As the hunters were making their way to Yeongwoljung, it seemed they had faced other mutated humans before, each muttering their own thoughts.
Everyone did look quite horrifying.
One hunter, resembling a massive human with a baby smile, was rambling on, holding a gun in both hands, about how scared he was that he almost peed himself the whole way here. Another companion, thin as a chopstick with hair sprouting all over, was also present.
Of course, it was all an illusion, so when touched, it felt like human flesh. The sensation of the clothes, armor, and equipment they were wearing wasn’t deceived by the illusions either.
“Honestly, I can’t get a grasp on what kind of dungeon this is.”
“The erosion rate and danger rank fluctuating in real-time is already dangerous enough…”
“On top of that, it randomly sends all incoming creatures to different locations.”
“Oh, I fell right in the middle of the Nakdong River and I’m still soaked.”
“Seriously…”
As they sat in the hotel lobby sharing stories, Jinseong and Yooha seemed to finally relax.
“Has anyone seen something like a boss?”
“Boss?”
“Isn’t the boss usually hidden deep somewhere?”
“Jinseong and I saw a being that resembles the boss of this raid dungeon on our way here.”
“Details, please.”
At the mention of ‘boss’, the atmosphere among the other hunters shifted.
Sure, the serious mood was a bit scary because of the horrifying appearance…
“It’s just a normal human shape. Although it did have a charcoal-black body like burned ashes, the hair was pure white, but where the face should be, there was just a hole. I can’t tell if it has a gender, but it looks like a female body.”
“Sounds more ordinary than expected, doesn’t it? Compared to those other monstrous mutated humans…”
“Except for the five terribly grotesque tentacles squirming on its back.”
At Jinseong’s words, the hunters fell into a deep silence.
“Tentacles… If this weird dungeon boss is the case, we should be adjusting our expectations to at least an AA to S-rank, right?”
“No, it’s higher than that.”
“Higher than that?”
Yooha was the only hunter in this raid party with sensing abilities.
So her reliability was higher than anyone else’s statements.
“Honestly, I can’t even estimate the rank… It’s not mana I feel, but something else strange… I don’t know how to explain it, but the tentacle human gives me the feeling that even if Jinseong and I teamed up, we’d just end up dead.”
“What if we all went together?”
“…5 minutes, if we stretch it, maybe 10 minutes.”
“Huh? Isn’t that a joke boss?”
“Are you saying we’ll take it down in 10 minutes? That sounds pretty good…”
“We’ll be wiped out in 10 minutes.”
“…Oh…”
For 19 veteran A-grade hunters to be wiped out in 10 minutes… It was hard to believe.
The hunters gathered here were veterans who received their titles and had successfully cleared raid dungeons multiple times.
They didn’t overestimate their own strength, but at least had a sense of pride that they were not an inferior force anywhere. But if the most objective and reliable analyst, Choi Yooha, stated it like that, it meant there was really no hope as it stood.
“We need to rethink our strategies.”
“But what strategies can we come up with? There’s no way except to fight well…”
“Hey…”
“Huh? Damn, you scared me!”
“It’s a comrade, get used to it. We have identification marks, right?”
At that moment, a hunter with a fox face illusion, sitting quietly in the corner, raised their hand.
Just because it had a fox face didn’t mean it looked cute.
It was a distorted appearance that forcibly stretched and squeezed human bones and muscles to resemble a fox’s face.
“Weren’t there supposed to be 20 of us?”
“20? Yeah, there were definitely 20 of us when we started…”
In that instant, Jinseong, Yooha, and the other hunters realized that one of the 19 people gathered at Yeongwoljung was missing.
The silver-haired woman with a temporary hunter’s permit who had followed them into this dungeon.
The returnee, Isia, who had the eating habits of a pig, devouring the buffet for hours at Yeongwoljung, was nowhere to be seen.
“…Could she have already died?”
“The drone’s signal is jammed, we can’t even confirm if she’s dead.”
“She’s definitely alone somewhere, separated from us…”
The hunters sighed.
Just coming to such a dangerous place with a temporary hunter’s permit was a mistake in itself… They thought that, but they couldn’t just sit back and let someone die like that.
“She probably has a high chance of being dead already…”
“We should find her. We need to at least find a corpse and hold a funeral for her…”
“Then let’s set this Yeongwoljung as our base camp. Everyone, take out your supplies from the transport drones. If Isia is alive, we should light up Yeongwoljung as brightly as possible to make it visible.”
Thus, the hunters decided to go about doing what they could do in this dark dungeon.
—
“Hiiiiiing….”
There had been about 20 people, including myself, who had entered the dungeon at the same time, but what was with this unfamiliar landscape that greeted me upon arrival?
“Excuse me? Is anyone there?”
It’s a natural thing to say, but life isn’t that easy.
Sending creatures entering the dungeon to completely random locations is already something else.
Hiiing, no one is here….
Shia felt as if she went on a school trip and everyone else disappeared while she was in the restroom at a rest area.
The only saving grace was the transport drone, so there was no concern for food or supplies.
grrrr…
She clearly ate a lot at Yeongwoljung before coming, yet her stomach was already growling.
It didn’t make sense. No matter how much she loved eating, it hadn’t even been 5 hours since she had eaten at the hotel buffet.
She could eat more if she wanted, so why was she so hungry…
sniff sniff…!
Ah, what a pleasant smell.
It was then that Shia realized why she was feeling sudden hunger.
This dungeon was filled with malice and negativity.
From sending every living being to random locations upon entering the dungeon, to the complete absence of light and drowning in darkness.
From a human perspective, this dungeon appeared to be a malicious trap just by its very existence.
Naturally, the dungeon was abundantly filled with malice and negativity that Shia could feel.
slurp….
The smell of malice was palpable in the air, among the trees, the grass, and even the ground beneath her feet.
For other humans, it would feel like they had fallen into a terrifying, scary world of darkness, but from Shia’s perspective, it felt like she had entered a world of sweet and fragrant treats.
Had Shia really been starving, she might have buried her head into the dirt to lick it up.
That was how this raid dungeon stimulated her sweet tooth.
“Haa, it’s my first time seeing a dungeon that looks delicious… slurp lick”
knock, knock, knock!
In agreement with those words, the tentacles that shot from Shia’s waist began to lick their lips, even without her using a miracle.
This dungeon had no sun, nor even stars or moons to light the night sky, so her vision was quite severely limited, but oddly enough, she had a visibility range of roughly 2 to 3 meters around herself.
Even with the light from the transport drone illuminating the surroundings, it couldn’t shine beyond 3 meters, as if the darkness were devouring the light.
‘There’s no problem enhancing my senses with Seongnyeok. My body is moving normally too.’
Shia moved her body moderately, trying to look for the dispersed hunters.
It wasn’t just about eating… For now, she needed to find the other hunters first…
crack!
“Ow…”
At that moment, Shia felt something biting her leg and looked down.
Kee, kee, grrrr!
There was a grotesque human that had eyes taking up more than half of its face. The other half was filled with bizarre, sharp teeth, gnawing on Shia’s leg.
Thanks to Shia’s skin toughness being beyond steel, she was fine. If it had been another human or even an A-grade hunter who got bitten by those teeth, their flesh would have been instantly torn off.
However, the most dreadful thing was the grotesque appearance of that toothy human.
Just looking at it would sap away someone’s mental strength and inject pure, primal fear.
CRACK!
[?]
CRASH!
Of course, to Mangja Seongnyeo Shia, it was nothing more than a meal for one.
Not even a meal, more like a light snack.
CRACK! CRASH!
gulp!
KEEEEAAAAAHHHHH!!!!
The tentacles swiftly dashed and crushed the toothy human’s arms, legs, head, and body, gobbling them up.
It was the first time since devouring the Centipede Dragon that the tentacles expressed such joy over a meal.
By the way, the most disgusting food the tentacles had experienced recently was the butter oak pork belly and dungeon cabbage tossed with oyster sauce that Shia had made.
“Hey, was that tasty?”
CRACK, CRACK!
Instead of answering, the tentacles eagerly swallowed the malice contained in the toothy human.
The malice was so delicious that Shia could feel it transforming into Seongnyeok, filling her body.
“Haa… Ah… So good… Should I try eating some myself…”
But such rare malice-filled monsters wouldn’t be laying around.
That toothy human might have been a unique or mutated specimen.
“Huh?”
However, Shia realized that her good thoughts had been betrayed in a good way.
Ooo…
Aah…
Huuuh…
Crack…
Aah…
The distant approach was not just a presence?
A human crawling with its face split in half, brains and skull flowing out.
A human approaching on all fours with arms and legs stretched by several meters.
A winged creature staring directly at Shia with empty eye sockets.
A human wiggling its thin arms and legs like a bug, flicking a tongue at Shia.
And many more twisted human monsters were approaching Shia.
‘Uh… Did the toothy human’s scream earlier call them?’
Perhaps the scream from the toothy human that Shia’s tentacles had devoured attracted all the surrounding grotesque creatures.
But Shia didn’t find herself in a bind.
SVIMVFoanVzY1YwSVhjamMzUkt1YlNQM0x2SFdsOWFNSFowZVVwbkg2NDZOMjhoL2tZVTViSmc0V1JUS0huTg
“Heeheeheehee!!!”
Because already, the smell of malice that tickled her nose had Shia drooling.
“I’m ready to feast!”
What a benevolent and graceful dungeon this was!
Grateful, Shia opened her mouth in prayer to whatever god might be.
Ah, it looks so delicious.
It looks so delicious.
There’s no doubt that it tastes just like human flesh!
