Dungeon Hunter - Chapter 47
Chapter 47: Episode 13. Story of a Dungeon Fight (3)
The Philippines, China, India, France, and Korea.
This was the chronological order in which the monster waves took place.
All the countries but France had one thing in common: they were not prepared for monster waves. At least the Korean government had stationed their military near the dungeon, but the Korean military was too slow to respond.
As a result, there were more than a thousand casualties and the damages amounted up to a few billion dollars, which infuriated the public.
Through propaganda and media, the current administration tried to disillusion the public to believe that the dungeons were not as dangerous as they seemed, but the administration’s strategies did not work at all except for certain groups of people.
The damages from the dungeons were tremendous, and the public would not be fooled.
In order to change public opinion, the government sent an entire division of soldiers into the dungeon. The president of Korea, the secretary of the Ministry of Defense, the general of the deployed division, and other national security officers were being briefed about the progress of operation inside of a bunker in the Blue House.
Bang!
“If this operation fails, we will all die. We must succeed at any cost. Now you’re telling me that the connections were lost as soon as the division entered the dungeon? General Choi Chungee. Did you not say that wired connections would work for sure?”
As the president banged the table and cried out, General Choi Chungee, sweating, licked his dry lips out of anxiety.
“President, do not be troubled. The Special Capital Defense Division is very powerful. Even if there are monsters, they are no match for the firepower of the Special Capital Defense Division.”
“General Choi Chungee! There is no doubt that we must wipe the dungeon. The problem is that we need to minimize our losses in the process! Otherwise we will all be done. Do you not understand that?”
General Choi Chungee’s face slightly expressed his frustration. Did the president not know how powerful a division it was? In addition, this division was specialized in destroying dungeons.
The Special Capital Defense Division had special forces, armed vehicles that could attack while mobilizing, k1a1 tanks, and k2 tanks; it was second to none.
Monsters were of no match to the Special Capital Defense Division.
Armed with superior modern weapons, the Special Capital Defense Division would crush the monsters.
“Do not worry, president. Even if the connection is lost, we can send our signalers into the dungeon. They will inform us in just hours, and I am sure that the news they will bring will be good news.”
General Choi Chungee was confident about the operation.
They would not lose to the monsters in the dungeon.
They had entered the dungeon because of the complicated political issues related to the Core. This operation was merely a show. It was the easiest way to calm and silence the angry public.
The military defeated a herd of monsters outside of the dungeon, and General Choi Chungee could not understand why the president was anxious.
The president shook his fists.
“We must win. Otherwise, you will be fired. We must…”
Contrary to General Choi Chungee’s optimistic predictions, the soldiers in the front line were struggling.
Monsters could not easily attack a division of eight thousand men, but as the division advanced deeper into the dungeon, the products of modern science started to malfunction.
Mobile and wired connection devices went down first. Tanks and armed vehicles stopped after fuming, and other fire weapons would soon be the same.
“Commander, all of our connection devices are dead. Even if we physically send our signalers back to the entrance of dungeon, it will take at least another five hours. What would you like to do?”
“We will stick to our original plan. Guns can deal with monsters.” Confident, the commander ordered his division to carry out the operation.
Soldiers, after hearing the commander’s order, looked concerned.
It was well known that modern weapons of mankind would not function properly inside of dungeons. The United States had reported this observation in the past. Anyone who had the slightest interest in dungeons would have known that. It was likely that the higher-ups did not really buy the report and sent the soldiers to the dungeon.
Despite the complaints, soldiers must obey. If their commanders ordered them to carry out an operation, all they could do was complain a bit and move on.
“Phew, the higher-ups do not care…” a soldier murmured. Other soldiers around him agreed and nodded too.
The soldiers also knew that the powerful and wealthy were only interested in the Core when it came to dungeons. They would not care too much about whatever was really happening inside of the dungeons.
Things would have looked better if the awakened heroes had accompanied the division, but the higher-ups expelled them on purpose.
It seemed that they wanted to conquer the dungeon purely with the power of their own men.
“What is that sound?”
“The Earth is shaking!”
“Stop!”
Thump.
Thump.
Suddenly, the dungeon was shaking, and a large crashing sound was heard.
The soldiers were perplexed and turned in the direction that the sound had come from. In their hands were large light bulbs and torchlight made of firewood, the only tools that did not die. At that very moment, they saw that something was quickly approaching them.
It was a horse, and it was moving very fast.
It was not just an ordinary horse, but a horse made of fire!
Someone was riding it.
The soldiers were awed by what they saw.
Their jaws dropped.
If it was just the horse, they wouldn’t have been so surprised.
However, the soldiers felt out of place when they encountered those creating the large crashing sounds…dozens of giant Golems!
The sight of the Golems approaching in a single file line was overwhelming.
On the sides were metal Puppets coming quickly as though they were flying.
“Prepare for battle! Prepare for battle!”
The first battle that would be the end of it all began.
The only reason for placing monsters on different floors was the awakened heroes.
It was a method to grow them and gain points.
Those who could not even be used for this purpose had entered the dungeon.
In other words, there was no need to wait for them on different floors.
In addition, normal humans were not awakened heroes and could not fight monsters.
Modern weapons were powerful, but they could only be used outside of dungeons.
In dungeons, the weapons either did not work or malfunctioned.
Did they know, or did they purposely ignore this fact?
“Master, humans are dumb. If it were Lyhee, she would have first asked the master for the permission to enter the dungeon! Of course, she would pay tributes in return. For Lyhee, a nice kiss will do instead of tributes~ hehe.” Lyhee spoke while watching the battle with me through the crystal ball.
Even Lyhee admitted that the soldiers entering the dungeon were fools.
Lyhee came close and tried to kiss me, but I stopped her with my hands.
Holding Lyhee’s cheeks with my fingers and without turning my head, I stared at the crystal ball.
“Shit. Aim correctly!”
“I, I cannot shoot! The focus of the scope is slightly off!”
“Fire in the hole!”
“Did you take out the safety pin? It didn’t go off!”
“Ahhh!”
A fiasco!
Stricken all of sudden, the eight thousand soldiers were flustered.
When they tried to fire their guns, the bullets would go away from the intended targets. The accuracy was so poor that it seemed as though they were shooting blindly. On top of that, there was a lot of friendly fire.
The soldiers threw grenades, but the grenades either did not go off or their explosions affected smaller areas. Even if the grenades did damage the golems, the Golems restored their health quickly.
What about the Puppets made of metal?
They wielded sharp swords that were as large as humans.
The soldiers were helpless in front of the stabbing and slicing swords.
Grinding his teeth, the commander asked, “What about moving tanks?”
“We have none! All of the engines are burnt, and we need time to fix them! Some of armed vehicles are able to move, but they are not in normal condition!”
“Shit!” The commander frowned after listening to the assistant shooter next to him.
Guns were hindrances. Grenades did not go off. For the first time, the commander saw that modern weapons were powerless.
“Bayonets! Take out bayonets!” the commander cried.
The soldiers barely hung on after their commander’s voice boomed.
They immediately wielded the bayonets on their belts and pointed them towards Puppets, which were charging towards them.
Cling!
Bayonets could only do harm on living things. With the muscle power of normal humans, not awakened heroes, soldiers could only do so much to the Puppets.
They could only make minor scratches.
However, the soldiers were able to stop the Puppets momentarily. The Golems were huge, but they were slow.
The real problem was the Dark Elves, who were standing on the shoulders of Golems, as well as whatever that was swinging his long spear, riding the horse of fire in the front.
There were only about forty Dark Elves.
However, they were too strong for humans.
They were assimilated to the darkness and moved like shadows.
The special forces struggled hard, but they could only do so much.
They had only learned how to fight humans. They had never been trained to fight such strong monsters.
The result was terrible.
“Everyone, ah…ah!” The commander attempted to order a retreat, but his neck was chopped off the next moment.
Krathra!
Riding Inferno, he quickly crossed the distance and swung his spear.
He made thousands of soldiers powerless, and no one could stop him.
Soldiers commanding in the front started to die one at a time.
The Dark Elves learned the chain of command in the battle and targeted the soldiers.
There was a chaos in the chain of command!
The lack of telecommunication made the confusion worse.
Despair spread among the soldiers.
In the security conference room, the president, looking extremely pale, was looking at the ceiling quietly.
The signalers made it possible for them to communicate every few hours. However, the last time they had communicated was two days ago.
No news came in the last two days, and the air inside of the security conference room was cold like a funeral.
“Nothing…yet?” The president asked with a dry voice. Everyone, including General Choi Chungee, did not say a word. The result must be terrible; they had not heard anything for the last two days.
General Choi Chungee spoke after a long silence. “We sent scouts. If you could just wait a little bit more…”
“Fucking little, little more! How long should I wait? If this operation fails, it will be more than just us resigning.”
After listening to the president’s nervous voice, General Choi Chungee closed his mouth again.
They knew that the aftermath would be terrible if they lost the eight thousand men whom they sent out after getting 1,700 casualties.
It would have been better if it were deployed to another place on earth, but everything was happening in the territory of the Republic of Korea. The consequences would be more than just them resigning.
At that moment, the Secretary of Defense suggested carefully, “President, we need to… make a plan.”
The president, banging the desk with his fingers, sighed. “A public apology is not enough. Is there another solution besides my resignation?”
“We do not know the outcome yet, president. It could be that the soldiers did a great job in carrying out the operation and can return safely…”
“We do not know, and that is the problem. Many people have complaints about our administration. The longer we wait, the more complaints there will be,” the president continued with a straight face.
“Okay. Let’s try to conceal it.”
The next day, all the news related to the soldiers was restricted. All of the media, intelligence agencies, and organizations purposely hid related information.
When asked, they responded insincerely and used ambiguous words such as, ‘We are expecting good news.’
Web portals were no exceptions. A large volume of data and threads were censored and deleted.
Even if the higher-ups tried to conceal it, they could not stop information from spreading.
It was obvious that putting lipsticks on pigs would not work.
Had the soldiers sent to the dungeon come back, things would have been different, but none of them returned. After a month, the public completely turned away from the current administration.
The awakened heroes played a major role in discovering the truth.
A few guilds of awakened heroes searched the dungeon and found tanks and armed vehicles that soldiers used to use. Bones and guns were lying everywhere which sure did not hint good news.
The outcome was easy to tell if the soldiers did not even have time to take those tools during their escape.
After a few days, zombies wearing uniforms started to appear on the first floor. Despite their terrible appearances, they looked like soldiers.
The public became infuriated.
It was a peaceful demonstration at first, but after everything was reported, they could not remain peaceful anymore. Some of them were soldiers’ families.
As a result, the president resigned after a public apology. The public wanted a new administration, and many candidates ran for the presidency.
After reviewing the entire incident, John Praha, an American journalist, said that “it was the result of useless pride and complete ignorance from the leadership of Korea.”
At the same time, he found a book called ‘Dungeon Battle Diary.’ The diary explained the monster wave in Korea in detail and fiercely criticized the incompetent Korean government.
That was two months after the first monster wave in Korea.
