Chapter 104

Chapter 104: Double Dungeon (3)

Double Dungeon.

Strictly classified, a Double Dungeon was called a dungeon but wasn't actually a subcategory of one.

A Double Dungeon was a custom dungeon created by Evil Gods.

While normal dungeons connected monster habitats to Gates, a Double Dungeon was a space an Evil God had constructed and configured at will.

The monsters inside, the traps, even the dungeon's clear condition—all sculpted by the Evil God's whim.

That made the interior all the more disorienting.

─MOOOOO—!

The wildebeest herd's base was a mountainside flanked by a large lake.

If you wondered why there was a mountain in what looked like savanna, you'd already lost. Double Dungeons were just like that.

"Wow. Wildebeest everywhere."

"Feels reassuring, weirdly. With numbers like these, even that dinosaur from earlier wouldn't attack easily."

"We'll team up with them to stay safe—!"

Listening to his men chatter, Murakami clicked his tongue and dealt out some harsh reality.

"Fools. Have you forgotten those things are also monsters?"

"But they're not hostile to us."

"We're cooperating temporarily for the long game."

"Nonsense. To clear the dungeon, we'll eventually have to kill every last one of them. Start thinking about how you'd kill this many."

"Oh......"

"R-right."

"For that matter, since when do monsters inside the same dungeon fight each other? No—why would a monster even eat another monster? If they could build mana that way, why bother leaving through the Gate in the first place......"

Murakami's muttering helped me realize something I'd been overlooking.

Monster-on-monster combat.

Definitely not normal.

One could attribute it to the Evil God warping monster behavior, but another possibility came to mind.

Come to think of it, the giant dinosaur had been far too easily exposed to the curse.

A monster that size should have carried enough mana for natural resistance to curses just from sheer mana volume alone.

"Mana......?"

It hadn't used a single mana-based skill. Because it didn't need to?

I'd been too caught up in the urgency to notice, but had I actually sensed mana from those creatures?

The answer was no.

Neither the dinosaur, nor the lions, nor the wildebeest herd over there.

I couldn't detect mana from any of them.

At last, the hazy puzzle in my head clicked into place.

Living beings that consumed organic matter to survive, yet carried no mana.

The implication was simple.

"These creatures might not be monsters."

"What? What do you mean?"

"If they were monsters, they'd have no reason to eat grass or animals. And I can't sense any mana from them either."

"...That makes sense. Then what are they?"

"They're just absurdly oversized animals. Some are house-sized, some are mountain-sized, but at their core—just animals."

"Good lord."

Nobody seemed to believe me, but I found it equally absurd—and yet the facts were the facts.

I'd never seen anything like this in the game.

The only certainty was that the Evil Gods were up to something.

If they weren't monsters but unknown entities, did the Evil Gods think they'd be impossible to strategize against?

Or were fielding these creatures more cost-effective than filling a dungeon with monsters?

I didn't know.

There was too little information right now to make a sound judgment.

"I'd planned to use Monster Taming on these creatures to gather intel, but that won't work."

Wang Sheng wore a carefree expression, as if it hardly mattered.

"Monster or not, who cares? We were going to turtle up anyway. Just relax and wait. When Lie Xiao gets here, he'll sort everything out."

"No. Change of plans."

"Huh?"

"The plan to wait for reinforcements was based on the assumption that reinforcements could handle the situation. But with unknown life forms in play, we don't know what could happen. We can't risk sitting around and getting blindsided. It's time to move."

"Okay?"

The half-baked explanation was enough for the expedition to go along.

That reason was partly true, but the bigger concern was elsewhere.

Matchups mattered in combat.

Sometimes, matchup advantages could overturn even overwhelming force differentials.

The Evil Gods knew that perfectly well.

This was a space designed exactly as they wanted—they'd absolutely stacked the matchups in their favor.

What worried me most was something happening to Lie Xiao and Edelin when they arrived.

If the expedition was wiped out, it'd be a painful blow to three Northeast Asian nations. But if Lie Xiao's and Edelin's parties were compromised, the damage wouldn't be national—it'd be global.

I owed the expedition an apology, but even at the cost of some casualties, we needed intelligence to relay to the reinforcements.

"Spread out by party to scout. Avoid engagement as much as possible; we regroup here at sundown."

***

Each party split up to scout north, south, east, and west.

With nowhere else to belong, I joined Geumok Guild's party—fellow Koreans, after all.

"Monkey troop over there!"

"Disgustingly huge. Never thought I'd see a monkey bigger than an ogre!"

The primary goal was mapping. Drawing a map.

Charting the dungeon interior and densely filling it with intel—an exploration method that was highly effective but miserably inefficient. The issue was the time it consumed.

Not my preferred approach, but we weren't pressed for time, and given the unknowns lurking about, I opted for thoroughness to minimize variables.

Once we actually started, though, a flaw in the plan became apparent.

The place was absurdly vast.

The dungeon housed giant creatures, and the scale matched—everything was enormous.

No matter how far we walked, there was no end in sight.

"I don't see a path this way. I think we need to double back?"

"Can't we just cut through the trees and push into the forest?"

"Yeah. We've been going in circles along the edge this whole time. At this rate, it'll take forever."

"No. The professor said to avoid combat, remember? What if we run into a dangerous specimen?"

"Right......"

Do Yeonha expertly shut down her party members' suggestions.

Entering the forest wouldn't actually be a big deal.

Hulking dinosaurs were visible from a distance, so the worst threat inside would be... tigers, maybe?

While the dinosaurs with their crushing size advantage were tricky, other animals couldn't use mana, making them simple to deal with.

Yet Do Yeonha had a separate reason for opposing the forest venture.

"There they are again."

"Bees!"

A swarm of bees buzzed loudly overhead.

The noise evoked fighter jets.

They'd be annoying in a fight, but they showed no hostility.

The swarm passed right over us without a second look.

Completely harmless creatures.

But not everyone saw it that way.

"KYAAAH!"

Do Yeonha shrieked—adorably—and cradled her head with both arms.

The raw terror in her voice was unmistakable.

That's right.

Do Yeonha was deathly afraid of insects!

That was why she'd been reluctant to go deep into the forest, where bugs were obviously plentiful.

Just the bees had her like this—surrounded by giant insects, she might actually pass out.

The party members' pitying looks made Do Yeonha snap.

"Wh-what are you looking at?!"

"Nothing. Nothing at all. Pfft......"

"Right. Even Heroes can have things they don't like."

"I-it's not that I'm scared! I just dislike them! Bugs cause a visceral aversion! Besides, who in the world actually likes bugs?"

"Bees are insects, not bugs."

"Don't talk back!"

"I see a grasshopper over there."

"EEK! Wh-where?"

Do Yeonha startled and hopped around frantically for a good while.

Only after seeing her subordinates snickering did she realize it was a prank.

After Do Yeonha's face turned crimson and she administered some "discipline," the commotion finally settled.

"Hoo, let's all watch ourselves. Hm?"

"...Yes ma'am."

Belatedly remembering my presence as an outsider, Do Yeonha spoke as if making excuses.

"Oh, sorry—we're a pretty scattered bunch, aren't we? The guild members are so immature."

"Not at all. You all seem close. Looking at your party, I feel like I can sense Geumok Guild's atmosphere."

At Do Yeonha's words, party members muttered things like "She's the most childish one here."

When Do Yeonha turned with a warm smile, the muttering died down.

She sighed and said.

"It's actually not like that across the guild. We're the exception—every other party is suffocatingly rigid. Zero social bonding, no conversation beyond necessary briefings. It's a pretty joyless guild."

"So your party is uniquely close?"

"It's more that the other parties can't be. Strict discipline, vertical hierarchy, tight micromanagement from above—that's the Geumok way."

"Your party doesn't seem like that at all."

"We used to be the same. But three years ago, the Master gave the young master and the young lady command of the 1st and 2nd parties as a training exercise. That's when Seri got rid of the bad practices for us."

"I see."

We walked in silence for a while.

The whole time, Do Yeonha fidgeted like someone with something uncomfortable to say.

It wasn't random fidgeting—she kept stealing glances at me, which made me uncomfortable in turn.

"......"

When I turned to meet her sidelong stare, she whipped her head away.

I could tell she wanted to say something, but what?

"......"

After a brief battle of nerves, I was the one to wave the white flag. Her constant peeking was getting to me.

Eventually, Do Yeonha hesitated, then squeezed her eyes shut and spoke.

"P-Professor, please don't take this the wrong way."

"Alright."

"You know how the young lady sees me as a dependable, cool older sister, right?"

I didn't think that was quite the case.

But I nodded anyway.

"Uh, yes."

"I've worked really hard to build that image with her. But if she found out I was scared of bugs, it might put a crack in my image, you know? So please keep it a secret."

"...Understood."

What a spectacularly anticlimactic request.

The An Seri I knew wouldn't care about that one bit.

And the whole premise that Do Yeonha was seen as a dependable older sister was already—

"That woman's at it again."

"Ugh. She's perfectly normal otherwise—why does she become such a disaster whenever Seri's involved?"

Judging by the Geumok members' reactions, my hunch was correct.

Their expressions as they watched Do Yeonha were uniformly sour.

Do Yeonha took her frustration out on the innocent guild members.

"Stop slacking and do the survey properly! We're supposed to be mapping!"

"I think we've covered this area."

"Right. Only the forest interior is left."

"Wh-what? But the bugs... I mean, it's dangerous. We can't."

"That won't be necessary."

"Hm?"

A faint sense of wrongness I'd been feeling all along.

The closer we drew, the stronger the presence grew—my skin prickled.

At the innermost point of the path toward the forest, a sinister mana was seeping out.

So faint that even a skilled Hero might not notice, but the mana itself was so impure that I'd barely managed to detect it.

Only one thing could produce mana like that.

An Evil God.

I approached the rock pile ahead and pulled out the largest stone at the bottom.

The rock pile collapsed with a rumble.

"H-huh?"

"What is that?"

What emerged was a pit.

Beneath the rock pile, a cave entrance had been concealed.

"What? How is this mana so enormous......"

"How did we miss this?"

The moment the rocks were cleared, massive mana became apparent.

The rock pile must have been functioning as something like a seal.

"We're going in."