Dungeon Hunter - Chapter 50
Chapter 50: Episode 14. Where the Gods Fell (3)
It was impossible to cross the ocean without being seen by humans.
There was a magic item that made it possible, but it was too expensive to use for this simple purpose, and hiding away wasn’t exactly my thing.
I had the S-rank.
To utilize this privilege, I worked on my plan right away, a bullsh*t play with lies!
I had to change my plan, but I wanted the same result: to promote the growth of the awakened heroes.
So I used the name Devil Hunter and recruited the awakened heroes, handpicking fat ones with low potential.
‘Prey.’
Yes, they was prey.
It was a ceremony before a real war… I prepared prey for the monsters using ‘Save Korea’ as an excuse.
They had no idea they were walking to their deaths.
It must have looked like the real heroic act of “heroes” to regular people, who wouldn’t know this was just a big play I had written.
I didn’t need my useful people like Yoo Eunhye and Lee Jihye. I needed them to help me later.
These were some random and useless heroes.
All the awakened heroes present had low potential with not many possibilities to grow.
I considered them ust a little snack for the monsters for me to gain points.
I just wanted to embed the idea that I was the “best hero” in everyone’s minds.
“Save Korea!”
“We’re heroes! We don’t fear death!”
The awakened heroes were full of fighting spirit.
During the first monster wave, they hadn’t been able to do anything, but now, it was different. The best awakened hero was with them, and they were trying to save Korea.
Moreover, the word hero on the status window excited them in a strange way.
The battlefield was already filled with the dead bodies of soldiers. Normal people wouldn’t be able to even stand there, but the awakened heroes were different. They’d seen enough death in the dungeon.
Kaboom!
Lychi activated the signature skill ‘Dead Body Explosion’ everywhere. It evaporated even the Mana in the area, no need to mention the awakened heroes and soldiers, who were swiped out within a second.
And hundreds of dead bodies became some kind of zombies and started to attack the living soldiers. Although those dead bodies weren’t as strong as the living humans, the soldiers were terrified that their dead comrades had started to attack them.
There were a few awakened heroes with high intelligence who started to recover from the shock and kill the zombies. Guarders and close-range dealers opened the path for magicians to use their skills.
Rumble!
Earth Golem’s body attack!
It nearly caused an earthquake.
A few dozen more heroes were killed, but the awakened heroes didn’t give up fighting.
“Attack!”
And finally, it was my turn.
I led 100 raiders and ran toward the monsters.
“Can you see? The heroes are fighting for us!”
“We still have hope. The monsters are slowing down.”
All the media stopped their regular programming to share the breaking news from Seoul.
The army stepped back on standby, the awakened heroes fighting hard to stop the monster wave.
Everyone from Korea stopped what they were doing to see what was happening.
Live online streaming channels kept talking about the wave and cheering on the awakened heroes.
Housewives forgot to turn off their faucets and only watched the TV, and office workers couldn’t keep their eyes off of their phone screens. Even people at bars forgot about drinking to watch the wave.
“Ahh…! That’s horrible. Lychi is a horrendous monster that even used the Dead Body Explosion to kill more people.”
“The awakened heroes. No, heroes! We’re all cheering for you.”
The situation was not good for Korea, but the awakened heroes were changing the game, and it was becoming a fight rather than a massacre.
Hope was burning like fire in everyone’s minds.
“Look! A hundred heroes are attacking monsters!”
“The leader of the raid is the leader of the Devil Hunter unit!”
Devil Hunter!
Everyone would remember the name from now on.
Baaang!
After a fierce fight, one Earth Golem fell down to the ground.
“Hurray!”
“One Golem down!”
People started to have hope again looking at the awakened heroes when more than half of the awakened heroes fell on the ground in the blood pool!
I had slain an Earth Golem.
Everyone, including the awakened heroes, was cheering for me.
‘They think it was real.’
I enjoyed the reaction from them anyways, but it was part of the play that I’d planned. The Earth Golem was on the ground, but it wasn’t really down.
In my dungeon, I had absolute power over the monsters.
It was easy to pretend I was attacking it while ordering it to simply lay down. I didn’t even need a word, just using Mana was enough to give the order.
When an Earth Golem fell down to the ground, the monsters suddenly stopped their attack.
The awakened heroes had to step back to understand why.
“Uh, what is going on?”
“That’s Griffin!”
There were a handful of heroes among the awakened who had the observation skills to know the name of monsters, and one of them called out the name Griffin.
It was a horror from above. The fearful monster Griffin was landing near them.
Most of the damage had been caused by Griffin until now.
Eight Golems weren’t as scary as Griffin.
Its landing made everyone freeze with fear, but what caught their sight wasn’t the Griffin but the beautiful woman riding it.
She was a real beauty but wore an icy facial expression!
It was Krithli.
She approached me and said, “You’re good. What’s your name?”
She didn’t sound like herself.
For me, it was almost cringeworthy, but she was doing her best to do method acting.
Krithli was even following my order and wearing an icy facial expression.
She was wearing a half skull mask just like me, but she was covering the left side of her face.
It was clear why she was presenting herself like this.
‘Devils will start to have some doubts.’
Devils never cared about human civilization.
And to devils, humans were just creatures that they had to eliminate.
Devils had too much pride and were very tribal.
They wouldn’t care about anything like human civilization.
Even if this would be broadcasted all over the media, devils wouldn’t pay attention to it anyway.
My name wasn’t in the media, which would make it difficult for the devils to recognize me, and even if they did, they wouldn’t make any moves until they had solid proof, or maybe not even then.
If I acted this openly, they would waste a lot of time trying to verify things.
I knew devils better than anyone else, so I could easily predict their moves, and during the time when devils tried to verify things, I would grow my power so that when they were done, I would be too strong to touch.
I stood up proudly and looked into Krithli’s visible eye.
“I don’t need to know.”
“Oho. You also have balls, but I love strong people. I thought humans were just weak creatures and didn’t expect to meet someone like you. As a dungeon master, I’m quite impressed. So, they call people like you awakened heroes?”
Krithli words were clear to everyone’s ears using translation and voice augmentation magic.
And her words shocked everyone.
The dungeon master!
There were 72 dungeons that had appeared all around the world at once.
People were researching them from many different aspects, but not much information was found. They were still cloaked in mystery.
It was their first time seeing the master of the mysterious dungeon.
Krithli turned her head towards everyone.
“Listen, humans.”
She didn’t raise her voice, but it carried a sense of authority.
Her intelligence was over 100 with high Mana, plus her attitude made everyone listen to her.
“There were some humans who walked into my dungeon without knowing their place. They stepped their dirty feet into my dungeon without my permission, which is why I decided to punish them.”
I tried to imitate the speaking style and personality of Archduke Ariel. Archduke Ariel had a great personality, and there were a lot of devils who followed her only for her character, so I thought it would work for humans as well.
But instead, her words made people angry.
Without the first monster wave, nobody would have stepped into the dungeon.
But Krithli ignored the reaction from humans and continued, “But that wasn’t enough, so I was planning to let you know your place this time. I can destroy this tiny country with my fingertip, and that was my plan until just now.”
Her every word had some kind of authority, and it wasn’t difficult to imagine that her words were true, considering what the monsters had showed them.
Moreover, there were more monsters inside…
It was everyone’s worst nightmare.
“Humans, your awakened heroes were my opposers. I’m the Dark Lord, the ruler of the dungeon. The fate of heroes is probably to slay me, just like this hero slayed my Earth Golem!”
Krithli looked at them with intense eyes.
“I’m the master of the dungeon who likes challenges from the strong. The heroes are growing quite impressively. I enjoy having strong opponents, and I suppose they’ll become stronger over time… But I don’t want regular weak humans to walk into my dungeon.”
Bam! Bam!
Grrrrr! Growl!
As if they were reflecting her mood, all the monsters started to show their rage.
People stepped back, clenching their fists with anxiety.
After 30 seconds of intensity, Krithli slowly continued, “So, I will only allow the heroes to enter the dungeon. I’m sure they will become strong enough to entertain me someday soon.”
But then, one of the awakened heroes shouted in anger, “Wait! What about the monster wave?! If you were just planning to watch us, why did you let the monsters come out from your dungeon?!”
Krithli answered nonchalantly, “I’m the master of the dungeon, not the master of the monsters. Not all the monsters are under my control. If you want to protect your country, your family, and your friends, you should train hard to become stronger, because some monsters that I can’t control will start to come out of the dungeon.”
It was good bait.
The seventh floor was the Dwarf Village, and if a human reached there and found out that all the monsters belonged to the dungeon master, it would cause real trouble.
Krithli looked at me and told everyone, “You guys were saved by him. You guys were calling yourselves heroes, but I didn’t know you couldn’t even fight against a single Golem! I should have brought a few thousand Golems sleeping in the dungeon to destroy this country!”
That was a lie as well.
I wanted to stop people from having the dangerous idea to attack the dungeon.
I had only eight high-level Golems, and they were all out now.
If I’d really had a few thousand of them, I’m sure I would’ve already destroyed the Earth.
Krithli declared with authority, “Humans. Heroes! Reach me. On that day, I will tell you the truth about this world.”
She finished her words, and the monsters started to move, but they didn’t go back to the dungeon.
Krithli refused to return, since she wanted to check out other dungeons while she was out.
She told people, ‘If you do anything stupid, I will release my monsters from the dungeon.’ Therefore, people had no choice but to watch her marching.
She also promised that she would pass without causing any damage if they didn’t try to fight against them. Humans had to let them move past as if they were blind.
Submission.
It was a submission in silence.
The dungeon was an unknown space without enough information available to understand it, and monsters from it were overly strange creatures.
If it had been a fight against another country, they would have fought until the end, but the dungeon was just impossible to understand.
It was impossible to destroy it.
They also knew that when they walked into the dungeon, all firearms would be neutralized.
There was nothing they could do to stop it.
War was only possible in the 21st century when there were complicated mutual agreements among countries, yet the dungeon and monsters had no understandable agreements.
Monsters with superhuman power seemed like a natural disaster that humans couldn’t fight against, like a natural disaster that destroyed everything but eventually ended.
But people did not despair.
The army was destroyed and Seoul was almost completely destroyed…
As the dungeon master had said, there was hope…
Heroes were their last hope.
