Chapter 52: Raid (1)
TL: Hanguk
Kang Yi-sol, leading the Nation Revival Agency's First Strategy Division along with soldiers from the Capital Defense Command, cautiously explored the underground sewer system, maintaining a sense of tension.
-Splash, splash.
Even though they were wearing chest-high waders (a waterproof suit integrated with boots commonly used in mudflats), it was inevitable to feel discomfort as they walked through the ankle-deep sewer water.
The dark water, hiding who knows what beneath the surface, and the stifling air saturated with a foul stench clung heavily to them, creating a strangely warm sensation despite it being December.
On top of that, numerous insects such as cockroaches and silverfish squirmed around.
The pressure of the confined space rapidly elevated the investigation team's stress levels.
-Aaagh!
How long had the investigation gone on like that?
A scream echoed from somewhere far off.
“What was that? What happened!?”
At that, Kang Yi-sol and the investigation team members urgently rushed toward the direction of the sound.
-Splash splash!
Filth splattered everywhere, but no one complained as they quickly moved.
They soon arrived at the location from which the scream had come.
"This can't be...."
“Urgh! Bleeaargh!”
“C-crazy.”
The horrifying scene that unfolded before their eyes was too much for the team to bear, and many vomited on the spot.
There was a pile of countless human corpses.
Having survived through countless crises since the Great Catastrophe, corpses had become a familiar sight to these people, but without a doubt, what lay before them was the most brutal and grotesque form they had ever seen.
It looked like laundry twisted and wrung out by hand.
The bodies were grotesquely contorted, and the heads were flattened as if they had been crushed in a press.
On top of that, all sorts of insects and maggots were tangled together, feasting on the decaying flesh, making it impossible to hold back nausea.
“Everyone shut up.”
“.......”
At that moment, Kang Yi-sol snapped at the panicked people with a harsh command.
Silence fell over the underground sewer.
He pressed his ear against the wall and remained still for a while.
“Thankfully, it seems there are no monsters nearby. Let’s finish what we were doing.”
Then, Kang Yi-sol calmly approached the pile of corpses and inspected their condition.
“It looks like the heads were just smashed open, but their brains weren’t eaten. Judging by the appearance, it seems only the blood was drained from the corpses.”
It would have been natural to feel disgust at the mass of twisted flesh and exposed innards, but there was no visible change in his expression.
One would wonder if this was really the same person who had been reluctant to enter the sewer and gagging earlier.
When it’s time, he steps up.
Despite his usual clumsy image, Kang Yi-sol was a government official leading a team.
That meant he was a person who carried a certain level of responsibility and sense of mission.
“Seems like a bloodsucking monster is the culprit behind this case.”
However, to their knowledge, there was no monster known to suck blood in such a brutal fashion.
In other words, this meant it was a new type of monster, previously unknown.
“Could it be an Elder Monster?”
“Most likely.”
Kang Yi-sol spoke in a tone close to certainty.
“To do this to a human body, it’d need tremendous size and grip strength.”
His subordinates nodded in agreement with his deduction.
Kang Yi-sol then ordered them to document everything, and his subordinates recorded the surroundings with photos and videos.
“What should we do now?”
At his subordinate's question, Kang Yi-sol pondered.
Although he sometimes acted recklessly, he wasn’t foolish enough to charge at such a grotesque, unidentified creature without a plan.
Kang Yi-sol turned his gaze toward the man who appeared to be the leader among the soldiers.
“Captain.”
“Yes.”
“You brought everything I asked for, right?”
“Of course.”
“Then set them up here and let’s withdraw.”
“Understood.”
The “things” Kang Yi-sol referred to were claymores, mines, and C4.
Following his orders, the soldiers began setting up booby traps around the pile of corpses.
If he had judged that they could fight the monster head-on, he would have tried, but after arriving at this gruesome scene, Kang Yi-sol concluded that this was not a foe they could defeat through combat.
Therefore, they decided to install the devices they had prepared in case of emergency and retreat.
“We need to blow it all at once, not set off one or two bit by bit.”
“Yes, we’re setting them up that way.”
The soldiers held back their nausea and carried out their duties, and before long, the booby trap installation was complete.
“Withdraw quickly.”
At Kang Yi-sol's order, the entire unit began retreating.
Perhaps the shock of the corpse pile had been too great, everyone felt a wave of relief at the thought of finally leaving this place and began retracing their steps.
But then.
-Kwaaaang! Bang! Kwang!
Just as they neared the exit, a deafening explosion rang out.
With a shocked expression, Kang Yi-sol shouted,
“Everyone with a shield skill, cast it toward the direction of the explosion!”
“Yes!”
At Kang Yi-sol's command, four layers of shields were formed in the direction the sound had come from.
Soon after, flames surged down the sewer corridor.
“Ghk!”
The intense heat and pressure slammed into the shields, and in the process, quite a few people were knocked to the ground.
And as the flames subsided, the now-thin oxygen concentration began to hinder their breathing.
“Move out!”
The suffocation quickly turned into fear, and everyone scrambled chaotically toward the exit.
‘Did it die?’
The activation of the booby traps meant the monster had shown up.
Kang Yi-sol hoped that the monster had been killed by that last attack.
-Tak-tak-tak-tak!
But things in life rarely go as hoped.
Kang Yi-sol could hear something rapidly approaching from far away.
Heavy, yet sharp-sounding footsteps.
“Hurry out!”
The sound resembled that of a massive insect with multiple legs running along a wall.
Kang Yi-sol swallowed dryly and ordered a swift escape.
Fortunately, the exit was right in front of them, and the escape proceeded quickly.
However, only about half of the team had managed to get out when,
“Damn it! It's here!”
The creature appeared.
A monster shaped like a woman wrapped in rope.
But one must not be deceived by its feminine appearance.
Just like how an anglerfish uses worm-like tentacles to lure prey, something massive was seen writhing behind the monster's back.
“You ate that much gunpowder and you’re still standing?”
Kang Yi-sol thought to himself as cold sweat ran down his face.
If demons were real, they’d probably look like that.
‘We can’t win against that.’
At that very moment of realization, the soldiers opened fire.
-Tatatatata!
***
“Is that the place?”
I had arrived at the Dongdaemun dungeon my father told me about.
The exact location was behind Heunginjimun, near Dongdaemun Station.
I hid inside a nearby building and took a peek, sure enough, soldiers from the Capital Defense Command were stationed there, guarding the dungeon.
I had wondered what made this place so valuable for them to go that far.
But after checking the dungeon’s information, my eyes widened.
[This dungeon increases in difficulty with each clear. The first stage has been cleared. You may now challenge Stage 2.]
[Underground Labyrinth - Stage 2]
-Grade: Advanced
-Recommended Level: 40
-Time Limit: 12 hours
-Clear Conditions: Defeat the boss within the time limit, or complete the mission.
Normally, when a dungeon is first cleared, the entrance becomes visible from the outside.
But in this case, even after one clear, the entrance remained hidden, and the dungeon’s difficulty had increased.
'A growing dungeon.'
Now I understood why the government was managing it.
The dungeon’s difficulty was one thing, but there was an unusual atmosphere about it that felt anything but ordinary.
“What will you do?”
The real problem was that the dungeon was surrounded by a thick wall of soldiers.
At Willia’s question, I grinned.
“Let’s break in.”
At my words, Willia also gave a villainous smile and nodded.
Then, we cloaked ourselves in black robes from head to toe and used the Investigation Interference skill we obtained yesterday to hide our information.
[Investigation Interference skill activated. For 30 minutes, all skills related to detection by others are blocked.]
Since Woof-woof and Fatty were too conspicuous, we had left them back on the island. For now, we were just an ordinary man and woman.
And we began approaching the dungeon.
“You there! Identify yourselves! Stop!”
Noticing our approach, the soldiers tried to stop us with threatening tones rather than raising their guns immediately.
Probably because in times like these, pointing a gun might provoke some crazy son of a bitch to pull out a sword first.
-Tatatak!
And in their eyes, we were probably exactly that kind of crazy.
Willia and I ignored their warnings and picked up speed as we ran, and the soldiers, unable to ignore us any longer, raised their guns and once again ordered us to stop.
“S-stop! This is a military facility! If you come any closer, we’ll shoot!”
At that, Willia activated the intermediate-level shield skill, Divine Shield, which enveloped us.
"Intruders!"
-Tatatatang!
The soldiers quickly realized our target was the dungeon and opened fire in response.
At first, they shot warning shots into the ground or sky, but gradually the barrels of their guns began to point directly at us.
However, standard bullets couldn’t pierce even low-grade shields, let alone intermediate ones.
Their power might be far superior to most skills, but for some reason, modern weapons always seemed weak when compared to skills or items.
“W-what the-!”
“They’re getting away!”
“Don’t follow them! You’ll die if you go in!”
Thanks to the shield’s protection, we were able to leisurely enter the dungeon.
-Fwoosh!
“What the...?”
Inside the dungeon, both Willia and I wore surprised expressions.
The reason? Despite being inside a dungeon, there was a sun floating above our heads.
Surrounding us were light brown walls encircling the area.
“What a strange place.”
The ground was covered in soft sand, making it difficult to detect if any traps were set.
I was truly glad we had obtained the Exploration skill earlier.
“I’ll climb up high and scout the area first.”
“Okay.”
The wall looked to be about 30 meters tall.
In vertical situations like this, using Blink was more practical than Leap or Stepping Stone.
So, I used Blink, the spatial movement skill, to teleport to the top of the wall.
-Fwoosh!
“Huh?”
But I was caught off guard.
Since Blink could cover 50 meters in one go, I had expected to land directly on top of the wall, but I only made it halfway up.
Changing my plan, I used Leap and Stepping Stone to propel myself upward again and again.
And soon, I realized the secret of the wall.
“The distance isn’t closing...”
The wall was rising higher and higher in proportion to how much I climbed.
"What is this?"
With no way to get over the wall, the open sky above was meaningless.
It only looked like an outdoor space, but this was definitely the interior of a dungeon with a fixed path.
“This place is shaped like a maze.”
While I had been leaping through the air, Willia hadn’t just been standing around.
She had scouted the surroundings and discovered a path cleverly hidden between the walls using optical illusions.
“No wonder the dungeon is called a labyrinth.”
“They say in mazes, if you keep your hand on one wall and follow it, you’ll eventually reach the exit.”
I had heard that too.
The problem was whether this dungeon was a normal maze or not.
Still, we had no better options, so we decided to do as Willia suggested and began moving forward with one hand on a wall.
And a short while later.
[Enhanced Mummy / Level: 40]
A mummy, completely wrapped in bandages, appeared before us.
“Looks like we’ve found the right path.”
Without wasting any time, I charged forward and launched an attack.
[You have defeated the Enhanced Mummy and gained 2,000 experience points.]
[Defeat reward for the Enhanced Mummy has been granted.]
-You have acquired 430 coins.
-You have acquired 1 Bloodstone.
Despite defeating a level 40 mummy, there was no first-clear reward.
Most likely, the Nation Revival Agency had already explored the early parts of this dungeon.
Since it wasn’t a named monster but a normal one, the government’s hunting team could probably handle it with numbers alone.
“Not bad.”
“Yeah, decent experience too, and it’s an undead type.”
But even without the first-clear reward, there was no need to be disappointed.
For a dungeon that spawned level 40 regular monsters, the amount of experience earned was no joke.
“I think we can level up here for a while.”
“I agree. But are we going to have to break through soldiers every time we come here?”
“Ah, that’s true. Well, it’s not that hard, so...”
Even though the monsters were level 40, perhaps because we had fully upgraded our equipment yesterday, hunting wasn’t difficult at all.
Thanks to that, we were pleasantly surprised to have found an unexpectedly great hunting ground.
If Kang Yi-sol, the First Division Chief of the Nation Revival Agency, had heard this, it would’ve been enough to make him clutch his head in frustration.
We continued clearing the dungeon, excited.
[Your level has increased.]
[Leveling up has restored all injuries and status ailments.]
During that process, we leveled up once, reaching Level 48, and before long, we discovered one of the objectives of exploring the dungeon.
“It’s a treasure chest!”
I’d heard that the group teleportation item for Waypoints had dropped from a treasure chest in this very mummy dungeon.
So, with an excited expression, I approached the chest.
[Enhanced Mimic / Level: 45]
But as soon as the Exploration skill displayed the chest’s information, my face twisted.
It was a Mimic, a monster disguised as a treasure chest.
“Well, of course they wouldn't give it up that easily.”
I drove a Mighty Slash, powered up by +2 enhancement, increasing its skill power by 50%, into the Mimic’s head, which had been lying in wait to deceive someone.
[You have defeated the Enhanced Mimic and gained 3,000 experience points.]
[You have defeated the Enhanced Mimic for the first time and gained 12,000 experience points.]
[Defeat reward for Enhanced Mimic has been granted.]
-You have acquired 482 coins.
[First-clear reward for Enhanced Mimic has been granted additionally.]
-You have acquired 2,500 coins.
-You have acquired 2 inventory slots.
At least getting the first-clear reward helped ease the irritation a little.
After that, it was non-stop hunting.
We took down Enhanced Mummies, occasionally encountered Enhanced Mimics lying in wait to catch us off guard, and continued our exploration for quite some time until we arrived in front of a room.
“This can’t be the boss room already.”
“Maybe named monsters have their own designated rooms too?”
“Oh, that sounds plausible.”
Before opening that door, we decided to take a short break.
To recharge our mana, and to eat.
Injuries or fatigue could be fixed with Heal or a potion, but there was no substitute for hunger.
Especially since Willia particularly enjoyed mealtime.
“Today’s meal is...”
“Drumroll please...”
Willia made drumroll sounds with her mouth.
I smirked and pulled out a stone pot and some Korean-style alcohol snack canned food from my inventory.
It was beondegi, silkworm pupae.
Pop, todododotong.
I pulled out some firewood, lit a flame, placed the stone pot on it, and poured in the canned food.
Willia leaned in so close her head almost touched the fire as she checked the contents.
“What is this?”
“What do you think?”
“Some kind of dried fruit? But the smell is a little... musky.”
I considered letting her taste it first and then telling her, but figured she’d hate me if she got grossed out after finding out, so I gave her the honest answer.
“It’s beondegi. Silkworm cocoons.”
“My mouth’s watering.”
“...Huh?”
I’d been expecting a classic foreigner-freaking-out reaction, but Willia was unfazed by anything.
***
Noh Sung-heum, the Director of the Nation Revival Agency, sat in his chair, calmly smoking a cigarette.
In the past, smoking indoors would've caused an uproar, but since the world went crazy, people had become less concerned about how others saw them and more inclined to do whatever they wanted.
It was an era where even a single cigarette was precious.
He smoked it all the way down to the filter, then sank deep into his chair, savoring the lingering taste as if it were a moment of rest.
“I wonder how the investigation is going.”
As if the thought had just occurred to him, Director Noh Sung-heum recalled Kang Yi-sol, the division chief who had gone to investigate the underground sewer.
It wasn’t out of genuine concern, more like a reflex, the kind of thing a superior should do out of basic decency.
Noh was a former member of the National Assembly who had been through the wringer in the political world, while Kang Yi-sol had been a former athlete turned police officer, so the two had fundamentally different backgrounds.
Just then.
[D-Division Chief? I-I’ll ask the Director if you can go in.]
[Get out of the way! I'm busy!]
Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.
-Bang!
“Huh?”
Kang Yi-sol, who had gone to investigate the underground sewers, barged into the Director’s office of the Nation Revival Agency, looking like a complete mess.
His presence was so intense and grim that even the seasoned politician Noh Sung-heum flinched.
“A-Are you alright? What happened to you?”
Despite Director Noh’s question, Kang Yi-sol walked toward him in long, silent strides.
As he got closer, the stench, like that of a septic tank being emptied, began to fill the room, but Director Noh Sung-heum did not let the discomfort show on his face.
“Everyone is going to die.”
“What?”
-Thud!
Kang Yi-sol slammed his hand on the desk.
With that, an unknown liquid splashed onto Director Noh Sung-heum, and for the first time, a crack nearly formed in his expression.
“If we stay like this, every citizen in Seoul will die.”
“What are you talking about? Explain in detail.”
Kang Yi-sol then played a video stored on the bodycam he had been wearing.
The footage showed soldiers firing wildly, and members of the carefully trained Nation Revival Agency hunting team fighting against a certain monster.
No, “fighting” wasn’t the right word. It was a one-sided massacre.
And it made sense, because whether they were soldiers or hunting team members, they were torn apart far too easily in front of the monster.
“It’s true we’re behind Yoon Si-ah’s civilian hunting team in terms of level. But it’s not like we’re completely under-leveled. Still, we couldn’t do anything. Neither I nor my subordinates. All we could do was run.”
“.......”
“That thing is hiding in the underground of Seoul right now.”
Thanks to that, Director Noh Sung-heum's expression also turned deadly serious.
Even he, sitting at his desk tapping his pen, could tell that this situation was no small matter.
“T-Then what should we do?”
In response to Noh Sung-heum’s question, Kang Yi-sol answered firmly.
“We need to gather them. Every capable person. Seo **, Yoon Si-ah, Kim Hyun-soo from Suwon, any skilled hunting team, and military backup too. We need to assemble a raid unit as quickly as possible and carry out a raid.”
*****
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