Chapter 46
The road extended past the wire mesh fence. It was a new road, skirting the hill to avoid the village. The car’s headlights were the only light source, because no streetlights had been installed—on purpose. The bare hill had turned into an ocean full of darkness, and it seemed like time had stopped at the moment when a huge wave was about to roll in. The night sky was empty without any stars, and a half-eaten moon looked down on the high wall surrounding the facility.
Who would die today?
“...”
I stepped on a tattered banner when I got out of the driver’s seat. Several weeks ago, a few villagers used to protest the new facility. Most of them had quieted down after receiving some bribes, but traces of their activities still remained here—leftover banners, containers of cup noodles, and pieces of floorboards. I pushed them away with my feet, then raised my head. The wall looked larger at night, and I brought my walk through memory lane to a stop next to it.
I began to pack up the items I had brought in the trunk. I took out a flashlight from the military backpack, then unsheathed the sword and left the sheath in the trunk. After I closed the trunk and its red light disappeared, the darkness encompassed everything.
I headed to the only entrance of the wall with the flashlight pointed to the iron door.
「Medical corporation: New Hope Mental Hospital」
A surveillance camera was running above my head.
Clank!
The empty hospital looked like it had been abandoned for a long time, and the bare gardens seemed to be the perfect place for the dead to walk.
As I walked up to the dungeon, I remembered my colleagues who had died in there. I thought of the screams of the traitors and the cheers of those who won the boxes. Trust, deceit, faith, lust, despair, joy, love, desire, fear…Anything could happen in a dungeon, and everything did happen. I always recruited my colleagues to go into dungeons since going alone was the same as committing suicide.
My heart was beating fast, which clearly showed that I was nervous.
“It’s just an F-class dungeon.”
Mumbling to myself didn’t help, because it was not a matter of having courage. The only reason that someone would enter a dungeon alone with F-class stats was that they were crazy enough not to care whether they would survive or not.
So far, I’d been comfortable in this peaceful world, as I'd earned money easily by using my memories of the previous history. Naturally, I would continue to do so.
But… But…The knowledge of the past was not reliable in a dungeon. I had to admit: I was afraid of being in the dungeon alone. I dreaded the darkness, and I was obsessed with my past memories.
Even though I had spent so much time buying the hill, logging and disguising it as a psychiatric ward, I was not mentally prepared. I smiled bitterly. I knew that time couldn’t solve this. Going into the dungeon alone with F-class stats meant that my fear was well-founded. I couldn’t gather other people, nor purchase escape insignias and monster alarms like I could in the past.
However, I was still on my way to the dungeon, despite the fact that the night sky was warning me that this was suicide. I couldn’t postpone this until the Trial Tests, which would happen decades later. By doing that, I would be nullifying the advantages I had gained by going back in time.
I had to trust my survival skills. I muttered to myself that this was my career as I walked forward.
Phew.
I entered the ward. The dungeon entrance was designed to be on the basement floor, and the half-open emergency exit door to the underground seemed like it was beckoning to me. I could only hear my footsteps going down the stairs, then a message popped up. I hadn’t even arrived at the dungeon entrance in the underground storage room—I was still on the emergency stairs.
[Would you like to open the dungeon?]
The “Explorer” trait I acquired the other day had been activated, and it expanded the radius of the area where the user could activate the dungeon System. I kept walking down the stairs to the storage room without answering the message. A roughly-painted sign indicated that it was a storage room, but it was just an empty space. However, I locked the door first, then spoke to the air.
“Open the dungeon.”
[The dungeon is now open.]
Dudududududu!
The ground started to crack, and the stairs made of clay appeared below my feet. A subtle clutter of blue lights spread out like a barrier where the ground had been. The stairs leading to the underground looked as if they were submerged in blue light.
Many people were deceived by that fantastic sight, not knowing that it could kill them. I hurriedly took a step back when I remembered it.
“I’m so dumb.”
I turned off my cell phone and flashlight, then put them on the floor of the entrance as if I was going for an investigation at the U.S. Federal Police Department. All electronic devices and firearms failed inside dungeons.
***
I was determined, but I still found myself hesitating to enter. I didn’t want to go in by myself just like that. I clenched my teeth as I took a step.
[You are entering the dungeon.]
I felt the stairs past the blue light, and the first warning message popped up.
[Warning: You must meet the conditions to leave.]
Then, I received my quest notifications.
[The quest ‘Joy and Sorrow’ has begun.]
[The quest ‘Declan Extermination’ has begun.]
[The quest ‘One on One Battle’ has begun.]
The first quest was the boss quest, the second was a hunting quest, and the third one was the duel quest. I sat on the stairs and waited for my eyes to get used to the darkness.
[You have achieved the skill ‘Night Eyes’.]
[You have obtained 5 points.]
[Total points: 92]
Night Eyes was a basic skill given to all hunters and was absolutely necessary for survival. I could no longer afford to just sit in the dark, since the skill class didn’t increase by sitting alone in the dark. This theory could be applied to all the skills as the system mechanism was simple: get enough points to open boxes, then increase your abilities using whatever comes out of the box.
However, everything that happened from then on was too complicated to be described in words.
I reached the end of the stairs and found myself in front of a shoddy wooden door.
Screechhhhhh.
The door almost screamed as I opened it, and only then did I see the entrance room inside. With my current low-class stats, I couldn’t see the entire space. I had to guess there would be walls and doors leading somewhere to the next room beyond the darkness.
The F-class dungeon in Hwa-seong was a maze-type dungeon, and in the past I had come in with a useless map given to me by the military. Considering that they had provided dozens of maps, the military authorities must have known that the maze would change its shape after each entry. However, they forced us into here without warning.
At any rate, I took out a piece of paper and a pen from my backpack and put them in my pocket. I had to record the way out in order to make sure I wouldn’t starve to death before being killed by monsters.
People might question why I wasn’t planning on using a string like Ariadne in Greek mythology, but that was a hilarious idea. The military and the Awakened had tried it long ago, but unfortunately, monsters tracked them using the string, and the Awakened were mobbed and killed. The string had also been cut off as well.
Stump. Stump.
I saw a wall after taking a few steps and circled the room by following the wall. There were two doors leading to the other room, and they were on the left and right side of the stairs.
Things actually began from the entrance room as monsters, traps and Pandora’s boxes that would tempt me to open them all awaited me. In fact, the monsters might even be mad because I woke them earlier than scheduled.
I chose the right door as luck would decide my future. Even if I knew how to attack the boss, I wasn’t at the point where I would dare to go to the treasure room, let alone the boss room.
My ultimate goal was clear, and I would only try the duel quest at most. Survival was not even guaranteed until then.
***
“Status window.”
[ Name: Na Seon-Hu
Health: F (14) Strength: F (22)
Agility: F (15) Sense: F (25)
Total points : 92
Trait(2) Skill(2) ]
“Skill list.”
[Odin’s Wrath (Skill)
Effect: Increase the power of Lightning to the target of your choice.
Class: F (0)
Duration: 30 minutes
Cool time: 24 hours ]
With that skill, I could turn my sword that I bought for three hundred thousand won into an Excalibur. However, due to the limited duration and cooldown period, I couldn’t use my skill for every single engagement. I held the sword in one hand and used the other hand to open doors. This was to make sure I could swing the sword whenever I had to.
However, things were quiet even as the door creaked. I could see about twenty feet out with my skill, and, if I remembered correctly, the corridors of this dungeon were about a hundred and fifty feet long, forty feet across, and covered in darkness. In fact, they resembled roads more than corridors.
Then, I saw a large box in front of me. It looked like a bronze box, so in the past many Awakened had thrown themselves at it. If that was a real box, I didn’t need to hesitate, but... it could also be fake. If it was real, it would give me something at random, but if not… A curse that drove people crazy would come out like an evil spirit.
Indeed, the boxes inside dungeons were all like that. They made me consider opening them despite knowing something horrible may happen. If I was lucky, I could get something that I would normally need to risk my life for who knows how many times.
How many points did we get from killing one monster? One or two? How many monsters did I have to kill to achieve a bronze box? I started calculating in front of the box as it was a force of habit. I needed to kill a hundred fifty, or maybe three hundred low-grade monsters, since I needed three hundred points in total to open a bronze box. It was a formidable number.
I smelled something faint but disgusting, and I tightened my grip on my sword. I rolled my eyes while guessing what would appear. With my current stats, it was difficult to deal with even a few mobs in an F-class dungeon.
.
I realized again that I had come here while I was still too weak. However, this was the only option I had to improve my capabilities.
In the past, I had entered here after going through the Trial Tests, and my average skill was set at E-class. I also wasn’t alone, since more than ten people were needed to increase the survival rate of a dungeon raid. But things were?different now. All of my stats were at F-class, and I wasn’t much different from an ordinary civilian. My past memories were the only things that supported me.
Finally, I could see figures through the darkness.
“...Three of them.”
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