’s presence!”
The leader’s sword hand shook as he shouted in awe.
“This is it… the perfectly designed route! Neutralizing the forest gimmick without spilling a drop of blood, blunting the enemies’ edge!”
No, it’s not. I was just scared shitless and clinging to the tree.
Before I could deny it, the party gazed at me in reverence and proceeded down the now-safe path.
I scurried after them, avoiding the wolves’ eyes.
In the end, my detour became etched in their minds as “the legendary route that subjugated every mini-boss and conquered the forest.”
The chat flooded with praise as I walked.
But the deeper we went into the forest, the more an odd dissonance gnawed at me.
Too clear a phenomenon to dismiss as imagination.
Every time the chat scrolls fast… the air gets heavier.
It happened yesterday with that 100,000 won sponsorship too.
The deposit notice popped up, but I still couldn’t believe it—and the chat speed definitely shifted when it hit.
Same with the side path hype: “insane route,” viewers spiking, blue window text flying.
Each time, the oppressive weight on my shoulders intensified distinctly.
The three Shadow Wolves flattening wasn’t my aura.
It was the viewers freaking out over the monsters, slamming chat—that crushing force suddenly surging.
It’s not coming from me.
I glared at the blue window as I walked.
Monsters don’t freeze because I stop.
“Those people” see me freeze in fear, get hyped, flood chat—and that becomes heavy pressure pinning the monsters.
I’d seen the term Gaze Pressure.
But I hadn’t realized it was the force crushing air and monsters.
Here in the field, staking my life, my primal senses pieced together the causality.
This chat window… when those people get active, monsters tremble.
Chills ran down my spine.
These ten thousand viewers weren’t just spectators.
They were invisible forces dictating my survival.
Like it or not, next dungeon, I’d have to watch the numbers first.