It circulates.
The world trembles, and the light of circulation fills the prairie, twisting space.
Before I knew it, I arrived in another prairie, feeling a sense of strangeness as I surveyed my surroundings.
“Oh great. Ah.”
Next to me, the Jeokwol Guild Master was pitifully slumped down.
He looked so despondent, as if the world had ended.
“…Well, what are we going to do about Min-hyeong’s kid?”
“Mr. Jeoksa?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any information?”
What kind of boss pattern makes the difficulty increase according to the number of cycles and brings us here?
Jeoksa glared at me with eyes full of dissatisfaction and then sighed.
“Forget it. It’s Min-hyeong’s fault for saying to capture it at will.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a loop dungeon. It keeps repeating until you clear it.”
[Loop?]
[Oh]
[Dungeon is sweet]
[But since it’s ‘top tier,’ it seems tough]
[Jeoksa looks totally mad, lol]
Loop dungeon?
“What’s a loop dungeon?”
“I already said. It repeats until you clear it. You can’t leave until you break the ‘circulation.’”
It took a week to break the intermediate level, so if it’s top tier…
Jeoksa scratched his head complicatedly and murmured to himself.
“Is it just breaking it that matters?”
“Easier said than done. Even with a 3-stack circulation, it’s a nightmare, let alone 11—there’s no way.”
“Hmmm… is that so?”
“Yes. Moreover, it can’t just be broken by brute strength. I mean, why would you worry when Lady Lily has beaten both Lord Sword Saint and Lord Leo?”
As he said this, he drew the dual swords strapped to his back.
“There’s a reason for everything.”
■
Jeoksa’s dual swords swing.
The red aura seeping from the blade bursts forth, and the horned red horses are slaughtered and rolled on the ground.
As expected, my older brother is a ranker, so he seems to fight better than his younger brother who’s under a buff…
“Whew… this is insane.”
“Level 92, huh?”
The level of a normal monster is a whopping 92.
Not even a field boss, but a ‘normal monster.’
Monsters like that are scattered all over the prairie, and there are even three more red horses the size of Circulation’s Red Horse behind them.
And catching them doesn’t even give experience points or loot.
[This is tough]
[92?]
[92 is pretty savage]
[If a normal mob is this strong, what level is the boss?]
[Jeoksa is quite the fighter!]
Even after taking down six level 92 red horses, Jeoksa still looked okay.
In fact, he seemed to have increased his physical specs and stamina compared to when we first met.
Though it seems a bit strenuous, at this rate, clearing it doesn’t seem impossible.
“Looks like we can clear it this way.”
“…Oh. It won’t end just by killing like this.”
Jeoksa retrieved the sword and pointed at the empty air.
The red ring that nobly gazes down at the ground from the sky of the plain since earlier.
[The Ring of Cycle is maintained.]
[Life inherited from eternity is dwindling. Part of eternity is consumed.]
[The Cycle Gauge decreases by 2%.]
[The Ring of Cycle grants eternity to the dead.]
[The Cycle Gauge increases by 5% proportional to the number of cycles (11).]
[Current Cycle Gauge – 18%]
“When the gauge hits 100%, it loops. We go back to the beginning.”
“And if we kill them all at once?”
“That won’t work. The gauge fills up as much as you kill.”
“Hmm.”
When one red horse is caught, it decreases by 2%, but at the same time, the Ring of Cycle increases the gauge by 5%.
So effectively, it means the gauge fills up by 3% for every one caught.
The problem is that there are easily over thirty red horses left.
“There seems to be no solution by killing.”
“Originally, killing would actually decrease the gauge, but the difficulty is crazy…”
“Can it increase in other ways?”
“Yes. It increases over time, and if you mess with the horn, it increases too. Touch that ring, and you might as well consider it a loop.”
[Dogabunda]
[???]
[How do we break it?]
[Can’t we just wipe them all out?]
[Maybe it will break when we defeat the boss.]
“How did you clear it before?”
“I kept killing the horses to reduce the gauge. Then when it hits 0%, the boss’s resurrection is restricted, and that’s when you can kill.”
To summarize simply, when the Cycle Gauge hits 100%, it resets to the beginning.
The gauge increases or decreases based on certain conditions, and when it reaches 0%, the boss’s resurrection stops, allowing for a kill…
“Wait. So the clear and the maintenance of the hunting ground are unrelated?”
Surely, the resurrection in the plain would be under the influence of the red horses.
“……”
Jeoksa kept silent, as if carefully choosing his words.
He’s hiding something.
Something that could harm his guild and this place.
“What, you know?”
“I don’t know.”
“Weren’t you saying we can’t leave until we clear it? Do you want to be together for a thousand years?”
[Yes]
[LOL]
[Isn’t a thousand years with Lily great?]
Jeoksa pressed his temples as if he had a headache, then turned his gaze to the red ring.
The red ring still unshakably oversees the cycle.
“…Sigh. I need to take all the items or something. I’m really losing my mind.”
“What’s the solution?”
“Follow me. Let’s see, then we can decide.”
…But I probably won’t choose anyway.
Muttering lowly, Jeoksa waved one of his swords and guided me.
I swung my sword around and led myself forward.
[The Circle of Circulation grants eternity to the world.]
[Current Circulation Gauge – 21%]
■
Grrr…
Screeeech…
Purr!
“…This is.”
The place Jeoksa guided me to was a small cave, far from the grassy plains I had seen earlier.
There, foals with small horns sticking from their foreheads were sprawled out, fast asleep.
Their faces and all were bundled together, making them look quite cute.
[OMG]
[So cute lol]
[They’re adorable?]
[Are we killing those?]
[So sad]
[Let’s kill them]
Their levels were at best below 30.
The foals, unable to even open their eyes, were whining softly as they lay there.
I demanded an explanation from Jeoksa.
He raised his sword as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“This is the most efficient method.”
“Killing the babies is the answer?”
“It’s better than facing the black, red horses. More than anything, if we kill the babies, the gauge will drop even faster. Maybe they have lots of days left.”
Slash.
A red aura surged from the tip of the sword.
“If we kill them all, the gauge will be 0%. After that, we can defeat the Boss—”
“That hasn’t been done, right? If it had, the Circulation Dungeon wouldn’t still be here.”
“……”
Once a hidden dungeon like this is cleared, it either disappears entirely or only leaves behind the basic structure.
It means it turns into a dungeon with reduced quality and difficulty of rewards.
Since the quality of rewards has decreased and the Circle of Circulation has broken, it’s only natural that the horses of the plains should not be able to resurrect.
Even if they do resurrect, the experience points and currency should be drastically lowered.
When I mentioned this fact, Jeoksa’s expression became mysterious.
[Oh?]
[Seems like there’s another way]
[Hurry up and figure it out]
[Can’t we just kill the Boss?]
“…Well, there are definitely ways. As you said, we didn’t fight the Boss. It’s much more beneficial to maintain the hunting grounds and collect experience and currency than to risk the difficult Boss penalties.”
“What method is that?”
“It’s a more peaceful approach. Not for everyone, though.”
Jeoksa sliced off a horn from one of the sleeping foals with his sword.
As a piece of the horn fell, the foal whined in pain and shed tears.
[Current Circulation Gauge – 24%]
When the horn was attacked, the Circulation Gauge naturally rose.
Jeoksa picked up the horn and handed it to me.
An alien power swirled within the horn.
“The circulation gauge reached 99%, and after cutting off the horn, I logged out just like that. By the way, I kept all the horns in my space inventory.”
“…Huh?”
“Then, over time, the dungeon loops. The world loops, but the horns are still in the inventory. So now there are two horns in one world.”
I heard that one of the guild members logged out urgently after spending way too much time challenging the dungeon, and in that time, the dungeon looped.
Normally, logging out during a dungeon means you exit it, but according to the ‘loop dungeon cannot be exited voluntarily’ rule, they didn’t exit.
Well, if you think about it, logging out can also be seen as ‘going out,’ but Deoen prioritizes the reality of the users.
There’s also a penalty for waiting to reconnect if you log out during battle or in a dungeon.
“A lot of time was invested for the experiment, but I got the conditions. Basically, there are three. One, when the dungeon loops, you ‘must’ be logged out to keep the horn in the inventory.”
“It seems like it wasn’t recognized as another dimension.”
“Huh? Anyway, the second condition is that if you collect more than one hundred horns, something special happens.”
Excessive eternity in one world.
As the cycle of eternity twisted, abnormalities began to occur.
And that abnormality…
Dududududud-!!
“Huh?”
“What?”
[Huh?]
[Oh]
[Earthquake?]
[???????]
The world trembles.
The cycle of eternity, which boasted of its stability, shakes and quivers, and something vast and red, visible far beyond the cave, watches the world.
Its size rivals that of a massive castle.
The red demon, the master here, who grants life and death.
[Circulation’s Red Horse (最上) glares at something small.]
[Circulation’s Red Horse (最上) is filled with rage!]
[LV.130]
Jeoksa’s eyes widen as he drops his jaw.
“Crazy, 130?!! That’s thirty levels higher! Why is it awake now… Ah.”
Jeoksa soon realized why this boss, which should never awaken unless the gauge hits 0% or you collect more than 100 horns, was awake now.
Clearly, there was one person who had come in together but wasn’t here now.
“Seems it got tempted.”
“…This is driving me insane.”
Our Wind Rapid Blade faced the challenge alone.
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