Chapter 25

Chapter 25: Grinning Dungeon Practicum (2)

In the distant past, humanity's first dungeon clear was an event famous enough to be told to this day.

At first, the United States declared they would shove every kind of bomb through the Gate and blow the dungeon and all its monsters to smithereens.

Using such weapons in a city would've caused civilian casualties, but inside a dungeon, there were no restrictions on deploying modern ordnance.

A plausible attempt.

But it went down in history as the most laughable failure ever.

The lesson humanity's first dungeon clear taught was this: firearms and electronics could not be used inside dungeons.

Countless theories were proposed, but the reason was never uncovered.

The instruments meant to analyze the dungeon's interior were equally useless.

An environment that seemed to deny everything humanity had built up until then.

That was what a dungeon was.

"Light!"

When Seo Dayun chanted the Incantation in a clear voice, the cave interior brightened.

Before them stretched a fairly steep uphill slope.

The red-haired swordswoman, Nam Hyeju, charged forward without hesitation.

"I'll take point! Weaklings, follow my back!"

"Wait, if you rush in like that......"

An Seri tried to stop her, but she'd already gone ahead.

Nam Hyeju was filled with thoughts of showing the team how cool she was.

Squelch─

"Huh? What the─?"

Nam Hyeju realized something was wrong the instant she stepped forward.

As if she'd stepped into a swamp, the ground sucked her in.

She thrashed to escape, but only sank deeper.

Panicking, she flailed violently.

"Damn it! What is this?"

"Calm down! Relax your body and stop moving!"

Nam Hyeju froze only after An Seri yelled.

Only then did she stop sinking further.

Gam Miseong grabbed hold and pulled her out with difficulty.

"Holy shit, that was scary. Thanks."

Nam Hyeju grinned casually as if nothing had happened.

Seo Dayun spoke up worriedly.

"How do we get past this?"

"Right? Nothing like this was in the lecture."

Everyone studied the slope with grave expressions.

A swamp on an uphill slope was physically nonsensical. But if magic was involved, it wasn't impossible.

The only hint for getting through was today's lecture content, and nothing there had covered this.

Naturally, all eyes fell on An Seri.

"Seri, what do we do?"

"Hmm...... nothing comes to mind right away either. If it's a swamp, maybe crawling up in prone position?"

In a prone crawl, body contact with the swamp's surface was maximized, so she wouldn't sink.

Crawling prone up a steep slope looked tough, but with a superhuman's body, it was perfectly doable.

Gam Miseong, the bronze-skinned spearman, offered his input.

"Then let's go one at a time. Whoever's climbing might run into trouble, so the team leader covers from behind."

"Good."

The moment An Seri gave the go-ahead, Nam Hyeju stepped forward.

"Then me first!"

An Seri nodded, and Nam Hyeju began crawling up.

Gam Miseong was impressed by her nimble movement.

"Oh, she's fast."

"Hopefully she makes it up without incident."

"Oh, ohh! Lord!"

Suddenly, Abraham flung his arms skyward and shouted.

"Brothers and sisters! The Lord has delivered a message to me! Rejoice!"

"A message?"

"Yes! He says a calamity is approaching! Ah, how merciful of Him. To bestow His word upon lowly us─today is truly a blessed day!"

"I don't know what's going on but that's great!"

Seo Dayun smiled along, seeing Abraham so happy.

Abraham looked ready to prostrate himself in prayer.

Gam Miseong was baffled.

"Calamity? Then that's bad! Why are you celebrating?"

"Huh, you're right? Is this trouble?"

"The mere fact that the Lord watches over His lambs is cause for joy. This grace─"

Rumble, rumble, rumble─

When Nam Hyeju reached about halfway up the slope, the cave suddenly began to shake.

Everyone realized this was the calamity Abraham had mentioned.

An Seri shouted urgently.

"So what's going to happen?"

"How could a lowly human fathom the Lord's will?"

"Just say you don't know!"

"Son of a─!"

Moments later, round shapes appeared at the top of the slope.

They were massive boulders.

Multiple boulders began rolling down.

Nam Hyeju, still crawling up the slope, screamed.

"Fucking hell! What is that? H-Help!"

Stay still and get crushed; stand up and sink into the swamp. A do-or-die situation.

As the boulder bore down, Nam Hyeju squeezed her eyes shut.

Just when she thought it was over, An Seri stepped in.

Whoosh─!

She whipped out her bow and intercepted the boulder.

It was a hastily fired arrow with little mana behind it, but the boulder wasn't particularly tough─it shattered easily.

A few more twangs of the bowstring, and every incoming boulder was destroyed.

"I'll cover from the rear, so keep climbing!"

"Okay!"

Boulder fragments flew, but that was bearable enough to endure.

The incline felt slightly steeper than below, but nothing major yet.

That thought lasted only a moment.

The hill started acting up again.

This time, a bizarre sound accompanied it.

─Oohoorookookooroohooh!

"Wh-What?"

The slope began shaking violently, as if an earthquake had struck.

Nam Hyeju held on as long as she could, but the violent back-and-forth eventually sent her tumbling all the way down.

"Gkh......"

Nam Hyeju glared at the slope with a frustrated expression.

It was pathetic that she was helpless against a mere dungeon.

If it were An Seri, she could've held on and made it to the top......

"Good effort. About halfway up, boulders fall, and around seventy percent, the ground shakes...... at least we got some intel. The boulders can be handled by whoever goes up first instead of me. The question is the shaking ground."

"So what about the shaking?"

"The swamp is a trap created by magic, so...... Dayun, think you can dispel it?"

When every eye turned to her, Seo Dayun startled.

She considered it briefly, then shook her head uncertainly.

"I don't think I can...... I tried to intervene when it shook earlier, but I couldn't sense any mana at all... Sorry. My level must be too low."

"Don't lose heart, sister."

"Yeah! Cheer up."

An Seri paused to consider the intent of the person who'd built this dungeon─the professor.

He'd created a trap with absolutely no way to break it?

That couldn't be right.

In a course that taught dungeon strategies, giving the lesson "if your specs are lacking, you can't clear the dungeon" would be absurd.

Which meant Seo Dayun's skill wasn't insufficient─there were no results to be had.

It had been designed from the start so that a mage couldn't dispel it.

"No. We're going into the swamp. There has to be a medium inside."

A medium.

It referred to a tool that propagated magic.

The Barrier Stone sustaining this entire Barrier was one type of medium. Magic manifested through a medium could only be removed by destroying the medium itself.

"But...... isn't it dangerous?"

"Yeah! We don't know what's in there."

"Sister, the Lord says He is uneasy about what's inside."

"......Do we really have to go?"

"Yes. We do."

The team recoiled at the ominous unknown space.

But An Seri was resolute.

The inside of the swamp was the key to escaping the dungeon.

Her conviction was so absolute that no one objected. And even if they had, there was no alternative.

"Alright...... Gold Sun, you take point this time."

"What? Why me? And stop calling me Gold Sun. I don't like it."

"I already went. Would you rather send the healer? The archer? The mage?"

"Ah, damn......"

Unable to argue, Gam Miseong walked toward the swamp.

Going in raw was a little scary.

He flipped his spear upside down and prodded the surface with the butt end─it felt oddly like poking pudding with a spoon.

Watching this pitiful display, Nam Hyeju shoved Gam Miseong's back hard.

He faceplanted and was sucked into the swamp.

"KYAAAAH!"

"Let's go, everyone."

With those two in the lead, the remaining members followed into the swamp.

Inside was a space saturated with mana.

Breathing was fine, but the resistance was far greater than outside, making movement difficult.

"Holy shit, this is no joke."

"......Something's coming."

Archers had the keenest senses of any class.

Tracking targets required the ability to identify enemies through sound, scent, airflow, and mana─even without seeing them.

The archer class, and especially An Seri's word, could never be dismissed.

The moment the team's tension peaked, the enemies appeared.

"What the hell! What are those?"

"Weird as fuck."

Dozens of spheres with strange markings materialized.

The floating orbs each emitted their own light.

Training dummies.

An unfamiliar type, though.

They had zero information on how these things fought.

─Oohoorookookooroohooh!

The bizarre sound from earlier returned.

A hypothesis flashed through An Seri's mind.

"The things shaking the slope were probably these."

"Then we have to take them all out to get up there! Let's go!"

Nam Hyeju swung her sword at one of the spheres.

But the strike cut only air.

"Huh?"

The high-speed sphere dodged the attack in an instant.

And immediately counterattacked.

The sphere struck her stomach, and Nam Hyeju was sent flying.

"Gah!"

Seeing Nam Hyeju taken out by a single unit, Gam Miseong was horrified.

"Those things─why are they so strong?"

"No. We've gotten weaker."

"What?"

"Inside this swamp, the resistance makes it impossible to move properly. And those things are dummies designed to operate in here...... the odds are stacked way against us."

An Seri's explanation darkened every face.

It looked like a fight with zero chance of winning.

Click─

The spheres each lit up brightly and began to move.

Dozens of them.

What followed was a one-sided beating.

"Fucking─! Ow, aagh!"

"Kyaah!"

Gam Miseong brandished his spear and darted around, but the spheres struck and retreated so fast he was helpless.

Nam Hyeju was besieged by a similar number.

Seo Dayun and Abraham, who had zero close-combat ability, each drew just one sphere. Still enough to torment the two as they fled in every direction.

"Tch!"

Every remaining sphere converged on An Seri.

An Seri cursed internally.

These bastards─how do they know us well enough to split their numbers so perfectly?

Thwang─!

Frustration drove her to pull the bowstring, but the arrow wouldn't down them.

Her shots─unbelievably slow for something fired by An Seri─barely grazed the high-speed spheres.

In frustration, she swatted at the incoming ones with her bow.

CRASH─!

She put up far more resistance than the others, but ultimately couldn't overcome the sheer numbers and took hits.

Grinding her molars didn't change the fact that there was no way to turn the tide.

An Seri reluctantly gave the order.

"......Fall back! Everyone regroup and break through the retreat route!"

Come to think of it, the professor had said during the lecture:

That he wouldn't chase down cowards who gave up.

True to his word, the moment they prepared to flee, the spheres stopped attacking.

That was the most infuriating part, but there was nothing they could do.

Thanks to that, escaping the swamp wasn't difficult.

"Hah, hah......"

"Almost died in there. What kind of difficulty is this?"

"Can we even win?"

"Sisters, the Lord will resolve everything. Trust in Him."

One failure, and the team's mood cratered.

While everyone wallowed in gloom, An Seri spoke.

"Think back to what we learned today. The answer is in there."