Chapter 37: Chapter37-Teleportation
Fuck... Only twenty-seven minutes remained before the dungeon completed its modification.
The thought alone made me pick up my pace.
The skeletons still refused to attack me.
Whenever I approached, they retreated and maintained a safe distance, just as they had before.
At this point, they were practically clearing a path for me.
A road made entirely out of terrified skeletons.
Not that I was complaining.
I simply followed the direction they’d originally come from.
If my assumption was correct, it would eventually lead me to the cave.
Dungeon monsters usually spawned near the boss’s territory, and the boss itself tended to remain close to the main spawn point.
So if these skeletons had come from somewhere, there was a good chance the Dullahan was there as well.
Nearly ten minutes later, the tunnel widened ahead. A cave entrance came into view.
From the outside, it looked completely ordinary.
Dark, silent, nothing special.
Without slowing down, I ran inside.
As soon as I entered, I noticed strange blue rocks embedded throughout the walls.
They gave off a faint glow, bathing the cave in soft blue light.
The sight didn’t surprise me.
I’d seen similar rocks during my first dungeon expedition.
What mattered right now wasn’t the scenery.
It was the time.
I checked my watch again.
11:11 A.M.
My expression stiffened.
That meant I had roughly thirteen minutes left before the dungeon’s next modification took effect.
Shit. I needed to move faster.
While running, I pulled an S-rank stamina potion from my inventory, drank it in a single gulp, and tossed the empty bottle aside.
The effect was immediate.
The fatigue weighing down my body vanished almost instantly, and with my stamina fully restored, I pushed myself to run even faster.
A minute or two later, I finally reached the end of the tunnel.
The narrow passage opened into a massive underground cavern.
When I stepped inside, my eyes swept across the area.
Bones. Everywhere.
Hundreds of thousands of human bones littered the cavern floor.
Skulls, rib cages, arms, legs.
The entire ground looked as though it had been buried beneath a sea of remains.
It should have been a horrifying sight.
But my attention barely lingered on it.
Something else immediately caught my eye.
A massive throne stood in the center of the cavern.
A throne constructed entirely from human bones.
My gaze sharpened.
Huh?
Where was he?
The Dullahan should have been sitting there.
At least, that’s what I’d expected.
My gaze swept across the cavern. Once. Twice. Three times. Nothing.
What the hell was going on?
Had he already noticed me?
Was he hiding somewhere, waiting for the perfect moment to strike?
That seemed like the most likely explanation.
Rare-rank monsters weren’t mindless creatures. They possessed enough intelligence to set traps, set up ambushes, and take advantage of an opponent’s mistakes.
Still, it didn’t matter.
I already had a plan for dealing with him.
A plan built entirely around a flaw Allen had told me about.
All I had to do was force him to play by my rules.
Without wasting any more time, I spoke.
"System. Do it exactly the way I told you."
A response immediately appeared before me.
[Okay, Host!]
I focused inward.
"Inventory."
A portal opened at once.
Unlike the usual ones, this portal didn’t appear beside me.
It opened directly above my head.
And it was enormous.
At least five times larger than a normal inventory portal.
For a brief moment, nothing happened.
Then a handful of gold coins slipped from the portal.
Within seconds, the trickle became a stream. Then a torrent.
Before long, a steady stream of gold was pouring down from the portal like rain.
Yeah.
The Dullahan’s greatest weakness was gold.
I’d learned that from Allen.
According to him, even the strongest Dullahans possessed an instinctive fear of it.
If that was true for the strongest among them, then a Rare-rank Dullahan definitely wouldn’t be immune.
The instant Allen told me about that weakness, an idea had immediately formed in my head.
I asked him for five thousand kilograms of gold coins.
To his credit, he didn’t ask a single question.
He simply escorted me to the Frostburne family treasury.
Maybe he assumed it was part of the plan I’d mentioned earlier.
The one I refused to explain.
Whatever the reason, he trusted me enough not to interfere.
Once we arrived, I quietly stuffed as many gold coins as I could into my system inventory.
Anyway...
Coming back in the present, I sprinted toward the throne.
It took less than a minute to reach it.
The moment I arrived, I dropped to one knee and began searching beneath the throne, pushing aside piles of bones in search of the Teleportation Skill Book.
Fortunately, it didn’t take long.
After clearing away a few more bones, I noticed a faint blue glow hidden beneath the pile.
My heart skipped a beat.
I quickly brushed the remaining bones aside.
And there it was.
The exact book I had seen in my dream.
A blue-covered book emitting a soft blue light.
Even the title matched perfectly.
"The Teleporter’s Guide."
Fuck.
I found it.
For a moment, excitement surged through me, but I quickly forced myself to stay calm. Grabbing the book, I pulled it free from the pile.
The instant I did, a system notification appeared before my eyes.
[Host, it appears you have discovered "The Teleporter’s Guide." Do you wish to extract the skill contained within?]
I didn’t hesitate.
Yes.
A loading bar immediately appeared in my vision.
17%... 43%... 75%... 98%... 99%... 100%
A second later, a new notification replaced it.
[Congratulations, Host! You have successfully extracted the C-Rank Skill: Teleportation!]
[Your skill slots are full (2/2). Upgrade your rank to unlock an additional slot.]
The moment I read the message, a grin spread across my face.
"Fuck, I..."
My words died in my throat.
Whoosh!
Something tore through the air.
A sword flashed past my head, close enough to slice through a few strands of my hair before embedding itself somewhere behind me.
For a brief moment, my mind went blank.
The attack had caught me completely off guard.
Then my instincts kicked in.
I spun toward the direction the sword had come from.
The moment I saw the attacker, my eyes widened.
The Dullahan.
The very monster I’d come here to find.
What shocked me wasn’t the fact that he’d attacked.
It was how close he was.
The Dullahan stood barely fifty meters away.
His severed head rested in one hand, a disturbing smile stretched across its face.
In his other hand, he held a massive black spear.
And from the way he was poised, it was obvious what he intended to do next.
Fuck.
Without wasting another second, I shoved The Teleporter’s Guide into my inventory.
Then, acting purely on instinct, I activated my newly acquired skill.
"Teleport!"
For a few terrifying seconds, nothing happened.
No flash of light.
No distortion.
No sign that the skill had even activated.
My heart immediately dropped.
Fuck.
Don’t tell me it failed.
"Kuaghhh!"
A thunderous roar shook the cavern.
The Dullahan had moved.
I looked up just in time to see the massive black spear leave his hand.
It tore through the air toward me at an unbelievable speed.
Fast.
Far too fast.
No, no, no...
My body tried to react, but there was simply no time.
The spear closed the distance in the blink of an eye.
Ten meters.
Five.
Three.
I could already see the tip aimed directly at my chest.
I’m fucked.
Instinctively, I squeezed my eyes shut.
Then, at the very last second, everything around me blurred.
My body felt strangely weightless, as though reality itself had slipped away beneath my feet.
A familiar tingling sensation washed over me.
The next instant, the cavern vanished.
When I opened my eyes again, I was somewhere completely different.
The dungeon entrance.
For several seconds, I just stood there, trying to process what had happened.
Then the tension finally drained from my body.
"Haa..."
A long breath escaped my lips.
Fuck.
I made it.
That was way too close.
For a moment, I genuinely thought I was dead.
After calming down, I quickly closed my inventory.
The enormous portal hanging above me disappeared, and the endless rain of gold coins finally came to a stop.
Only then did I check the time.
---
Name: Michael Frostburne
Total Rules Broken: 0
Time: 11:17 AM
Date: 17th February
Year: 2130
---
11:17 A.M.
That meant I had roughly seven minutes left before the dungeon’s modification took effect.
My gaze shifted toward the dungeon entrance.
Just as expected, the portal was sealed behind a blue barrier.
That wasn’t surprising.
I still hadn’t fulfilled the conditions required to leave the dungeon.
Fortunately, that problem already had a solution.
Looking up, I spoke.
"System. About that help you promised me... you still remember it, right?"
Almost immediately, a massive holographic screen appeared in the sky.
Several messages flashed across it one after another.
[Irregularities Detected!]
[Individual Rank Inspection Error!]
[Individual Rank: Zero!]
[Forcefully Changing Dungeon Requirement To Easiest Difficulty!]
[Change Complete!]
[New Requirement: Answer 3 Questions!]
Three questions?
I frowned.
What kind of questions were those supposed to be?
Before I could ask, the system answered.
[Host, I temporarily altered your displayed rank in order to reduce the dungeon’s exit requirements.]
"Yeah, I got that part," I replied. "What I need to know is what these three questions are. Hurry up. We don’t have much time left."
[Understood, Host.]
The moment the system finished speaking, another holographic screen materialized in front of me.
Then, one by one, the three questions began to appear.
---
1. Who was the last person I had a conversation with before transmigrating to another world?
2. What was the name of the salesman’s son?
3. What was the name of the salesman?
[Please type your answers on the screen!]
---
I read through the questions carefully.
"Thank goodness," I muttered.
"They’re not that hard."
The first and third questions were especially straightforward.
The second one required a bit more thought, but it wasn’t particularly difficult either.
Without wasting any time, I began typing my answers using the keyboard provided by the system.
After finishing, I took a moment to review them.
---
[1] Rocky Walden
[2] Asher Herein
[3] John Victoria
---
Everything looked correct.
Satisfied, I pressed the submit button.
Almost immediately, a new message appeared.
---
[Processing!]
[Failed!]
[One of the provided answers is incorrect!]
---
"What?"
I stared at the screen in disbelief.
That couldn’t be right.
Before I could think further, a loud, eerie laugh echoed from somewhere deep within the jungle.
A chill ran down my spine.
Fuck.
I immediately turned toward the forest.
That laugh...
The Dullahan?
The thought alone made my stomach tighten.
I needed to solve this and get out of here before he caught up to me.
Quickly, I turned back to the screen and opened the results.
---
[1] Rocky Walden ✓
[2] Asher Herein ✓
[3] John Victoria ✗
---
My eyes widened.
"What?"
The salesman’s name was wrong?
How was that possible?
I clearly remembered him introducing himself as John Victoria.
Then how could his son’s name be correct while his own wasn’t?
The more I thought about it, the less sense it made.
After staring at the screen for a few seconds, I finally asked,
"System, is something wrong with this? Some kind of bug or glitch? Why is it showing that answer as incorrect?"
The system responded without delay.
[Host, there are no errors.]
[The answer you provided is incorrect.]
"Wha..."
I stared at the message, my mind struggling to process it.
Did that mean the salesman had lied about his name?
But why would he do that?
And if he was going to lie, why only about his own name? Why tell me his son’s real name instead?
As I tried to make sense of it, the Dullahan’s laughter echoed through the jungle once more.
This time it sounded closer.
Much closer.
A cold sweat ran down my back.
Fuck.
I clenched my fists and desperately searched my memory.
What was his real name?
Why couldn’t I remember it?
No matter how hard I thought, nothing came to me.
Then, all at once, a memory surfaced.
Just before I died, I had unconsciously spoken the name of the main villain from Parallel World Vigilante.
Astaroth.
The moment I’d said that name, the salesman had looked surprised.
Only briefly, but I remembered it clearly now.
My eyes widened as the pieces slowly began falling into place.
No way...
Could that man actually have been Astaroth?
The real Astaroth?
The main villain himself?
The idea sounded ridiculous, yet the more I thought about it, the more it seemed possible.
If he really was Astaroth, then hiding his identity would make perfect sense. If he had introduced himself using his real name, I would’ve immediately become suspicious.
At least, that was the only explanation I could think of.
Still, it was nothing more than a theory.
I had no proof.
But I also didn’t have the luxury of time.
Taking a gamble, I quickly typed the name into the answer field and hit submit.
---
[Processing!]
---
Please...
Just let me be right.
For what felt like the first time in ages, I found myself genuinely praying.
A second later, the result appeared.
---
[Un-Successful!]
---
