Hoarding In Hell [EN]: Chapter 36

36. Experienced Newbie (2)

Everything sounded like an incomprehensible jumble to Hyun-woo. Park Seo-moon gritted his teeth.

“The weird thing is that wooden stick you brought! I watched Hunter BJ Yasup’s famous walkthrough! And you didn’t even bring proper equipment…”

“Never mind the YouTuber. Hyun-woo, why do you think the instructions are strange?” Noh Eul interjected, looking at Hyun-woo with an amused expression. Hyun-woo worried he might seem like he was showing off, but it felt awkward not to answer when the inspector asked him so directly.

“Goblins don’t have particularly good noses compared to other monsters, but they can still tell the difference between dead grass and fresh grass. Plants release alarm toxins when they die. And you should be more careful of swamps than places with thick branches. Goblins are more dangerous when they target your ankles.”

“But goblins are supposed to ambush you from above, so if you don’t watch your head…”

“That’s a very human-centric [thinking like a human] thought. Goblins are short, so they don’t like high places either. You should be more careful of underground waterways or tunnels. Why would they jump down from above when the forest is so dense?”

Noh Eul looked surprised. Park Seo-moon’s face flushed, and just as he was about to shout again, Noh Eul interjected once more.

“Kang Hyun-woo, have you ever caught a goblin before?”

‘Maybe a little over 50?’ It was an ambiguous amount of experience to brag about.

“I studied hard.”

“I see. But Park Seo-moon’s opinion isn’t wrong.”

Park Seo-moon looked at Hyun-woo with a ‘see, I told you so’ expression. But Noh Eul continued.

“If it were exactly 10 years ago, that is.”

Park Seo-moon’s expression stiffened.

“BJ Yasup is currently active in 3-star dungeons. Park Seo-moon, you seem to be referring to a video BJ Yasup made a long time ago. Those strategies have all been discarded. 1-star dungeons aren’t always the same, and goblins are constantly evolving their tactics. It’s not entirely useless, but it’s outdated. But Kang Hyun-woo’s opinion isn’t entirely correct either. 1-star dungeon goblins aren’t that smart. It sounds like you’re talking about higher-level dungeons.”

Noh Eul said with a subtle smile.

“As if you’ve experienced higher-level dungeons yourself.”

Hyun-woo simply shrugged. Park Seo-moon scoffed in disbelief and muttered.

“Ha, looks like you’ve read quite a few books at your desk, but in a real fight, you’re just going to use that wooden stick…”

At that moment, a rustling sound came from the bushes on the right. Hyun-woo was the first to move. It wasn’t so much to protect anyone as it was a reflexive action.

The moment Hyun-woo’s foot kicked the bushes, something leaped into the air. The newbies screamed at the sight of the goblin jumping out of the bushes.

Everyone had studied goblins, but they had never seen or heard of anything like this.

The goblin had no head.

Thud, roll, roll… The goblin’s head belatedly fell to the ground and rolled away.

Hyun-woo’s kick had instantly snapped its neck, and it had only just fallen off. Not a single drop of blood was on Hyun-woo’s shoe. Hyun-woo looked at Park Seo-moon and quietly asked.

“What about the wooden stick?”

The newbies stared at Hyun-woo, silently screaming.

‘You didn’t even swing the wooden stick!’

Hyun-woo, as if realizing that fact, awkwardly swung the wooden stick in the air.

But Park Seo-moon seemed to have taken it in a different way. His face was red, and he couldn’t say anything.

Noh Eul stared at Hyun-woo with wide eyes.

“…Still, I’m glad it doesn’t seem like we have a completely unprepared party. Let’s continue. Things like this will also be factored into your scores.”

***

Although there was a bit of bickering at the beginning, the dungeon exploration proceeded smoothly.

Park Seo-moon seemed a bit lacking, but he used his size and hammer well. He seemed to be relieving stress by smashing goblins in the lead like he was playing whack-a-mole.

The party members followed behind, using their own weapons and abilities to catch goblins.

Everyone was energetically moving forward, as things were going better than expected.

That was only natural, as Cheonggye Dungeon was one of the easiest among the 1-star dungeons. Therefore, it was more of a place to assess their mindset to kill living things, whether they could withstand the stress of life-threatening situations, and their teamwork, rather than their skills.

‘Everyone’s doing well. No one seems scared or stressed.’

Noh Eul thought as she downed a hangover cure. The man named Park Seo-moon was doing a good job of drawing aggro [drawing the enemy’s attention] in the lead, so the other party members were hunting with ease.

It was a shame that he was short-tempered and quick to anger, or else she would have given him a good score.

‘What’s important in a dungeon is teamwork, not skill.’

It becomes difficult to survive alone as you go to higher-level dungeons. Some people dream of monopolizing and try to play solo, but even that is impossible from 4-star dungeons onwards. Even Lee Ji-tae, the top player in Korea, has never cleared a 4-star dungeon solo.

And this is where the problem arises. What if the rewards in the dungeon are excessively generous? Or if there’s a weak link in the party?

That’s why they have no choice but to join a clan, whether they like it or not.

‘At least you don’t have to worry about being backstabbed by clan members.’

If you’re plagued by suspicion and paranoia in a dungeon, people become scarier than monsters. That’s why Noh Eul, as well as the headhunters, focus on observing the hunter’s personality.

‘There aren’t any significant rewards yet…’

“Kill them all!” Park Seo-moon shouted cheerfully, smashing the head of one goblin. Park Seo-moon was acting particularly cruel.

He seemed to still be bothered by Hyun-woo’s brief humbling of him earlier.

But as he realized that goblins were easier opponents than he thought, he fought even more fiercely, as if to make up for it.

He didn’t forget to glance back at Noh Eul as he did so. Park Seo-moon wasn’t the only one.

As others realized that the dungeon wasn’t very dangerous, they were focusing not on the battle but on trying to catch Noh Eul’s eye.

Noh Eul was a senior member of Hwanmada, one of the three major clans [powerful player organizations], so they thought that if they caught her eye, they might receive an invitation to join. Of course, Noh Eul wasn’t paying attention to any of them.

The only person who didn’t seem to care about Noh Eul was Kang Hyun-woo.

It was hard to find any tension or excitement unique to expeditions in him.

It’s not like he was holding back either. Rather, he was walking behind with the wooden stick over his shoulder, as if he had come out for a stroll.

‘Doesn’t he have any intention of scoring points? No, but where did I hear that name before?’

‘I’m sure my colleagues were talking about it quite a bit, but I can’t quite remember. In fact, my memory is so bad that I forgot the name of the clan leader yesterday because the baseball team I was cheering for lost badly.’

But judging from the way he kicked the goblin’s head off earlier, he’s definitely experienced in dungeons. I don’t know if he’s a rogue [a player who acts independently] or not, but if he’s stronger than her, it could become troublesome.

‘I haven’t seen any signs of that yet.’

At that moment, she began to see the formation collapsing. As the dungeon became easier than expected, the team members, realizing that they could manage even without Park Seo-moon at the forefront, began to act separately.

Park Seo-moon was also focusing on killing goblins rather than defending.

‘Here we go.’

It was the timing when teamwork would collapse.

The moment teamwork began to break down due to ambition or greed, Noh Eul was about to begin a full-scale evaluation.

Then Noh Eul suddenly felt something strange.

“Um…”

The party members, who were engrossed in hunting, stopped at Noh Eul’s voice. It was also the timing when one battle was about to end.

Noh Eul’s expression was stiff. One person who had been participating in the battle until just now was missing.

“Where did Kang Hyun-woo go?”

***

‘They’re really weak.’

Hyun-woo felt complicated emotions as he watched the goblins being slaughtered.

The goblins, instead of ambushing, blindly rushed at the new hunters, only to be blocked by shields and have their heads smashed.

They didn’t even use proper language, their weapons were only stone knives and stone axes, and they had no strategy whatsoever.

They occasionally popped out of the tunnels to ambush, but they were easily discovered because of the loud, cackling noises they made.

Hyun-woo shook his head. If they were dealing with Redcap Goblins, they would have all been dead from the moment they met the first goblin.

Just like he was easily slaughtered, Noh Eul might have been able to hold out.

‘Even then, charging head-on against a group of goblins is crazy.’

Even though he now had a clear advantage when facing goblins, Hyun-woo still felt an aversion to fair, head-on confrontations.

There’s no reason to get covered in blood when there’s a way to win without getting hurt.

Of course, the goblins here were so weak that they felt like completely different creatures compared to Redcap Goblins. He could even understand why Noh Eul had appeared in such a nonchalant manner.

Hyun-woo slipped away without Noh Eul noticing. Having gained the ability to hide to the point of deceiving Redcap Goblins, it was easy for Hyun-woo to deceive Noh Eul as well.

‘I feel a little sorry for Noh Eul. But if I stay out of sight like this, my score will be bad…’

Hyun-woo smiled slightly.

‘Shall I add a little seasoning?’

***

“Kang Hyun-woo!”

Noh Eul hurriedly approached, finding Kang Hyun-woo coming out of the bushes.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere? Where did you go?”

“Oh, I went to relieve myself, and everyone was far away. I almost got lost, but the traces were so loud that I followed them.”

Suspicion was evident on Noh Eul’s face. There was no way she could have missed someone who had left for such a simple reason. But it was also true that Hyun-woo had really disappeared and returned nonchalantly.

The dungeon is a wilderness. The companions were not held responsible for whatever happened to those who left or were stranded.

While Noh Eul hesitated to question him, Hyun-woo joined the ranks. Park Seo-moon wore a mocking expression.

“Huh, scared and wet himself, did he?”

The group, who had seemed to like Hyun-woo because he had broken Park Seo-moon’s boasting when he first entered, now had cold eyes.

In their eyes, Hyun-woo was just a coward who had been hiding in the back while they were fighting hard.

“Anyway, I’m glad you’re back. We’ll give you separate break times, so please tell me next time.”

Hyun-woo answered with a shrug. The group began to move forward again, hacking through the bushes, ready to strike down any goblins that might pop out.

But after a while, the group began to feel strange.

The goblins, who had been popping out so often, were no longer appearing at all.

***

The forest was eerily silent.

Even the newbie group, who had been throwing jokes and curses while the goblins were popping out, felt frustrated by this strange silence.

The only sounds in the awkward silence were the footsteps of the people and the rustling of the bushes.

“Um… Inspector, do they usually only swarm like this in the beginning?”

Noh Eul was also embarrassed. She didn’t do the inspector’s job often, but she had visited Cheonggye Dungeon often when she was a newbie.

There were times when there were many goblins and times when there were few, but this was the first time they had suddenly disappeared as if they had been cut off.

“Well. But it’s not a bad thing that there are fewer monsters.”

Noh Eul tried to explain positively. The newbies seemed relieved, but Noh Eul wasn’t. The alcohol had already worn off, and she had been sober for a long time.

She had experienced something like this before.

It was when a being far more threatening than the hunters appeared.

In the dungeon, hunters are beings that must be driven out. But a being that even those monsters are afraid of and run away from is a higher predator that lives in the same dungeon and attacks monsters.

They usually occupied the position of boss-level or elite in the dungeon. But such phenomena only occurred in higher-level dungeons of 3 stars or higher.

‘But the boss-level of Cheonggye Dungeon is only the Goblin Chieftain and the Goblin Shaman?’

They are beings who command the goblins and boost their morale. There’s no reason to avoid them. On the contrary, they would rush in with vigor.

‘Something’s wrong.’

It’s not uncommon for dungeons to cause anomalies. Dungeons are always evolving and changing like living creatures.

She was concerned that this had suddenly happened in the relatively stable Cheonggye Dungeon, but she wasn’t too worried.

‘If necessary, I’ll send the newbies back and explore alone.’

She is a mid-level player who has participated in 3-star dungeon raids. Even if a mere 1-star dungeon caused an anomaly, she could quickly return the newbies without any casualties as long as she recovered the return stone.

Noh Eul suddenly turned her gaze to Hyun-woo. It happened after he disappeared and returned. There was something bothering her, but it was just a hunch.

“I, Inspector! There!”

At that moment, one of the newbies shouted, pointing to one side of the bushes. Noh Eul rushed towards it.

What popped out of the bushes was none other than a goblin’s corpse.

The neck had been brutally torn off by something powerful. There was no sign of resistance, as if it had been caught off guard.

The newbies had already killed countless goblins. But they had never seen such a corpse. This goblin corpse, dead alone, instilled a strange sense of unease in them.

One of the newbies asked in a whisper.

“Is there someone else in here besides us?”