Chapter 17

Morning came, and after everyone got up and finished their meal, they headed towards the dungeon entrance. Seeing the entrance, Ahn Tae-woo opened his mouth.

“…The entrance is small compared to the size of the dungeon.”

“….Let’s enter.”

Everyone had a tense expression. After all, except for Yoo Ju, no one knew what was inside the dungeon.

As soon as they entered the dungeon, an alarm popped up.

[You have entered the Tutorial Dungeon. You cannot leave until the dungeon is cleared.]

‘So… this is why they said to challenge it after growing enough.’

When they heard the guide’s explanation yesterday, they thought they could just enter the dungeon and run away if things got tough, but of course, it wasn’t that easy.

Looking back, the entrance was blocked by a transparent barrier.

“Once you come in, you can’t leave. They really made it a pain in the ass, damn it.”

“That’s right, sis. If we can’t clear it, we’re basically dead… By the way, I was worried it would be dark inside, but thankfully there are torches hanging along the way, so that’s a relief.”

It was a huge relief that torches were hanging on the walls at intervals. They were a bit worried about the light source since the dungeon had a pyramid structure, but now they could relax a bit.

After moving for a while, they saw a ladder leading underground.

‘…This is different from the pyramids on Earth.’

As far as I know, the pyramids on Earth are structured to go upwards towards the North Star.

This dungeon, on the other hand, seems to go underground.

“I’ll go down the ladder first.”

Yoo Ju spoke up and started descending first. The others followed one by one.

After about 3 minutes of descending, Kang I-seo opened her mouth.

“….Why is it so deep here?”

There was no end in sight. There were torches along the way, but it was too dark to see the bottom clearly.

After about 10 minutes, the bottom finally came into view.

*Thud.*

Kang I-seo, feeling stiff, swung her arms and said,

“Ugh, damn… I thought I was going to suffocate from climbing the ladder for so long.”

The scene that greeted them was a cave, and the path was quite narrow. Three people walking side by side would barely fit.

*Screeeech—*

A monster’s cry echoed through the cave from afar. Hearing the sound, Yoo Ju spoke up.

“….Everyone, be careful. It seems like there are monsters from here on out. Unless it’s an emergency, Ha-eun and Yoon Seong, please conserve your mana. Ho-won, Hyeon-jin, and I will take the front. Let’s move slowly and cautiously. From now on, please whisper or speak softly when talking.”

“……”

Everyone moved forward in silence, being extra careful.

******

After moving for a while, something flew towards us.

*Whoosh*

*Ting.*

Yoo Ju instantly deflected whatever it was with her spear.

‘……An arrow?’

I was shocked that an arrow had flown towards us. Does that mean there’s someone else here besides us?

‘No, that’s impossible. We camped right after finding the dungeon and entered the next day. There’s no way someone else could be here…’

While I was pondering over the arrow, the others also looked very startled, except for Yoo Ju.

Soon, monsters appeared in front of us.

“Kek. Kek. Kek. Kek.”

The monsters’ appearance wasn’t much different from the ones outside. The only peculiar thing was that while the ones outside were red, these were green.

And finally…

“Wha, what the hell! These bastards are holding weapons!”

“What the… they know how to use weapons?”

The monsters were small, but they were holding weapons like swords, shields, spears, and bows—things humans use.

‘Damn… is this why they said to prepare enough before entering?’

Soon, the monsters charged at us, screaming. The fact that they were armed was threatening, and another problem was that there were a lot of them.

There were easily over twenty.

Yoo Ju urgently shouted,

“Everyone, prepare for battle! Watch out for incoming arrows, and those with ranged attacks, take out the archers first if possible!”

Luckily, the narrow path made it somewhat manageable. Ho-won blocked the monsters with his shield, while Yoo Ju and Hyeon-jin stabbed and killed the monsters in the gaps.

Song Ha-eun summoned a spirit and, along with Kang I-seo, started targeting and killing the monsters with bows.

“Kek!”

*Stab!*

“Ahhh!”

“Hyeon-jin!”

Ho-won was blocking with his shield, but a monster managed to stab through a gap and wounded Hyeon-jin’s arm.

Kang I-seo immediately pulled Hyeon-jin back, and Ahn Tae-woo took his place.

“Hey, are you okay?! Yoo Hyun! Take care of Hyeon-jin’s wound!”

“Yes, yes! Just a moment!”

It looked like the wound was deep, with the blade piercing through the middle of his forearm.

“Ughhh…”

“Just hang in there, bro.”

Yoo Hyun’s hands began to glow, and Hyeon-jin’s wound slowly started to heal.

“Whew… huff… Yoo Hyun, thanks. I’m… feeling a bit better now…”

The pain hadn’t completely subsided, but at least the wound looked much better.

“Yeah…”

Yoo Hyun looked exhausted, as if a lot of his mana had been drained.

“Hey, man up… you can handle this, dude! Just rest in the back. This noona will take care of all these monster bastards.”

“Whew… Noona, be careful too. These guys are definitely different from the ones outside since they’re armed.”



Looking ahead, Yoo Ju seemed fine, but Mr. Ho-won looked really exhausted. He kept blocking attacks with his shield, so it seems like the damage piled up.

I shouted at Yoo Ju and Mr. Ho-won.

“Both of you, fall back!”

They both listened and stepped back.

I immediately threw fire at the charging monsters, and as they caught fire, the flames spread to the ones following behind. The monsters started screaming in agony as they burned.

“Kyaaaah! Kyaaaaaah!”

“Lee Seo, Ha-eun! Now’s the chance…!”

As if they understood immediately, while the monsters were struggling with the fire, Kang I-seo shot arrows, reducing their numbers, and Song Ha-eun’s spirit kept throwing wind.

“Ah!”

Suddenly, Song Ha-eun seemed to realize something and appeared to be making a request to her spirit.

The spirit stopped throwing wind and instead blew fiercely, spreading the fire further back.

“Kyaaaah! Kyaaaaaah!”

The screams of the monsters echoed through the cave for a while.

******

After the battle with the monsters, everyone seemed exhausted and just plopped down where they were.

“Phew… Damn… Isn’t this still the beginning? Why is it so tough?”

Kang I-seo’s words were picked up by Ahn Tae-woo.

“…It’s a good thing the path is narrow. If it were wider, we’d all be dead…”

In my opinion, this tutorial dungeon probably wasn’t designed to be cleared with less than 10 people. It’s only possible because Yoo Ju is here. Judging from the fight earlier, the number of monsters Yoo Ju killed alone was about the same as the rest of us combined.

I asked Hyeon-jin about his condition.

“Hyeon-jin, can you fight? How’s your arm?”

“…Thanks for worrying, hyung. I’m fine. It still hurts a bit, but… If we all want to survive, we have to fight together.”

“That’s good to hear… By the way, Ha-eun. How did you come up with the idea to spread the fire with wind? That was amazing.”

“Right, unnie. Thanks to you, we didn’t suffer more damage. You’re amazing.”

Song Ha-eun’s face turned red at the compliments. She bowed her head and fidgeted with her hands as she started to reply.

“W-well, it just came to me… It wasn’t really that great…”

“No, Ha-eun. Thanks to you, we didn’t have more casualties. And Yoon Seong, you were amazing too. You used magic to keep the monsters from getting closer, right?”

As if seeing an opportunity to shift the attention to me, Song Ha-eun suddenly started praising me.

“Y-yeah! Yoon Seong oppa used magic there, and I just followed up!”

“Yoon Seong oppa?”

“Ah…! S-sorry! I guess it just slipped out.”

“No, it’s fine. You can call me oppa. ‘Yoon Seong-ssi’ sounds a bit stiff. This sounds better.”

I needed to close the emotional distance with Song Ha-eun.

“Y-yes! Oppa, you can use informal speech too…!”

“Should I, Ha-eun?”

Listening to our conversation, Yoo Ju’s expression darkened. Kang I-seo, on the other hand, started to tease.

“Wow… Love is blooming in the dungeon. Isn’t this like a romance in a horror movie?”

“Huh, what?”

“Not you, Ha-eun. You didn’t do anything wrong. That guy’s the bad one. See, my guess was right! He must have been a player back on Earth.”

Feeling a pang of guilt, I started looking elsewhere.

“Huh… Now you’re pretending not to know?”

“……”

“Ahem!”

Mr. Ho-won suddenly drew everyone’s attention and spoke to Yoo Ju.

“Anyway, we’ve confirmed that the monsters are armed, and the situation is different from outside the dungeon. What do you think we should do next…?”

“…I think the monsters will attack a few more times.”

“May I ask why you think that?”

“It’s simple. Think about it. This time, the monsters didn’t just stumble upon us. They attacked us as if they knew where we were.”

Listening to Yoo Ju, it seemed like the monsters didn’t just find us but knew our location and attacked first.

We didn’t make any noise while moving, but the fact that the monsters attacked us first is suspicious.

“Then…”

“We should move forward slowly, always expecting an attack. We need to think about how to handle it in advance.”

“Then what if we use my magic and Ha-eun’s spirit arts to block and take them out like this time?”

Yoo Ju shook her head at my suggestion.

“No. There’s no guarantee that the dungeon’s clear condition is just blocking attacks. This was the first time we were attacked, so you used magic, but it’s better to save magic for emergencies. There might be stronger monsters ahead.”

‘…So there are?’

A boss monster or something similar.