When a sudden event hits a person, their brain tends to freeze.
An incident beyond comprehension occurs, causing a momentary shutdown due to the inability to cope.
“Dungeon.”
I used to be like that a lot in the past, but for some reason, I wasn’t now.
It might be thanks to my survival instinct, which instinctively warned me that freezing up here could mean death.
“No premonitions? This place has been swallowed whole. Is the pressure on spatial perception a power of the dungeon?”
The consciousness of the dungeon fundamentally seeks permanence. Regardless of the situation, it acts to maintain its existence.
That’s why traps are created and monsters that repel intruders are born—the external enemies almost always intend to destroy the dungeon.
Once the purpose of maintenance is met, the dungeon turns its sight to a purpose beyond that.
Permanent existence. The following desire for expansion.
When a dungeon sustains itself and fills a certain amount of surplus energy, a phenomenon known as “overdrive” occurs. Therefore, when intending to maintain the dungeon deliberately, periodic subjugation is necessary.
“No premonitions, huh?”
Surplus energy. Essentially, a massive power that’s easy to detect.
The Tower of Observation constantly monitors the magical boundary. It reads the movements of monsters seeking to invade the interior and detects the presence of high-ranking monsters that have coiled up inside the magical boundary.
With the remaining capacity, it also observes the interior. It monitors villains classified as high-risk and predicts dungeon overdrive in advance.
But there were no warnings. A sudden phenomenon. A rare occurrence, but now happening like a daily routine since graduating from Shio-ram.
“Shit.”
Of all times… I’m here when everything goes haywire.
I suppressed my negative emotions. Chewing my lip, I stretched out my hand and grabbed the waist of the child who was flailing around nearby, lifting them up.
“…!?”
The startled child flailed. Unfortunately, there was no time to spare for the kid right now. I tucked them close and slammed my feet into the ground.
I channeled mana through my entire body. Enhanced Physical Arts, my strengthened legs pushed off the ground, propelling me forward.
The fierce wind slammed against my body. I opened my senses wide. This wasn’t the time to make excuses about feeling uneasy.
The wind carried various sounds.
Screams filled with horror, the horrific noise of flesh tearing and bones shattering, the explosive sound of buildings crumbling and something bursting, the howls of monsters…
Most of these were sounds I’d heard before.
Even in that crappy house during my childhood, I heard screams, and I’d torn flesh and shattered bones while killing monsters during dungeon practice. In the Tower of Growth, although it was virtual, I’ve seen humans die too.
But this was reality. Not practice nor a safe trial like in the tower.
People had already died. There would be no return for them…
“Shelter.”
It has been more than a hundred years since humanity was violated by dungeons and monsters. In the grand scheme of human history, that’s a very short time, but it was ample time to prepare countermeasures.
Most cities rebuilt after the great catastrophe now have shelters that consider the possibility of being engulfed by rampaging dungeons.
They can also be used in case of typhoons, hail, earthquakes, etc., but the primary purpose is to escape the transformed environment and monsters that appear haphazardly due to the dungeon.
I fully opened my spatial perception.
The incoming information doubled. It wasn’t satisfactory. Ever since the rampaging dungeon swallowed this place, the state of my spatial perception had been terrible.
It trembled violently. It felt as if I was in a power struggle, continuously pushing against an external force.
It was a familiar sensation. In the Tower of Growth, I had felt this when spatial perception couldn’t spread properly and became distorted.
The results were different now. Back then, I couldn’t resist and was just pressed down, but now I was violently fighting back, pushing against the power of the dungeon.
While exploring the shelter, I spotted multiple monsters.
Not just multiple; every time space shifted, new monsters appeared.
There were various types, but the one dominating in number was a beast with red fur. It walked on four legs and was at least double my size.
“Red Leaf Hound?”
With the knowledge from the original work and the monster studies I learned in Shio-ram… and the information I observed through spatial perception, I concluded that was indeed a Red Leaf Hound.
Red Leaf Hounds are standard tier 7 monsters that generally possess resistance against conventional firearms.
So does that mean the rampaging dungeon is around tier 4? What luck. If it exceeded tier 3, the survival probability would have dropped significantly.
I flicked my finger. The mana I channeled formed a barrage of magical projectiles.
Mana bullets.
The mana bullets flew in a blue trajectory, striking the head of the Red Leaf Hound.
Boom! With an explosion, the Red Leaf Hound’s head burst apart. Cracked skull and shattered brain fragments sprayed everywhere.
I flicked my finger again. The continuously generated mana bullets scattered in all directions.
– Bang! Splash! Boom!
I unleashed mana bullets at all kinds of monsters entering my spatial perception. The heads of the monsters I hit popped like balloons.
I didn’t worry too much about accuracy. Thanks to spatial perception, the hit rate was nearly perfect.
“I found it.”
As I reduced the number of monsters while moving, I discovered the shelter.
The entrance to the shelter looked like a typical bunker entrance. A thick metal door was wide open, seemingly inviting me in.
Survivors were streaming in through the underground entrance.
On either side of the entrance stood two superheroes with anxious expressions, scanning their surroundings. Judging by their demeanor, they didn’t seem very strong.
“Hey! Over here!”
One of the superheroes turned his gaze towards me. He squinted and waved his hand. Thankfully, there was no misunderstanding of me as a villain.
After plopping down at the entrance, I set the child I had been holding down. The kid swayed dizzily, unable to fix their messily tangled hair.
In the meantime, the superhero who had waved at me spoke urgently, “You’ve grasped the situation, right? Most of the city has been swallowed by the rampaging dungeon and is isolated!”
I already knew. The only ones who didn’t understand the situation were those who died the moment they got caught up in the rampage.
“We need to buy time until the rescue team breaks through the outer walls! So…!”
I knew what came next.
Modern citizens are trained in procedures for actions in case of emergencies like this. Even now, surviving citizens are desperately funneling toward shelters.
Many are likely unable to gather due to the monsters scattered everywhere.
I nodded and slammed my feet into the ground.
– Thud
That’s what I intended to do. But my leg stopped when my sleeve was tugged. The culprit was the kid I was carrying.
The child urgently pulled on my sleeve.
Their half-closed eyes that seemed bored were now fully open, revealing a face full of worry.
Where had I seen this child before? That question crossed my mind but was quickly shot down. Even if they had seen me, they wouldn’t recognize me now.
The anti-recognition bracelet the vice-captain personally gave me. I must look like a completely different person wearing it.
So even if the child knew Lee Ha-yul, my appearance now wasn’t that of Lee Ha-yul. With my mana finely tuned, they wouldn’t think of me as Lee Ha-yul.
“Don’t worry.”
I wanted to say that, but the curse prevented it. Sending a hologram to convey the meaning would waste precious time.
I slipped my tiny finger away. Compared to my strength, it came loose easily.
For a moment, I saw eyes that reminded me of someone fading away. I kicked the ground again and crossed the city.
The appearance of Shifnah entered my spatial perception. It wasn’t particularly beautiful or artistically valuable.
Shifnah was established decades after the great catastrophe, born from heroes and hunters who rallied to conquer the dungeons nearby.
Perhaps due to that history, the city was characterized more by its practicality than its artistic value.
Now, that city was crumbling. People were dying everywhere. The spatial perception, swaying under the external pressure, conveyed it very well.
Thanks to that, my head cooled down. Fears of death and distracting thoughts… Given the situation, they receded.
I shook my hands. The mana I unleashed drew magic formations. I focused on neutralizing one monster with each shot.
There was no time to approach and kill with weapons. It would be better to use magic and take them down, even if it costs some mana.
The expended mana would quickly recover. I was accumulating fatigue in my circuits and core, but I couldn’t afford to whine.
To survive and save more people, I need to figure out a way to resolve this crisis. I wracked my brain.
“I need to suppress the rampage.”
A dungeon is a vast dimensional space suspended in the world—it can be likened to a ship that has temporarily anchored.
To stop the ship, the anchor needs to be dropped. Once the anchor is pulled out, the ship will be swept away by the current.
The same goes for the dungeon. If its core is destroyed, the dungeon cannot maintain its existence and will collapse.
“Where’s the core?”
There are various types of cores. It could be a particularly special structure or a magical stone that’s abnormally huge compared to the others.
Or it could be a monster serving as the core.
Naturally, the monster responsible for the dungeon’s core would be labeled as an Alpha. Such monsters are particularly dangerous among Alpha entities.
Monsters that serve as cores never leave the dungeon’s influence area. Thus, they exhibit overwhelming strength compared to other entities since they continuously absorb the dungeon’s blessings.
“Did a tier 4 monster overdrive?”
I felt the spatial perception. It was swaying continuously, but it was doing its job reasonably well.
The oppressive force pressing from all sides… Upon closer inspection, there were not just one or two sources of that pressure. There might be more than five…
“Shit.”
Are they all tier 4? If so, the standard tier of the monsters emerging here must be around tier 8. How about the alpha entities? Probably around tier 6…
“What can I do?”
The parasitic moth I saw in the Tower of Growth was a tier 5 Alpha. That thing died. Hong Yeon-hwa killed it, and I partially contributed to that.
I’ve grown since then. So can I kill it? I wasn’t confident.
I hadn’t yet confirmed whether there was an Alpha that served as the core, but if there was, I would have to kill that to stop the rampage.
What if I can’t kill it? There’s another option. I could wait for external rescue.
Communication has been severed, so they must have known about the city’s situation long ago. The association would immediately send a rescue team composed of highest-class and upper-class superheroes here.
The dungeon’s outer walls are solid. Before the rampage, I wouldn’t even dare to touch them, but after the rampage, they’d become somewhat softer.
And it’s only a tier 4 dungeon at the lowest level. If they knock from the outside, the outer wall would surely crumble, allowing the rescue team to enter.
…But how long would that take? A tier 4 dungeon has some resilience that allows for potential rescuing.
From tier 3 and above, it’s practically impossible to get rescued from the outside, and tier 4 would surely take at least twice the time to break through the outer wall.
How many would be dead by then?
And…
“Where are all the superheroes?”
Can we even last that long?
While reducing the number of monsters, I continued pondering that question.
For some reason, there weren’t many superheroes around. There should be a clan responsible for the city’s defenses, yet I hadn’t encountered any of them.
There’s a shortage of manpower. Few superheroes are purging monsters. It doesn’t seem like any mid to high-ranking superheroes are present. What the hell?
“Shit…”
The situation was not looking good. The feeling that the chance of survival was growing dim made my face contort.
– Crack
Suddenly, a sound like something breaking echoed. It felt like it was coming from very nearby, but I couldn’t identify what it was.
*
[Authority 「■Overlook□」 is growing.]
Support me by donating at least $10, and you'll have the right to request any novel from Novelpia (excluding 19+ content) using a newly developed tool.
