“Before we talk about the information, we need to write a pact one by one.”
“Huh? What kind of pact all of a sudden?”
“Please tell me you didn’t get into any weird stuff over there?!”
As Joo-ah mentioned the pact, Noh Ha-yoon and Baek Ah-rin jolted in surprise and shook Joo-ah.
“Oh, it’s not that. I’m just saying let’s go together. Who was it that stayed behind saying they were going to sleep?”
“……..”
After scolding the sleepyheads, Joo-ah reiterated that we all needed to write a pact to keep this information secret in order to be able to reveal it.
“What if even one person doesn’t agree?”
“Then I can’t say anything.”
“So you made another pact about it?”
“That’s right.”
In the end, all the companions except me made the pact, and now they couldn’t tell anyone about the information they had just heard.
‘Is there something in the dungeon’s information that must not leak?’
I was puzzled, but decided to listen for now.
“There are countless dungeons throughout the world, but the types of monsters that appear are limited, right?”
“That’s right.”
“It’s common for a dungeon to have no more than five types of monsters, but the hidden dungeon managed by Ilseom changes the other monsters at regular intervals except for three specific types.”
‘The types keep changing… that sounds troublesome.’
“What kind of regular intervals are we talking about?”
Hae-yoon asked, and Joo-ah replied that even Ilseom didn’t know.
“It changes randomly. Sometimes it changes in ten days, and other times, it doesn’t change for over six months.”
“So… in the end, we have to face unknown monsters.”
“Exactly. Yet, there are still some that consistently appear. These guys right here.”
Joo-ah presented a paper with sketches of three monsters, each with different appearances. Interestingly, they all resembled insects closely.
“First. Blood Mosquito. This is the monster to be most wary of in this dungeon.”
‘Blood Mosquito…? Can’t we just call it a mosquito?’
The first monster looked very much like a giant mosquito. It had bloodshot red eyes, a rainbow of three pairs of colorful wings, and a length of up to two meters, with a long proboscis for sucking blood.
“If it sucks your blood, you get infected and continually lose health. Plus, after a certain time, it can cause permanent diseases. The duration varies depending on the grade of the mosquito that sucked your blood.”
“Ugh… Permanent disease? Can’t it be treated?”
“It’s not exactly incurable, but it requires a fairly high-grade remedy.”
“Seriously… Is it really that appealing to risk encountering such dangers?”
“Well, maybe it is?”
‘Just hearing the description makes me never want to face these guys.’
These little pests even walked on two legs and could suck blood with their four sharp arms like a proboscis. They seemed immensely bothersome.
“Ugh… of all things, a mosquito. I really hate mosquitoes.”
“Look at those blood-red eyes.”
“They say that’s what it looks like after it finishes sucking blood, and the more it sucks, the stronger its physical abilities become.”
“… Stronger, you mean it doesn’t wear off, right?”
“Yes, it becomes permanently stronger. So, occasionally, mutated ones that have sucked a lot of blood from other dungeon monsters appear, and those guys have significantly higher combat power, so we have to be especially careful.”
“I’m guessing the reason it’s the monster to be most wary of is because of those mutations.”
“Exactly.”
“Wow… this sounds way too dangerous…”
Hearing that they grew stronger by sucking blood left the companions in dismay.
“The rough ranking spans from upper C-rank to upper B-rank. Among the mutated ones that have succeeded in bloodsucking for a long time, some reportedly even exceed A-rank, and they tend to resemble the shape of the entities they sucked blood from.”
“… Can we really not go in? We’re not going in, right? I mean, there’s no reason to go in, is there?”
“Considering that the mutated ones have A-rank combat power… going in right now would be impossible. But there is said to be a certain percentage of those mutated ones.”
“It’s said to be extremely rare. The Ilseom officials mentioned they don’t live long, so they seem to disappear naturally.”
‘Life span…? That can’t be true…’
I hadn’t disclosed it to anyone except Yeon-hee yet, but in the recipe for the ‘Killbard’ drug used by the Ilseom knights, there were definitely materials that included the mutated mosquitoes.
So, as soon as the mutations appear, they get caught by the Ilseom knights, making it reasonable to think that the grown ones are few.
The mood among the comrades became stagnant with the revelation of such powerful monsters.
“It’s just that we can’t challenge them right now, but we’ll eventually be able to.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Hmm… Since we’ve already gotten shocked, let’s quickly move on to the second one.”
The second monster was reminiscent of a giant beetle.
Its yellow body was covered with a smooth, shiny, hard shell, and it seemed difficult to deal damage unless it was flipped over.
‘Tarantula comes to mind. That one had a hard shell too.’
“This one is called ‘Minescarabe.’ As you can see, it’s a monster with outstanding defense.”
“This one exhibits two major attack forms: one where it rolls its hard body like a ball to ram into you, and the other fires bombs from its concealed genitalia.”
“Things just keep escalating… bombs?”
“How strong is the bomb’s attack power?”
“It’s comparable to an upgraded version of Fireball, known as Pyro Burst. Il-wol may not be stronger than the bomb, but it’s still lethal for hunters like us with low defenses.”
“Pyro Burst?! That’s super powerful, right? So this beetle is a monster on par with B-rank?”
“They do classify it as upper B-rank, but unlike the Blood Mosquito, there aren’t many of them. Also, in Ilseom, they assess whether you can slice off the beetle’s shell with your sword to grade up.”
I had known that the Ilseom knights have a self-imposed rating system for those who have risen to a certain level.
As they listened to the tale, a resigned atmosphere filled my companions, but I felt differently.
‘Hmm… it doesn’t seem quite as tough as I thought?’
Before hearing the stories, I was nervous about the average combat power of monsters exceeding A-rank in what was supposed to be a high-level dungeon. But excluding the mosquito mutations, this place seemed manageable.
Of course, the moment we encounter those mutations, it’ll be hell.
“Finally, the third monster with this flashy appearance is called ‘Frizkana,’ commonly referred to as the jewel bug.”
The third monster resembled a huge dog slithering like a caterpillar, covered thickly with what looked like jewels.
“The colors are really pretty~ What abilities does this monster have?”
“It’s filled with ice attribute energy inside the jewels stuck to its body, which it then disperses into the air to explode ice crystals around. It’s sort of like a sustained ice magic, during which this creature goes into a defensive state and retaliates with ice damage to those who attack it.”
“Whoa!! An ice attribute monster?! That’s amazing!!”
As soon as the ice attribute was mentioned, Noh Ha-yoon burst into cheers.
Typically, when you defeat a monster of your primary attribute, you earn a lot of experience points and might find new growth paths or unexpected events.
“We have to go for this one for sure!! Right? Are we all going to go?”
“Now that you say so, it makes me not want to go.”
“Ah, why!!”
‘At least one small reason has emerged for us to go.’
“Dispersing energy-filled jewels over a wide area?”
“If we sit still, our health decreases, and if we attack, we incur retaliation damage… the monsters in this dungeon seem to have no weaknesses whatsoever?”
“Exactly… The rank of ‘Frizkana’ is said to approach A-rank. However, I get the feeling it’s slightly overvalued due to its bad compatibility with Ilseom knights. Still, we must be careful since it’s the strongest among the three monsters.”
“It looks so harmless, yet it’s like that… Hmm…”
“However, there’s another reason this dungeon is daunting.”
“What is it?”
At Yeon-hee’s question, Joo-ah hesitated to speak easily.
“Huh? What’s with the pause?”
“Well… it’s hard to believe.”
Joo-ah spent some time running her lips over before continuing.
“They say we’re not the only ones coming into the dungeon.”
“E? What, so other country hunters come in too? Like those damn Chinese?”
“It seems that, like other dungeons, the balance here is also off.”
“No, that’s not it. You’ll only know when you meet them directly, but they say they’re people from entirely different worlds.”
─?!
‘Different world people…? This is an unexpected barrier.’
“No way… are you serious? We could potentially meet those so-called otherworlders we heard about from stories?”
“Are they the elves we’d have to go to only above high-level dungeons?”
“No, they say they don’t look any different from us. Just that they’re taller, making them easy to recognize.”
“So, they too must be capable individuals, right?”
“Exactly. The problem is that communication with them is impossible, leading to frequent clashes. Now, they regard our people as enemies and attack first.”
“This is absurd…”
‘Troubling. This changes everything. This must be why they made us take the pact.’
Everyone seemed to be lost in thought.
Dealing with unfamiliar monsters is already a headache, but now we have to deal with people from another world.
“Are they strong?”
“They’re probably just like us. Some are strong, and some are ridiculously weak. But they all share one singular purpose.”
“What is it?”
“The ‘Frizkana’ I mentioned earlier. Their sole objective appears to be to capture that monster, for reasons unknown.”
“Eeh?”
“Why would that be? Are they planning to make ice cream or something?”
‘A monster with ice abilities… there must be some valuable items it possesses. What other capabilities could that jewel have?’
“So as long as we don’t touch those guys—”
“They attack the moment they see us. Arin, once we meet, we go into combat mode right away. No matter how much we smile at them.”
“Hmph…”
But ‘Frizkana’ is essential for us as well.
‘The jewels attached to it are the recipe for Killbard. We can’t just let it go. This is troublesome.’
“How about their numbers? Are they swarming?”
“They say it varies depending on the time. Since they get nothing positive from encountering Ilseom’s knights, they typically maintain a certain distance while exploring. But still, when hunting the same prey in a limited space, it’s inevitable that they clash.”
“So, we won’t be able to enter for now, right?”
“Correct. Il-wol might be able to handle it, but…”
Joo-ah’s words made everyone turn their heads towards me with renewed curiosity.
“Indeed… since you managed to slice the famed Hyeon Woo-seok’s face, maybe you could survive even there?”
“Speaking of which, what was that swordsmanship Il-wol displayed yesterday? Come on, teach me!! I was once your teacher, so now you should teach me!!”
‘……’
“The incredible swordsmanship that could slice through Hyeon Woo-seok’s strange abilities is indeed a mystery.”
“Uh… well…”
As the questions poured toward Yeon-hee, she looked back at me.
‘At moments like this, I wish I could just transform into a human and say it plainly.’
It was quite torturous not being able to, even though I could.
‘It’s still too early to show my human form… Yeon-hee wouldn’t want that either.’
When I shook my head, Yeon-hee shrugged in a way that suggested she didn’t really know either.
“But… if you’re thinking about entering, we can’t just keep delaying the entry.”
“What do you mean by that, Joo-ah?”
Joo-ah relayed that the period during which the entrance turns red blocks the dungeon’s entrance.
During that period, entering the dungeon means the number of otherworld beings and monsters increases several-fold compared to usual.
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