Dungeon Odyssey [EN]: Chapter 127

Dungeon Journal- Episode 128

# 128

Dungeon Journal

“You are free.”

Spider Duke uttered those words and disappeared, but none of the diggers readily moved.

This was because, to them, this narrow, filthy tunnel and the coop-like sleeping quarters were their entire world.

So, when they first gained freedom, they felt rather uneasy.

Left alone for the first time without anyone’s orders, they fidgeted with their hands and shifted their weight. Their hands, having lost their purpose, trembled anxiously.

But soon, they realized. They realized that there would be no more spider overseers to give them orders, and no more foul-smelling food given as the price for harsh labor.

Upon realizing this, the diggers slowly rose to their feet one by one. Then, with blank faces, they looked around and began to walk towards the outskirts of the labyrinth.

Kim Jin-woo also stood blankly for a long time before following the diggers who had disappeared.

“Ah…”

A complete loss of purpose. When he was doing the work assigned to him day by day, his body might have been tired, but his mind was at peace.

Even if that peace was built on false pretense and deception, he thought that time was better than now.

Perhaps that’s why his steps felt heavier than ever.

“Jin-woo, let’s go.”

Someone grabbed his hand. Kim Jin-woo looked down at his calloused hand being held by a small, pale one, and an expression finally appeared on his face.

“Never let go of this hand.”

The girl, So-hee, who had taken his hand without hesitation, smiled at him. It was a pure, bright smile that seemed out of place in the gloomy and dirty tunnel.

Kim Jin-woo saw that smile and forgot even his anxiety, and he couldn’t help but smile back.

“Let’s go.”

So-hee said again, looking at him. And he held her small, delicate hand tightly, as if it were a supreme command, and followed her.

The tunnel continued. Soon, the tunnel opened into the underground passage, becoming a slightly wider path. That was all, but the surrounding air had completely changed.

The darkness of the underground was still there, and the unkempt tunnels were filled with unidentified bone fragments and filth.

But despite that, Kim Jin-woo could instinctively tell that the surrounding air had changed.

It was damp, but not ominous.

It was dark, but there was no suffocating feeling that tightened his heart.

And after walking a little further, Kim Jin-woo realized that it was because they had left the labyrinth’s territory.

“You have to be careful from here on out. This place is full of monsters that only have instincts left.”

Even though she was born and raised in the underground and lived as a digger, So-hee seemed to know more about the underground than he did.

“There are plenty of monsters in there too.”

“It’s different. The spider overseers exist to exploit us, but the monsters here exist to devour us.”

Her words were true. The underground was not on their side. They were the smallest and most insignificant creatures in the underground, and easy prey.

The monsters that found them drooled and clicked their jaws greedily.

“Never look back.”

Even while running, So-hee repeated the same words to him several times. And Kim Jin-woo faithfully followed her words and never looked back.

Even when the monster’s rough breathing came right behind him, even when his back was soaked with the foul breath, he never looked back.

He only followed her and ran forward.

Occasionally, they met other diggers. Kim Jin-woo greeted the other diggers very happily when they met.

But for some reason, So-hee didn’t like the other diggers. She was wary of them and didn’t talk to them even when they accidentally ran into each other.

She just hurried on as if she hadn’t seen them from the beginning.

And soon, Kim Jin-woo realized the reason.

The diggers were at the bottom of the food chain in this underground world. Naturally, even eating and drinking were difficult every day.

And among them, there were those who learned how to hunt relatively early.

“Keuk.”

When did he approach? A digger who had approached while they were asleep screamed and grabbed his neck. A sharp piece of bone was stuck in the digger’s neck.

“Sister?”

So-hee hugged him silently as he blinked, not understanding what was going on.

“From now on, don’t trust anyone. Don’t trust anyone but me. No, don’t even trust me. You only trust yourself. Got it?”

They were incomprehensible words, but he nodded as if possessed. A cold wind swept down his back as he belatedly noticed something sharp in the digger’s hand.

The underground was vast. Endless darkness, and constant attacks, but what was more frightening than anything else was hunger.

“Just hold on a little longer.”

So-hee stroked her sunken belly several times, but the hunger was terribly painful.

He even thought about going back to the labyrinth. His body became heavy and his vision blurred.

But despite that, So-hee still didn’t stop walking. Kim Jin-woo couldn’t understand her, but instead of complaining, he endlessly clung to the warmth he felt at his fingertips.

After holding their hungry stomachs and moving forward for a long time, Kim Jin-woo met a digger gasping for breath in a pit in the corner of a remote tunnel.

The digger was very tired and, like them, was suffering from hunger.

The digger reached out to them with a gaze filled with unknown desire. But perhaps his energy had run out, he soon dropped his hand and lowered his head.

And then he stopped breathing completely.

Watching the digger who had stopped breathing, Kim Jin-woo was tormented by a strange desire. Although it was a skinny body with all the bones showing, the digger’s body looked very tempting to him.

“No. We are human.”

The words made his confused mind flash. The faces of the men who had died for him in the distant past flashed by, and he belatedly felt ashamed.

“It’s okay. It’s okay.”

So-hee hugged him tightly as he lowered his head in self-reproach. It made him feel relieved for no reason, and he cried for no reason.

At that moment, he realized. He could see why she had told him to be careful of the other diggers, and why she was so wary of them.

At the same time, a question arose.

How did she know these things in advance? She grew up in the labyrinth and lived as a digger her whole life, but how did she know these things as if she had experienced them before?

After hesitating, she simply stared at him without saying a word to the question he threw.

After that day, Kim Jin-woo burned with an even stronger desire to survive.

He picked up and ate the unidentified moss that grew between the tunnels, and he threw the foul-smelling unidentified raw meat into his mouth without hesitation.

And he was constantly running around to secure food and water.

That must have been why. He coveted the eggs of a giant bird, which could be said to be a predator in the underground. It was a really stupid thing to do.

But it was too late when he realized that fact.

“Sister. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

Kim Jin-woo realized his mistake as he looked at the giant birds flapping their wings and roaring threateningly, surrounding them.

So-hee didn’t resent him as she watched him. Rather, she wrapped him up in a hug.

“It’s okay. We can still escape.”

She was smiling even as she looked at the enemies approaching from all directions. He couldn’t understand it at all. What on earth was she thinking?

“No. We can’t escape.”

His voice, which popped out unintentionally, was so cynical that it was terrible.

The moment he realized that fact, Kim Jin-woo felt a terrible sense of incongruity and was startled.

The giant monster bird’s movements, as if it would snap its tough beak at any moment, and So-hee’s eyes, which were looking for a way out without giving up, somehow felt distant.

And he knew the reason well.

All of this was a memory of the past that had already passed, a ghost of someone he couldn’t forget and had rather erased, and,

“It’s a dream.”

The innocent and pure voice disappeared, and what filled the space instead was a cold voice full of cynicism. Kim Jin-woo realized that he was in the middle of a nightmare.

“I was going to watch a little longer, but you realized it sooner than I thought. What a shame.”

A nonchalant voice suddenly popped out from behind, and at that moment, the whole world split and scattered like broken pieces of glass. Kim Jin-woo coldly retorted, chasing the fragments of So-hee contained in the scattered fragments with his eyes.

“It’s going to be no fun if you keep doing this.”

“As I said before, this is just one of the conditions to make the meeting with you happen, there was no other intention.”

Kim Jin-woo growled more than necessary, feeling a strange tightening in his heart as he watched the last fragment scatter.

“Why don’t you just send a subordinate? Stop playing these ridiculous pranks.”

“You probably know it too, right? The situation on the 11th floor isn’t very good right now.”

Kim Jin-woo frowned as he looked at the man, Dinarion, who was chattering as if he had oiled his tongue. Only then did the lost sense of reality awaken and the spirit that had stayed in the past find the present.

“What happened? Why are they being pushed back so much?”

Unlike the barons on the 10th floor, the counts on the 11th floor were known to have steadily built up their strength during the peaceful times.

But now that they were being helplessly pushed back by other underground forces, he was wondering what they were up to.

“The opponent is stronger than us. That’s all, there’s no other reason.”

His face contorted at the nonchalant answer as if it were someone else’s business.

“You have no countermeasures.”

“How could that be? Isn’t that why I’m looking for you now, to come up with countermeasures?”

“I don’t like useless wordplay. If you have a reason for coming, get to the point.”

It was an excessively irritable tone for someone talking to a count on the 11th floor, but Dinarion didn’t seem to care much, just like the last meeting.

“I need your help.”

“I refuse to send troops to the 11th floor. Judging from the situation, war is not far off on the 9th floor either. Unlike you, I’m just a mere baron. I don’t even have the strength to protect my own.”

“I’m not asking to borrow your army.”

“Then?”

Kim Jin-woo asked back with a questioning mind, thinking that he would naturally ask for the dispatch of reinforcements.

“I need the power of you as an individual, not the army.”