Chapter 31
“Here, I found something that seems to belong to the client.”
Then the appraiser assesses the item, which appears to be human-made, to assist the guide of the explorers.
‘It’s a classic combination I haven’t seen in a while.’
Seeing a team that adheres to each role properly makes me feel good.
Since natural skills can’t be helped, most tracer teams can’t find people who can perfectly perform these classic roles.
Some teams employ three explorers, and some are composed solely of six meerkats.
It’s hard to say any setup is bad.
‘But there’s a reason why this combination is considered classic.’
People don’t know, but this combination was created by Johan in the past.
When the role of the early tracers wasn’t perfectly established, this combination was made to minimize sacrifices, and it’s still accepted as the classic approach.
“There are scorched marks here. It looks like they took a break here and then went further inside.”
The exploration proceeded smoothly.
Though slow, there was no particular need to step in, and Johan quietly monitored them from behind to ensure they didn’t go astray.
This pace seemed to be average for others.
“Hmm, this part is a bit confusing.”
The explorer was lost, unable to decide which way to go at a fork in the path.
Despite closely examining the entrance to the fork, they found no significant clues.
“Hmm. I can’t figure it out either. There’s no trace.”
The searcher also spent ten minutes but couldn’t find any notable issues.
Watching this frustrating scene, Johan finally spoke up.
Instantly, everyone’s eyes turned to Johan.
“Shine the light you’re holding on the ceiling.”
“What? On the ceiling?”
The explorer looked at Johan with a dissatisfied expression, feeling ignored.
“Didn’t you say you saw scorched marks on the wall earlier?”
“Yes, but…”
“A person in a desperate situation wouldn’t have made a proper fire. They probably burned their clothes or something, which would have produced bad smoke.”
“Oh, you mean!”
“They must have deliberated at this point, just like us. A fire made in an abnormal way leaves traces, like smell or black ashes.”
The explorer, sensing something from Johan’s words, directed the light towards the ceiling.
Sure enough, there were unmistakable black marks on the ceiling, guiding the way.
The trace continued to the left.
“Wow, there really are traces.”
“How did you notice this right away? Did you check it out separately?”
The eyes of the explorer and searcher were filled with amazement.
Typically, traces are found on the ground, so looking up at the ceiling is uncommon.
This means it’s rare for someone to examine the ceiling like Johan.
“I inferred it from the clues you gave. Thanks to you for finding the clues.”
The way they looked at Johan changed slightly.
Some had harbored slight doubts about Johan, who hadn’t done anything up to that point.
“Wow, you’re really different. A tracker leader is truly different.”
“I’m not a leader, just a former leader.”
It was pure admiration without any malice.
“I’ve seen quite a few explorers so far, but I haven’t seen anyone as quick to grasp the situation as you, Johan. You were itching to say something, weren’t you?”
“…Did it show?”
“If I didn’t notice, I’d be an idiot.”
“Thanks to someone who taught me well. Really, I need to curb this military pride.”
“Heh, you’re still just a man, huh? But it’s true, this knowledge was useful. We wouldn’t have known how to use it.”
Thanks to the redirected path, they found the client within two hours. It took a total of five hours.
The explorer, having confirmed Johan’s abilities, looked to him whenever they hit a snag, and Johan, as if it was nothing, provided clues each time.
Towards the end, Johan essentially took on the role of the explorer.
“Uh, may I handle the corpse?”
Seeing the carrier take out a wrapping cloth, he urgently raised his hand.
“It’s fine, but why?”
Instead of answering, Johan summoned a coffin.
‘I guess it’s okay to show this much.’
Thunk
A heavy, resounding coffin appeared.
“Wh-what is that?”
“Why a coffin all of a sudden?”
“Johan, did you get a job at a funeral home?”
Those who saw the coffin flinched.
To ordinary people, a coffin is certainly an unfamiliar item, usually only seen at funerals.
“Well, let’s call it a job characteristic. Let’s save on the cost of wrapping cloth.”
The carrier didn’t object. As Johan said, the cost of the cloth wasn’t insignificant, and saving it was the best option.
They carefully placed the corpse into the coffin. He didn’t absorb the corpse as he usually did.
“[One corpse is stored. Acquired 4 stat points.]”
With a sense of relief, I poured all the points into perception and savored the rising euphoria.
It had been a long and arduous week.
“I’ll never live like this again. This isn’t something a human should do.”
From tomorrow, I would never take on two commissions in a single day again.
Handling two jobs in one day was far more mentally exhausting than expected.
“Uh, uh? The flow of magic is becoming a bit strange? The magic is suddenly amplifying. This isn’t good.”
That was when it happened.
The carrier checked the fluctuating readings on the detector and shouted. Judging by his expression, the fluctuating values seemed quite severe.
“We need to get out quickly. It looks like it’s about to go out of control!”
Everyone’s attention was focused on the detector. The values fluctuated wildly from 0 to 100, something Johan had never seen before.
“It’s impossible, how can the values fluctuate like this?”
In a low-level dungeon, an outburst usually raises the value to around 30. In a mid-level one, it typically goes up to about 50.
Since this was a D-grade dungeon, it was normal for the value to rise between 40 and 50.
A rise to 100, as it was now, only occurred during the cataclysmic times in a level 5 dungeon outburst.
“Damn it, something’s seriously wrong. Let’s move quickly before the portal goes haywire!”
At Johan’s shout, everyone pulled themselves together and started running.
Thinking their lives were at stake made everyone hurry.
Uoom—
The outburst, initially measured only by the device, began affecting the dungeon as well. Soon, the entire dungeon shook, disturbing everyone’s balance.
A chill ran down Johan’s spine, and he instinctively sped up.
“We’ve come too far. Can we get out before the outburst starts?”
“Let’s just try. The path is clear, so it shouldn’t take too long.”
“Everyone, stay focused. If we collapse here, we’re dead!”
Yangmu awakened everyone’s spirits with a voice infused with magic.
Yangmu also knew that despair was a luxury in this situation.
They cleared the fork. The remaining distance was about 15 minutes at full speed.
Another tremor reverberated. This one was of a different kind from before.
“No way.”
Johan turned around. The tremor came from the fork they had not taken.
“Everyone, ready your weapons!”
This isn’t good. The vibrations felt through his senses were short and irregular.
It meant a large number of monsters were being summoned.
“Acid Ants!”
Ants, about one meter in size, poured out in droves.
Monstrous ants with powerful jaws.
Known as the terror of the caves, these monsters had acidic poison in their bodies and numbered in the hundreds.
“Everyone, don’t slow down, keep running! I’ll hold them off!”
Yangmu stopped and turned around.
His resolute eyes conveyed his determination to slow down the monsters, even at the cost of his life.
Yangmu pulled out a scythe from his subspace.
No, it was too massive to be called a scythe.
The enormous scythe, over two meters long, resembled the one carried by the Grim Reaper.
“Mowing Slash.”
He swung the scythe horizontally. The thin legs of the ants were cut like straw.
With a swift backward step, Yangmu retreated.
Crash
The ants with severed legs collapsed helplessly.
The rushing ants tripped over the fallen ones, continuing to tumble like dominoes.
“Harvest.”
Magic flowed into the scythe. Moving diagonally, the scythe precisely struck the thin bodies of the ants.
With a clear cutting sound, the heads of over ten ants fell.
A friendly word, but quite a brutal effect.
“Rapid Growth.”
Yangmu immediately took a seed from his pocket and scattered it on the ground.
The seed was no ordinary one; it drilled into the ground like a drill, quickly taking root and sprouting, producing large leaves.
The leaves, as hard as steel, blocked the dungeon.
All this happened in just five seconds.
“Yangmu, are you thinking of becoming a farmer?”
Jobs are somewhat related to what one did before the cataclysm.
Come to think of it, Yangmu’s skin did look quite tanned.
“He has all the qualities of a perfect guard.”
Even Johan was impressed by the clean execution.
The solid leaves did not collapse even against the ants’ charge.
“Let’s go. It won’t hold for long, but it will buy us some time.”
Yangmu started running again. Johan followed, checking the state of the leaves.
Meanwhile, the vibrations of the portal grew stronger. It was strong enough to make the person ahead of him stumble.
“There it is! I see the portal!”
Running without a break, the portal finally came into view.
The portal seemed to be urging them to hurry.
Crash
At that moment, the ceiling above the portal began to collapse.
We have to get out, we have to pass through the portal.
The ceiling was collapsing too fast.
Only 100 meters left, but the portal was already half-covered by falling debris.
90 meters, 80 meters, 50 meters,
“No!”
Right in front of their eyes, it completely collapsed. The portal was buried under a massive pile of rocks, leaving no trace.
“It’s blocked, the path is blocked…”
“Move the rocks! Yangmu and I can clear the big ones!”
I shouted louder. Stopping here meant nothing would work out.
I’ve worked so hard to increase my stats; I can’t die in such a trivial place.
There are too many things to do to die so meaninglessly.
A loud explosion resounded from behind. It was the sound of the leaves breaking under the ants’ assault.
‘I need to find a way out. Either Yangmu or I must handle the ants while the other clears the rocks.’
There was no choice but to split up. Here, only Yangmu and I could handle the ants with force.
Efficiency-wise, it was better for me to deal with the ants. Especially since no one would see.
“Yangmu, I’ll handle the ants. You clear the rocks.”
“What are you talking about? I should handle the ants! You’re an F-rank…”
“Don’t worry. I’ve gotten quite strong, so I won’t die to some ants.”
“You, really…!”
“The team will listen to you better than to me. Let’s just think about efficiency right now.”
Yangmu bit his lip and nodded heavily. He knew this was the best option.
“Don’t worry. It was my choice to come in here with you.”
I ran towards the rapidly approaching vibrations. I needed to get there before they got too close to fight comfortably.
In a twisted part of the cave where my figure was completely obscured, I took my position and unfolded my coffin.
In the distance, I saw the red eyes of the ants gleaming.
‘The ceiling is high enough that summoning Tau won’t cause it to collapse.’
“Wait a minute! There’s something here!”
Just as I was about to open the coffin, I heard the cleaner’s voice from behind.
The desperate shout made me flinch too.
“This is, isn’t this a portal? It’s a portal!”
“A portal?”
The unexpected words halted the battle. They hadn’t even cleared all the rocks, yet they found a portal?
Johan poked his head out and looked back.
And there it was, the portal, humming and asserting its presence.
“A portal really exists?”
Even Johan, who had been in more dungeons than out over the past eight years, had never seen anything like this.
Two portals appearing simultaneously.
Could the portal buried in the rocks have vanished?
No, even if it had vanished, would it create another one?
Johan couldn’t answer the bizarre phenomenon.
Yangmu answered instead.
“Wait! We can’t just go in without knowing what kind of portal it is. We should investigate…”
“What investigation? We need someone to enter to investigate anyway! It’s better to go to an unknown place than die here!”
The scout fearlessly entered the portal, not knowing where it led.
As he said, to investigate the portal, someone would have to go in anyway.
A quick decision might be the better solution.
“Damn it, I’ll go in too. Better than dying here like a dog!”
The meerkat followed into the portal, and neither returned after 10 seconds.
Maybe it was safer than expected.
“Should we go in? The portal doesn’t seem unstable, so it should be fine.”
With two people already inside, the remaining members of the dungeon began to waver.
Seeing no one returning, they believed immediate safety was guaranteed.
“Let’s go. It’s better than facing an unknown number of ants.”
Johan also decided it was better to go in. The probability was 50%.
Either die or not.
Staying here meant an 80% chance of dying, so theoretically, it was a much better choice.
“We have no choice. Let’s hope it’s a safe place.”
Yangmu also entered the portal.
Johan, the last one remaining, opened the coffin and brought out Deji to stop the approaching ant horde.
“Deji, collapse the wall.”
Deji, wagging his tail, swung his claws at the wall indiscriminately.
The ceiling near the entrance was significantly lower than elsewhere, so a few rocks could sufficiently block the space.
Crash
The rocks fell. The sight of the rushing ants completely disappeared.
The rocks, closely packed together, wouldn’t be easily moved.
“This should be a good insurance.”
If something dangerous happened inside, he could escape here.
Johan wasn’t foolish enough to let his pride stop him from escaping.
After sending Deji back in, he stepped into the portal. The temperature under his feet indicated it wasn’t the worst place.
Swoosh—
Johan eventually disappeared completely.
As everyone vanished, the rampage abruptly stopped.
The ants returned to their places as if nothing had happened.
Only a suffocating silence remained in the now-empty dungeon.
