Dungeon Hunter - Chapter 14

Chapter 14: Episode 4. Deceptors (3)

A warrior, Kim Suhwan, stepped out with me.

Behind us, an archer and the magician Lee Jihye were getting ready to attack. Park Euntak, a thief with a sharp dagger, was positioned between the long-distance dealer and the close combat dealer to fill the gap.

Since it was his first time exploring a dungeon, Park Euntak gripped his dagger hard and kept licking his lips. The Necromancer, Kim Inpil, stood behind everyone and hid. Without any dead monsters, all he was able to do was cheer the team on for now.

Krrrrr!

An adult Goblins was no taller than one meter, but they had deadly nails and teeth. Their jaws were strong enough to cut out a chunk of flesh. If bitten badly, death was inevitable.

One of the Goblins was holding a sword, which I assumed it had picked up somewhere.

Two Goblins appeared right in front of us.

“Water Spear!” At the same time, Lee Jihye the Magician cast a spell to shoot a water spear. It left her hand, quickly followed by arrows.

Ugh!

A Goblin fell down, but it didn’t die yet. With a massive amount of blood coming from its stomach, the Goblin got mad and ran toward us.

Yoon Hyuksu the Guarder has a shield, and Kim Suhwan stood in front. I also used my sword to roughly stop some attacks.

‘I should just pretend I’m fighting with them because if I really start to fight, my participation in this raid would become meaningless,’ I thought.

In the meantime, Park Euntak killed a Goblin with his dagger. Now there was only one Goblin left. It was not a difficult task to surround the monster and kill it.

“Our first hunt was successful. How was it? Not too bad, right?” Yoon Hyuksu asked us, wiping up sweat on his forehead with his hand.

“You are great at aggros. I’ve joined many attack units, and I must admit you have an outstanding skill.”

Kim Suhwan gave a thumbs up. During our hunting, aggros was synced, and Goblins targeted Yoon Hyuksu. Sometimes they looked around, but soon they would go back to targeting Yoon Hyuksu. It was not a surprise that Hyuksu was called the genius of aggros.

Yoon Hyuksu stood next to the dead body of a Goblin to cut up its stomach. Goblin’s heart shrank quickly until it looked like a tiny pebble. That was the Core.

“It is quite a good size. We can get 1.5 million at least.”

It was a good start. The Core from another Goblin was also bigger than average.

As soon as he collected two Cores, Yoon Hyuksu clapped his hands and asked as if he had forgotten until now, “oh, right. Are the beginners ok?”

“Ye… Yeah, I’m ok.” Park Euntak stuttered to answer. He’d used his dagger a few times, but he was not able to damage the Goblin. It was still a success because he didn’t wet his pants during the hunt.

I was sure that he was quite shocked because it was his very first time hunting, but he was trying his best to put on a cool face.

I just moved my shoulders up and down instead of answering. It felt strange to raid my own dungeon, but it wasn’t too bad. I was able to roughly understand how they hunted in the dungeon.

‘It is not easy for beginners. If a beginner joins the wrong attack unit, he would be a dead man,’ I mused. If a beginner with high potential died in their first raid of a dungeon, that would be a waste. Even so, there was nothing I could do about that.

‘I can’t make my dungeon easier than this…so that’s out of my hands. Regardless of the potential, if killed by low-level monsters like Goblins or Kobolds, that means he is just a mere human.’

The level of difficulty in my dungeon was low enough. If I lowered the difficulty, it would ruin everything. It was impossible to find monsters with lower levels than Kobolds or Goblins.

The method of evaluating my dungeon by joining an attack unit and experiencing my dungeon as one of them was helpful for learning how the weak warriors were getting over the risks. It was a special feeling for me because it almost felt like I was looking at myself when I was abandoned on the battlefield for the first time. I was able to use everything just to survive.

“Wow! That wasn’t too difficult.” After killing a few monsters, Yoon Hyuksu smiled happily. We’d spent two hours in the dungeon, and we already had 13 Cores. We’d earned over a million won per person already. Everyone looked happy.

Behind us, there was a dead Goblin moving as slow as a zombie. That was the monster being controlled by the Necromancer, Kim Inpil.

‘That’s how it works,’ I thought. It was a surprising scene to observe.

Then, Yoon Hyuksu unpacked his bag and told everyone, “Let’s take a break.”

It had been an exhausting two hours, so we needed one.

We had to choose the spot carefully. We needed somewhere we could easily see monsters, but that didn’t have many monsters around. It was difficult to find such places. Only a few experienced warriors knew how to find them, and only two members of our unit were like that. Eventually, the spot was selected by the unit leader, Yoon Hyuksu.

We were able to rest a bit. Everyone in the attack unit sat down and enjoyed the break.

“Aren’t we in a little too deep?” one of the girls asked in a worried voice.

Yoon Hyuksu shook his head and answered, “It feels like we are deep in the dungeon, right? But we actually aren’t far from the entrance. We can walk out in about 30 mins.”

“Really?”

“We were making round turns. Why? Are you scared?”

“I mean…” The girl smiled awkwardly.

“Don’t worry. Look at this.” Yoon Hyuksu opened his leather pouch to show the Core, and her eyes started to shine.

“We’ve got 13 of them! With these sizes, we can take around 2 million won each.”

“The unit leader wouldn’t take more than others?”

Usually, the unit leader took 1.5 times more money than others when they sold the Core. That was because most of the unit leaders were the Guarders, and they were the ones who took care of aggros. They also had to do all the preparations. Since they took most of the risk and had to do a lot, nobody argued that the leaders were taking too much.

“I mean, take that into account, and we still earn that much.”

“Oh my god!”

Everyone was excited by the news. Two million wons for two hours of hunting! Skills were important, but to have that much, they also needed luck.

“Should we go deeper? We are doing quite well considering it is our first time together. I think we can hunt five more monsters without any struggle, what do you think?” Yoon Hyuksu offered the team.

Today was a lucky day, and it felt like a waste to stop here. If we worked a few more hours, we could take a vacation for a whole month. Although we had to take a bigger risk, everyone was quite excited about the money.

“Sounds great.”

“Let’s do this.”

Everyone agreed, and I had no reason to say no. I nodded, and after 10 minutes, we started to move again.

It had been four hours since we entered the dungeon. They were able to kill a considerable number of monsters.

“Should we go back? This is the farthest I go anyways.” Kim Suhwan asked with anxiety. We were deep inside for sure, and everyone was tired now. It was possible that we could face more monsters on our way out, so it was a reasonable choice to stop here.

Yoon Hyuksu didn’t say no, but he had one condition. “Should I bring monsters one last time? What do you think?”

“Sure, for the last time.”

“Wait here. I will bring some.” Yoon Hyuksu left with his shield, laughing.

The attack unit waited for Yoon Hyuksu, but he wasn’t coming back.

After five minutes, there was still no sign of Yoon Hyuksu.

After ten minutes, everyone got nervous.

“…Where is our unit leader?”

“Do you think something happened to him?”

The girls started to show anxiety.

Kim Suhwan touched his chin and sighed, “Let’s wait ten more minutes. If he doesn’t come back, we should go back by ourselves.”

“You… you mean, we should abandon the unit leader?” Kim Inpil asked Kim Suhwan in annoyance. He was always standing behind because he was a Necromancer, but he stepped out to confront him.

“Mr. Inpil. It’s been already ten minutes, and if we wait ten more minutes, that is a lot of time. You’ve seen on the website, correct? When the Chaser doesn’t come back in 15 minutes, we should move from the spot because the monsters excited by the blood of the Chaser could attack us.”

Excited monsters were not the only problem; other monsters would come because of the smell of human blood. We had no choice but to run away.

“How can you be so cruel!”

“If you don’t want to make it a suicide mission, shut up.” Kim Suhwan was experienced. This was not his first time being in this situation. The only thing our mercy could bring was death.

Time passed by quickly. Everyone seemed to hold their breath as they waited for Yoon Hyuksu to come back.

Ten more minutes passed.

“Let’s go.”

“Just a few more minutes… please.” Kim Inpil tried to stop the team, but everyone was following Kim Suhwan.

Kim Suhwan didn’t even hesitate. “No, that was enough time.”

“Ten more minutes. No, five more…”

“What are you trying to do here?” Kim Suhwan demanded.

Kim Inpil bowed. “Please… We’ve been friends for more than ten years. His parents passed away when he was young, and they asked me to take care of him. I can’t give him up like this.”

That was a moving story.

“Should we wait five more minutes? I understand him.”

“Jihye…ha! Okay. Five more minutes, and then we are leaving. Period, okay?” Kim Suhwan was already acting like a unit leader because he was the most experienced member of the unit. Everyone was following Kim Suhwan.

“Thank you. Thank you so much.” Kim Inpil thanked everyone and bowed.

Everyone was already tired and looked toward the direction Yoon Hyuksu had headed in.

No one can stay tense for the whole day. If they had to stay in an intense situation, they got weary sooner than usual. That was the case for everyone. They had hunted for four hours, and now they had waited in high tension for over 20 minutes. Now, it would be a struggle just to hold an arrow and move it.

Five more minutes passed like that.

“He is coming.” Kim Suhwan was the first one to see that something was coming. He held his torch toward the front to try to find out what it was. His face became dropped!

“F**k!” He swore and stepped back. People wondered why, but soon it was clear.

Grrr!

The unit leader Yoon Hyuksu was there, and there were countless monsters behind him.

“Run!”

But where? Yoon Hyuksu and Kim Suhwan were the only two who knew the directions in this place, but monsters were chasing Yoon Hyuksu and Kim Suhwan was in a panic.

Suddenly, Kim Inpil started to run toward Yoon Hyuksu. The monsters regrouped into two when they found the attack unit.

What should I do? The monsters were running toward them so fast that it was impossible for them to run away.

Kim Suhwan looked back for a second.

Three girls and two beginners. All five of them were just a burden for him. Trying to take those people would only make it harder for him to escape. The situation was negative. The monsters were going crazy; they wouldn’t give up.

Yoon Hyuksu and Kim Inpil were experienced. They knew how to survive! Kim Suhwan abandoned the rest. He started to run toward Yoon Hyuksu and Kim Inpil.

“Wai…wait?!”

One of two beginners, Park Euntak the Thief, shouted out of surprise, but it was already too late. The girls looked hopeless.

‘This is getting interesting.’ My lips were moving slightly. Survival of the fittest was a rule that applied for humans, just like devils. Nobody would save you. No mercy, no regrets.

I started to get curious about the ending of this. Were they giving up? This wasn’t a game; it was life or death.

As a Dungeon Master, experiencing this kind of situation gave me a different kind of sensation. It was almost nostalgic for me.

“Go. I will earn some time for you.”

A beginner. A thief. The naive boy who tried to talk to me whenever he had a chance.

Park Euntak held his dagger with his shaky hands.

I was a bit impressed. ‘Are you sacrificing yourself?’ I wondered.

I was expecting them to split into five and run or fight. That was the only way to have a 1% possibility of surviving. Sacrifice was the last thing I expected.

They met today! They’d just spent half a day together. Park Euntak would protect them with his life? Really? That was a bit over the top. A sacred sacrifice? That is just a glorification of a purposeless death.

“Run, now!”

“Sorry, sorry…”

“Be…be careful.”

“Ah!” When Park Euntak screamed, the three girls turned around and ran back toward where they’d come from.

They all knew that if they stayed here, death was the only thing waiting for them.

I decided not to help him as soon as I saw Park Euntak’s smile. I could have managed this situation if I wanted to, but I didn’t. I didn’t think it was necessary.

They were all invaders. They were outlaws who trespassed on my property.

I saved Kim Yongwoo because he was valuable, but Park Euntak wasn’t. He had low potential and low value; he was useless to me.

Maybe I’d think differently if he was trying his best to survive. Maybe his desperation would move me, but he didn’t even look desperate.

With that short dagger, it wasn’t even possible to stop a single monster. Park Euntak hadn’t attacked any monster in the dungeon today. He was busy stopping them with everything he had.

And…

The result of reckless bravery was always the same.

C-

-rack!

Crack!

“Ugh, ughhhh!”