Despite being an Awakened, it still felt cold. Although it was the middle of summer, we had gotten rained on for a long time and our clothes were soaking wet. When Woo Yeon-Hee’s lips turned blue, she pointed with her chin at the front. The blue rays had disappeared in the heavy rain, and I sent a signal to her to wait. We waited for a while, but no one appeared. I told her to stay and walked toward the dungeon entrance.

[You have discovered a dungeon.]

[Would you like to open it?]

The dungeon was now sealed again, and the mud had piled up around the place where the blue membrane and stairs existed. This happened when the first person who entered died there. Unless a new Awakened opened the dungeon again, it would be buried forever on this hill.

“...”

I didn’t know how that individual found the dungeon on the day of the typhoon, but he or she had died in there.

“Dead, right?” Woo Yeon-Hee asked.

“Yes,” I replied flatly.

“That’s sad,” she said briefly, and there was not a single word that could describe the mixed emotions in her voice. We returned to the car and changed our clothes first. The sky kept pouring rain all day long, and when the sound of a rainstorm became louder, I saw Woo Yeon-Hee’s rigid face. She was lost in thought, and I knew her thoughts weren’t pleasant even though I had not learned a mental skill or mind-reading technique.

“You must have realized that you could die in the dungeon, right?” I finally asked.

She nodded, but it looked perfunctory as if she was just agreeing without actually thinking about what I said. What was it then?

“What is it?” I questioned.

“N…nothing,” she stuttered.

Her right hand slightly trembled. She had already put the dagger into the sheath on her ankle, but her hand was fisted like she was holding it. She must have recalled the feeling of holding it for a long time. Only then did I realize what she was thinking.

“You did well,” I said.

“Huh?”

“When you were on a full alert. That was a great posture, so don’t question yourself,” I added.

***

I thought of the possibility that someone else had discovered the Hwasung dungeon, so I changed the next dungeon to Gangneung after conquering the one in Gimje. I searched for the gate with Woo Yeon-Hee. We were doing this two days after Typhoon Olga, which had killed fifty people including the individual dead in the dungeon, had left the Korean Peninsula.

<Seon-Hu: I’ll send you the address by text. I have put signs on the way to the site, so you’ll be able to get there easily.>

<Mr. Choi: Thank you. We’ll start immediately.>

Gyeongpodae[1] was full of people from the metropolitan area despite the recent floods. It was a typical summer day, and young people filled the beaches as the sun set. Woo Yeon-Hee put a piece of sashimi in her mouth, then said while looking at the shore where the drinking party took place, “Do you think one of them could be out there?”

She was talking about a pre-Awakened.

“If we were common, the world would’ve known already,” I replied indifferently as it was true as far as I knew. Pre-Awakened activities would have caused one or more conspiracy theories and urban legends if witnessed by the public, but they only learned about our existence on the Day of Advent. Come to think of it, my interests in the past were tied to finance until now, and I was more interested in theories based on actual facts rather than those about Hitler’s death, UFOs and the first lunar landing. Like the conspiracy theory that the global elites in finance met secretly in an anonymous hotel every year…Something like the Bilderberg Club!

Until then, I had no time to indulge in fantasy and only put meaning into facts, so the existence of the dungeon would have been fiction to me. The internet communities I checked never dealt with it even if such gossip circulated somewhere else. Otherwise, the socially inept and straight nutters would be blaming the Awakened for everything from causing a harmful impact on the global economy just for fun.

“I’ll take a walk and come back.”

Woo Yeon-Hee finished eating and got up. I also came out of the restaurant since this might be the only moment to enjoy the peaceful sight. The Escape Insignia had lessened our burdens, and our goal now was to conquer the dungeon. There were backpacks inside the new car I purchased a few days ago. Tomorrow was finally the day we were going to enter the dungeon in Gimje.

***

I avoided booking the motel we stayed at last time. The peculiar vibe was enjoyable, but we needed to sleep well and recharge ourselves. We stayed at a clean hotel in downtown Gimje and headed to the dungeon in the morning. It looked similar to Hwasung’s ward and had the same structure, surrounded by walls. Even the nameplate attached to the iron gate at the entrance was the same. The CCTVs were installed on the walls, and I unlocked the door to enter.

[Woo Yeon-Hee has joined the party.]

We arrived at the dungeon entrance, and the notification message already popped up.

[Would you like to open the dungeon?]

The vibration started beyond the locked basement door, and when I opened the door, the blue barrier appeared. Everything was similar to the Hwasung dungeon, but there was a sloping ramp instead of stairs. Woo Yeon-Hee looked surprised.

As I remembered, Gimje’s dungeon was cave-shaped, and that was all I knew. I had no information on which monsters and boss monster swarmed here, but there was a specific reason why I chose this dungeon.

“This structure isn’t as complicated as a labyrinth-type. There’s no distinction between the door and the corridor. There are no traps and almost no branching paths,” I said while looking down.

Sometimes, there was only a straight path without junctions.

“I get why we don’t need a map, but the fact that the areas aren’t divided…”

Woo Yeon-Hee seemed to realize by instinct that there would be a new type of danger here.

“Yes, there’s no fixed sentry monsters, so if one spots us, we should kill it right away before it alerts its fellow monsters,” I replied.

“The sound will also attract them, right?” she asked.

“Yes, keep in mind that we don’t have any skills or insignias to prevent that,” I said.

Woo Yeon-Hee gulped. Even though she had waited for this day, she seemed scared when facing the dark room. I was the same. I had upgraded my skills and gained more items and skills, but I still didn’t want to walk onward.

The dungeon had always been like that, so some Awakened only participated in gate battles instead of entering the dungeons.

Thud. Thud.

My heart began to beat faster in fear, but not going in would make me weaker. I took a step forward.

“Follow me at your pace,” I said quietly.

My vision instantly turned blue as I passed through the barrier.

[You have entered the dungeon.]

[Warning: You must meet the conditions to exit.]

The dungeon messages started to pop up one by one.

[The quest ‘End Zone’ has been activated.]

[The quest ‘Graf Extermination’ has been activated.]

[The quest ‘Hibernation’ has been activated.]

F-class dungeon quests showed up, and there was something I recognized from the title without checking the details. This was Graf’s territory, and it was bad news. I asked Woo Yeon-Hee as she followed me.

“It must be terrible if the monsters are arthropods, right?”

“Bugs?” she questioned.

“Yes.”

She shook her head, but her pale face told me how frightened she was.

“The monsters here are shaped like them,” I explained.

Since it was an F-class dungeon, their queens wouldn’t appear. If a Queen was the boss monster, we wouldn’t be able to conquer it at once even if I upgraded all my stats to D-class with the Man Who Overcomes Adversity.

“Walk next to me from now on,” I said.

Then, I told her details about the monsters including their modes of appearance, weakness, actions to avoid, and so on….

“Didn’t you say it is your first time here?” she asked.

“It’s my first time here, but I’ve seen them before,” I answered.

We approached closer to the dungeon as the downward ramp came to an end, then the cave became wider. This was the real beginning point of the dungeon. Woo Yeon-Hee’s breathing turned tense as we were now surrounded by darkness.

All of a sudden, we threw ourselves forward as dirt flew like rain over where we were standing. At the same time, a large black object fell to the ground and stretched its arms. Two hideous antennae wriggled at the smell of human flesh, and its jaws were so wide open that I could see the thorny teeth like hooks.

However, there was only one and no further signs were detected. I instantly grabbed its antennae and ripped them off. The disgusting feeling in my grasp disappeared immediately. The antennae still moved on the ground, and Woo Yeon-Hee was stabbing them with the dagger as it crawled towards her. She was acting just as I told her. In the past, we had called the joint between the thorax and the head ‘neck’ for convenience. I beheaded it. One of the nauseating things about them was that their body fluids were as red as blood.

[You have exterminated an infant Graf.]

[You have been distributed 2 points.]

[Graf Extermination: Killing Graf 1/30]

Red blood constantly flowed out from the Graf’s beheaded body.

1. A famous historical landmark on the beach. ☜