Chapter 172

Chapter 172

Everyone entered the unknown dungeon except the rescue team led by Kelda.

The rescue team guarded the dungeon entrance and prepared for any possible emergency.

Zeon’s group entered the dungeon last.

The moment they stepped into the dungeon, their senses were thrown into disorder, and they felt tremendous pressure.

“Krrgh!”

“Mm!”

Levin and Briel, who had almost no dungeon experience, grimaced.

Ringing filled their ears, and with their senses disturbed, they could not tell direction.

Their stomachs churned, and the sensation that their entire bodies were being crushed left the two unable to pull themselves together.

On the other hand, Zeon and Mandy, who had plenty of experience, maintained their composure.

A moment later, the pressure that had been crushing them vanished as if it had never existed.

Levin and Briel tumbled disgracefully across the ground, while Zeon and Mandy barely managed to keep their balance.

Levin and Briel forced down their churning stomachs and raised their heads.

“Is this inside the dungeon?”

“What the hell?”

An ominous landscape entered their sight.

It was a forest filled with trees that had lost all their leaves, leaving only bare branches behind.

Not a single weed grew on the ground, and the earth was dry and crumbly.

Lightning constantly struck from a dark red sky.

At the ferocious scenery they had never seen before, Levin and Briel swallowed dryly.

Levin rose and carefully touched one of the stripped trees.

“So this is a tree?”

“Yes! But it is a dead tree, so no vitality can be felt from it.”

“It feels as if all its life has been stolen away.”

“That feeling is probably correct.”

“But why can’t we see the others?”

“Huh, you’re right.”

At Levin’s words, Briel also realized that the people who had entered before them were nowhere to be seen.

Only Zeon’s group was here. The other Awakened were nowhere in sight.

At that moment, Mandy said,

“Some dungeons drop people in different places even if they enter through the same entrance. This place seems to be one of them.”

“Then we won’t be able to meet the others?”

“If we continue the clearing, we should be able to meet them eventually. Assuming they are alive, of course.”

“Ugh!”

“We need to find the dungeon’s core. Everyone should be heading there, so once we reach the core, we will naturally be able to meet the others.”

“How do we know what the dungeon’s core is?”

“You will know naturally.”

“What?”

“Once you see it directly, you will know on your own.”

“What does that mean?”

Mandy gave no further answer.

It meant exactly what she had said: he had to see it directly and judge for himself.

At that moment, Zeon said,

“Let’s move. We need to hurry and find the others.”

“Yes!”

Zeon immediately began walking.

Briel followed behind him and asked,

“Do you know where we need to go?”

“No.”

“Then we’re just going to walk blindly?”

“If we keep walking for now, we will encounter something unusual eventually. From that point on, we can start finding the path in earnest.”

“Really?”

Briel tilted her head with an expression that said she did not understand.

Like Mandy, Zeon did not tell Briel anything more.

If one only learned everything from others, growth was bound to be slow.

There were things one could only understand by experiencing them personally and confronting them directly.

Right now, the two of them needed that kind of experience.

Zeon looked at the forest full of dead trees and thought,

‘A forest this devoid of life. It seems this dungeon clearing will not be easy.’

Dungeons were fragments of Kurayan drifting through dimensions.

Some terrain or location that had broken away from Kurayan manifested in the form of a dungeon. In other words, this place too was clearly a manifestation of some era or location in Kurayan.

‘I feel like I’ve seen someplace similar before.’

Zeon frowned.

This damp, ominous air did not feel unfamiliar. But he still could not remember where he had felt something like this before.

‘I’ll know once we go a little farther.’

At that moment, Briel suddenly let out a startled cry.

“Huh!”

“What is it?”

“That tree over there......”

“What about the tree?”

“I think it moved.”

“A tree moved? Does that make any sen......se? It does.”

Levin blinked.

It had not been an illusion.

Creeeak!

A tree really was moving.

A gigantic tree stood up by moving its roots and branches.

At the center of the tree, there were eyes, a nose, and a mouth like those of a person.

It blinked as if just waking from sleep, looking like a real human face.

“Wh-what is that?”

“It is an Ent.”

“What?”

“Just think of it as a moving tree.”

As befitting a High Elf, Briel quickly recognized the tree monster’s identity.

Levin calmed his startled heart and muttered,

“If it’s a tree monster, that’s nothing special. Can’t I just fry it?”

CRACKLE!

Purple electricity flowed from Levin’s entire body and struck the Ent directly.

The purple current burned the Ent in an instant.

SCREEEE!

The Ent let out a bizarre scream and turned into charcoal.

Levin clapped his hands together and smiled.

“That was nothing.”

“You idiot!”

“What?”

“How could you just kill it? If you carelessly kill an Ent, all the other Ents wake from sleep.”

“What does that mean?”

ROOOOAR!

At that instant, Ents’ roars burst from all over the forest.

They had sensed their comrade’s death and awakened.

Ents were monsters with strong attachment to their kin.

Though they had the form of trees, they possessed every emotion a living being had.

Among them, the strongest was attachment to their kin.

The race known as Ents would chase anyone who killed their kin to the ends of hell and kill them.

The Ents began walking in search of the one who had killed their comrade.

Though they seemed to walk slowly, they were so tall that they approached Zeon’s group in an instant.

“Why are there so many?”

“It is a forest, so of course there are many.”

“Damn! If I burn them all......”

“You don’t even know how many more Ents there are, and you want to burn them? You idiot! Think for once. Is your head just decoration?”

“Then what do we do?”

“We run.”

No sooner had Briel finished speaking than she began running.

Zeon and Mandy quietly followed behind her.

Levin, who had been standing blankly, shouted and ran after them.

“Wait for me!”

---

The place where Cha Jin-cheol and the West District Awakened entered was a canyon.

In the dry canyon, where not a blade of grass or a single tree grew, only a bleak wind blew.

“What an unpleasant place.”

Cha Jin-cheol frowned deeply.

He too had entered quite a few dungeons. But this was the first dungeon where he had felt such strong displeasure from the moment he entered.

The crumbly wind, which held no trace of life, made it feel as though his mechanical body was rusting.

“By the way, were all of us scattered according to the order we entered?”

At least it was fortunate that the West District Awakened had gathered in one place instead of scattering.

If all his subordinates had been scattered, even Cha Jin-cheol would have found it difficult.

‘Black Tortoise!’

—Yes! Master.

Fortunately, the auxiliary AI Black Tortoise answered.

That was possible because Black Tortoise had been downloaded into his body.

‘Can you tell what kind of dungeon this is?’

—There is too little information.

‘Useless, then.’

—I apologize.

Cha Jin-cheol looked back at his subordinates.

More than seventy Awakened were waiting for his decision.

“Divide the personnel into two groups and search the dungeon. If you discover a place that appears to be the core, contact each other.”

“Yes!”

Cha Jin-cheol ordered the strongest West District Awakened after himself to lead the other team.

Since he was a Grade B Awakened in name and truth, he should be able to deal with any unexpected situation.

Cha Jin-cheol set out to search the dungeon with only a small number of subordinates.

That was how confident he was in his own strength.

After leaving the canyon, they entered a forest filled with trees that had no leaves, only bare branches.

“A forest after a canyon?”

It was then.

“Hup!”

“Yah!”

With shouts, a group burst out of the forest.

It was Zeon’s group.

Briel and Levin were gasping for breath, while Zeon and Mandy wiped the sweat from their foreheads with their sleeves.

Levin said,

“They’re not following us anymore, right?”

“Ents rarely come outside the forest.”

“Thank goodness. We almost died.”

“This is all because of you, you idiot!”

“I’m still not an idiot.”

“Then who attacks an Ent in a forest?”

“That’s because......”

“That is why you are an idiot.”

“Damn it!”

At Briel’s scolding, Levin pouted. But because he was guilty, he could not make any further excuses.

Cha Jin-cheol approached them and said,

“You seem close.”

“It seems you fell nearby.”

“It somehow turned out that way.”

Cha Jin-cheol answered Zeon’s question coldly.

His gaze was fixed on Zeon’s face.

Zeon’s face was still pale. It was proof that he had not recovered his mana yet.

“It seems your mana recovery is slow.”

“Perhaps because this dungeon is like this, it isn’t easy.”

“True......”

Cha Jin-cheol nodded.

Common sense held that the more mana-filled a dungeon was, the more easily mana recovered.

In a dungeon with almost no vitality like this, mana recovered slowly.

Cha Jin-cheol’s eyes gleamed eerily.

‘Black Tortoise! At this moment, we could kill him easily, yes?’

—According to calculations, yes.

‘Should I execute it?’

—I do not recommend it.

‘Why?’

—Judging by this place’s sparse mana, it will take several days for Zeon to fully recover his mana. Until then, using him is far more efficient.

‘As expected.’

The savage energy vanished from Cha Jin-cheol’s eyes.

The change happened in too short a time for Levin and Briel to notice. But Zeon and Mandy did not miss it.

Zeon’s gaze suddenly turned toward Cha Jin-cheol’s waist.

“That binding rope. Did it always glow like that?”

“What? Hm! Why is this......?”

Cha Jin-cheol looked flustered.

Just as Zeon had said, the binding rope hanging at his waist was emitting black light.

His binding rope was an item he had purchased at the White Bear Caravan auction.

Its official name was Warden’s Binding Rope.

He had kept it hanging at his waist the whole time, but because he was a mechanized Awakened, he had not had any occasion to use it until now.

Zeon said,

“It seems this dungeon is connected to that item.”

Dungeons like that occasionally existed.

Places where items excavated from other dungeons resonated with them......

‘No wonder it seemed sealed. Does the clue to unlocking it exist here?’

As if it had returned to its homeland, Warden’s Binding Rope emitted an even stronger black light.