Chapter 184. The Path of Four Days and One Moment
‘What a bolt from the blue.’
Now that I think about it, even though the Red Gate and Blue Gate seem similar at first glance, their processes of occurrence are quite different.
In the case of the intermittently monster-spewing Red Passage, the signs of its emergence are clear enough to predict probabilistically.
However, this bluish gate was so quiet that I only noticed it right before it opened.
It could be described as abrupt.
Presumably, this is because blue is much more stable than red, hence the visible difference.
“Gosh, what the world! I mean, is this probability… Is it even logical? I’ve never seen a gate pop up right next to me like this in my life!”
“Indeed.”
Esther seemed flustered by the sudden appearance of the subspace and stumbled over her words, wiping her shocked heart.
Yet, being the leader of a guild, she recovered quickly. A few minutes later, she picked up the intercom on the desk to call the analysts downstairs.
“What is all this?”
Huh!
“Wow, how can it just show up right in the middle of the representative’s office….”
The personnel from the Magic Tower quickly moved to investigate the mysterious gate. However, an oddly disappointing piece of information emerged in the process.
Beep.
One of the employees from the Magic Tower inserted his right arm into the gate while holding onto an analyzer.
‘Oh, that’s a unique method.’
By the time he pulled his arm out, the tense atmosphere was countered by a revelation displayed on the machine.
[Unidentified Gate]
[Rank: F]
“F-Class, huh?”
“F, indeed?”
Even an average person without any magic could tackle it with just a metal club.
Evaluated with the lowest danger level, this fishing ground was of poor quality.
“Ah, what the heck.”
The gate that appeared before us was none other than an F-Class dungeon.
After all, it was absurd that a gate would just pop up in the midst of people casually sipping coffee, not to mention that it would collide with an A-Class rarity.
At that point, I might as well go buy a lottery ticket.
“I worried for nothing!”
Esther breathed a sigh of relief, feeling assured.
As the shock faded, curiosity gradually began to rise.
Thinking back, this gate was merely an F-Class safe zone, but the dungeon was labeled as [Unidentified Gate].
In other words, it housed an environment that had not yet been discovered anywhere in the world.
Or perhaps someone had already discovered the dungeon but failed to report the information to the association.
“Hm.”
In either case, we, as the discoverers, were in a position to hold an informational advantage.
“A completely new dungeon.”
The woman with curly hair on one side of the representative’s office narrowed her droopy eyes in thought, and after a moment, a new proposal sprang from her lips.
“You know, Mr. Gi-ryeo.”
“Yeah.”
“This gate, being inconveniently located right in the center of the room, we should probably clear it quickly, right?”
“Yeah.”
“But do we really need to involve the association in this matter? I’ve had experience with similar situations before. Those people just hoard internal information while claiming it’s for the protection of hunters, you know. It’s annoying since I’m the informer.”
Seo Esther’s mouth twisted upward slyly.
“So this time, the Magic Tower should resolve it independently. And if you don’t mind, could you assist in exploring the gate just a little?”
“Me?”
“Our Mr. Gi-ryeo has a much keener eye, right?”
Let’s secretly share information among discoverers and ignore the association.
Since our side isn’t related to any state agency, it was a proposal I didn’t exactly feel resistance towards.
‘But the problem is it’s Sunday.’
Like I said earlier, today was the weekend.
Moreover, this particular Sunday, I had another reason to refrain from going out besides the goal of just relaxing.
‘11 AM.’
I took out my mobile phone to check the current time.
At that moment, a calm tone floated in from the direction where Esther stood.
“For now, since we might find something exotic like reinforcement materials, it should take about 30 minutes if we could spare the boss.”
That’s more than ample time.
An S-Class hunter could clear an F-Class dungeon in even less than five minutes if they sprinted.
“Mr. Gi-ryeo, please. Just give me 1 hour and 30 minutes.”
“1 hour and 30 minutes?”
“I think it would be perfect to explore the dungeon for 30 minutes and then have lunch together at a restaurant afterward. What do you say?”
“…”
“Of course, I’ll calculate your fee very generously. Great magic stones have arrived at the guild just now!”
Replacing labor with magic stones.
By the way, this country’s minimum wage hovers around ten thousand won.
Moreover, it’s not exactly common for rich people with such generous hearts to pay for tiny things like a meal in magic stones.
Considering the story’s flow, it’s highly likely the dining situation would also be covered by the other party.
“…What do you have in mind for the menu?”
“Huh?”
When I suddenly asked about lunch, Esther stammered for a moment before answering.
“Uh, um, I guess something like steak or maybe a traditional meal…”
Then came someone’s refreshing agreement.
“Okay. Let’s go.”
They say you need to be cautious of people who treat you to beef in this world, but honestly, the opportunity for free steak seems worth the risk of closing my eyes and indulging just this once, right?
*
“Dark as expected.”
“And damp too.”
“That’s what caves are like.”
“Oh my, watch your step.”
“Why are there so many rocky protrusions?”
A little later, we quickly finalized our preparations and entered the dungeon.
We carried Esther’s equipment and some analog writing tools.
Thanks to the monster lurking at the entrance, we reaffirmed the dungeon’s F-Class rating and could begin without worry, even with light baggage.
“Monster detected 10m ahead.”
Thud!
As I stood still, examining the walls, I soon heard a dull thud that pierced my ears.
It was the sound of Esther handling the obstacle in front of us.
Like plants sprouting anew, beings crawled up from the cracked earth.
“By the way, I was excited to hear it was a new dungeon, but these monsters are very familiar faces, aren’t they?”
The residents of this place were none other than [Old Bones].
To be precise, it was a monster with a high spawning frequency at F-Class, so much so it was featured in the newcomer’s guidebook distributed by the Hunter Association.
“Not to mention, even the dungeon layout seems pretty standard.”
Additionally, contrary to the winds, this gate was a cave-like parallel world typically found in various hunting grounds.
Though I would prefer not to recall it…
Due to the Twin Guardian Angels, I had almost been mugged by those pesky frogs. Yeah, if I had to compare, this dungeon was just like that F-Class gate I went into back then.
Red, dark, with a ceiling that twisted like a beast’s throat.
“Hmm.”
The only difference was that the path was straight.
“What the heck, there’s nothing to see.”
We moved forward a bit more just in case, but ultimately, aside from discovering this structure, we couldn’t gather anything remarkable.
“It’s a fountain.”
“A bit small.”
“Why is this here?”
“Who knows?”
A sculpted fountain, reminiscent of one seen in the Baek-ui Maze, stood awkwardly in the middle of the path. What is this bizarre mix of leftover elements?!
“…”
“…”
Esther and I exchanged brief glances.
No matter how I looked at it, this dungeon seemed like merely an F-Class cave variant. Therefore, wasting any more effort would be pointless.
“Well, since we haven’t been in long, shall we just head back?”
“Right, Mr. Gi-ryeo. At this rate, my secretary could clear it while eating cup noodles.”
Consensus formed in an instant.
Thus, we unanimously decided to abandon the attempt and leave.
It took us about 10 minutes to reach the fountain, but considering we paused for analysis in between, the return time would likely take less than 5 minutes.
…or so I thought until just moments ago.
‘Huh?’
Several minutes later.
As Esther and I were having casual conversation returning to the entrance, I instinctively felt a strange apprehension in the atmosphere around us.
To be precise, the illumination felt off.
After walking this far, the blue light emitted by the gate should be gradually becoming visible, but the end of the long path was still shrouded in deep darkness.
‘What the…?’
Cold sweat trickled down my spine.
This wasn’t just an unsettling feeling.
I heightened my senses to confirm a sudden hypothesis, and in result, I realized something.
“Don’t tell me….”
“Mr. Gi-ryeo?”
Tap tap tap!
I shifted my weight forward and dashed. But no matter how much I ran, the entrance we had come through did not appear.
No, wait a damn minute! Looking closely, it’s not just that the light was absent!
“The passageway!”
Huh!
Esther, who quickly followed, gasped.
Shockingly, the entrance we had come through was now completely blocked by red stone walls.
There was no gate to be found anymore.
Thud.
I stood frozen, dumbfounded, staring at the end of the cave now obstructed by walls.
Damn it. When did we even take out the Nachalsawon? Why the hell is the entrance disappearing now?
‘Could it be a dungeon-specific trait?’
But I never anticipated this.
When Esther had entered to verify the grade analysis, the gate was clearly functioning normally at the time we hunted the initial monsters.
“What in the world is this about?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could someone outside have taken the item… No, that’s impossible. We were clearly at the highest floor of our guild!”
Calm down.
It’s not a common occurrence for entrances to vanish, and it’s certainly perplexing, but we still have other means at our disposal.
“I guess we have no choice but to defeat the boss to exit.”
Gate clear.
Fortunately, there’s a definitive condition in these alternate worlds to open an exit.
“Right. Stay calm and methodically proceed to take them down.”
.
.
.
But an astonishing three hours later.
“Oh my God…”
We finally discovered the last oddity this dungeon was hiding.
‘The path…’
The unidentified gate that appeared in the Magic Tower’s representative office.
Its true nature was none other than…
‘The path doesn’t end!’
A new type of dungeon with an extremely abnormal length!
Once, I had heard from Ahn Yoon-seung that lately, the scale of dungeons contained within gates was increasingly expanding. The dungeon known as [The Deepest Place], which is divided into three floors, serves as the prime example of this phenomenon.
However, such occurrences were supposed to happen only in upper-tier dungeons ranking A-Class to B-Class.
In low-level hunting grounds where the weaker ones roam, these changes were not overtly apparent. An F-Class gate could usually be traversed round trip within an hour; that was common knowledge in this industry.
“Oh my God, we’ve walked forever and still haven’t seen the boss.”
Esther chuckled lightly as if trying to lighten the mood.
But I wasn’t in the mood to match her tone.
What I had been persistently trying to determine just previously was the awful discovery that stated, ‘The boss of this place is beyond the recognition range of the Great Mage.’
Great, how can all this trouble even happen…?
“Seriously, today just isn’t a good day.”
As I came to realize the situation, I began to repeat a certain phrase.
Of all days, today had to be when something goes wrong, venting my anxiety in a monologue.
“Why? Did you have something else pressing to attend to?”
In response, the S-Class Hunter gave a somewhat awkward reaction.
Since she was ahead of me, I couldn’t see her face, but given her tone, I imagined she might have been wearing a pretty sad expression.
“I’m sorry. My unnecessary suggestion wasted only our Mr. Gi-ryeo’s time.”
“…”
“Um, how about this? Now that this has happened, why don’t both of us try our best to run? How about a race? If the two S-Class hunters speed up, surely the boss can….”
But then, the peaceful conversation suddenly came to a halt.
Simultaneously, the rhythmic sound of footsteps ceased.
In its place, an extremely unnatural silence enveloped the cave.
“Mr. Gi-ryeo?”
Whoosh.
When Esther turned her head to look back, sensing that her companions’ sounds had disappeared, it led to our eyes meeting after several minutes.
But I was still unable to respond to her call.
“Mr. Gi-ryeo?!”
Blood continuously flowed back up my throat, rendering it nearly impossible to speak.
In a panic, I clamped my mouth shut. Yet, the blood pooling in my mouth rushed against my throat, forcing an uncontrollable cough to erupt.
Cough. Cough.
With a sound of phlegm being discharged, I spat out bloody foam.
The blood trickled down my chin, continuously staining my clothes crimson. Unpleasant marks spread through my palms, and a few seconds later, even the whites of my eyes had burst blood vessels.
“Cough.”
Indeed.
This was the true identity of the ‘slightly unsettling downside’ that the [Divine Tree Sapling] possessed.
Yet, those born in Alphauri generally knew how to handle this situation. I meant to reassure the mage before me not to panic.
“…It’s fine—”
To be precise, I intended to express that everything was fine.
But the moment I opened my mouth to convey that message, I ended up coughing out more blood…
