Dungeon Odyssey [EN]: Chapter 54

Dungeon Chronicles-54

# 54

Dungeon Chronicles

Episode 55

#21. The King of the Festival

[Special ability ‘Stealth’ has been activated.]

The short break between battles that he had been eagerly anticipating arrived. A message popped up, indicating that the Stealth ability had been activated.

Following Kim Jin-woo, who concealed himself in the darkness, Angela also melted into the shadows.

“I can see you?”

He gave a wry smile at Angela’s words.

“I can’t help it. I can’t just abandon him.”

Perhaps because he had been away from the labyrinth for too long, Woosuh couldn’t prevent his power from fading, even after feasting on the corpses of creatures.

So, he made his body transparent and clung to Kim Jin-woo, which caused a slight disruption to Kim Jin-woo’s Stealth ability.

Woosuh, stuck to him like armor, was slow to blend into the surroundings when moving quickly, causing a slight delay.

“I’m sorry.”

“If you become more of a hindrance here, I’ll send you back, so keep that in mind.”

“It’s not too late now……”

“Quiet. Moving out.”

Cutting off Woosuh’s subtle words, he began to move. Unlike the Camouflage ability, which didn’t allow fast movement, Stealth had no restrictions as long as no battle occurred.

So, Kim Jin-woo could move at a rapid pace.

They occasionally encountered creatures fighting fiercely, trying to kill each other, but none of them noticed the slight distortion that appeared in the air.

Well, they were so busy biting and tearing at each other, they wouldn’t have the leeway to pay attention to anything else. The creatures completely ignored Kim Jin-woo and his party passing right next to them.

It certainly seemed like the entire 7th floor had gone mad.

[Let’s go. It’s a bit of a distance, so we need to hurry.]

Kim Jin-woo urged them forward, looking at a spot on the map that had remained still for a while now.

***

Navigating with a map was easier than he thought.

Even though the map was missing a large chunk in the middle, making it less than half complete with no connecting parts, it was still enough to gauge the path.

Thanks to that, Kim Jin-woo was able to cross the darkly marked unknown territory and arrive at the first area that Yoon-hee had abruptly started updating, not even two days after losing her.

[Master, it’s a dungeon emblem.]

[I saw it too.]

Unlike the rough tunnels they had been passing through, the walls here had a familiar yet strange dungeon emblem engraved on them.

His guess was right after all.

Yoon-hee had been led by the unidentified labyrinth, crossing space and falling into this place.

[What kind of emblem is that?]

[It looks like a pierrot’s mask [a masked character, often a clown, in traditional French pantomime].]

He didn’t know if there was a pierrot in the depths, but he couldn’t think of anything else.

[Hmm. It feels ominous.]

[We still have to go in.]

Finding Yoon-hee was one thing, but the goal he had set when he decided to explore the underground was definitely inside there.

[Let’s go.]

The group, which had stopped in front of the dungeon emblem, began to move again.

***

The labyrinth didn’t seem to have any particular features, perhaps because it hadn’t been activated yet. Only the neat floor and smooth walls indicated that this was a labyrinth.

But even so, Kim Jin-woo warned the group.

“Be careful.”

It was different from an abandoned labyrinth. This place was a living labyrinth.

If the labyrinth had chosen Yoon-hee as its master, then they were uninvited guests. Anything could happen at any time.

As they took cautious steps, they discovered a spacious clearing at the end of a short passage. In the middle of the clearing, there was a large wooden box and a skeleton that didn’t seem to belong there.

A dilapidated wooden box that looked like it would crumble if touched, and a corpse that had become a skeleton, still holding onto it like a precious treasure even in death. The group stopped, looking at the bizarre combination.

[What is that?]

[I don’t know……]

Angela asked about the identity of the box, but Kim Jin-woo had no idea.

“Shall I check it out?”

Woosuh, noticing their telepathic conversation, whispered softly and detached himself from Kim Jin-woo.

Woosuh, who had splattered onto the floor, detached a fist-sized blob of goo from his now child-sized body and threw it towards the box.

[Well. It’s a useful ability, but it’s hard to get used to.]

Kim Jin-woo nodded unconsciously at Angela’s telepathy. The sight of the goo crawling and advancing across the floor was quite grotesque.

“Then I’ll try to open it.”

Perhaps because it was shaped like a box, Woosuh tried to open it as if it were the most natural thing to do.

“Wait! Stop!”

Kim Jin-woo stopped Woosuh just as the blob of goo was about to touch the box.

“There’s no need to open it. There’s no need to invite danger. Let’s just ignore the box.”

“Ah…….”

Only then did Woosuh realize that they had been caught up in a strange atmosphere and groaned softly. He had unconsciously thought that he had to open the box. He had forgotten where he was.

“Something’s wrong.”

Kim Jin-woo was also aware of the changes in the group.

“But I think we should open it……”

Angela suddenly spoke, her words seeming full of regret.

“Could it be a treasure hidden in the labyrinth?”

It was an excessively hopeful and optimistic statement for Angela, who was usually calm, even though she always had a smile on her face. No, the fact that she had revealed herself without being ordered to do so was already abnormal.

“You think so too. I think so too.”

Woosuh’s words and actions, as if he were showing off, were strangely excited. Looking at Angela’s face again, her cheeks were flushed red, and she seemed excited.

Tap, tap.

Kim Jin-woo frowned at the steady sound. Looking around, he soon realized that the sound was coming from his feet and froze.

His toes were tapping the floor rhythmically, as if they had a separate will.

“Hmm, hmm.”

At that moment, he heard humming. Turning his head, he saw Angela humming a tune. And the song was perfectly in sync with the rhythm of his tapping feet, as if it had been planned from the start.

“Hmm. I think we should open it……”

Woosuh’s body was swaying as if he were dancing.

Dangerous.

The moment he saw the group’s strangely synchronized actions, his whole body stiffened with tension. Warnings were constantly ringing in his head.

“Get away from the box!”

Angela and Woosuh looked at him with bewildered faces at his urgent voice.

“Something’s wrong! Back away!”

Kim Jin-woo’s voice was as sharp as a broken blade, as he was now hearing cheerful singing in his head like a hallucination.

But the group still stared blankly at him before repeating their actions.

In the end, unable to watch any longer, he stepped forward and grabbed Woosuh and Angela, who were already near the box, and threw them far away.

Because the situation was urgent, he didn’t control his strength and threw them, causing Woosuh to stick to the wall like a pancake before sliding down.

“Hmm?”

Woosuh seemed disoriented from the impact. He looked at the box and Kim Jin-woo with a puzzled expression before lowering his body, bubbling with air. It seemed he had belatedly sensed the danger.

Angela, who had been thrown out to the passage outside the clearing, also returned with a stiff expression.

[You have successfully resisted a deadly enchantment trap.]

[The party has completely escaped the influence of the terrible curse ‘Endless Festival’ cast by the King of the Festival.]

[The enchantment effect has disappeared.]

[We commend your judgment in preventing a subtle curse that even the Parasite couldn’t detect.]

[Your Charisma has slightly increased.]

The moment the message appeared that he had succeeded in resisting the trap, he realized that the singing that had been tormenting him and his party was coming from the unidentified box.

Perhaps because they were freed from the enchantment, the sound coming from the box was no longer cheerful or lively. The dull sound, like something hard colliding, was enough to send chills down his spine.

“Be carefu…….”

Before he could finish his warning after calming the group, the singing abruptly stopped from the box in the middle of the clearing, and a message window popped up.

[The King of the Festival does not want uninvited guests to ruin the party.]

[The ‘Gatekeeper’ has appeared to drive out the intruders who resisted the trap.]

As soon as the message ended, the skeleton that had been hugging the box stood up.

Clatter, clatter.

The skeleton, which had risen to its feet, cried out, clashing all the bones in its body. It looked like a waking undead [a reanimated corpse], so terrible that anyone would faint.

But none of the group here feared the dead.

[The battle has begun.]

Before the message window announcing the start of the battle could even finish, Angela, who had appeared behind the skeleton, clenched her fingertips like hooks and struck the skeleton’s neck bone.

Crack!

The skeleton’s neck bone shattered in an instant from her uncharacteristically brutal attack, and the skull rolled far away. Woosuh, who had spread his body wide, swallowed the skull rolling on the floor.

“Ah…….”

The battle ended before he could even step in. Angela crunched on the collapsed skeleton before belatedly making a relieved face.

“To be caught by such a trivial trap…….”

She, who had resided in the depths, seemed to have hurt her pride by being caught in a trap in a labyrinth that was only on the 7th floor. Woosuh seemed to feel the same way, as he crawled over and swallowed all the remaining bones.

“I don’t know who the master of the labyrinth is, but I can tell how nasty he is without even seeing him.”

Woosuh himself, who was saying that, had a nasty appearance with the swallowed skeleton being digested inside his transparent body, but no one pointed that out.

“Let’s go. We’ve wasted too much time.”

Kim Jin-woo sighed and began to move towards the depths of the labyrinth again.

***

After that, they encountered several more traps, but perhaps because they had almost been caught once, the group didn’t easily fall into the traps.

Once they were on guard, the traps in the labyrinth itself were not a big deal. Perhaps because they were specialized in that area, almost all the traps were of the type that caused enchantment, seduction, or confusion.

In the end, they had to fight a battle against a dozen creatures that had been enchanted and detained in the labyrinth, but Kim Jin-woo and his party were able to reach their destination without any damage.

“I can really feel Yoon-hee’s energy. How did you know Yoon-hee was here?”

Angela asked in a curious tone, wondering how Kim Jin-woo had found Yoon-hee, but instead of answering, Kim Jin-woo clenched his fist tightly and pulled it back.

Bang!

At that moment, with a tremendous noise and a cloud of dust, the old stone door collapsed.

Beyond the gap that opened, Yoon-hee, who had been sitting there in despair, was seen standing up abruptly. Behind her, frozen like a stone, was a large stone table engraved with a pierrot’s mask.

[The Parasite’s special ability ‘Search’ has been activated.]

With the message, Kim Jin-woo’s world turned black and white.

[You have discovered the core of the labyrinth, which has not yet been activated and has not been engraved.]