The Parker family!
Ever since the gates opened and monsters and magic power started pouring into Earth, hundreds of new industries sprung up. A single core of a monster made it possible to generate electricity hundreds or thousands of times more efficiently than before. Moreover, monster by-products opened a new horizon of material engineering and biotechnology.
The Parker family was one of the rapidly growing chaebol families at this time. The famous pharmaceutical biotechnology company ‘Kaiza’ and the artifacts company ‘Fable’ were subsidiaries of Parker Industries, a family-owned company. Richard Parker was the youngest son of its president. In other words, he was a third-generation chaebol hunter.
Perhaps this was why the porter Cleton flattered Richard with every word. Richard never stopped him, either. Instead, he just delightfully listened.
“What flattery? Without the team leader, I would’ve been too scared to come here. How else would have I found the courage to come to a C-grade dungeon?”
“Aish. There are other hunters.”
“Honestly, the other hunters are a bit... Of course, they’re also outstanding, but aren’t they nothing compared to you? They’re ranked lower, after all. The team leader is B-grade, while the others are C-grade. You serve as this team’s core, team leader.”
“Well, that’s right.”
The other C-grade hunters frowned at the sight.
“What’s that guy saying just to stick up to the team leader?”“He’s so obvious with his flattery.”
"Ugh. His temper is good. He is deliberately listening to that pretentious young master.”
The Ganes team had terrible teamwork. Despite being their leader, Richard Parker had no leadership skills. Every time the young man spoke, he was smug and cocky! No matter how good a hunter was, they still should manage their teammates who shared the same joy and sorrow in the dungeon. However, Richard wasn’t even aware he should do that. That was why the other hunters on the team didn’t like the arrogant Richard at all.
“Is everyone ready?”
“Yes!”
“Don’t worry, team leader!”
The moment Richard approached and spoke to them, the hunters changed their expressions. It was as if they weren’t just insulting him. Richard was conceited, but he was a solid B-grade hunter. Above all, he was backed by the Parker family. Following him came with a lot of great benefits. He even won this highly sought-after dungeon. The benefits they got were enough for them to put up with him even though he was unlucky.
When Richard walked away looking pleased, the hunters started to talk behind his back again.
“That jerk is probably flattering him because the young master personally paid for and hired him.”
“How much did he pay?”
“Probably over $100,000.”
“Crazy. $100,000 just to carry some luggage? So that’s why he’s groveling that much.”
No one disputed it, though, since Richard paid him from his own pocket to hire him as a personal porter. They stopped grumbling and prepared to enter the dungeon. Since they could only bring what they were carrying to the dungeons, they had to fill their luggage as much as possible. Hence, their dungeon-tailored backpacks were filled to the brim with small packages of emergency food and various tools.
“What? You... I think this is my first time seeing that knife.”
“I just bought it. It has the 1st-circle magic, ‘Strengthened Cutting Power,’ attached to it as a magic enhancement.”
“Wow. Wasn’t it quite expensive?”
“Stop chatting, everyone! We’re entering.”
The hunters touched the door of the dungeon. Then a message window popped up asking if they wanted to enter.
-Enter.
[Admission limit: 10 people.]
[Admission limit: 9 people.]
[Admission limit: 8 people.]
As they headed inside, the admission limit changed. Soon, the dungeon’s remaining time stopped.
[Time remaining: 2 weeks, 10 hours, and 32 minutes.]
For as long as someone was in the dungeon, its countdown would stop. Once they were all inside, the public servant nodded and wrote a brief report.
“Hit enter... Olay. Send... Huh? H-huh?”
The public servant dropped the tablet he was holding. He looked perplexed. The door of the Dazzling Demon’s Mirror dungeon suddenly started to grow. Having worked in this industry for quite some time now, he gained the ability to measure a dungeon’s rating with his eyes to some extent.
Considering the door’s size…
It should be a B-grade at least. At worst, it could even be an A-grade!
“Boss! We’ve got a serious problem!” Panicking, the public servant called his boss. This wasn’t a problem that he could solve.
***
“This seems wide. It looks a bit suspicious.”
“It’s fine as long as it isn’t an underground cave. I hate underground caves the most.”
A dungeon’s terrain was completely random. It could be a narrow underground cave or a vast meadow. Nobody liked fighting in small places. The Dazzling Demon’s Mirror was like the ruins of a former temple. Its vast wasteland was riddled with torn-down temple buildings. There was a high possibility that monsters were hiding in the temple.
“Shall we start looking for the exit?”
There were two ways to escape from a dungeon: get rid of the boss monster that held the dungeon’s core or find an exit connected to the outside world. Clearing it required the former, but it was ideal to know where the exit was in case of failure. After all, nobody knew for sure what could happen in realms like this.
“Yes. You have to find an exit.”
“By myself...?”
“What? You should be able to do it alone. The rest will immediately look for the boss monster since this dungeon has so many ruins.”
“I understand.”
The rest of the team agreed with Richard. Considering they were in a C-grade dungeon, finding the boss monster was a far better choice than investing so much time in finding the exit. Not wasting time in a dungeon was a no-brainer.
-Light!
-Low-grade Speed Enhancement.
-Low-grade Reflexes Enhancement.
Each of the hunters used their own magic to strengthen themselves. They didn’t know when a monster would appear, so they had to be prepared.
-Keeek...
“A ghoul!”
“Ghouls are slow and dull. They're weak.”
“I’ll kill it. Fire Arrow!”
Fire Arrow, a 2nd-circle magic, was enough to get rid of ghouls, which were F-grade monsters.
“Why did it have to be a ghoul?”
“They don’t even have that much value.”
“Get the core and bear with it.”
A monster’s core wasn’t the only thing they could profit from. The by-products were also valuable. Unfortunately, ghouls’ by-products weren’t worth that much.
“There’s more of them! Get your magic ready! What are you doing? Are you still not sober from the alcohol you drank yesterday?”
“Hey, you jerk. Why aren’t you casting B-grade magic?”
“Shut up. I heard you.”
The hunters grumbled. As C-grade hunters, they could use 4th-circle magic. However, this didn’t mean they could freely use lower-circle magic. Even using the 2nd-circle magic Fire Arrow just three or four times would require them to rest afterward.
“Ugh....” One of the hunters groaned. The moment he ran out of magic power, he felt nauseous and his vision shook. He was suffering from a condition known as Magic Power Motion Sickness!
“Hey. Get out of the way. I’m going.”
“Damn... Say that to my face later.”
“......”
“What? Why aren’t you doing anything? Start casting already!”
“That... What is that?”
“......??”
One by one, the hunters started to realize that something was wrong. Everything was going so well until several ghouls started coming out of the nearby ruins. Before they knew it, ghouls had covered the wasteland all the way to its end. There were at least thousands of them!
“!!!!”
“T-This sh—?!”
The ghouls were slow and dull, so it would take a few hours for them to get here, but there was nowhere for the hunters to run.
“Team leader! Team leader! What should we do?”
“U-Uh... Wait a minute!”
Taken aback, Richard Parker was speechless. That was only natural. He had a B-grade rating, but he obtained that with the support of his family’s money. He had magic skills, but he had only ever cleared E-grade and D-grade dungeons! He couldn’t stop his mind from blanking out.
‘What should I do? Wide-area magic? No, I wouldn’t even come close to killing all of them. Is there no escape? They’re coming from all directions...’
“Team leader! Let’s escape into the ruins!”
“The ruins?”
“We can’t fight them on the open plains, can we?!”
The most experienced C-grade hunter, Canean, gave his opinion. Richard Parker nodded. In this opinion, he’d gladly listen to anyone.
“Get inside!”
The other hunters hurriedly followed.
A wave of ghouls! No hunter would want to confront this.
***
“Ughh. Ugh. Gasp!”
Odaigon held back the rising nausea. Entering a dungeon was usually difficult. Nevertheless, Choi Yeonseung didn’t even blink once.
‘As expected of Master!’
Odaigon didn’t know that Choi Yeonseung had been tempered in the magical storm.
“Look for the dungeon exit.”
“Yes. Give me a moment, and I’ll pinpoint its location.”
It didn’t matter whether he had to find the dungeon exit, defeat the boss, or meet special clearance requirements. Odaigon was confident. He would show off his power to his master!
“... This place has a foul smell. Ghouls?”
“!”
Odaigon cast flying magic and vision enhancement magic at Choi Yeonseung’s words. Thousands of ghouls were tightly surrounding the ruins.
“You’re right, Master! Considering the ghouls’ numbers, there’s probably a being here that wields powerful black magic.”
Since there weren’t just one or two ghouls but thousands of them, someone had to be controlling them with black magic.
There were many Abyss races and even monsters that could use black magic. Nevertheless, Odaigon was confident. He had his pride as the goblin king!
“If you allow me, I’ll wipe them out right away!”
He just needed to cast a 7th-circle wide-area magic to tear all the ghouls apart!
“I appreciate your enthusiasm, Odaigon, but... Since the ghouls are surrounding the ruins, doesn’t that mean there’s a possibility that someone’s inside?”
“!!”
Odaigon was flustered. He couldn’t believe he didn’t notice something so obvious!
“As expected, Master’s eyes...”
“Odaigon. No more flattery.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s go. Don’t use magic.”
Ghouls were such weak monsters that there was no need for him to use concentrated energy. Choi Yeonseung delivered a powerful strike, shoving away the nearby ghouls and sending them flying as if they were caught in a typhoon.
“!”
“Master. What’s wrong?”
“......”
“Master?”
Odaigon was startled. Choi Yeonseung was trembling silently. Was there something wrong?
“Look at this, Odaigon.”
Choi Yeonseung picked up the emergency food wrapper that had fallen to the ground and waved it.
“What is that?”
“This is what humans eat”
“You eat something like this? No matter how I look at it, it doesn’t seem edible...”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Choi Yeonseung clenched his fists.
“What’s important is that those trapped here are humans!”
Nearby faint footprints and emergency food wrappers. From what he could deduce, this dungeon’s raiding party seemed to have encountered too many ghouls and was forced to run inside.
‘Isn’t this an A-grade dungeon? They’ve got to be one of the best parties if they have the guts to raid this place.”
It was normal for A-grade or above hunters to raid A-grade dungeons, but...
Even A-grade hunters didn’t like A-grade dungeons due to how dangerous they were! Clearing B-grade dungeons earned them enough money, so why bother with A-grade dungeons? Either their party was full of ambition and confidence or...
‘The dungeon deceived them.’
The dungeon could’ve been more difficult than they had estimated! Such cases were rare, but they did happen. And when they did, the raiding party could as well be considered deceased. It was practically impossible for low-level hunters to clear a high-level dungeon.
“I need to save them, Odaigon.”
“Understood!” Odaigon shouted in an expectant voice. He would show his abilities no matter what he was asked to do!
“Can you transform?”
“Huh?”
“If you go there looking like that, there’s a high chance you’ll be mistaken for a monster...”
“......”
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