Hoarding In Hell [EN]: Chapter 71

71. Severed Head Dungeon Expedition (3)

The walls of the entire dungeon in sight began to move simultaneously. The monsters’ screams and confusion intensified.

As the floor began to tilt, shouts erupted from everywhere.

“Uh, uh oh!”

“Quick, grab onto something!”

The resting Hunters hurriedly tried to grab onto something solid, but the smooth walls were not easy to grip. Then, Red Butterfly quickly ran along the wall, using her hand blade to split the wall. As the red aura split the walls, gaps appeared that could be held onto.

Thanks to Red Butterfly, the Hunters managed to secure themselves just in time. Fortunately, the floor stopped at a moderate angle instead of completely overturning.

In other areas, the transformation seemed to be still ongoing, with loud thumping sounds.

“I-is it over?”

Someone muttered, and the other Hunters glared sharply. There were cursed remarks that were taboo when Hunters went on expeditions.

‘Is it over?’, ‘I’ll quit after this expedition’, and ‘The dungeon is quiet today’. These were the three.

The Hunter realized his mistake and covered his mouth, hoping that nothing would happen.

But despite his wishes, screams began to be heard from the distance.

Gyaaaaaaaah!

It was definitely a monster’s scream. The Hunters gripped their weapons, but the situation was not good.

The floor was tilted at about 40 degrees. Hunters with good balance could stand, but fighting in this state meant that even a small impact could send them rolling down the corridor.

“They’re coming!”

Countless Ratmen surged in like sewage. There were so many that they filled the ceiling.

The Hunters’ faces turned pale.

They weren’t running. They were being pushed by the enormous number of Ratmen behind them, sliding down all at once.

“This is freaking bull!”

There was no way to block them all. If they held on, they would be torn to shreds by the scratches and bites of the Ratmen passing by.

Seo Tae-kyung quickly looked at Hyun-woo, but Hyun-woo just looked back with a ‘what do you want me to do?’ expression.

Even if he could kill all those Ratmen, he would still be swept away by their corpses.

“Secure an escape route!”

At Seo Tae-kyung’s shout, one of the Jeoncheonryeon Hunters quickly slid down the corridor wall. But he didn’t get far before stopping with a crash.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“H-here!”

The Jeoncheonryeon Hunter didn’t answer but instead set off a flare.

About 30 meters behind them, the corridor they had walked through was split. The Hunter was already half-submerged in the gap.

No one wanted to step into the dark abyss, no matter what the structure was.

Ratmen were surging in like water from the front, and there was a dark hole behind them.

“I don’t want to meet my end like toilet bowl contents!”

A Hunter screamed.

‘What an imaginative friend.’

Hyun-woo clicked his tongue and stepped forward. He couldn’t just do nothing.

He equipped Oshet’s Six-Fingered Grip from his inventory. The Hunters stared at Hyun-woo with bewildered eyes as he suddenly put on something that looked like beast claws.

Until now, Hyun-woo hadn’t even taken out anything resembling a weapon.

‘Widow Queen Spider’s web.’

Hyun-woo attached five strands of spiderweb from his fingertips between the walls.

‘It won’t last long, but.’

Soon, the Ratmen horde was right in front of them.

Thwack, the Ratmen’s movements slowed for a moment as they were caught in the spiderweb. It was only for a brief moment.

Crushed by the heavy weight pressing from behind, the Ratmen soon began to be cut into the shape of Hyun-woo’s spiderweb.

“Keeeek!”

“Crap.”

He only meant to buy some time, but he ended up seeing a disgusting sight.

Difficulty: Hell, he used to cut through monsters easily without injecting mana, but here, it was because they were too weak.

Instead of Ratmen, the severed corpses of Ratmen began to pour down the corridor. The Hunters couldn’t take their eyes off the unfamiliar sight.

“It won’t last long! Prepare something!”

Red Butterfly, snapping out of it at Hyun-woo’s shout, moved first.

“I’ll make a foothold!”

This time, Red Butterfly dug into the floor to create gaps. It looked like stairs.

Even if it was narrow, a flat ground would be much easier to hold onto than a sloping incline.

Watching this, Johann shouted something in German. The bodyguards immediately climbed up the boundary and stepped on the stairs, supporting each other to form a wall.

‘Are they going to withstand those Ratmen?’

Hyun-woo watched with a half-expectant expression. As Johann cast a skill, the bodyguards’ bodies began to glow with a faint silver light.

Crack, crunch. The spiderweb was stronger than the Ratmen’s durability, but it couldn’t withstand the overwhelming weight. Soon, it sagged and broke.

Hyun-woo was swept away by the Ratmen horde.

“Ah!”

Red Butterfly’s sorrowful shout was drowned out by the sound of the Ratmen and bodyguards colliding.

Crunch, crack! The sound of metal and flesh being crushed echoed.

The Ratmen, being compressed again from the front and back, thrashed and bit the bodyguards, stabbing them with their weapons. Blood flowed from everywhere.

But as Johann cast the skill again, the wounds quickly healed. Even if they were healed, it would be incredibly painful, but the bodyguards didn’t even groan. Hyun-woo doubted if they were even human.

“Help the Priest Johann team!”

As conditions were barely created to move, the Obsidian team took the lead to help the bodyguards.

Simply removing the Ratmen attacking the bodyguards made the burden much lighter.

The expedition members felt like they had become a kind of giant shredder.

When the Priest Johann team blocked, the Hunters crushed the monsters and sent the corpses flowing backward. If they held on a little longer, it seemed like they could completely send them away.

But their expectations were soon shattered miserably.

Kugugugung.

“The dungeon is moving!”

With Seo Tae-kyung’s shout, the dungeon suddenly began to shake. The Hunters had no choice but to stop fighting to withstand the vibration, and the bodyguards’ weight burden became even stronger. But then, something flashed in the Ratmen horde.

Oooooooo!

“Werewolf!”

Werewolves were mixed in with the Ratmen horde.

Seo Tae-kyung’s face turned pale.

Normally, it seemed like one werewolf, a boss-level monster in the dungeon, appeared for every hundred Ratmen.

With a bang, one of the already exhausted bodyguards was knocked away. The bodyguard slid straight into the dark abyss.

The appearance of the werewolves turned the formation into chaos again. In the midst of the fierce vibration, the Ratmen poured out again, and the werewolves ambushed the Hunters who couldn’t move properly.

Red Butterfly bit her lip and rushed at him. She still couldn’t face a werewolf one-on-one.

‘But he’s not even fighting properly, he’s just sliding down!’

Red Butterfly was skilled in three-dimensional combat, kicking off the walls and ceiling.

Just before the werewolf bit a Hunter’s neck, Red Butterfly’s hand blade slashed his side twice.

The werewolf roared and changed his target to Red Butterfly. But the dungeon was on neither of their sides.

With a crack, the corridor began to split up and down. Red Butterfly was above, and the werewolf was below.

The werewolf tried to jump up, but Red Butterfly didn’t miss the opportunity.

Her hand blade slashed one of the werewolf’s eyes. The werewolf screamed and writhed. But coincidentally, Priest Johann was in that spot.

“No!”

Johann, who was concentrating on healing and recovering the Hunters, discovered the werewolf late.

Johann, who collided with the werewolf, slid down the corridor. Johann and the werewolf fell into the crack.

At that moment, something brushed past Red Butterfly like the wind. It threw itself into the darkness where Johann had fallen without hesitation.

The moment Johann realized he was falling down the crack, he prepared to protect himself.

Being separated from the bodyguards was fatal, but this wasn’t the worst situation he had faced. Just as he was preparing for the collision with the unseen floor, he felt his body bounce back into the air.

But the werewolf who had fallen with him plummeted into the black abyss.

‘What?’

Thin threads sparkled in the darkness. Dozens of invisible threads were wrapped around his body.

Something gripped Johann’s hand tightly. He was covered in blood, but he could recognize who it was.

That strange rookie Hunter. Kang Hyun-woo.

“It would have been a disaster if I had just left.”

He muttered something incomprehensible and threw Johann’s body, which had bounced up, upwards. Johann barely managed to step back onto the corridor.

“Priest Johann! Are you okay?”

Red Butterfly was seen running over. But Johann quickly looked down into the crack.

But Hyun-woo’s figure was nowhere to be seen in the dark abyss.

***

Red Butterfly heard a groan from beyond the darkness.

Running to where the sound was coming from, she saw a Hunter with a leg injury groaning in a pile of Ratmen corpses. It was a Hunter from the Obsidian team.

While Johann was healing his leg, Red Butterfly asked.

“Where are the others?”

The Hunter from the Obsidian team shook his head with a gloomy expression.

“I was alone when I was pushed off.”

The dungeon’s vibration and transformation continued for a long time.

When the Ratmen that were pouring out disappeared and the situation was sorted out, it was hard to recognize the original dungeon.

Even after people fell, the dungeon transformation continued, so it was impossible to know where they had gone.

Nearly half of the Hunters were missing in this battle.

It was a fatal result.

Even though Hunters who were much stronger than average had come forward, no one expected to face such a result before even encountering the boss.

But this wasn’t a matter of strength. No one knew that the dungeon transformation would happen so rapidly.

“…Does the dungeon transformation normally happen this severely?”

Seo Tae-kyung asked Johann something. Johann looked at him with gloomy eyes and said something. But no one knew German.

Originally, there was a Hunter from the Obsidian team who was in charge of translation, but he was separated in this battle.

“He would have told us if he knew.”

One of the surviving Obsidian team members answered curtly.

“They must be alive somewhere. Definitely.”

Red Butterfly said emphatically. It was hard for anyone there to be sure whether it was wishful thinking or sincerity.

Each one was strong, but if they were alone and had to face the Ratmen horde, the result would be negative.

Kang Hyun-woo was the only one who came to mind who could withstand those hordes.

“Shouldn’t we split up and search?”

“No, it’s too dangerous to split up any further. A lot of time has passed since the dungeon transformation earlier. If another transformation occurs, even the gathered personnel will be scattered. It’s dangerous to face the Ratmen horde with less than this number.”

Seo Tae-kyung was negative about Red Butterfly’s suggestion. Casualties during expeditions were common.

But 30 years after the dungeon opened, the casualty rate had decreased dramatically due to meticulously crafted strategies and regulations.

Recently, it was common to declare failure and return even if only one person died along the way.

Not to mention that the whereabouts of half of the personnel were difficult to confirm. It was a terrible failure.

“Then we should search even if we have to move together.”

Seo Tae-kyung was silent. Red Butterfly spoke to him again as if urging him.

“Branch Manager Seo Tae-kyung.”

Seo Tae-kyung flinched at Red Butterfly’s sharp gaze.

“It’s too early to give up here. We can resume the expedition if we can rescue just four more Hunters. Priest Johann is here, so injuries will be healed quickly. Not to mention if we find Kang Hyun-woo. We’ve experienced this fatal adversity, but if we clear and stabilize the dungeon, we can avoid the responsibility argument. Everyone knows that Flood is dangerous.”

Red Butterfly felt sorry for manipulating Seo Tae-kyung for personal purposes, but she had to use carrots and sticks as much as possible to persuade Seo Tae-kyung. While talking about success, she subtly mentioned ‘responsibility’, implying that he would be in trouble if he returned as it was. At her persuasion, Seo Tae-kyung nodded as if he couldn’t help it.

She had another purpose besides the experience of this expedition.

To observe Kang Hyun-woo and confirm his abilities.

Red Butterfly felt sorry for using Seo Tae-kyung for her personal purposes.

‘But I have to confirm it now.’

Kang Hyun-woo resembled someone she knew.

And that conviction was getting stronger and stronger.

***

【Difficulty: Hell

Entering the Star of the End.】

“…The timing was good.”