Dungeon Odyssey [EN]: Chapter 27

Dungeon Journal-Episode 28

#11. Human Hunter

[The Parasite is sensing something.]

[The Parasite feels something is amiss.]

Kim Jin-woo smiled triumphantly as he looked at the green lights visible beyond the passage. From that moment on, he tore down walls, dug into the floor, and smashed the ceiling indiscriminately.

[Unripe Down Gem (4/10). It is insignificant now, but in time, it will shine.]

[Newly formed Down Gem (15/15). Its value will increase over time, but you will have to wait a long time.]

[Newly formed Down Gem (13/13). Its value will increase over time, but you will have to wait a long time.]

The underground gems shone even more brightly than the message windows flashing before his eyes. Kim Jin-woo literally swept up the Down Gems.

In one day, he collected nine Down Gems. Converted into Dungeon Energy, it was a substantial profit, enough to summon two gatekeepers.

But it was also just as arduous. Even in an abandoned labyrinth, wandering the underground alone was never easy.

Here, there was no Jung Chan-sik to detect traps in advance, nor Lee Jun-young to chat with him.

The tension of enemies that could appear at any moment, and the loneliness of wandering in the dark, constantly weighed him down.

It felt like he had returned to that time 10 years ago. He shook his head vigorously to clear his mind from the sinking feeling.

This was no longer the deepest part of the underground, the deep layer. It was only the 3rd floor, less than a week away from the gate.

There is nothing here that can threaten me anymore.

The specter of the past that had been heavily weighing on his shoulders gradually dissipated.

“Hoo.”

Having been on edge all day, fatigue set in quickly. Kim Jin-woo began to look for a suitable place to rest. But finding a place to rest alone in a labyrinth was not easy.

Eventually, he found a suitable place a full three hours after finding the last Down Gem.

He installed the two sets of motion detectors he had obtained from Lee Jun-young at each entrance and immediately fell asleep.

Fortunately, he was not attacked while sleeping. It was fortunate for him, as he had another tough march ahead of him today.

The search began again. While collecting Down Gems caught by the Parasite’s senses, he had to be careful not to get lost. The labyrinth’s passages were incredibly twisted.

But more importantly, he had to find the labyrinth’s owner room.

Hoping that he might find fragments of an abandoned labyrinth like last time, he headed to the deepest part of the labyrinth.

Clang.

Kim Jin-woo stopped dead in his tracks at the subtle sense of incongruity and noise under his feet. He shifted his weight slightly, and the ground under his feet rattled and twisted slightly.

“Damn it…….”

It seemed he had stepped on a trap. He had been careful and cautious, but it was a situation where he could only say he was really unlucky.

Judging from the sensation under his feet, it was probably the kind of trap that would blow off his ankle the moment he took his foot off.

This was why Lee Jun-young had marked the entrances of abandoned labyrinths in red.

Even if the labyrinth had been abandoned by its owner and there were no creatures guarding it, once a trap was laid, it would not disappear unless someone dismantled it or sacrificed themselves.

And now, he was that unlucky sacrifice.

But Kim Jin-woo was not flustered. Rather, he wore a triumphant smile.

Even in a labyrinth where danger lurked in every step, traps were not laid everywhere.

The fact that there were still intact traps meant that there was something very important nearby.

Of course, the immediate problem was how to get out of this trap. Just staying still wouldn’t make a trap that had already been activated disappear on its own.

His 고민 [Korean: worry, concern] did not last long. Kim Jin-woo already knew how to deal with this kind of situation.

“Hoo!”

He took a few slow breaths in and out, and then, holding his breath, he sprang his body away. It was a lightning-fast movement, and his body moved more than 10 meters in an instant.

Clang.

Turning back at the eerie sound, he saw a brutally designed trap chomping at the empty air.

“Hoo.”

It was a low-level trap, but it was also a terrifying trap that could blow off an ankle if one was careless. An ordinary explorer would go into shock from excessive bleeding, and a dungeon baby [rookie dungeon explorer] with a strong body would be eaten by the creatures that gathered at the smell of blood.

Either way, the result was terrible. But for him now, it didn’t matter.

He had no reason to look back now.

His pace slowed several times over. With each step, he examined the ground and searched the walls and ceiling thoroughly.

As if to confirm that the owner room was getting closer, there were traps everywhere.

Kim Jin-woo skipped over them, or sometimes lay flat on his stomach to pass through the trap zones.

After passing through about fifteen traps, he was finally able to reach the abandoned labyrinth’s owner room that he had been so eagerly searching for.

The altar in the center and the surroundings were eerily empty. It was the same as the labyrinth’s owner room he had found with Ji Un-young’s group last time.

And as before, the Parasite’s senses told him that there was something in the center of the altar where the core had disappeared.

[The Parasite feels something is amiss.]

Seeing the green light flashing, Kim Jin-woo frantically dug into the floor with the field shovel he had prepared. Soon, he was able to find a particularly bright stone fragment.

[You have found a fragment of the labyrinth. The owner of the labyrinth, who was defeated in the war with humanity, took all the valuable things, but could not take everything. You have found a fragment of the labyrinth that has been neglected for a long time.]

[Abandoned Labyrinth Fragment (9/25). The fragment, which has been exposed to Dungeon Energy for a long time, is still usable, even though time has passed.]

[Abandoned Labyrinth Fragment. This stone fragment, once part of a powerful labyrinth, has been neglected for so long that it is no different from an ordinary Down Gem. But new possibilities have opened up in the hands of Kim Jin-woo, the owner of the labyrinth.]

[You have found a second abandoned labyrinth fragment (2/17).]

***

It was time to go back.

The food that he had packed generously was already more than half gone.

Since there was a portal to the labyrinth, it was not impossible to resupply in the middle, but Kim Jin-woo decided to turn back.

Two abandoned labyrinth fragments, and about 40 Down Gems, large and small. Contrary to his initial expectations, the profit was considerable, even though he had only explored up to the 3rd floor.

It was more profitable than expected. Originally, things would not have gone so smoothly.

The labyrinth was a demon that made one lose their sense of time and direction just by setting foot in it. Unless one had an ability like Jung Chan-sik, ordinary explorers or dungeon babies could never find their way easily.

And as they got lost and wandered around, they would get tired day by day, and eventually run out of food and starve to death, or be attacked by creatures and beasts in their exhausted state and be killed.

But that was not the case for Kim Jin-woo. He had a unique extrasensory perception that others did not have, because he had managed to complete that hellish journey from the 12th floor to the surface.

Of course, even he would have had to suffer much longer if the labyrinth had not been left unattended for so long with even the core removed.

Clang.

He patted his bulging backpack once for no reason and turned to walk towards the exit of the labyrinth.

Just one more corner and he would be out of this wretched labyrinth. His steps became lighter.

But had things ever gone according to plan in the labyrinth? This time, too, Kim Jin-woo was faced with an unexpected situation.

“Huh?”

Kim Jin-woo frowned as he saw an explorer suddenly appear out of nowhere. Seeing him, the explorer grabbed the sword he was wearing on his hip.

“Who are you?”

A word that was not appropriate to hear in a labyrinth. As Kim Jin-woo hesitated for a moment, he heard a rustling of footsteps, and a group of about fifteen explorers appeared.

“I’m an explorer, too.”

When he spoke with a nonchalant face, a man who appeared to be a dungeon baby [rookie dungeon explorer] from the group of explorers stepped forward and spoke to him.

“Why are you alone?”

A natural question, but nevertheless, Kim Jin-woo felt goosebumps all over his body.

Something was wrong.

His whole body tensed up at the subtle sense of incongruity that a normal dungeon baby would not show.

“Ah, I got separated from my group for a while while I was trying to get my bearings. I was just about to return.”

Feeling an instinctive sense of crisis, Kim Jin-woo lied, something he didn’t usually do. And the movements of the explorers watching him were unusual.

“Oh, is that so? We were also exploring this area, but we didn’t see anyone…….”

The way he dragged out the end of his words seemed to have an ulterior motive.

As expected, while the dungeon baby was dragging out his words, the explorers subtly began to approach him.

“Stop!”

Kim Jin-woo shouted in a sharp voice.

There was no need to probe each other any further. At this moment, the explorers were showing an inexplicable hostility.

“Hey, why are you so wary of fellow explorers?”

Even as he said that, the unidentified dungeon baby drew the sword he was wearing on his hip and lowered his stance as if he was about to charge at any moment.

Damn it.

A curse word came out involuntarily. The explorers he met in this vast underground were hunters. Jackals who hunted their own kind to fill their bellies, that was the identity of the explorers.

Creak.

A very small noise that would not have been heard if he had not been concentrating. At that moment, Kim Jin-woo quickly threw himself.

Pow!

Something flew and hit the spot where he had been standing just a moment ago, and a message window appeared before his eyes.

[Combat has begun.]

Before the message window could disappear, a series of sonic booms erupted.