Chapter 16 (1/2)

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Status: Very Unstable (2)

The deeper I entered, the more it felt like a maze. Gradually, the scenery became closer to that of a jungle rather than a forest. A new tree tenaciously had started to grow, its red leaves blooming in the space between the trees that were all tangled and dried up. That dense scene repeated. This was a purposeless maze created by the unnatural environment. However, I didn’t worry about anything concerning getting lost. By just seeing it with my own eyes, I could naturally draw a map in my head.

As I walked in this manner, I began to see Orcs roaming in groups. Three, four, … five. That was just the right number.

“Grooowl!”

It was they who had found me first again. Trying to surround me, they rushed as they screamed so loud it felt like my ears would tear. I breathed lightly.

[Acceleration!]

I split the wind as I jumped between them.

“Krrrrr!”

The guy in the lead bared his teeth and threw a stone ax, but before he could lift his shoulders, his movement was already clearly visible to me. The monsters in the dungeon all had a wild instinct wherein they could concentrate mana on their body parts each time they attacked. Although the flow seemed obvious, I had no intention of waiting to be hit.

[Air Jump!]

I jumped to an altitude above what was possible without an enhanced physical ability. The ax thrown by the Orc tore through the empty spot where I had been standing, raising its head a second later. However, my reaction was faster.

[Drop Attack!]

As if my gravity had suddenly multiplied several times, and I fell faster than I had jumped. Mana was concentrated at the tip of my toes.

Crush!

With my kick, a sound like a watermelon exploding resonated through the dungeon air. Its head burst and began to spurt out a fountain of blood. Evading the mess, I moved again as soon as I reached the ground. Next!

Dash!

I kicked off the ground. With just one step, distance lost its meaning and gradually narrowed. The panicked expression of the guy standing in the backfilled my sight. It made me feel as if I was reducing and expanding the width of the world at my will. I felt the pleasure of unfolding everything I had initially imagined in my head. The blade of my hand, wrapped around with mana in precisely calculated angles, hit the intended point accurately and broke the neck of my foe.

Smash!

“Squeal!”

I felt a chill of pleasure down my spine over having complete control over the body. I took the stone ax from the corpse’s hand and threw it at the one hiding behind them.

Swoosh!

Hack!

The Orc collapsed with the stone blade embedded in its forehead. Finishing the remaining two didn’t take long. Measuring their position, I leaped forward. A beat later, all the Orcs had fallen to the ground.

“Phew.”

I began to ponder as I pulled out and absorbed the mana cores. After all, I still figured that I should have a weapon. It was impossible to continuously break the bone and smash a monster’s skull with my bare fist. However, I didn’t want to pick up and use their weapons. Once again, I felt it after throwing a stone ax, but these crappy artifacts were right for use when throwing. I felt that the mana’s cohesion and absorption were much lower using this than when attacking with my bare flesh.

‘A lot of things are supplied in the guild warehouse, but weapons are thoroughly monitored…’

There was no problem with using trash skill cards at will or receiving Mana potions for training purposes. However, taking in weapon-type artifacts was a completely different story. Not only did the procedure require approval by the Guild Master, but the supply of weapons that could be used in the first place was in a state that was less than the demands. It meant that there was no such thing as a useful weapon that hadn’t yet found an owner.

Besides, at the level that the guild recognized me, they would only give me a training-level weapon. It may be similar to the level of this stone ax that I wielded now. So, the conclusion was that I had to get the weapon that fit me somehow.

‘I need to find something as soon as possible.’

After that, I encountered a few more Orcs. In the process of battling, my movements grew better and better. The more I moved my body, the more I got used to it, and the more efficient it was for me to move. Useless movements were gradually omitted and converged toward the optimal shape. I enjoyed observing this process myself.

Meanwhile, it wasn’t as if I was walking through the dungeon without a purpose, hunting the Orcs and collecting mana cores. As I proceeded, I closely observed the flow of mana in the dungeon. In the information I read before entering, the clearing condition was clearly stated as ‘unknown.’ I hadn’t read any documentation on what the conditions for clearing this dungeon were. This was because, in the first place, this dungeon was only known after the normal clearing opportunity had been missed and it collapsed. However, some clues could still be inferred here.

I paid attention to the fact that mana’s flow was heading to one place. Dungeons that gave off flows like this had what one would call a ‘nucleus.’ Breaking the nucleus was one of the most typical dungeon clear conditions, so that I would try that first. Besides me, most hunters who couldn’t see mana’s flow could also find it through experience, know-how, and knowledge of estimating the nucleus’s location. However, for poorly qualified and inexperienced hunters, finding a nucleus was very difficult. Therefore, if the clear dungeon condition was ‘nucleus destruction,’ the chances of clearing them were very low.

-Another user has entered the dungeon!

System messages resounded in my mind without warning. It detected the gate’s change and conveyed information that a hunter other than me had entered this dungeon. Any hunter exploring dungeons would earn experience. The message repeated it exactly four times, then stopped. Four more people came in apart from me. The maximum number of people in this dungeon was five, so the entrance was filled at its maximum.

‘The timing that they entered is just amazing.’

Their identity was easy to guess. At some point in the future, until this dungeon collapsed, the government didn’t know about its existence. The result was a disaster in Gyeongwon, where more than 10,000 victims were slaughtered. At that point in history, that was the single most deadly dungeon break, and society fell into a state of panic. The voice of criticism against the government was also high.

But there was more. Some facts revealed by the government’s performance survey made the people angrier. According to a later official’s statement, the dungeon was discovered in advance by a series of hunters before it collapsed. The guild named ‘Optimus’ bought the dungeons’ information through the dungeon explorers and made it their private hunting grounds while the government didn’t intervene. It was a so-called illegal dungeon.

They privatized dungeons to fill their greed. The purpose was mainly dungeon by-products…among them, the mana core. It was mined exclusively and sold to buyers who bought it at a higher price than the Korean government. The punishment was very strict when the law required you to report and sell all mana cores to the state, so they risked losing everything.

The Optimus Guild still took such a risk. It was illegal and selfish, but it often happened in modern society. The worst mistake they made was that they had missed the timing. When the dungeon, which wasn’t cleared even though it was F-class and only farmed without boundary expansion, evolved to B-class, they didn’t inform the outside world despite witnessing the change. Even if they didn’t report directly to the government, they could’ve taken appropriate action even if they had only leaked such information to the media, but the fact stood that they didn’t.

Instead, they wanted to secretly clear and take advantage of the B-class dungeon’s clear reward. If so, it would’ve been better if they had succeeded in clearing and took the reward for themselves. However, they weren’t able to clear it, and the dungeon collapsed as a result. The opportunity that could’ve saved over 10,000 lives was missed because of ego.

‘They must have noticed that I came in first and are currently chasing me.’

The four additional people who just entered the dungeon must be the guild members. Since an intruder came into the hunting ground that they were hogging, a fire would’ve set under their asses. They were arrogant, greedy, but ultimately incompetent pieces of trash. I couldn’t help but frown. I wasn’t waiting, but I had no intention of avoiding them. It would be better for me to achieve what I had come here to do first, though.