Chapter 15

Chapter 15

“Ah, damn it.”

A low curse burst from Go Gyeol’s mouth.

“What’s wrong?”

Lee Seong-ha asked Go Gyeol, who was sitting in the passenger seat, motionlessly staring into empty air. But Go Gyeol had no intention of answering his question. His consciousness was focused solely on the invisible being before his eyes.

“System.”

【How may I help you, Go Gyeol?】

“Can the Dungeon be changed?”

At Go Gyeol’s sharp question, the System gave a mechanical answer.

【Dungeon change unavailable. This Dungeon was carefully selected in consideration of the abilities of the scouted Hunters.】

“You do know two of them are idiots who can’t do anything, right?”

Open irritation clung to Go Gyeol’s voice.

【……】

Only silence returned. If the System had a physical form, he felt as though he would have punched it on the spot.

“Why? What’s going on?”

Lee Seong-ha could not hear the System’s voice, but he had heard all of Go Gyeol’s angry muttering, so he asked again. Unease had seeped into his voice.

“We have to go to an S-Grade Dungeon within three days.”

SCREEEECH—!

At Go Gyeol’s calm sentence, Lee Seong-ha was horrified and slammed the brakes. With the sharp sound of tires scraping against asphalt, the car stopped roughly at the roadside.

“Hey! Don’t cut off the context. Explain properly. Where are we going?!”

“I told you I’d never let you drive my car again if you drove like that.”

“Is that what matters right now?!”

Lee Seong-ha shouted as if he might grab him by the collar. Go Gyeol looked at him indifferently and said it again, very precisely.

“An S-Grade Dungeon. To be exact, the Shindorim Station S-Grade Dungeon.”

In that instant, the notoriety of the “Shindorim Station S-Grade Dungeon” flashed through Lee Seong-ha’s mind.

The official clear time was extremely short at forty minutes, but that was only theoretical. The monsters’ patterns were viciously troublesome, and above all, traps whose locations and types changed every time one entered were scattered everywhere. If the Hunter Administration had not continuously managed it, no one would have attempted to clear it, and a monster wave would have burst out there long ago. It was the maw of death, one that countless Hunters avoided clearing.

And they had to go to such a place with two beginners who had only just stepped into the Hunter world and one uncontrollable Witch.

Lee Seong-ha suddenly felt the world before his eyes go dark.

“…You’re lying, right?”

His trembling eyes searched for a thread of hope. But Go Gyeol cut that hope down with a single stroke.

“When have you ever seen me lie?”

“You crazy bastard!!! No! I’m not doing it! I’m going back!! I’m going back to the church!!”

Lee Seong-ha’s scream filled the narrow car.

---

The back alley of Shindorim Station was like an island cut off from the world.

After the Dungeon was created, the alley had been oppressively surrounded by high gray cement walls. On top of them, barbed wire carrying high-voltage current and sharp shards of broken glass were densely embedded, giving off a sinister gleam. Except for a single iron gate, the scene carried a murderous will that would permit no intrusion whatsoever.

Go Gyeol stood with his back against that gray cement wall, arms crossed. Beside him stood Kang Ji-hyun in a blazing red dress, blowing a large bubble with gum as if bored.

“Are they even coming?”

“They’ll come.”

A Hunter coming to clear a Dungeon with long wavy hair and a party dress. Go Gyeol clicked his tongue inwardly, but since she had at least worn practical sneakers instead of high heels that would snap her ankles, he held back his nagging.

That was when it happened.

“They’re coming.”

In a neighborhood where everything within a one-kilometer radius had become a no-man’s land because of the Dungeon’s influence, a smooth engine sound broke the silence and seeped into the alley. When Go Gyeol straightened from where he had been leaning, a black sedan stopped smoothly in front of him.

The driver’s seat door opened, and Lee Seong-ha stepped out with a deeply scowling face.

“Wow, I really hate this.”

Unlike the sincere irritation that burst out of him the moment he got out of the car, Kang Hoon, who stepped out from the passenger seat, looked unable to hide his excitement.

“We’re really clearing this place, right? I cleared a D-Grade just a few days ago, and now I’m clearing an S-Grade. I’m so nervous…. Huh? D-don’t tell me. Ms. K-Kang Ji-hyun?!”

With a pop, the bubble burst, and everyone’s eyes turned toward her. As if enjoying their gazes, Kang Ji-hyun leisurely waved at Kang Hoon.

“Hello, little boy.”

“Wow! It’s Ms. Kang Ji-hyun!! Wow, wow!! Hello!! You’re really beautiful!!”

As if bewitched, Kang Hoon approached Kang Ji-hyun and poured out nonstop praise. If he had a tail, it would have been wagging at a speed invisible to the eye. Kang Ji-hyun seemed quite pleased with Kang Hoon’s innocent admiration, and she lifted her chin with a satisfied smile.

Go Gyeol quietly ignored the “combination of a dumb kid and another dumb kid” and opened the back door of the car.

Inside sat a man whose face seemed to have lost every light in the world.

“Mr. Kwon Do-geun.”

A low but firm call. In the eyes that looked up at him, emotions as precarious as dying embers were mixed together. A primal fear of stepping outside the world he had been trapped in for so long, and faint terror toward the unknown existence called a “Dungeon” that waited at the end.

“Will you run away?”

It was neither comfort nor urging. It was an utterly plain question, as if the answer had already been decided. But that one sentence sent great ripples through Kwon Do-geun’s heart, as though a massive rock had been thrown into a quiet lake. The moment the word “run” invaded his mind, his gaze changed instead. The focus that had been scattering gathered in one place, and his jawline, which had been loose with helplessness, hardened as if steeling his resolve.

When he made up his mind and got out of the car, the eyes of the murmuring group all gathered in one place at once. His presence was overwhelming enough to push even Go Gyeol, who had been at the center of the formation, into the background.

“W-wow…! Isn’t that actor Kwon Do-geun? Wow, he looks insane in real life!”

The first to break the silence was Kang Hoon. He tapped Lee Seong-ha’s arm beside him and made a fuss like a child seeing a rare animal for the first time in his life. It was excitement on an entirely different level from when he had seen another Hunter moments earlier. Countless gazes and whispers flew in like arrows, but Kwon Do-geun’s tightly closed lips did not move. His mind was filled only with grim resolve toward the fate that would soon arrive.

Before Kang Hoon’s excited voice could scatter into the air—

SMACK!

With a crisp, sharp sound of impact, Lee Seong-ha’s palm landed precisely on the back of Kang Hoon’s head.

“Don’t make a fuss, Kang Hoon. Get it together. We didn’t come here to play.”

“Ow! A-all right, I get it….”

Kang Hoon rubbed the back of his tingling head and pouted, but he soon quieted under Lee Seong-ha’s ice-cold glare.

Once the commotion died down, Go Gyeol opened his mouth again. He looked at each of their faces one by one as if inspecting them and said,

“You all know where this place is… No, you don’t.”

Go Gyeol realized it the moment the words left his mouth.

These people before him now were not the Hunters who had fought with him before his Regression.

Except for Lee Seong-ha and Kang Ji-hyun, they were rookies with eyes mixed with anxiety and curiosity. Absolute beginners who did not even properly know the “Dun” in Dungeon. A deep sigh escaped him without his meaning to.

He gathered everyone’s attention again and pronounced the cold reality.

“Some of you already know this, but the place we’re going is S-Grade, Shindorim Station Dungeon.”

“Hiiik.”

At that declaration, the air froze for an instant. Sharp breaths burst from here and there. Kang Hoon, who had no direct experience because of his Trait but knew rumors about Dungeons better than anyone, asked back with a deathly pale face.

“Shindorim Station Dungeon? You mean the place I’m thinking of? We’re really going there?”

“Yeah.”

A short and firm affirmation. Kang Hoon’s voice rose like a scream.

“Are you insane?! Leaving aside the fact that it’s S-Grade, that place is Arcadia! I barely cleared a D-Grade, so how am I supposed to clear that!”

Arcadia.

The moment that name came out, even the faint hope flowing among the group vanished. Originally, it had been a massive complex shopping mall ambitiously built as a joint project between several major corporations and the government. Starting with the Paju main branch, “Arcadia” had expanded its influence nationwide, and three years ago, it had opened grandly here in Shindorim as well.

But tragedy came only one week after its opening.

The enormous shopping mall that had nearly become the new heart of the city transformed overnight into a Dungeon in its entirety. The government and stakeholders worried that the brand reputation of “Arcadia” would be damaged. In a hurry, they gave it the official name “Shindorim Station Dungeon,” taken from the location, and tried to minimize the incident.

But Hunters were practical beings. They uniformly called it “Arcadia Dungeon.”

Because every environment inside the Dungeon was exactly the once-glittering shopping mall itself.

Even at Kang Hoon’s scream, Go Gyeol’s expression did not move. He spoke as if soothing a troublesome child, or perhaps with even less concern than that.

“It’s true that this is an S-Grade shopping mall-type Dungeon, but the first floor is all we’re clearing. And Lee Seong-ha and Kang Ji-hyun will take the vanguard.”

His gaze turned toward Kang Hoon and Kwon Do-geun.

“Kang Hoon. Watch how your teacher fights. And Mr. Kwon Do-geun. For now, get used to the ‘air’ of a Dungeon from the back.”

At those words, Kang Hoon’s suspicious gaze turned toward Lee Seong-ha. Could this cranky old man really stand in the vanguard of an S-Grade Dungeon? The moment that distrust showed clearly on his face, Lee Seong-ha’s hand rose reflexively. Kang Hoon, not wanting to be hit again, quickly hid behind Kang Ji-hyun’s back and shouted at Go Gyeol.

“I have a question! Then do I just watch? I’m not allowed to fight?”

“You can fight.”

Go Gyeol answered indifferently.

“If you can, that is.”

At that cynical permission, the two nodded awkwardly.

That was when it happened.

“Go Gyeol.”

Lee Seong-ha asked with a provoking grin.

“Do you trust me?”

“No.”

It was an immediate answer without the slightest hesitation. Lee Seong-ha’s eyebrow twitched.

“You don’t trust me, but you’re going into an S-Grade Dungeon with this ragtag bunch and no other veteran Hunter?”

Go Gyeol answered with a snort.

“If they don’t want to die, they’ll handle themselves. And is that one over there just decoration?”

His chin jerked toward Kang Ji-hyun, who had been standing with a haughty expression from beginning to end.

“Will Kang Ji-hyun alone be enough?”

“Enough.”

The S-Grade Shindorim Dungeon. There was no one who knew its traps and variables better than Go Gyeol, who had regressed. In his calculations, not only Kang Ji-hyun, but even Lee Seong-ha alone, retired and returned as he was, would be more than enough to clear it. The rest of the members were merely investments for the future.

“Enough chatter. Let’s go in.”

The time he had promised to report to the government was approaching. Without delaying any further, Go Gyeol led the group and stood before the glass doors of Arcadia, the once-enormous shopping mall. When he pushed the heavy door open, noise from an entirely different dimension than the outside world swept over the group.

---

Beep—

A sharp mechanical tone that seemed to tear the eardrums. The cries of beasts not of this world rang out from somewhere in the darkness beyond. And cutting through all that noise came an announcement from a broken speaker.

「…lcome to… rcadia… dear custo… happy shop… ping…」

The severed welcome filled the space grotesquely. But only for a moment, complete silence arrived, as if every sound had vanished like a lie. Suffocating stillness. Then, in the next instant, the horrific noises came back to life all at once.

A strange phenomenon where noise and silence repeated irregularly. In the otherworldly air completely separated from the outside, Kang Hoon, for whom this was his first Dungeon, swallowed dryly without realizing it. Even Kwon Do-geun, who had steeled his resolve, hunched his shoulders with a stiff face.

Their entrance into hell had begun.

Looking around, Go Gyeol clicked his tongue inwardly.

“Of all places, it had to be a clothing store.”

Originally, Arcadia Shopping Mall had been an enormous complex space stretching from Basement Level 2 to the eighth floor above ground. But after it transformed into a Dungeon, that law had broken. The first floor was no longer a lobby with general merchandise and a performance hall. Instead, one of the countless stores that had existed inside the shopping mall was randomly chosen as the first gate to greet Hunters.

And among them, the most troublesome and infamous was this clothing store.

“Something feels… creepy.”

Kang Hoon rubbed his own forearm as if a chill had seeped into him. That sensation was not something he alone felt. The inside of the store was as bright as daylight under fluorescent lights, and the neatly displayed clothes were no different from any ordinary shop. But within all that normality lurked a suffocating sense of wrongness. The empty gazes of mannequins posed perfectly, and the unnatural smiles of famous celebrities on posters hanging on the walls seemed to scan the group as if alive.

“We don’t have time. We clear it fast and get out.”

As if completely unaffected by the pressure of this strange Dungeon, Kang Ji-hyun stepped forward first. Around her white wrist, a whip gleaming blood-red was coiled like a snake.

“A whip…?”

The moment Kang Hoon muttered in confusion, the red snake in her hand cut through the air.

BANG—!

A single strike. With a rupture that tore at the eardrums, the hard marble floor shattered as if exploding, sending spiderweb cracks spreading in every direction. Go Gyeol reflexively grabbed Kwon Do-geun’s arm and pulled him back.

That was when it happened.

Before the dust and fragments could even settle, dozens of CCTVs that had been hanging dead in every corner of the store ceiling lit up with eerie red lights from their camera lenses all at once.

And in the next moment, with a chilling mechanical CREEEAK, dozens of red lenses moved in perfect synchronization, focusing on Kang Ji-hyun, their only target.

“Kang Ji-hyun, dodge!”

At the same time as Lee Seong-ha’s shout, the marble fragments shattered at her feet rose into the air as if they had wills of their own. The sharp pieces instantly surrounded Kang Ji-hyun and became a fiercely rotating barrier.

BANG! BANG! BOOM—!

The searing beams pouring from the red lenses of the CCTVs struck the stone shield and caused a chain of explosions. Amid chaos where acrid dust and flashes obscured their vision, Kang Ji-hyun’s voice was cold as ice.

“Protect me.”

“Hey, you crazy brat!”

Paying no attention to Lee Seong-ha’s curse-filled shout, Kang Ji-hyun swung the red whip through gaps in the barrier and burst the sentinels on the ceiling one by one. Explosions and fragments poured down like rain, but neither the attacker nor the defender showed any sign of stopping.

Go Gyeol glanced sideways at Kang Hoon, who had somehow slipped behind his back to hide.

“What are you doing? You said you wanted to fight.”

“Ahaha… I’m still not used to the Dungeon environment yet.”

Go Gyeol turned his gaze away from Kang Hoon, who tried to smooth over the situation with a shameless laugh. His eyes returned to the center of the battlefield, where two people were locked in a fierce battle against the CCTVs. The store interior was wider than expected, and surveillance cameras were embedded as densely as a spiderweb. To destroy distant targets, they inevitably had to move, but every step forward was held back by barrages of lasers pouring in from blind spots. Time flowed on endlessly.

But that was not the real problem.

“Hm. Looks like they haven’t noticed. That guy’s real combat sense has rusted too.”

Go Gyeol inwardly mocked Lee Seong-ha’s dullness, then shouted in a voice that rang across the battlefield.

“Lee Seong-ha! Don’t step on the tile to your right!”

His shout was sharp as a blade. Lee Seong-ha’s foot, which was about to take the next step, instinctively stopped in midair. But the problem was not him. Kang Ji-hyun, who had been unconsciously stepping backward while dodging the pouring lasers, placed her foot exactly on the tile Go Gyeol had warned about.

It did not feel like solid marble.

“Huh?”

The moment a short question burst from Kang Ji-hyun’s mouth, a chilling change began beneath her feet. The firm tile softened like jelly and lost its shape, then transformed with a disgusting sound into a sticky black swamp. Viscous mud crawled over her combat boots and swallowed her ankles.

Before Lee Seong-ha could even look startled, Go Gyeol’s second command flew in like lightning.

“Lee Seong-ha! Grab Kang Ji-hyun and fly!”