A dark, damp underground mineshaft.
Acrid earth dust that stung the nose and the raw, fishy smell of blood filled the cramped space.
Oh Cheol-woo crouched on one knee and rummaged through the goblin corpse sprawled across the floor. He lifted the damp leather armor, removed the crude iron dagger clumsily tied beneath it, and tossed it into his sack.
CLANG.
Rusted, chipped weapons struck against one another with a dull sound.
"Hey. Oh Cheol-woo. We are heading up first."
A hunter with a bulging backpack called out from some distance away.
Behind him stood the others, already prepared to withdraw after collecting the mana stones and valuable boss byproducts. They were members of the recovery team, tasked with cleaning up after the advance raid team had swept through.
They had long since cleared out all the good items near the dungeon entrance.
"We have more or less filled the quota, so you can clean up the rest of the scraps and come after us. Do not drag your feet for no reason and make it late."
"Understood. Please be careful on your way up."
Cheol-woo answered calmly, brushing the dirt from his gloves.
The hunter who had spoken glanced at Cheol-woo once, snorted, and turned away.
"Of course he is a perpetual E-rank. He spends his life picking up worthless bits of metal like that, so no wonder he will stay like that forever. Am I wrong?"
"Leave him alone. He has to work hard as a porter somehow if he wants to put food on the table. Ugh, pitiful, really, stuck in a filthy corner like that."
Snickering laughter drifted back from the hunters as they moved away.
Cheol-woo did not bother replying. He silently picked up the iron ore scattered on the ground and put it into his sack. There was nothing to feel wronged about, and nothing to get angry over. In this field, the way an E-rank hunter was treated was obvious.
It had already been six years since he had awakened.
Yet Cheol-woo’s hunter license still bore the miserable rank of E.
How well he identified a monster’s weak points, how he used the terrain, or how cleanly he handled the remaining monsters on his own did not matter in the slightest to the Association’s rank evaluation standards. Rank was decided solely by simple mana output, and by that standard, Cheol-woo was thoroughly E-rank.
Because of that, he was never treated as proper combat power for a real raid party. The work that came to him was always limited to carrying luggage after the battle was over, taking care of low-grade monsters that had been missed, and recovering cheap byproducts no one else wanted to pick up.
The sound of footsteps faded completely, leaving only an unpleasant silence in the mineshaft.
Cheol-woo straightened his aching back and looked around.
"They scraped up everything useful near the exit. Those sneaky bastards."
All that rolled across the floor was a single broken pickaxe blade, a wooden shield with its handle snapped off, and a few fist-sized lumps of low-quality iron ore.
This place was an F-rank dungeon scheduled to undergo closure procedures tomorrow: Goblin’s Abandoned Mine.
The advance raid team had already killed the standard boss registered in the records, and safety checks for the main areas had been completed as well. Since the bastards ahead of him had taken everything worth money, the remaining work in the deepest, most remote mineshaft, where there was even a risk of collapse, had fallen entirely to Cheol-woo.
"Let us see. Iron ore goes for 2,000 won per kilogram, so even if I pick all of this up, it will only amount to a few bowls of gukbap."
Cheol-woo clicked his tongue and sorted the items into his sack at a steady pace.
Rather than waste time grumbling that it did not pay, it was better business to pick up even one more thing. If he wanted to add even a little to what his father earned making deliveries and what his mother earned working at a side-dish shop, he had to scrape together even this small change.
The sack had grown fairly heavy.
"I think this section is cleared out. I should sweep the floor near the blocked area farther in, then head out."
Cheol-woo picked up the portable lamp he had set down on the floor.
According to the internal map provided by the Association, this mineshaft continued for about twenty more meters before ending in a dead end completely blocked by collapsed rocks.
Cheol-woo walked inward with cautious steps.
The floor clearly showed traces of the advance raid team’s passage. Here and there, goblin bloodstains had dried black, and fragments of rock scorched by the aftermath of magic lay scattered about.
It happened just as he drew close to the collapsed wall to fill his final sack.
HUM.
A faint vibration traveled up from beneath his feet.
Cheol-woo stopped walking and looked down at the floor.
‘Is it an earthquake? Or is the mineshaft about to collapse?’
No. It was different from the common aftershocks caused by the mana remaining inside a dungeon scattering irregularly.
HUM. HUM.
The vibration repeated at regular intervals, like the heartbeat of some enormous beast.
Cheol-woo’s brow furrowed.
"According to the records, this is definitely a dead end."
He took the terminal from his pocket and checked the map once more.
There were no additional passages or mana sources marked at all. However, the vibration was clearly flowing out from beyond the collapsed rocks.
Cheol-woo lifted the portable lamp and shone it toward the rock wall.
The way the huge rocks that had fallen from the ceiling were tangled together looked strangely unnatural. When he brought the light closer and examined it carefully, he saw a narrow gap between the rocks, just wide enough for a grown man to force his shoulders through.
"Why is a passage like this hidden here?"
Cheol-woo hesitated for a moment.
Should he pretend he had not seen it and withdraw? The dungeon was on the verge of closure, with the entrance set to be sealed tomorrow. There was no need to play the hero when he was alone.
But the wave of mana leaking out from the gap was far from ordinary. If a dangerous factor that had not been handled remained inside, the ordinary workers sent in for the closure operation tomorrow could be slaughtered.
Besides, under Association regulations, if he discovered an unconfirmed space and failed to report it, there was a high chance he would later be saddled with an annoying question of responsibility.
"I will just check the structure inside roughly and leave right away."
Cheol-woo made his decision.
He took the emergency rescue request device from the inner pocket of his vest and gripped it firmly. It was an item that would immediately transmit a signal to the control room outside the mineshaft with the press of a button.
Holding the portable lamp in his mouth, Cheol-woo twisted his body and squeezed into the narrow gap between the rocks.
The cold stone walls scraped his shoulders and back, but he paid it no mind. He held his breath and forced his body through several times.
At last, the pressed-in air opened up, and a new space appeared.
"Cough."
After passing through the gap, Cheol-woo dropped one knee to the floor and exhaled roughly.
The air was clearly different from the old mineshaft he had just left.
The acrid smell of earth dust was gone, and a thick, raw scent of blood stabbed at the tip of his nose.
Cheol-woo took the portable lamp from his mouth and shone it forward. A new mineshaft, one that did not exist on the old map, stretched deep into the darkness.
"Insane. The blood has not even dried yet."
Cheol-woo’s eyes shook violently as he examined the floor.
Red blood stretched in a long trail over the gray rock. Even though several hours had passed since the advance raid team’s battle, it was sticky blood that had not clotted at all.
On top of it, clear footprints were lined up toward the inner part of the mineshaft.
They were twice the size of an ordinary goblin’s bony feet, and the marks were heavy enough to have shallowly gouged the stone floor.
"These are definitely not the footprints of a low-grade monster."
Cheol-woo’s heartbeat slowly began to quicken.
The advance raid team had supposedly killed the boss and declared the dungeon cleared. Yet in a hidden area like this, a surviving entity that was still bleeding remained?
Cheol-woo suppressed the sound of his breathing as much as possible and moved with his body pressed close to the cold wall.
The farther he followed the footprints, the wider the mineshaft became, and the vibration of mana grew distinctly stronger.
And finally, when he reached the end of the mineshaft.
The darkness lifted, revealing an enormous abandoned mining pit before his eyes.
Holding his breath, Cheol-woo doubted what he was seeing.
At the center of the mining pit, where the light from his portable lamp reached.
There crouched a massive figure, so huge it was difficult to take in with the eye.
It was different in size alone from the standard boss the raid team had supposedly dealt with earlier.
Its grotesque, muscle-bound torso looked ready to burst, and pieces of spiked metal were wrapped around it like armor. With both hands, it planted a huge iron hammer, the size of a person’s torso, on the ground as it breathed harshly.
Goblin Mine Supervisor.
A hidden boss that should never have appeared in an ordinary F-rank dungeon, and one that did not exist anywhere in the raid records.
‘Fuck. Why is a lunatic monster like that still alive?’
Cheol-woo swallowed dryly, his face stiff.
But it was not only the existence of the hidden boss that shocked him even further.
Behind the supervisor.
In the middle of the deep rock wall of the mining pit, a crimson-glowing lump of stone was embedded grotesquely.
It pulsed irregularly like the heart of a living beast, spitting out red light.
It was a Dungeon Core.
"Looks like what the raid team cleared was not the real one. Those rock-brained bastards."
Cheol-woo’s voice trembled faintly.
What the raid team had destroyed had been nothing more than a shell. This place was the dungeon’s true heart.
The situation was turning into the worst possible case. This was absolutely not something an E-rank hunter, alone and equipped with nothing more than porter’s gear, could handle.
Cheol-woo immediately pressed the red button on the rescue request device in his hand.
BEEP!
Just as the mechanical sound was about to ring out briefly.
RUMBLE!
An enormous wave of mana burst from the Core embedded in the wall, shaking the entire mining pit.
Red mana swept through the narrow underground space like a tidal wave, brutally disrupting the electromagnetic waves. The screen of the device in Cheol-woo’s hand crackled, then went black.
"Ah, damn it."
The signal was not transmitted outside.
At the same time, the supervisor crouching at the center of the mining pit snapped its eyes open.
A crimson glare split the darkness and aimed directly at the mineshaft entrance where Cheol-woo stood.
And that was not the end of it.
Unable to withstand the violent mana vibration unleashed as the boss awakened, the old mineshaft began to scream sharply.
KABOOM!
A tremendous roar, loud enough to tear his eardrums, exploded behind Cheol-woo.
The narrow gap he had barely passed through moments ago, along with the passage toward the exit, was instantly and completely blocked by rocks collapsing from the ceiling.
Even before the hazy earth dust settled, Cheol-woo realized that he had been completely isolated in the depths of the underground.
"Haa. This is really driving me insane."
Cheol-woo let out a short sigh and brushed off the dust.
The rescue signal was dead, and his only retreat had been blocked. Even if the people preparing the dungeon’s closure outside noticed something was wrong and tried to break through the rocks to rescue him, it would take at least half a day.
He could not spend that long playing tag with that enormous monster inside a cramped mining pit.
There was only one choice.
Cheol-woo threw the heavy recovery sack from his shoulder onto the floor without hesitation.
Then he drew the combat pickaxe from his waist.
Although others looked down on him as a perpetual E-rank porter, the six years he had spent breathing dust in this harsh field had not been wasted.
Even if the stupid machines of the Association did not know how he exploited a monster’s weak points and survived, his body remembered it clearly.
THUD.
THUD.
With the red light of the hidden Core at its back, the Goblin Mine Supervisor raised its enormous iron hammer and advanced.
Each time its heavy steps came down, the floor of the mining pit trembled violently.
Cheol-woo gripped the worn handle of the pickaxe tightly with both hands and lowered his stance.
The situation was the worst it could possibly be, but strangely, his mind was growing cold.
"Fine. Come at me if you dare."