[Even if the wound heals, the scar remains. Since it was a place where a dimensional rift opened, I dug a path following that trace.]
Until now, the instance dungeons Harmakan had created had not required keys, but this one was an exception.
If the instance dungeons up until now were back spaces centered around Harmakan, then in this case, it was a sorcery that re-inflicted wounds by following the scars left on the dimensional wall.
Tsupat!
Suho held out the golden key he had received from Harmakan and headed towards Exit 3 of Hapjeong Station.
Paaaaat!
At that moment, the air around the key began to ripple, and the energy of mana swirled around, forcibly splitting the dimensional wall apart.
“Ge, gate?!”
At that sight, Seo Ji-woo’s eyes widened as if they were going to tear apart.
Oh my god! It was a real gate!
‘What the heck? What the heck is this?! Is this even possible?’
My heart ached from how many times I was surprised today.
A gate suddenly appeared in a space where there was nothing!
Seo Ji-woo, who had witnessed an unbelievable sight right before his eyes, covered his gaping mouth with both hands and looked back and forth between Su-ho and Harmakan.
“Seo, Seongsuho Hunter… … . You are really… … .”
“Okay, shall we go in then?”
“Hipp.”
Seo Ji-woo decided to give up thinking about it now, seeing Soo-ho looking at her with a calm expression after committing such a reckless act.
Briskly.
Suho stepped towards the gate first, and when his figure half disappeared into the air.
Only then did Seo Ji-woo come to his senses and shout urgently.
“Hey, wait a minute! I didn’t know this would happen and I didn’t bring a weapon… …!”
[Just go in. You won’t be coming out anyway.]
Bam.
“… … !”
At that moment, Harmakan pushed Seo Ji-woo’s back from behind, and Seo Ji-woo ended up following Su-ho into the gate in a panic.
Phew!
“… … !”
With just one step forward, a new world unfolded before Seo Ji-woo.
[You have entered the instance dungeon.]
At that moment, a message appeared in front of Suho, but Seo Jiwoo couldn’t see it.
Instead, all that was visible to Seo Ji-woo was the dreary scenery of Hapjeong Station, which had turned into a jungle.
Whioooooo-
“… … .”
Vines stretched tangledly along the walls, and the musty smell of rotting corpses permeated the air.
A spooky wind, like the howling of a ghost, was blowing from afar.
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Seo Ji-woo suddenly looked back.
Boom, boom!
“Did a wall… … appear?”
An invisible wall is knocked on.
It was eerie to see that beyond that wall, there was still a peaceful outside world with warm sunlight shining down.
It seemed like this place and that place were different spaces.
I tried to force my way out, but it was impossible.
Harmakan spoke to Seo Ji-woo in a dry, mechanical tone.
[Give up. To leave this dungeon, you must kill the boss mob or use the return stone.]
Then he pointed at himself with his thumb and smiled meaningfully.
[For reference, the boss mob is me.]
“… … .”
In the midst of all the chaos, at least one thing seemed certain.
Not only did it look like that, but this summoner seemed to have a very bad personality.
No, I’m correcting that.
[Keeeeeek! You slow-witted human! Are you going to keep your little lord waiting!]
“… … .”
This ant summoner may look cute, but it has an incredibly bad personality.
[Keeeeeek! Can’t you move faster!]
“Okay, I got it.”
Seo Ji-woo eventually gave in to Ber’s urging and cautiously followed Su-ho, who was already walking down the stairs in front of him.
However, even S-class hunters were not free from fear of the unknown.
Gulp.
The moment I came down the stairs, I swallowed my saliva at the sight of the Hapjeong Station dungeon that began in earnest.
As I passed the bathroom and went inside, I came across underground shopping malls.
The shops were old and broken, reminiscent of ruins.
Looking at the ruined stores and deserted passageways under the dim fluorescent lighting, I felt eerie.
Tidding, tidding.
A few fluorescent lights were flickering as if their lifespan had come to an end.
Seo Ji-woo, who followed Soo-ho, stepped on the weeds that had grown luxuriantly on the broken tiles and kept looking around with a gloomy expression.
‘… … This is my first time in a dungeon like this.’
It seemed that unlike the usual dungeons that lead to another dimension, the entire Hapjeong Station area had become a dungeon.
‘I can’t believe something like this is possible… … .’
Seo Ji-woo has met many different S-class hunters over the years, but he has never met someone like Seong Su-ho.
The more I know… … I can’t see the bottom of Seongsuho.
Seo Ji-woo followed closely to Su-ho and asked with an anxious expression.
“Hunter Seongsuho, what are you going to do here now?”
Regardless of the age difference, I’m starting to find myself speaking politely to others.
Suho answered while looking around with calm eyes.
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“Since I created the dungeon, I’m trying to find a double dungeon inside it. Since you said you didn’t conquer the double dungeon at the time, there’s a chance that it’s still left somewhere here.”
“……okay.”
It’s easier said than done.
In order to find the double dungeon, you first created the dungeon.
But there was a logic that was difficult to follow with Seo Ji-woo’s common sense.
“But this is a completely different dungeon from the one my colleagues and I conquered. But could the double dungeon I discovered back then exist here?”
“That’s why I’m going to check that from now on.”
Harmakan answered Suho’s words confidently.
[It is quite possible. Even though this place was created differently, it was created along the lines of a dimensional scar, so if there is evidence of a dimensional rift opening up inside, that would be a double dungeon.]
And there was one more reason why Harmakan was so confident.
He senses presence inside this dungeon that Harmakan himself created without his knowledge.
Creepy!
“… … !”
In the midst of the silence all around, I suddenly felt a gaze from somewhere.
Chomp chomp!
At that moment, Seo Ji-woo’s appearance, which had been flustered and confused until then, disappeared without a trace, and was replaced only by the sharp gaze of a S-class hunter.
“Over there!”
The moment I caught that presence.
Seo Ji-woo’s new body stretched straight forward with an afterimage that seemed to grow longer like a stick of candy.
Boom!
Even without a weapon in hand, the body of an S-class hunter is already a weapon of war in itself.
Kwarrung!
Seo Ji-woo’s fist broke down the wall, and he grabbed the ‘guy’s’ neck rather than killing him in order to confirm his identity who was hiding behind it.
The bastard struggled to escape from that hand, but it was too much for him to handle Seo Ji-woo’s brute strength.
“Kkekekeke… … !”
“What, what is this?”
But there’s something strange about its appearance.
Seo Ji-woo’s eyes grew wide as he belatedly confirmed the appearance of the demon after catching it.
That was when.
Wow!
The window of the clothing store behind Suho broke and other guys jumped out from inside.
“Kkekekeke!”
“Kreuruk!”
Shhh-!
Blue poison glistens from the tips of sharp thorns that attack Suho’s back at incredible speed.
[The King of Bugs, the Lord of Plagues, is licking his lips.]
Quresha opened her eyes.
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But it only reacted to the poison, and the identity of the thing that attacked was not an insect.
“What are these guys?”
Instead of countering the attack, Suho lightly raised his hand and grabbed the air.
‘The Power of the Ruler’
Stand tall!
“Kkeureuk?!”
The unidentified monsters that were rushing to attack Suho were caught in a trap and were struggling in the air.
Suho confirmed the figures of those who were caught by invisible hands and unable to move, and called out to Harmakan with an expression of interest.
“Harmakan, what are these?”
[Interesting. I didn’t create this demon.]
Harmakan replied with a gleam in his eyes.
Ber chewed them up and ate them whole, then spat them out.
[It tastes so bad. It doesn’t seem like it was even a proper demon to begin with.]
“It looks like that.”
“Kkkekeke!”
The appearance of the demons that suddenly appeared was bizarre.
Suho frowned.
What should I really call this?
“plant?”
A doll with purple vines tangled like tentacles.
No, should I say it’s a doll that was just made?
Some had multiple legs like an octopus, while others had tentacles branching out like grass roots.
In a word, a mess.
The only thing they had in common was that they had a skull cap that looked like a human skull on top of what appeared to be their heads.
[??]
Even the system that always told Suho the names of the demons seemed to be unable to figure it out, as name tags full of question marks appeared above their heads.
“Are they plants that mimic skeletons? Or are they things that sprouted from skulls?”
What should I really call this?
In times like these, it’s Yongje’s chance.
[The spirit of ‘Antares’ is infused into the priest’s body.]
Ragna appeared above the shadow of the guardian, his arms folded solemnly.
“Ask me anything.”
“Antares, are these the buds of a nightmare?”
“No, these are just nameless weeds. Not every weed has a name.”
“Then it’s true that they are the ones who came over from the sea of the afterlife?”
“That’s right. There are no people like this among the people of Honse.”
‘The Residents of Chaos’
This was a term referring to the ordinary demons that had appeared on Earth during that time, or in other words, the inhabitants of another dimension ruled by monarchs.
However, even for the Dragon Emperor who had ruled the world for a long time, this was the first time he had encountered such a beast.
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“These guys don’t have any special names, and they look just like anything else. We just call them all ‘niche dwellers.’”
“Dweller of the niche?”
Suho tilted his head at the expression he was hearing for the first time.
Antares shrugged and explained.
“Actually, they are called residents, but you can think of them as just dimensional trash wandering through the dimensional rift.”
“Dimensional trash?”
“No. It would be more accurate to say ‘dregs’ rather than ‘trash.’ Literally, these guys are not creations created by the Absolute, but are just dregs that the Absolute created and discarded.”
Kekekekeke!
Did you understand what Antares said?
At those words, the weeds that were being held by Suho shuddered and screamed.
“It seems like you’re angry at what I said.”
“Angry? That’s funny. It’s impossible for these things to feel emotions in the first place.”
Antares laughed at Suho’s words as if they were absurd.
Then he continued speaking, looking at the swaying weeds with an insignificant gaze.
“These things have neither reason nor soul. They are creatures who wander the gaps with only an instinct to seek life force, and they are the inhabitants of the gaps.”
Keureuk! Kekekeke!
The hollow screams of soulless weeds echoed throughout the instance dungeon created by Harmakan.
Antares looked around and raised the corners of his mouth.
“Anyway, somewhere around here, there must be a dimensional hole through which these weeds flowed in. It’s what humans call a double dungeon.”
But it didn’t seem like finding that place would be easy.
If these weeds had souls, we could have made them into shadow soldiers and had them guide us, but it was impossible to extract shadows from the soulless dregs.
But there was always a way.
“… …Why are you all looking at me like that?”
Seo Ji-woo suddenly felt agitated.
Before he knew it, everyone’s eyes were staring at him openly.
Guardian and Dragon, Harmakan and Ber, as well as… … .
Even the weeds that are caught.
The black eye sockets of the skull caps worn by the weeds turned their heads and stared intently at Seo Ji-woo.
Seo Ji-woo could instinctively sense what his role was.
“Am I… bait?”
Nod.
Yongje Antares, whose eyes met Seo Ji-woo’s, nodded with a solemn face.
“The Nightmare Bud is the greediest of weeds. Any prey they miss is a mouthwatering bait for the residents of the crevices.”
And Harmakan, who was standing proudly behind the dragon, was also smiling viciously at Seo Ji-woo.
[That’s why I told you from the beginning. You wouldn’t come forward anyway.]
“Hey, you… … !”
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That was when.
Kikkekkekkekk… … !
Before we knew it, the Hapjeong Station dungeon was covered with countless weeds that appeared from all directions, targeting Seo Ji-woo.
At the same time, hot flames enveloped Suho’s fist.
Hurrruk!
Kookwakwang-!
The black flame that started from the dragon’s heart flew like a whip and instantly burned the weeds in the gap.
In the midst of the flames, Suho’s eyes shone brightly.
“Everyone, protect Hunter Seo Ji-woo! Ber, from now on, we’ll track where these guys are coming from!”
[I will obey your orders! Kieeeeeek-!]
Ber laughed until the corners of his lips split, and followed Suho, who was running ahead, jumping up.
And then suddenly.
“Whoa?!”
Harmakan said as he carried Seo Ji-woo around.
[Don’t worry. I will protect you until the end.]
“I- That’s why I said I would bring a weapon… …!”
[Hehe, what a hassle.]
Harmakan, the chieftain of the Demonic Tribe and the master of the instance dungeon.
He spoke firmly, as befitting a boss mob in this dungeon.
[Variables are not tolerated. Just think of it as being kidnapped.]
“… … !”
He was a perfectionist.
