Dungeon Odyssey [EN]: Chapter 177

Dungeon Journal – Episode 178

The meeting with Kim Jong-bin was set for the secluded foothills of Paju. At first glance, it seemed like the perfect ambush location. With no houses nearby, it also offered a discreet place to resolve any issues, even if a fight broke out.

Kim Jin-woo, looking around, seemed satisfied. He had specifically requested a quiet meeting place.

Much of his power was best kept hidden, making the secluded foothills ideal. Furthermore, the evening appointment suited him well, as he was most comfortable in the darkness.

Arriving at the GPS coordinates he’d received instead of a text message, Kim Jin-woo waited with a relaxed expression.

However, Kim Jong-bin didn’t appear at the appointed time. Instead, nearly a hundred figures stealthily approached.

“It’s a trap after all.”

Despite the perfect encirclement, he remained calm.

“I wasn’t expecting much anyway.”

At Kim Jin-woo’s words, a nearby bush rustled, and a group of men emerged.

“It seems you know why we’re here.”

The speaker possessed a commanding presence unlike anyone in Song Jong-chul’s gang. Kim Jin-woo studied the man intently before offering a cryptic smile.

“No. Not at all.”

The man radiated extraordinary energy, yet Kim Jin-woo remained unfazed, maintaining a relaxed demeanor as if he were simply taking a stroll.

Perhaps irritated by his nonchalant attitude, the man frowned and asked, “Just one question. Were you the one who attacked the Association?”

Instead of answering, Kim Jin-woo countered with a question of his own: “Is my father safe?”

“That depends on what you do.”

The man, Park Seong-jin, seemed to have anticipated this, not even denying the suspicion of kidnapping his father.

“Where is he now? Didn’t you bring him here?”

“Of course not.”

Kim Jin-woo looked disappointed. He had entertained this ridiculous charade hoping for a chance to rescue his father.

But unlike in movies or novels, the other party had no intention of bringing such a valuable hostage to this location.

Seeing his disappointment, the man repeated, “I’ll ask again. Were you the one who attacked the Association?”

“No, it wasn’t.”

Kim Jin-woo nonchalantly lied. If this were the Underground, he would have confessed and eliminated them all, but this was the Surface [the human world].

Someone might be reporting the situation over the phone even now, and there was no need to admit his past actions.

However, the man remained suspicious, his eyes narrowed, scrutinizing Kim Jin-woo as if trying to see through him.

Kim Jin-woo met his gaze and asked, “What do I have to do to get my father released?”

“Drink this first.”

The man produced a small glass flask from his chest, as if prepared in advance, and tossed it to him.

The fingernail-sized flask contained a liquid with a dazzling color.

“If I drink this, will you release my father?”

In response, Park Seong-jin brazenly replied, “Let’s just say that for now.”

Even as he said it, he didn’t expect Kim Jin-woo to actually drink the contents.

It was only natural. Anyone who knew what was in the flask would refuse. And he assumed Kim Jin-woo knew the liquid’s identity.

“If I drink this, I’ll become a cripple, right?”

As expected, Kim Jin-woo knew that the liquid was a concentrate of Down Jam, a potent and addictive drug.

“If you don’t drink it, you won’t get what you want.”

A threat that barely sounded like one. There was no way Kim Jin-woo would swallow that poison for the sake of his foster father, who wasn’t even a blood relative. Perhaps that’s why Park Seong-jin didn’t bother trying to persuade him.

After all, even if he refused, other methods of control awaited him.

“Then I’ll drink it.”

However, Kim Jin-woo defied expectations. He opened the flask and emptied it in one gulp.

“Uh, uh!”

The action was so swift that Park Seong-jin could only stammer in disbelief.

“I drank it. Now it’s your turn to keep your promise.”

Kim Jin-woo’s words, delivered with a frown, left Park Seong-jin flustered. He was acting under Song Jong-chul’s orders, but he hadn’t anticipated Kim Jin-woo actually consuming the Down Jam concentrate.

Song Jong-chul highly valued Kim Jin-woo, recognizing him as a powerful individual who couldn’t be easily persuaded. If voluntary cooperation was impossible, he intended to force him into servitude.

But Kim Jin-woo had suddenly drunk the Down Jam concentrate.

That amount would instantly incapacitate even a strong Dungeon Baby from the Depths, turning them into a drug addict. This contradicted Song Jong-chul’s plan to have him cooperate willingly.

“You idiot!”

He shouted belatedly, but the contents of the flask were already down Kim Jin-woo’s throat.

“Release my father, now.”

Kim Jin-woo stubbornly demanded his father’s release. But Park Seong-jin had no authority to make that decision.

“Ugh, we’ll wait for you to collapse and then collect you.”

Now Park Seong-jin openly dismissed Kim Jin-woo. He believed that restraining him would be easy, now that he had consumed the entire concentrate.

Like many explorers and high-ranking government officials, Kim Jin-woo would become a drug addict, willing to do anything for a fix. Controlling him would be simple.

Right now, the body of a strong Deep-sea Dungeon Baby might be resisting the drug, but soon he would be crawling like a dog, begging for more.

“Should I report first?”

“Ugh, if I report now, I’ll get scolded for breaking that friend. Let’s go in and report later.”

“Well, the last time, the hyung [older brother/senior] got scolded properly.”

They had brought nearly a hundred high-level Dungeon Babies and prepared the Association’s hidden power, but the operation had ended anticlimactically. It was no wonder that Park Seong-jin and his subordinates were muttering with listless expressions.

“Hmm?”

But even after some time had passed, Kim Jin-woo showed no signs of collapsing. He had consumed a concentrate that would shock even a Dungeon Baby who had survived not just the Depths, but the Abyss [the deepest, most dangerous part of a dungeon], yet he remained standing.

“Why is he okay?”

Looking at Kim Jin-woo, who showed no signs of addiction, Park Seong-jin belatedly realized that something was wrong.

“It’s your turn to keep your promise.”

Kim Jin-woo repeated the same words like a parrot. Come to think of it, his expression seemed unnatural.

At first, Park Seong-jin had attributed it to anxiety about his foster father’s safety and the encirclement, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

“Pro, pro…mise.”

A slurred tongue – was the drug finally taking effect?

“Th, that!”

The subordinate next to him screamed, and Park Seong-jin stared in disbelief. Kim Jin-woo’s features, distorted to the point of writhing, had gone beyond the realm of normalcy.

The once-handsome face was unrecognizable, with eyes stretched towards his ears and a nose wobbling like jelly. He was no longer human.

“Something’s wrong?”

“Get the kids ready! Something’s not right!”

Park Seong-jin was about to issue battle instructions to his subordinates when a quiet whisper reached his ears.

“You’re coming out pretty strong.”

“Who is it!”

Park Seong-jin, shouting fiercely, drew his sword and swung it, only to find a hooded figure standing next to the monstrously transformed Kim Jin-woo.

“Who else could it be? The person you guys wanted to meet.”

The man lowered his hood.

“The original plan was to humor you guys and infiltrate your hideout, but I didn’t expect you to use drugs.”

“Ki, Kim Jin-woo!”

Park Seong-jin screamed as he looked at the monster with completely blurred features and the man who had revealed his face.

Surprisingly, the man who had suddenly appeared was Kim Jin-woo.

“Tsk, I never imagined that drugs would have this effect.”

Kim Jin-woo clicked his tongue as he looked at the King of Mirror Spirits, his doppelganger, whose appearance had completely reverted to its original form.

It was Espesto [a type of Mirror Spirit] whose appearance replication ability had been released, but it didn’t seem to have much of an impact. Originally, he had planned to use Espesto to infiltrate the depths of the Association, but it was all messed up. Well, the failure was predicted from the moment Park Seong-jin’s reaction deviated from the prepared scenario.

Compared to the perfect replication of appearance, the Mirror Spirit’s acting had some awkward parts.

“So you were the culprit!”

Kim Jin-woo asked, looking at Park Seong-jin, who was shouting in shock, as if he had finally realized the secret of the alibi.

“Let me ask you one thing. What would you have done if I had resisted to the end here?”

Instead of answering, a hundred ambushers emerged from the bushes.

“I don’t even need to hear it.”

He frowned and shook his head.

Still, Song Jong-chul, who had once tried to coax him, had suddenly changed his mind, and he couldn’t figure out his intentions.

But he didn’t dwell on the problem.

Now that it was revealed that the entire Association was involved in his father’s disappearance, there was no reason to care whether Song Jong-chul was a villain or a good person.

“You’re playing strange tricks.”

Kim Jin-woo didn’t respond to Park Seong-jin’s words.

Even then, Park Seong-jin was angry that he had been deceived, but he didn’t seem too worried.

He wasn’t afraid at all, even with the attacker who had smashed dozens of explorers in an instant standing before him, as if he had something to rely on.

“Suppress him!”

“Are you trying to fight without killing? Then I’ll fight without worrying about dying.”

At Kim Jin-woo’s cocky attitude, Park Seong-jin reversed his order again.

“Kill that arrogant bastard!”

“But Jong-chul hyung-nim!”

“I’ll take responsibility! He’s not going to be under someone else anyway!”

Despite the ambushers’ increasingly ferocious momentum, Kim Jin-woo wore a pleased expression.

“Yeah, that’s how you should come out.”

Looking at the Association’s ambushers rushing in from all directions, Kim Jin-woo grinned.

“That way, I won’t hesitate to use my hands.”

His momentum shifted instantly. His atmosphere, which had seemed unremarkable except for a strange composure, had completely transformed.

A huge presence rose like a tsunami and spread in all directions.

Park Seong-jin was surprised by the appearance of another Kim Jin-woo, but he didn’t waver. He believed that the identity of the faceless monster could be discovered once the enemy was suppressed.

He was overwhelmed by the fiercely rising momentum, but even then, he remained somewhat relaxed.

He didn’t think he would be defeated so easily, confident that he could handle the situation despite the overwhelming pressure.

Battle was not just about momentum.

He himself was a level 9 high-level Dungeon Baby, and his subordinates were a hundred level 6 or higher Dungeon Babies who had been carefully selected.

All of them were veteran explorers who had survived in the Underground and were combat specialists.

“Ugh…….”

But the subordinates he had trusted were unable to move forward, their faces frozen by Kim Jin-woo’s presence.

They were in a defenseless posture, close enough to spill blood if they simply reached out or swung their swords, but no one dared to take a step forward.

“I’ll get an earful later…….”

In the end, he decided to play his hidden card. He intended to show that arrogant bastard why he held his position.

“Por…….”

“I’m warning you, you’ll regret it.”

Park Seong-jin, about to chant the winning spell, froze at the low voice.

The clear, glass-like eyes were unsettling, as if they were looking inside him. The eyes seemed to say that it was useless, that no matter how much he struggled, it was all within Kim Jin-woo’s control. It was terribly annoying.

But he ignored it. He believed he had to use all his hidden assets to eliminate that level of ability. So he managed to utter the one word that Kim Jin-woo had tried to prevent.

“Portal!”

The moment he felt the familiar energy emanating from the blue door that had appeared in the air, Park Seong-jin regained his confidence. The hardened subordinates also belatedly mustered their courage and rushed towards Kim Jin-woo.

But strangely, his chest felt constricted. And he soon understood why.

Th, that! That expression!

Even after seeing the portal that had appeared in the air and the ferocious soldiers who had crossed over from beyond, Kim Jin-woo’s expression remained relaxed.

“I clearly warned you.”

Looking at Kim Jin-woo’s gaze, focused solely on him while ignoring the blades and attacks rushing in from all directions, Park Seong-jin’s heart sank.

“Don’t expect mercy from me. The moment you ignored the warning and opened the portal…….”

Kim Jin-woo gave a sharp smile. A ferocious smile that revealed his white teeth, it was the face of a predator.

“This place is now governed by the laws of the Underground.”