Chapter 35

Chapter 35: The Exam (3)

A dungeon is a peculiar place composed of multiple areas—called stages—or floors.

Each stage has its own distinct characteristics.

This makes dungeon clearing all the more challenging.

Typically, a dungeon is built around a single concept that all its stages follow.

However, some dungeons are a chaotic jumble with no rhyme or reason—ocean in the early stages, desert in the later ones.

Trivial as it may seem, the stage system gives countless commanders headaches when assembling their parties.

Some stages disadvantage mages and favor archers.

Some stages disadvantage archers and favor assassins.

In some stages—

In some stages......

As an extreme example, Dragon's Roost—widely regarded as the worst dungeon in human history—consisted of nineteen stages.

Each stage had such utter bullshit of a layout that class effectiveness swung to extremes from one to the next.

In the end, Dragon's Roost required more than half of all S-rank Heroes humanity could muster, and of those, half died or sustained critical injuries before it was finally cleared.

The exam site, the Pale Monkey Forest, was a dungeon composed of three stages.

Its concept: monkeys and forest.

The first stage was a circular forest teeming with monkeys.

The second stage was a narrow, straight forest trail.

It didn't have as many monsters as the first stage.

In fact, there were only three.

However, the area was several times wider than the first stage, and the trees were packed dense.

In some ways, this was the stage every team had researched the most.

To clear Stage 2, they had to hunt down three monkeys hiding within.

Baek Seolhwa's B-team was struggling with this.

"Over there, get it!"

The Pale Monkey Forest was a dungeon frequently visited by novice Heroes.

That meant plenty of Heroes had cleared it before, and numerous strategies were publicly available—so they'd assumed a stage that just required some cleverness would be easy to pass.

But B-team's reality wasn't so forgiving.

"It was right here a second ago......"

"Huh? What?"

They'd lost it again.

According to the strategy guide, those things moved in set patterns.

The problem was that these were nothing like the grunts from the first stage.

They were too fast.

It was impossible to tell which direction they'd move next.

They knew the strategy, but executing it was goddamn difficult.

"Hah... haah......"

"Shit, they're so fucking fast!"

"I-incoming!"

—SCREECH!

A monkey streaked past like the wind and dropped something.

That goddamn projectile again.

A black object resembling a triangle kimbap in both size and shape.

But its true nature was something incomparably more vicious.

"Everybody dodge!"

Someone screamed, but it was already too late.

It burst in midair with a POOF, and a thick cloud of sky-blue powder erupted outward.

"Ugh, so goddamn annoying!"

"That crazy bastard......"

The sky-blue powder was an item that inflicted the status effect "Confusion."

In Florian Rhapsody, Confusion was a simple effect that scrambled your hotkeys. But this was reality.

B-team's members felt an unpleasant sensation envelop their bodies.

"Ugh... my body feels wrong. My body doesn't feel like my own......"

"Damn it! How are we supposed to catch them like this......"

The teammates had no choice but to drop to the ground where they stood.

—OOKEEK! KEEKEE!

The monkey's chattering sounded like mockery ringing in their ears, but they had to endure it.

They couldn't even catch them while in one piece—moving in this state would only end badly.

"This wears off after a minute, right?"

"I think so......"

Five minutes had passed since entering the second stage, and they had nothing to show for it.

Baek Seolhwa could have tracked those things—but she'd already run off on her own.

The remaining teammates could neither advance nor retreat and were stuck wringing their hands when Baek Seolhwa returned.

"Got one. How about you guys?"

"W-well, we......"

Im Hansol was B-team's vice-leader.

While Baek Seolhwa moved independently, she'd been leading the team. In practice, the others considered her the real leader rather than the vice-leader.

Im Hansol was now at a crossroads.

Right now, the main group was effectively helpless.

They needed Baek Seolhwa's help.

But she worried that bringing Baek Seolhwa down to their level would only hamstring her mobility.

If the rest of the team couldn't pull their weight to match what Baek Seolhwa contributed, it would be the worst possible decision.

'Screw it, forget it.'

Im Hansol gave up trying to decide on her own and chose to leave it to Baek Seolhwa.

"Um, Seolhwa. The situation's bad. The monsters are too fast—we can't pin down their positions."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah. So we just can't read their patterns at all... I-I'm... sorry, I'm sorry......"

Im Hansol had started off confidently enough, but her voice quickly shrank until she ended up apologizing.

That cold face seemed to be reproaching her and the rest of the team.

She must be disappointed.

We were trusted with this, and we turned out to be completely useless......

Baek Seolhwa was in a bind too.

It was happening again.

Im Hansol's face had gone pale with fear all on its own, and she'd started apologizing over and over.

Frustrated, Baek Seolhwa glanced at the other teammates, but they all wore the same expression.

Baek Seolhwa let out a sigh.

"I-I'm sorry! We're just so useless......"

That wasn't why she'd sighed.

She wanted to explain, but she kept her mouth shut.

Every time she'd tried to defend herself in the past, it had never gone well.

Everyone interpreted it as her being angry and sarcastic.

Very few people looked at Baek Seolhwa without prejudice.

'I miss the Professor.'

Strangely, thinking about the Professor put her at ease.

And at the same time, the lecture's content came flooding back.

'What do you think is the most common reason a party that's entered a dungeon gives up and leaves?'

'Wouldn't it be the boss fight?'

'No. In most dungeons, the clearing party distributes their strength appropriately, so that's rare.'

'According to statistics published by the Hero Association, the answer is: failing to include enough assassins or archers.'

'Most parties focus primarily on combat—specifically, firepower—when assembling.'

'That makes it easy to neglect secondary elements like trap disarming or enemy detection.'

'You will likely face such situations as well. So let me teach you how to compensate for the absence of an archer or assassin.'

Two monkeys remained.

It was self-evident that her teammates couldn't be of much help in their current state.

But Baek Seolhwa couldn't just run them down on foot either. That would take far too long.

The only thing she could rely on was the Professor's teachings.

'Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated. Identifying the enemy's abilities comes first.'

Three monkeys.

The white one was the fastest.

The black one had a cloaking ability.

The gray one threw bombs.

Baek Seolhwa had managed to take down the white one somehow.

That left two.

How was she supposed to catch one that hid with cloaking and one that inflicted Confusion on anyone who got close?

'A cloaking monster is nearly impossible to find without detection abilities. Even more so in terrain with lots of obstacles.'

'Abandon the idea of finding it. You have to draw it out.'

The simplest way to force a monster to reveal itself—

Was precisely this.

"How about we deal with the bomb monkey first?"

"Sounds good."

The teammates offered tepid opinions.

No.

If they did that, the cloaking one would stay hidden forever.

Baek Seolhwa seized the initiative.

"Follow me."

WHOOSH—!

She launched from her position in an instant, charging headlong toward the gray monkey.

Her teammates scrambled to follow, but the gap between them only widened.

—SCREECH! SCREEECH!

As expected, the gray monkey counterattacked.

A kimbap bomb. It burst in midair with a POP. Sky-blue powder engulfed Baek Seolhwa's body.

"Baek Seolhwa! Are you okay?"

"You can't just rush in recklessly like—"

Baek Seolhwa resisted.

Heedless of the Confusion, she charged forward to swing her sword—

SLASH—!

"Huh?"

"Baek Seolhwa! What are you doing?!"

She had cut Im Hansol.

"I-I didn't mean to......"

The same stoic expression Baek Seolhwa always wore.

But today, her complexion was unusually pale.

The teammates could easily tell.

Forcing herself to move under Confusion—that was what had caused this.

"Ngh, urk......"

Baek Seolhwa began flailing her sword wildly.

She split rocks, split trees, split the empty air.

Gone was the refined swordsmanship she'd honed to completion—in its place was nothing but a blade swung without purpose or control.

"At this rate... isn't she in danger?"

"Oh, damn it! We're all going to die!"

—SHRIEK!

The monsters didn't let this opportunity slip.

Their strongest enemy, Baek Seolhwa, couldn't control her own body. This was their chance.

They'd been hiding because they lacked the strength, but they would never run from an enemy they could beat.

With a singular drive to kill, both monkeys lunged.

"Leader!" "Baek Seolhwa!"

The horrified screams of her teammates calling her name.

As the crisis bore down on Baek Seolhwa—

The corner of her mouth curled upward.

Good thing you're monsters.

Because your intelligence is low—because you have the cruelty to never let an enemy walk away unscathed—

SHING—!

A single sword strike.

That alone ended the second stage.

Her teammates stood slack-jawed, staring blankly at the monkey corpses.

Baek Seolhwa spoke to Im Hansol, who lay on the ground.

"Let's go."

Im Hansol sprang to her feet and flashed a grin.

"How was my acting? The second I felt the back of the blade, I knew exactly what you were going for, you know?"

Im Hansol excitedly began reviewing the play on her own.

The teammates, finally piecing together what had happened, asked.

"That was acting?"

"Yep yep. It was all to lure them in."

"You seriously scared me."

"Hehee."

Im Hansol made a V-sign with her fingers.

Then she opened her palm and held it out to Baek Seolhwa.

"We had the perfect sync!"

"......"

Baek Seolhwa returned to her stoic expression and stared at Im Hansol.

The high energy lasted only a moment.

Under Baek Seolhwa's piercing, stone-cold gaze, Im Hansol froze up again in an instant.

"Oh, okay... if you don't want to high-five, that's fine......"

Just as Im Hansol started to lower her hand, Baek Seolhwa gave her palm a light tap.

"Good job."

"Ah......!"

It was a brief compliment, but it was enough to make her chest swell.

She'd been acknowledged by Baek Seolhwa.

The other teammates watched Im Hansol with strange expressions.

Admiration and envy in equal measure.

"Come on, let's go! We're taking down the boss and finishing this!"

"Yeah!"

A short while before B-team set foot on the final stage—

The team that had reached the second stage faster than any of the four—

An Seri's C-team.

"The second stage is about hunting three monkeys hiding in the forest."

"This time I'll be the star of the—"

"No. Hang back."

The apex archer among the Academy's freshmen.

Even broadening the scope to all of Florian's students, An Seri was a genius who ranked in the top ten.

Detection was an archer's specialty.

An Seri's eyes glowed blue.

"Found them."

TWING—!

One arrow.

It sailed through the air, threaded between the trees, and pierced its mark dead-on.

—SCREECH!

A single, short scream was all it left behind before one monkey tumbled from a tree.

Another arrow.

The white monkey fled at the fastest speed of any monster they'd encountered in the dungeon.

But the arrow was far, far faster.

It pierced the throat with precision, and the monkey plummeted without even a death cry.

One last arrow.

The monkey knew.

This was a killing blow. It, too, would follow its companions.

THWACK—!

Three arrows. Three monkeys.

Nam Hyeju's jaw dropped.

"That was absolutely insane... Fight me. Please? I'll show you something awesome in the boss stage too, I promise!"

"We'll see how you do."

"You mean that, right? Don't forget! Promise?"

Faster than any other team by an incomparable margin.

They arrived at the final boss stage in the blink of an eye.

At the center of it all stood their team leader, An Seri.