Chapter 383

"Oh my God. Lord..."

True to his experience as a veteran hunter, he had an instinctive sense of where things had gone wrong. But at the moment, the immovable wall wasn't their only problem.

"Does anyone here happen to have an item called [Collapse Particle]?"

Jung Haseong and Esther had even drawn their top-tier weapons, yet they still failed to destroy the structure blocking their path. Meanwhile, the next wave of enemies had already appeared inside the room.

"Right. As expected. It's classified as an illegal item, and the gate where it could be obtained was discontinued a long time ago, so it's not exactly something people carry around."

"If Kang Changho were here, he would've had one."

"Better not to bring up someone we'd all rather forget."

There was a monster right in front of them, and yet their feet were helplessly rooted to the spot.

"Director, it really won't move?"

"What the... What is this?"

"No, hey, everyone. This isn't the time to be worrying about that. There's a monster behind us right now..."

They stood there for a moment, dumbfounded by the motionless rotating wall.

Apparently, making a commotion in front of a hostile monster wasn't the wisest idea.

Boom, boom, boom.

The massive communal creature grew increasingly violent as the raiders' fear became more apparent.

"Oh my."

At last, the enemy closed in.

The hunters had no choice but to deal with the S-rank beast immediately. The sealed door would have to wait.

"That's the monster that drove the Indian hunters back in an instant...!"

Jung Haseong recognized the approaching creature before anyone else and reacted immediately.

Boom!

He hurled a sphere of flame with tremendous force.

The explosion thundered through the chamber, loud enough to rupture the eardrums of an ordinary person, and the monster recoiled, staggering backward.

I don't even know if something that looks like that understands what heat is!

It didn't seem to feel pain, but that didn't matter.

The attack had created enough distance.

Jung Haseong drove the monster back with everything he had until they'd secured a safe amount of space, then immediately followed up. Out of habit, he used one of his most frequently employed techniques, the 'Flame Barrier,' to prevent the enemy from approaching.

"Haseong-ssi!"

At that moment, perhaps having finally given up on the wall, Seo Esther's group joined the fight as well.

Even after being forced back by the flames, it was obvious that the monster's sturdy body would allow it to advance again almost immediately.

"Ha... For now, let's at least deal with the weaker ones among that new batch of trash."

"Yes."

"Even if we manage to restrain the monsters, what on earth are we supposed to do about this impossible door?"

The door refused to budge even with two S-ranks pulling on it together.

And they didn't have any discontinued items like [Collapse Particle] that could resolve such an unusual situation.

So how were they supposed to get through this?

"This is troublesome."

Haseong paused for a moment and considered the problem.

At this point, they could focus on defeating the second boss monster in front of them...

If, by some chance, this creature happened to be the final ruler of the gate, clearing the dungeon would somehow open a path forward.

"Whether an exit appears or the dungeon collapses and activates an automatic escape mechanism, clearing the gate guarantees the raiders' survival."

The problem was that this ideal solution was almost impossible.

Setting aside whether they could even defeat the monster, they'd originally been told that a new path would appear behind them after a brief change in the structure.

That made it highly unlikely that this beast was the dungeon's final obstacle.

"Ah!"

Then, at that very moment, someone's sudden shout rang out.

Haseong had only been lost in thought for an instant, yet in that short span of time, the situation ahead had already worsened.

Swoosh...

A one-armed creature trudged through the rolling flames.

The small white flying units that had always played a supporting role were nowhere to be seen now, perhaps having been completely incinerated.

But once most of the acrid black smoke cleared, an all-too-classic sight appeared before the hunters.

"Its defense..."

The boss emerged from the flames completely unharmed, without so much as a speck of soot on its body.

The raid team shouted in disbelief.

"This thing is seriously no joke."

"Are you kidding me? It still looks like that even after taking Jung Haseong's skill head-on?"

A headache was beginning to form.

Still, in the middle of a crisis like this, there was little point in regretting anything.

"A dungeon with a broken door... What is this, some badly assembled container? How unlucky can we possibly get?"

Equipment breaking during a hunt was nothing unusual.

He had simply been using his strength as a hunter, but he never imagined that, through sheer bad luck, the passage itself would end up blocked.

Pang!

Jung Haseong knocked back the monster as it tried to approach again.

For now, the destructive force of his skill was still enough to repel it, but maintaining that level of output would become increasingly difficult as his mana dwindled.

Cold sweat soon formed across his forehead.

"Was I being too arrogant...? I got a little carried away, thinking that maybe we could manage this even without Hunter Kim Giryeo."

This was beginning to look like a long, grueling battle.

***

And that ominous premonition proved entirely correct.

"Fall back! Further back!"

"Pull at the same time! Everyone together!"

"Huh? I think it's actually starting to move!"

Several hours had already passed.

Over the course of those hundreds of minutes, South Korea's S-rank hunters had endured an exhausting battle.

The seemingly endless influx of ordinary-ranked monsters felt almost unnatural.

On top of that, the second boss-class monster had an unprecedentedly durable exterior.

No matter how many explosive skills struck it, there was no sense that the damage was accumulating at all.

"Is this even a monster we're supposed to defeat head-on?"

For a moment, that thought seemed perfectly reasonable.

The monster that had driven India's hunters to the brink of death certainly possessed overwhelming power.

But around that time...

"It worked! It's moving! The inner door is turning!"

Fortunately, the leader of the Korean Magic Tower Guild made a timely contribution.

Scheduling the guild's second team to enter immediately afterward had, without question, been an excellent decision.

I was only thinking about dealing with the monster... and she had already prepared contingencies for everything else.

More importantly, Esther quickly identified a weakness in the monsters.

Grrrrr.

The creature that had been roaring and seething with rage was now completely still.

On the opposite side of the double wall trapping them, A-rank Awakened individuals hastily assembled by the Korean Magic Tower had gathered.

As everyone pressed their strength against the narrow opening in the door, Jung Haseong, drenched in sweat, took the opportunity to praise her.

"I've thought this before, but seeing it again, Director Seo really does seem particularly gifted at this sort of thing."

"At what?"

"Figuring out strategies so quickly."

For reference, the interior of this dungeon was always covered in a faint mist.

Because of that, it was difficult to see anything at a distance, and the monsters themselves seemed to detect humans through some sense other than sight.

Magic power.

Within this gate, it was the one element that stood out above everything else.

"Hmm."

So, just in case, they experimented with adjusting their mana to deceive the enemy.

"Let's just say it's thanks to the early training I've repeated since childhood."

"Early training?"

"I like that game. Even without PIXY's influence, this dungeon has a lot in common with it. Except for the part where you can't buy coins with money and start over from the beginning."

Esther rolled her eyes toward the air and answered halfheartedly.

Her idea worked surprisingly well.

The monsters inside this gate had difficulty accurately detecting humans once their mana dropped below a certain threshold.

"So that's why the monsters in this gate fly around so wildly once they get outside..."

Moreover, a hunter's mana could be depleted easily enough without relying on consumable items.

The hunters who had entered the dungeon repeatedly fired off their skills, deliberately draining their mana.

Then, after maintaining an appropriate distance from the monsters, they gathered together in one place and prepared to attempt something else.

"Everyone, don't make any loud noises. From now on, when I count to three with my fingers, push the wall to the right."

"Yes, Guild Master."

In other words, they would coordinate with the rescue team outside and push against the wall once again.

"One!"

He couldn't help wondering what they would do if even this reinforcement failed to improve the situation.

Kikikikk.

"It's moving."

The door shifted.

At first, the movement was so slight that it was difficult to tell whether the wall was turning at all.

Even after twenty minutes of effort, they'd gained barely more than the width of a fingernail.

It was a slow, agonizing process.

But after an exhausting hour and thirty minutes of accumulating those tiny gains little by little, they finally managed to create enough space for a person to squeeze through.

They had physically forced the dungeon's double wall to rotate.

"Everyone should be able to get through. The bigger ones might have to squeeze a little, though."

For a brief moment, the image of a certain hybrid Awakened individual flashed through his mind...

"Hmm."

For reference, the Korean Magic Tower members who had entered to find Esther had gathered specific Awakened individuals under their guild leader's orders.

From right to left: A-rank, A-rank, A-rank, and A-rank.

And every single one of them possessed the same Awakening attribute.

[Physical Enhancement].

Jung Haseong glanced at those who had come to help him and sank into thought.

"No matter how high-ranked an S-rank hunter is, when it comes to pure physical strength, they still can't surpass people whose Awakening is specifically specialized for it... As expected, their maximum bare-handed strength is a little higher than mine."

But there was no time to dwell on it.

"I'll leave last. Everyone else, be careful on the way out. Your mana is low right now."

They couldn't afford to waste time in a situation this dangerous.

Now that they'd finally opened a path outside, no one hesitated.

One after another, they slipped through the gap they'd forced open.

"Just in case, let's wait until we're a little farther from the room before drinking our mana potions."

"Yes."

"Yes!"

While they had been forcing the wall open, the number of monsters in the corridor had increased again.

But with South Korea's elite hunters gathered there, that wasn't much of a problem.

"The exit... No, the entrance we came through."

When they'd first become trapped, every minute had felt like an entire year.

But at last, there was hope.

"Fortunately, the monsters living here really are as simple-minded as ordinary beasts."

As they fled, the second-phase boss twitched as though it intended to pursue them.

But it immediately stopped.

Apparently, the dungeon's system prevented it from leaving the room.

"Well, you don't really see many dungeon monsters cunning enough to think like humans..."

In other words, this had simply been a failed attempt at a strategy.

But not every human effort was destined to succeed, was it?

Jung Haseong decided that, for now, they had gathered enough information and continued forward.

They crossed the familiar blue corridor, and one by one, every hunter escaped.

Woong, woong, woong.

Leaving that distinctive sound behind, they finally returned to the familiar scenery of the modern world.

"Is everyone all right?"

"Ah, someone from the association came too."

"We were shocked when we received the report from the Korean Magic Tower Guild. Not one, but two S-rank hunters trapped because a wall closed on them! Goodness, what on earth happened in there?"

Just how many hours had passed?

Jung Haseong glanced at his wristwatch, then slowly swept his gaze over the crowd that had gathered around them.

"By now, the raid on the Indian gate might already be over."

Back when the white, bee-like creatures had been falling so easily, he'd even entertained the hope that they might finish everything before the fourth S-rank returned.

"The second boss in this dungeon is just too heavily armored."

After experiencing it firsthand, Jung Haseong had reached a conclusion.

No matter how he looked at it, this dungeon would probably require Hunter Kim Giryeo's help.

The thought left him briefly discouraged.

But from another perspective, that could also be considered reassuring.

After all, for someone who appeared so cold-hearted, Kim Giryeo had an oddly impeccable sense of public responsibility.

"Hunter Kim will definitely help us."

There was no way Kim Giryeo would simply ignore an S-rank gate like this.

Deep down, Jung Haseong felt certain of that.

"But this really is just a passing thought... Surely his business trip to India wasn't something he'd planned from the beginning, was it?"

Had Kim Giryeo gone abroad partly as advance reconnaissance, already knowing that a gate like this would appear in Korea?

For a moment, such baseless suspicions crossed Jung Haseong's mind.

"Everyone, you really worked hard. None of us expected something like this to happen."

"Guild Master, do you have any idea how frantic we were? We thought something terrible had happened to you!"

"Yes. I'm grateful our secretary was worried about us too. In any case, it's already dinnertime, so let's use this opportunity to regroup."

"Yes!"

"Yes."

They had defeated a large number of monsters while moving through the dungeon.

Logically speaking, that meant there was little danger of a dungeon break occurring anytime soon.

The Awakened hunters therefore began to rest.

"It might be about time to contact Hunter Kim Giryeo again. Things were so badly timed earlier that he might not even know an S-rank gate has appeared in the country yet."

Anyway, I think that's enough for today.

It feels like I've aged ten years in a single day.

By the way, the average flight from here to New Delhi takes about eight hours.

When am I finally going to see that blond-haired Awakener again?

.

.

.

A few more minutes passed.

"Hunter Jung Haseong, you were really impressive earlier!"

"I've always thought our guild leader was amazing... but as expected of the person who holds the number one spot, your skills really are on another level. It was an honor to meet you today."

"Excuse me, but what's the secret to your mental fortitude? Both Guild Master Esther and you, Jung Haseong... I don't understand how you can stay so calm inside a dungeon when everything is falling apart around you."

"After going through something like the [Labyrinth of the 13th Month], everything else in the world starts to feel trivial."

The conversation that almost drew that exact answer from him was taking place in a small mudfish soup restaurant in a quiet town.

Only a short while ago, the hunters had still been worried about when they would get to eat.

Fortunately, they'd managed to escape before hunger became a serious problem, and at last they could have a proper meal.

"Luckily, there was a restaurant close to the gate."

Slurp.

It was winter, and the sun had already set outside, leaving the air bitterly cold.

Jung Haseong warmed himself by filling his stomach with hot soup.

"But what about Hunter Esther? Is she really not going to eat?"

"She said she isn't in the mood for rice today and is just going to eat some jerky she brought from the field."

"Not in the mood for... rice?"

But just as they were chatting—

Boom...