by Elan Wang
Song Hansol got up. The other hunters moved away too.
Judging from the situation, luckily I wasn’t too late.
“Are you alright?”
“..Do I look alright?”
The girl responded with a quavering voice. Her face was covered in fresh bruises. Her lip was busted and blood was freely trickling out.
I raised my head to stare daggers at Song Hansol.
“What is the meaning of this?”
Song Hansol was not looking at me. He looked at Kim Youngchul and said.
“Kim Youngchul. You piece of shit. Didn’t I tell you to go around the dungeon? It took you just 20 minutes to go around the whole dungeon? Huh?”
“I, I was going but I hurt my leg…”
“It looks fine to me.”
“Ah, it hurts. It’s swollen so I can’t even walk on it right.”
He responded over hiccups. It was obvious to anyone that he was lying. And quite horribly too.
“Ah. Whatever. Youngchul you go over there for a minute.”
“Why, why?”
“I said go!”
Song Hansol was almost screeching now. Kim Youngchul squirmed a bit before walking towards Mr. Jung.
“Mr. Jung take Youngchul and leave.”
“Yes. Understood.”
“I, I don’t want to go.”
“You want to die? What did I just say? You think I’m a chump?”
“No..that’s not it…”
“Then what?!”
Smack!
Song Hansol smacked the stalactites in front of him hard.
They came off in pieces almost as big as his arm and fell to the ground of the cave.
“Mr. Jung! Hurry up and take him and leave!”
“Ah, Yes. Yes sir.”
“And until I come out, don’t come in here.”
Mr. Jung took the resistant Youngchul and left the cave. I held the frightened girl and waited to see what would come next.
It wasn’t going to be good. If Kim Youngchul and Mr. Jung were gone, there was no one to stop this crazed maniac.
“Ha.”
Song Hansol gave a sigh as if he couldn’t believe any of this was happening.
The other idiot hunters were scared too, judging from the situation, and kept their mouths shut.
Then finally Song Hansol spoke.
“You. Shit. You’re interesting. You know that?”
Shling.
He had taken his sword out.
“Hey Jungbeh.”
“Yeah?”
“Have you ever killed a person before?”
“N…no…”
“Let’s do it today.”
Song Hansol turned to see the two idiots’ reactions before coming towards us. There was nowhere for us to go except closer to the wall behind us.
Shiiiiit! Is this bastard serious?!
Sparkle.
First things first, my eyes landed on the sparking golden bow as I searched around for a weapon of some kind. Kim Youngchul had left his Athena’s bow in my backpack.
This thoughtful little kid.
Tap.
I hurriedly ran toward it and grabbed it.
“What?”
As soon as pulled on the string of the bow, an arrow appeared.
“I’m pretty sure you already know how powerful this bow is. If you don’t want to get hurt, we should just drop the whole thing right now.”
“This bastard…if you don’t want to die right now you’ll drop that bow.”
“I’m not an idiot.”
I swallowed my nonexistent spit and observed him to see what he would do next. Song Hansol was fast. If I took my eyes off him for even a second, I was a goner.
A small smile crept into the creep’s face.
“Yeh? But whatever shall we do? I’m not an idiot either.”
“What…?”
“That arrow. It doesn’t kill people. Did you think I wouldn’t know that?”
He knew it. Of course he knew. He was in the same party as the owner.
“So that’s all you know? You don’t know the rest then?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know how much this bow is worth right?”
“It’s worth more than you’ll ever see in your poverty-ridden lifetime, that’s for sure.”
“What do you think will happen if I die?”
I pulled out a small dagger from my pocket and put it next to my neck. It was something I usually pack with me just in case.
“If you die in a dungeon then the item that you have…wait a minute. You’re trying to hold that bow hostage?”
“Correctomundo. I know you could care less for my life, but this bow. If this bow disappears then it’s a big deal right?”
Athena’s bow was worth 20 million dollars. You wouldn’t do anything rash just because you were mad and risk throwing away 20 million dollars…unless you were either crazy or retarded.
I prayed to the gods that he wasn’t that crazy. Or stupid.
It was quiet. Park Jungebeh finally spoke.
“Hey. Let’s drop it. Shit. There’s no point in doing this here. We can beat the crap out of him outside or something.”
“Yeh. There’s no point in doing something and risk losing that bow. We’re going to get our asses handed to us if we lose it.”
“Shit! Shut up! Let me think.”
Tap.
Song Hansol tapped his finger before making a nasty smile.
I’m just saying, but that smile was the most disgusting looking one I’ve ever seen in all my life. No lie. I swear.
“What…?”
Tap!
That bastard moved so fast at that moment. I scooted back from surprise.
But his aim wasn’t to get me but to get the girl porter who was collapsed there on the ground.
“Ah ahhhk!”
“What are you doing? She has nothing to do with any of this!”
“Be quiet. Sooah. It’ll all be over soon.”
Song Hansol put his sword’s blade to her neck and started to tease.
“Heu, heuuk?”
“Now. Your life or her life. Which one?”
“…what?”
“Weren’t you going to commit suicide anyway? If you’re going to do it, then do the world a favor and do it.”
“This…bastard.”
There was about 5 meters of distance between Song Hansol and me. No matter how fast I moved, there was no way I could stop this psycho. No, I wouldn’t even be able to shake off these too morons on either side of me to begin with.
“Then. Just drop that bow and kill yourself. I’m telling you, now this is fact, if you kill yourself while holding that bow I WILL kill her for sure. Ah Ah. Now what are you going to do? Hmm?”
“Don’t make me laugh. If this bow disappears, we both know you’re in for it. And if two porters die, you think it won’t bite you in the ass?”
“I’m sure it will. But so what? You think I’ll go to prison over it?”
“If two porters die, even if you are from money, you won’t get away with it scot free.”
“It seems you don’t know how things work. This is a dungeon. No matter who dies, it’ll be hard to find out why. You could have die at the hands of a goblin. Who’s to say otherwise?”
“This piece of shit…”
“Keu Keu Keu. Cuss all you want. You won’t be able to cuss anymore in a short while.”
As soon as Song Hansol gestured with his chin, both gorillas started heading toward me.
Then everything went dark.
“What the hell?”
Song Hansol looked around in bewilderment. Ah. I know what happened. The dungeon had reset.
Wait. The dungeon reset? How is that possible? A dungeon can only reset when the entire party leaves.
Raaaaawwr.
A sudden roar rung out in the darkness. It was a sound I’d heard before.
“Wait a minute…”
Thud!
On the opposi
te side of the cave was a huge monster thudding about. I could make it our from the torchlight. It was a big monster over 3 meters tall. It was a similar class as the monster we had met a few hours ago.
“What, what is that?”
“I don’t know. It can’t be a level 1 monster though right?”
Song Hansol was breathing shallowly from fear.
I couldn’t figure out how and why that monster appeared here. But I can’t say I hated it. I mean. Could it get any worse from here?
Creaak.
I pulled the bow. As soon as I did, a golden arrow appeared. Song Hansol stared at me with wide eyes.
Ha ha. I liked that look on him.
“No…no!”
“Yes. You shithead.”
Whing!
I shot the arrow.
Thud.
The arrow had hit the monster’s shoulder. Athena’s bow was a level 4 weapon. Though it’s damage points were not high because it had the option of not hurting humans, it should have been enough to at least hurt that monster.
Ahhhhhhkk!
The monster whipped its head around in this direction. At the same instant I threw the bow to Park Jungbeh. And that moron caught it. It seemed he didn’t have the balls to drop something worth 20 million dollars.
“What, what the hell? Shit!”
Keuuuuuuu….
The monster had its eyes fixed on Park Jungbeh. Not only was that arrow already shiny enough to draw attention, but having been hit by it…of course it would stare at the owner.
Holding the bow in his hands, Park Jungbeh seemed at a loss for what to do….then he started walking to Song Hansol.
“Han, hansol? What do I do with this?”
“I, I don’t know. You bastard. Go away!”
Song Hansol glanced at the monster before slowly trying to get away. He probably knew. That that monster was not something he could handle with his level. Even with Mr. Jung and Youngchul combined, they probably wouldn’t be able to bring this beast down.
Rawwwwrrr!
“Ahhhk!”
“Ah shit! Throw that shit to the ground and run!”
“Do you know how much this is?”
“Is it more important than your life? Just toss it!”
When the monster roared again, Song Hansol dashed away screaming at the top of his lungs. Park Jungbeh lost all his qualms about the expensive weapon and tossed it before running after his friend while also screaming aloud. But this was after the monster already fixed itself to Jungbeh.
Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!
“Ahhhhh! Shiiit! It’s following us!!”
“You psychos! Stop following me!”
“There’s no other way except here! You bastard! Trying to get away by yourself!”
The monster was catching up rapidly with its enormous legs and the three of them were running and cursing eachother at the same time. Thanks guys. Thanks for leading the monster away from me without my having to ask.
“Haa haaa.”
Jung Sooah was shivering with fear on the floor where the idiots had dropped her before running. I grabbed the bow from the floor and hooked it over my shoulder. Then went to grab her hand and help her up.
“Get up. There’s no time to waste here. If those idiots get eaten, we’re next.”
“One moment…let me just pull myself together.”
She closed her eyes for a minute and took a few deep breaths before she slowly got up.
“Let’s go.”
“Are you alright?”
“I think I’m a bit better now. I hope those bastards become monster food and die.”
“Seems you recovered pretty fast.”
“Ha! I can still feel my heart racing like a jackhammer! I might have gotten trauma from all this.”
“Might have?”
“Thanks to you I’m better than I might have been. Honestly you were in more danger than I was.”
“I guess.”
I nodded my head. It was all pretty crazy now that I think about it.
“How can you be so calm?”
“I don’t know. I guess maybe because I’d been in plenty of life and death situations before?”
“Ah is that so? I guess a porter’s life is really dangerous. Ah ah. If I had known it would be like this, I wouldn’t have done it. Why did I go through years of training for something like this? You know, I really tried hard to become a real porter?”
“One day all your hard work will pay off.”
“One day….sheesh. I hope so.”
She outstretched her arms for a moment before slowly walking ahead. It seemed she was physically trying to shrug off what had happened and I took comfort in her resilience.
“What are you doing? Aren’t you coming?”
***
As soon as we came out of the dungeon, we saw Youngchul and Mr. Jung waiting outside. I handed the bow over to the young lad and said.
“That piece of…Song Hansol…what happened to him?”
“I don’t know. The dungeon got dark out of nowhere so we ran out. Mr. Jung was just about to go back in but you guys came out.”
“What happened? What happened to the other young masters?”
“Who knows. Maybe they died. What does it have to do with me?”
How would I know. We didn’t see them on the way out. Maybe they got eaten up. No. I hope they got eaten up.
Mr. Jung’s eyes rolled back as he grabbed my collar.
“You. You killed them.”
“I should have.”
“What? This bastard…!”
“Stop it!”
Kim Youngchul came in between me and Mr. Jung. Mr. Jung couldn’t do anything further but let go of my collar. Kim Youngchul spoke in my direction.
“I know you don’t want to say. But a person’s life might be at stake. Can you please tell us what happened?”
“…while we were going at it, the dungeon got dark. At first, we thought the dungeon was reset but it wasn’t. Instead a level 4 monster appeared out of nowhere. After that, I don’t remember anything else honestly. I ran away with Sooah while I figured they came out safely before us since they had run off ahead.”
“Is, is that true?”
Mr. Jung’s expression was desperate. He was worried about his pay. If something had actually happened to Song Hansol then his life was probably over. In a way, you had to feel sorry for him too.
“In any case did you report it?”
I asked Kim Youngchul.
“Yeah. They said they would arrive within 10 minutes so they should be here any moment now.”
In a few minutes, a hunter wearing some expensive looking armor arrived. He was probably in his mid 30s.
“I received a call about an incident at a dungeon.”
He spoke in Mr. Jung’s direction. There were about 20 lookeeloos and a bunch of civil servants running around as if they were chickens with their heads cut off.
“A level 4 monster has appeared inside.”
“Please save our young masters. Please.”
Mr. Jung and I had spoken out at the same time.
“Hm. Something like this happened here too? I will take care of it so don’t worry.”
He spoke as he glanced at me.
“How did you know it was a level 4?”
“I had run into a similar monster recently.”
“Hm..when?”
“About five hours ago.”
“Is that so. Pretty impressive to see that you’re still alive after running into a level 4 monster twice in one day. Oh yeah. I’m just saying this as a warning but it might be best if you didn’t go into a dungeon for a while.”
“Can I ask why?”
“Recently there have been a number of cases where monsters not within the dungeons’ level have appeared. In just this country alone there have been about several hundred victims due to such cases.”
“Oh my…”
“Something like this hasn’t happened in decades. If this isn
’t an isolated case and keeps happening, then dungeons will no longer be a place people can go.”
I frowned at his words. This would mean a stop to all dungeon exploration. And my job as a porter would be at risk.
***
Only Song Hansol and Park Jungbeh made it out alive. The other hunter was found dead with only a partial body recovered. I had hoped that Song Hansol bastard would have died but he was pretty fast so I didn’t expect it to happen that way.
Kim Youngchul told me he would be my witness so he told me to call if I needed him. But I knew what would happen. Song Hansol would probably hire an attorney for a crapload of money. Even if I took out all my savings, all I had was 80,000 dollars to my name. There was no way I could win a case against him. Even if I were to win, that would cause problems too. Who would use a porter that had won a case against a hunter? Jung Sooah probably thought the same.
But there was an even bigger issue.
All dungeon raids for leisure were paused due to this event until further notice. That meant I would have no means of income for over a month. I thought about going to a job market but tossed that idea. There wouldn’t be a job suitable for a porter there.
“Whew.”
I blew out a sigh as I opened the drawer to my desk. I glanced at the skillbook. If I sold this, I would probably be ok.
A month ago, the day of the incident, I had put up the skillbook at the hunter market right away. But it didn’t sell so I had to take it back down.
The price I had put it up for was 10,000 dollars. I had thought it was a pretty cheap price but there wasn’t even one person willing to buy it. There were a few people who saw the level 0 and thought it interesting. Some offered a few hundred dollars. I could have sold it for that much but I thought it was a waste especially for a skillbook. Even if it was only level 0, it WAS a skillbook after all.
On the other hand, they probably thought it was obvious to only sell it for a few hundred. Probably because most skillbooks weren’t unique. There were usually a few of them laying around. For that reason, people usually knew what each skillbook could do. But this one. This one was one of a kind.
There was no way anyone would pay 10,000 dollars for a 0 level skillbook that no one even knew what it could do.
“Ha…what to do. There isn’t anyone who wants to buy it.”
I thought maybe I should lower the price some more. If I thought rationally, it made sense. There was a person who had offered 3,000 dollars. That’s a lot of money. But for a skillbook, it was much too low. If someone learned this skillbook and found out it had some amazing skill in it, then I would beat myself up too much.