Hoarding In Hell [EN]: Chapter 97

97. Angel (2)

Hyun-woo’s body had clearly been chewed up by the Labyrinth Hounds.

But now, he was almost completely healed, with only a few minor scratches remaining.

“I’ve been watching you, and the moment you chanted the command, your presence became strangely stronger. So, I figured, ‘To intervene in reality, do you have to manifest in reality?’ Like you have to log in to enter a command.”

And when Hyun-woo first attacked the angel, his reaction was dull, suggesting he wasn’t that strong.

At best, maybe around level 40.

Of course, that’s still a pretty high level. But for Hyun-woo, who had prepared meticulously for battle, that level wasn’t a problem.

The angel rolled his eyes, looking at Kazat and Kirson.

“Ah, and how did you manage to capture a level 60 monster, an immortal one at that, with these… things?”

The angel looked Hyun-woo up and down, his gaze filled with disdain. Hyun-woo’s smile broadened.

Instead of answering, Hyun-woo grabbed the angel’s head and slammed it into the floor in one swift motion.

After slamming it down about twenty times, he lifted the head again. The angel’s face was now a pulpy mess, like dough.

But since it looked like clay from the start, it didn’t feel particularly gruesome.

“What kind of questions are you asking when your head is being smashed in so rudely? I’m the one asking the questions, you bastard.”

It didn’t matter whether the angel was listening or even capable of answering.

“But before that, first……”

Hyun-woo’s face regained its cheerfulness, though it was a twisted, unsettling cheerfulness.

“Let’s learn some humility.”

Hyun-woo was excited at the thought of torturing the angel.

‘Just thinking that, I’m having a really devilish thought.’

In the brief moment Hyun-woo thrilled at the idea of the sentence he had come up with, the angel trembled uncontrollably, as if he couldn’t bear it.

Then, the angel’s head split in half. On the split surface, there were teeth, a tongue, and even a crude lung.

Hyun-woo immediately noticed the anomaly and raised Tam [his weapon], but the angel’s voice was a little faster.

“Forced term…….”

*Thud.* But his words were cut short. Kirson’s scythe and Kazat’s staff pierced the angel’s head simultaneously. And Hyun-woo’s Tam split his head in an instant.

The head rolled on the floor in several pieces.

“Useless resistance.”

Hyun-woo gathered the remaining pieces and tried to reassemble something resembling a head. But at that moment, the angel’s pieces suddenly trembled and melted.

Before Hyun-woo could react, only a pile of white dust remained where the angel had been.

“……What is this?”

Was he dead? Did he die if he was cut too much? But then that would contradict the attribute of ‘immortality.’ Could it be that the angel himself wasn’t immortal, unlike what it seemed?

There were many questions, but the angel who could provide the answers had already turned into dust.

Hyun-woo picked up the dust irritably.

Then a message appeared.

[Celestial Ashes (Legendary)]

“Huh?”

The dust wasn’t just dust; it was an item. Hyun-woo took out his glasses and checked, wondering if the angel was a monster.

[Celestial Ashes (Legendary)]

[Category: Rare Material]

[Note: Traces of an ancient civilization referred to as ‘Celestial.’ The Celestial civilization created very useful objects with this material. However, their world was burned by the sun, and it is now difficult to find traces of it, so obtaining this is very difficult.]

A legendary material. Hyun-woo began to scrape together all the Celestial Ashes.

But most of it was just dust, and the amount of Celestial Ashes was only a handful. Still, that much was enough to make an angel, according to the description.

‘Although I didn’t get any information, I got an unexpected profit.’

But he had already obtained enough information from what he had experienced so far.

One, the appearance of dungeons and the increase in difficulty are artificial results.

It was obvious, but no one had proven that obvious fact. Everyone brought up theories about gods, holographic universes, and judgment, but Hyun-woo was the first to meet an existence that blatantly claimed to be a manager.

Two, there is more than one manager.

Hyun-woo judged that he was probably the lowest-ranking employee. He said that his role was to judge and correct errors. Like an anti-virus program on a computer. In reality, like a soldier or a police officer.

There was likely someone behind them with much more powerful authority.

Three, the manager can manipulate information.

The angel tried to attack Hyun-woo by summoning monsters and adjusting their levels and conditions.

Seeing that he used such an inconvenient method because it wasn’t himself, there must be a limit to that authority. And to them, Hyun-woo was an uninvited guest, and there was a high possibility that there would be conflicts in the future.

‘I should refrain from doing anything too noticeable.’

He might have already attracted some attention just by being exposed to some extent.

But he can’t help but make a mess. What is all this effort for? It’s to make a mess as he pleases.

So, Hyun-woo thought that if he needed to make a mess, he should get someone else to do it for him.

Four, this is the most important thing.

Managers can also be eliminated.

The conditions under which the angel died were still unknown. But there was no reason to give a computer anti-virus program the function of ‘dying.’

It was clear that Hyun-woo had accidentally achieved some condition that caused him to die. Or absolute immortality does not exist.

“Unless this is a program, there can’t be such a thing as ‘absolute’.”

It’s imitating a game, but this is reality.

There could be no absolute rules.

“Hmm, then I should go back now…… When can I go back?”

Hyun-woo looked around. There was no sign of getting out of the black space.

Hyun-woo thought that if the angel was a member of some organization, there was a high probability that other guys who noticed the anomaly would come soon. He had to get out of here as soon as possible.

“Then I just have to get out. What.”

Hyun-woo unsummoned Kirson and Kazat, and then used the return stone to enter Hell.

The black space, which had been noisy for a while, was filled only with the groans of the dismembered Labyrinth Hounds, and became quiet again.

***

Difficulty: Hell. Hyun-woo immediately used the return stone to return to reality.

He was worried that he might fall into the black space again, but a blue sea unfolded before his eyes.

Hyun-woo was about to panic, wondering why it was the sea, but he soon realized that it was the entrance to the Taean Dungeon.

‘Huh? Why the sea? Shouldn’t I be going to the dungeon?’

At that moment, the accumulated text messages poured out like an explosion all at once.

[Taean Dungeon completely cleared.]

[Clear Score: ★★★★★]

[The dungeon’s status enters a ‘disabled’ state.]

[Achieved an amazing feat!]

[You have stopped the 12th Flood.]

[You have acquired the title of ‘The One Who Opens a New Era’.]

[The morale of nearby allies is constantly increasing.]

The reward for achieving the achievement had finally appeared.

The fact that morale was increasing seemed to mean that resistance to psychological debuffs was increasing and that they could be more enthusiastic.

Perhaps the effects of this would be different for each individual, like control, but it seemed pretty good. Especially when training hunters like recently.

“But where are these guys?”

Hyun-woo looked around. He knew that this was around the Taean Dungeon because it was the scenery he had seen before entering the dungeon.

But the jungle terrain, which was out of place for the climate and was standing in the middle of the beach at the entrance of the dungeon, was nowhere to be seen.

‘The dungeon entrance has disappeared?’

As Hyun-woo’s question grew, he felt a presence beyond the sand dune. Hyun-woo headed there. All the hunters were gathered there. Not a single person was missing.

“Branch Manager Kang Hyun-woo!”

Song Yeo-un was the first to run over with a surprised face. Other hunters followed suit, but the Obsidian Team hesitated and kept their distance.

“You’re safe! I’m so glad!”

“What happened?”

Seo Ji-hoo answered.

“I don’t know. I was waiting as Branch Manager Kang Hyun-woo told me to, but suddenly the return stone trembled and crumbled into powder. Then, a moving effect appeared and I was here.”

“What about the dungeon entrance?”

“It disappeared.”

It seemed that he wasn’t seeing things wrong. The dungeon disappeared, how could this happen?

Hyun-woo was embarrassed, but it seemed that he wasn’t the only one. In particular, the Obsidian Team, who had frequently visited the Taean Dungeon, looked around the beach here and there as if they couldn’t believe it.

‘Is it because I took care of that angel bastard?’

Perhaps that angel was like a dungeon master, and the dungeon was closed because he died.

Nothing was certain. But completely destroying the dungeon was no small issue.

But then a message came that lightly buried such issues.

[Congratulations! You have successfully blocked the first wave!]

The angel’s voice? No. Just a ‘message’ he had heard on a daily basis. The angel was also given such a voice, but it was meaningless.

Hyun-woo looked at the faces of the other hunters. Everyone was looking at each other with surprised faces, so it seemed that it wasn’t just Hyun-woo who was hearing the message.

[You have prevented the 13th dungeon expansion, reaching a new level.]

[New features are unlocked.]

[New dungeons appear.]

[New monsters appear.]

[New skills appear.]

[New items appear.]

[The difficulty will now increase.]

The angel’s voice delivered the announcements to the minds of all the ability users around the world at once, without hesitation.

[Difficulty: Easy]

[Enter the Garden of Adenbaden.]

Finally, humans had finished their 30-year childhood and were finally starting the real game.

***

Black space.

In that space where there was nothing but the groans of the Labyrinth Hounds, something suddenly appeared as if white paint had been dropped.

It was an old man and a young woman with pure white faces. But unlike the angel who was once here, they had no wings and were wearing black thorny crowns.

The crown was so black that it felt like nothing was there.

“It’s here.”

The woman found the Labyrinth Hounds scattered in pieces on the floor and called the old man. The woman checked the condition of the Labyrinth Hounds and clicked her tongue as if she had lost her words.

“That’s right. It’s the guy I was looking for. He’s a guy who shouldn’t be appearing now in terms of balance, so I was wondering if some crazy bastard suddenly put him in.”

The old man plunged his hand into the head of the Labyrinth Hound. The old man’s eyes darted around as his hand moved, analyzing something.

As soon as the old man took out his hand after checking, the Labyrinth Hound died.

“I removed the immortality attribute because it was there. I need to issue another instruction not to abuse it. Anyway, there is no procedural problem with the summoning itself. A lower-level manager summoned it to fix an error.”

“Error correction? Not that he was playing with it?”

The woman looked around again. A scene full of fragments of the Labyrinth Hound’s corpse.

“He made the Labyrinth Hound to the limit level and gave it an immortal state to this point, how is that error correction? I told you, the manager in this area calls humans out and kills them all the time. I told you to check his violence code because it’s strange.”

“Anyway, that’s what it says on the surface. We’ll know if we call the manager.”

The woman began to enter the command without hesitation.

“Command: Summon: Area 344 Manager: Status: Demoted to General Grade.”

“I told you not to use demotion commands carelessly.”

Despite the old man’s nagging, the woman finished entering the command and waited. But there was no response.

The two exchanged bewildered glances for a moment and then entered the command again. But this time it was the same.

The old man entered the command.

“Command: Check Status: Area 344.”

And after a while, the old man’s eyes widened.

“It’s gone.”