Dungeon Odyssey [EN]: Chapter 169

Dungeon Journal – Episode 170

# 169

Dungeon Journal

Episode 170

In the end, Kim Jin-woo couldn’t hear anything. Hyun-ji, who had been chattering away, only shed tears when her father was mentioned, as if her previous cheerful demeanor had been a lie.

Her mother sent Hyun-ji to her room and told him not to worry, saying it was nothing.

“Has something happened to Father?”

“Don’t worry about that. Your father is fine. He’s just busy with work and can’t come home for a few days. Hyun-ji probably just wanted to act like a child after seeing her brother after a long time. Don’t worry too much about it.”

It was an absurd excuse. Her own face was full of worry, and the Eye of Truth clearly showed how bad the two women’s mental state was.

The mother herself was not used to lying and was full of embarrassment.

However, he couldn’t ask again because his mother didn’t want him to.

She seemed gentle on the outside but possessed a will of diamond that could not be broken by anything.

A child who suddenly returned after a year, a mother who didn’t ask a single question about what had happened—why wouldn’t she be curious about the circumstances of her suddenly disappeared child? But she didn’t ask. So he couldn’t ask either.

He could have pressed Hyun-ji to tell him what was going on, but he quietly followed his mother’s wishes and stepped back.

“I’ll come again tomorrow.”

After saying goodbye, he watched the quiet house for a long time, even after the door closed, before leaving.

Kim Jin-woo willingly followed his mother’s wishes and stepped back, but that didn’t mean he gave up. As soon as he arrived at the safehouse, he called Angela.

“I have a family. And something has clearly happened to them, but I don’t know what it is.”

Angela looked surprised for a moment at the word ‘family,’ but she quickly composed herself, reading the coldness on her master’s face.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Find out what’s happening around them. And if there’s anyone trying to harm them…”

The last words were left unfinished, but Angela seemed to understand his words just by looking at his determined face. She licked her bright red lips and asked with a ferocious smile.

“When should I start?”

Kim Jin-woo tossed her a cell phone.

“The usage is…”

“I already know it.”

Her face was full of confidence, as if she hadn’t just been lazing around while on the surface.

“Good, I’ll tell you the location. Stay there for the time being.”

She pouted and complained about having to be separated again so soon after reuniting. But he didn’t have the luxury to indulge her complaints.

He had a bad feeling. He had a premonition that his family was caught up in something troublesome.

And perhaps his father’s situation…

“Hmm.”

He shook his head vigorously to clear his mind as he continued his thoughts. He was worried that unnecessary delusions might interfere with reality.

However, his senses after reaching High Lord were not something to be ignored. He knew that fact well and took appropriate measures.

“And if there are any groups contacting them, be sure to find out where they are and let me know.”

Angela didn’t ask what her master would do to them.

Just by looking at Kim Jin-woo’s face, with its flashing blue light, she could guess that they would not be in good shape.

However, instead of sympathizing with the misfortune of any impure group that might exist, she decided to watch with great interest how far her master would go this time. The him who had been reigning like a tyrant in the underground had shown a very passive appearance on the surface until now, but perhaps this time it would be different. She felt as if her already dead heart was pounding.

As if to confirm her expectations, Kim Jin-woo’s eyes were flashing with a gruesome light.

***

It wasn’t difficult to figure out the identity of the darkness that had fallen on the house. Angela’s surveillance was discreet but bold, and so thorough that she was watching them right under their noses.

And after watching them so closely, Angela succeeded in figuring out the whole story in less than a day.

The premonition was correct.

Something had happened to his father. And the accident manifested in a form several times worse than he had thought.

Angela started the story with a tone of incomprehension.

“It seems like these people don’t know how great the master is.”

It was natural. Although he held the title of the highest level in Korea, he was always a fugitive chased by the evil spirits of the underground and perceived as a weakling.

To his family, who had watched him suffer from nightmares and sleep paralysis for years, he was prey, and the underground was a brutal hunter.

“It seems they requested someone to find the missing master, and because they weren’t satisfied with the initial search, the master’s father followed up himself.”

It was the worst, even more so than he thought.

A child who hadn’t contacted them for a year, and that child had jumped into the dangerous underground to prepare his sister’s dowry, so there was plenty of room for misunderstanding.

But the measure taken to resolve that misunderstanding was, in Kim Jin-woo’s eyes, a really stupid thing.

To hire another explorer to go to the underground to save one missing explorer, especially to the underground that had become a mess.

A normal explorer would never accept such a request. But despite that, the family’s request was fulfilled.

He didn’t want to admit it, but there was only one possible scenario he could think of.

Fraud. A malicious fraud that risked the lives of a family.

And he knew better than anyone how this bad fraud was carried out.

It couldn’t be helped. Such fraud had been extremely prevalent for several years after the war with the underground ended. It would be strange if he didn’t know.

Immediately after the end of the war, fraudsters approached families, offering to find the whereabouts of men who had disappeared in the underground. In a situation where the government had given up, families had no choice but to rely on them, even if it meant grasping at straws.

And they, of course, disappeared with the money.

“It hasn’t been long since it happened. About a month?”

Angela faithfully reported what she had seen and heard.

“Hmm…”

If they only wanted money, they would have ended up taking the commission fee and disappearing. But the fraudsters took his father and disappeared. And they were constantly demanding money, using it as an excuse.

“What should we do? Should we wait a little longer?”

Angela asked about the future plan.

“Find out the number on the phone. That will give us the answer.”

After ordering that, he hung up the phone and sighed deeply.

A father who was always quiet. A father who showed rather than told. Because he was such a father, he would have done such a ridiculous thing.

He couldn’t help but blame himself. When he thought about it, all of this was due to his indifferent personality, so if something happened to his father’s safety, he would never be able to forgive himself.

However, before he lost his mind with anger at himself, there was something he had to do: deal with the fraudsters who had defrauded his family.

“Here it is.”

Angela said that she hadn’t adapted to the machine enough to check and transfer the phone’s call list one by one, so she simply stole her mother’s phone.

“You should think about the worst-case scenario too.”

Angela said cautiously as she watched him check the phone’s call list and texts.

“Maybe your father…”

“Stop.”

Kim Jin-woo, who had been staring at the screen, blocked her mouth with a chillingly subdued voice.

Angela, who belatedly realized her mistake, quickly lowered her head and apologized.

“Go back, your mother might be looking for her phone.”

He tried to send her back, but for some reason, she didn’t leave. When he asked with his eyes if there was anything left to say, she hesitated and said.

“Your sister, Hyun-ji, right? How about talking to her? She might tell you everything.”

Hyun-ji might tell him everything that had happened without her mother knowing. But Kim Jin-woo shook his head at Angela’s words.

“I’m going to handle things without Hyun-ji or my mother knowing.”

“Why…”

Angela kept tilting her head, wondering why he, who valued efficiency more than anything, was making things so difficult.

Looking at her, he replied in a terribly cold voice.

“Because I don’t want them to see my dark side.”

***

Kim Jin-woo, who had sent Angela back, quietly visited Professor Baek’s appraisal office.

“What brings you here at this hour? I was just about to close.”

Professor Baek, who saw him suddenly visiting late at night, was pleased, saying he had something to say. But Kim Jin-woo brought up his business first.

“I need you to help me.”

Professor Baek, whose face stiffened at the unusual tone, listened to the whole story and looked dumbfounded.

“How could such a thing happen?”

It was a fraudulent method that was once so frequent that it became a social problem, but now it was an outdated method that no one was fooled by. But for his family to be caught up in such a thing, Professor Baek clicked his tongue with a pitiful face.

“Can you find them?”

At his question, Professor Baek was lost in thought for a moment, then nodded.

“If I decide to find out, there’s nothing I can’t do.”

Seeing Professor Baek subtly hedging [avoiding a definite statement], Kim Jin-woo took out a few Down Jams from his pocket.

It was a precious Down Jam that would be used to grow the surface labyrinth, but he didn’t hesitate to pay the price.

“No, even if I’m a businessman, we’ve been trading for more than a day or two. I don’t want to take information fees even for this kind of thing.”

“This is a down payment. I’ll pay the price properly when the job is done.”

Professor Baek acted unusually friendly, but he pretended not to hear and put the Down Jam on the table.

“Keueung.”

Professor Baek, who let out a groan, reluctantly picked up the Down Jam on the table.

Seeing that, Kim Jin-woo finally relaxed his stiff face a little.

Paying a reasonable price and buying information. This was the perfect relationship with Professor Baek.

There was no need to be indebted and get caught.

“The sooner the better, right?”

Professor Baek said that and took out his old flip phone and made a few calls.

“Wait a moment and have a cup of tea with me. I’ll get a call soon.”

Professor Baek said that, dissolved a cheap green tea bag, made tea, and slandered the fraudsters.

It was a sight to see Professor Baek, who once tried to secure even a little more Down Jam by taking his family hostage, chattering like that, but he didn’t show it.

“But what are you going to do if you find those guys?”

Professor Baek, who had been chattering for a while, asked. He didn’t answer. But Professor Baek didn’t ask any more questions.

The murderous intent in his yellow, glistening eyes, though he was pretending to be calm, was too blatant.

“Those guys are terribly unlucky. If they knew how scary you are, they wouldn’t have done this. No, maybe they thought you were dead and did that.”

In the past year of chaos, countless explorers had lost their lives. Among them were Dungeon Babies [skilled dungeon explorers] who were known to be quite high level, so the fraudsters must have thought that Kim Jin-woo was in the same situation.

“Oh, I’ve already got a call. Wait a moment.”

Whether the job was already done while having a cup of tea, Professor Baek answered the phone.

“Yes, did you find out? I’ve been in business for a day or two. Anyway, where is personal information in this industry off-limits? Don’t worry and just tell me.”

Professor Baek, who exchanged various words instead of greetings, suddenly closed his mouth after chattering for a while and looked at him.

“What’s wrong?”

Professor Baek pretended not to hear his words and finished the call. But Professor Baek’s face was stiff as he put down his phone.

“Do you remember me asking you what you were going to do if you found those guys earlier?”

“What are you talking about all of a sudden?”

“Have you still not changed your mind?”

It seemed that the identity of the fraudsters was more significant than he thought. Obvious concern was rising on Professor Baek’s face.

“Who are they?”

Instead of answering, he asked again with a consistent face.