In life, all kinds of bewildering things can happen at any time.
A water deer might suddenly dart out while you're driving down the highway.
You might get hit by bird droppings while walking down the street.
Or a zebra or an elephant that escaped from the zoo might casually stroll past you.
What I'm saying is, you might suddenly black out, open your eyes, and find three strange faces looking down at you.
"Yuta, are you awake?"
A little man with a bushy beard.
"He opened his eyes, so shouldn't he be?"
A woman with pointed ears.
"What a weak human!"
Just a green beast.
"..."
As the old saying goes, even if you're dragged into a tiger's den, you'll survive as long as you keep your wits about you.
The more bewildered I am, the more carefully I need to think.
What should I do?
Hm, for now, I'll close my eyes again.
"Huh? He passed out again!"
"Still, he does not look dead, so let us wait for now."
"I will teach him the warrior's way of waking up!"
"Urka, stay still for a moment."
Thankfully, my brilliant acting worked like a charm.
It seems they'll give me at least a moment, so I'll think this through step by step.
My mind began to race.
'What happened?'
I was definitely at home, yet the moment I opened my eyes, I found myself in this situation.
Then should I retrace things from this morning?
Woke up with the alarm.
Got ready for work... No, I didn't.
I'd heard the news about the [Dungeon Log] expansion pack release and taken a day off.
I ignored my psycho manager telling me to come in, downloaded and launched the expansion pack at nine o'clock, and then...
'Right here.'
My memory cut off at that exact point.
Then why?
'It's definitely not a health issue.'
It was only four months ago that I got a medical checkup before starting my job.
Nothing was wrong with me back then, so there's no way I randomly developed an illness serious enough to make me faint in just four months.
'Did someone hit me?'
No way that happened, either.
The studio apartment I live in is tiny as hell.
It isn't big enough for a burglar to break in or hide.
'Could it be a gas leak?'
That doesn't make sense either.
If it were gas, I wouldn't have blacked out like that.
I would have felt groggy and lightheaded first.
And I didn't smell anything, either.
...Every plausible hypothesis has been ruled out.
It looks like it'll be hard to figure out why I fainted.
For now, I'll just assume I passed out for "some reason or another" and move on to the result.
First, I need to figure out where I am.
Opening my eyes again would be awkward, so I relied on my remaining senses.
A hard, uneven floor, with quite a bit of dampness to it.
The voices of the ones chattering right next to me echo like they're in a bathroom.
The temperature is on the low side. Cool.
A faintly fresh scent is drifting into my nose.
Putting it all together—
'A cave...?'
A tourist cave I visited on an elementary school field trip when I was a kid.
That was the exact combination of sensations it brought to mind.
'...Wait, that's way too random.'
A cave out of nowhere right in the middle of Seoul?
Ah, at this point, there's not much sense in nitpicking that.
Right, if I blacked out of nowhere, I might as well be in a cave out of nowhere, too.
Now, for the last question.
It's time to think about why I'm here.
The most likely answer has to be a "kidnapping"—
"How long are you going to lie there, human?! Get up already!!"
A sudden roar from the green beast cut my thoughts short.
Damn it, is my time limit up?
"I told you to wait."
"I cannot wait! While we are standing around like this, will the others not be getting stronger?!"
"Wait..."
"Do not stop me!"
"Urk!"
There was a friend trying to protect me, but sadly, he was defeated.
The green beast's footsteps rapidly approached.
THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!
"Wake up, humaaaan!!"
Just from the footsteps thundering like a running start, I can tell what's coming.
That bastard is planning to wake me up in a very "primitive" way.
So I immediately opened my eyes and sat up.
"You are awake."
"Did you see that? That is the warrior's way of waking someone up!"
"It looked like you didn't do anything."
"For a human, my fighting spirit alone was plenty!"
While they were bickering, the pointed-eared woman I'd seen earlier walked over to my side.
"Mr. Yuta, are you feeling okay? What happened to you all of a sudden?"
That's what I want to ask.
Why I'm here.
And who the hell you people are.
'Wait... something about these guys feels familiar.'
A little man, pointed ears, a green beast.
The longer I looked at them, the stronger the strange sense of déjà vu grew.
And this place, too.
Even this "cave," just as I'd guessed while lying down, somehow didn't feel all that unfamiliar...
"[Dungeon Log]?"
As my thoughts trailed on, the words slipped out of my mouth.
And before long, I was able to pinpoint the source of this familiarity wrapping around my senses.
"That's... what this is."
A bushy-bearded little man—a dwarf.
A pretty woman with pointed ears—an elf.
A savage green beast—an orc.
And this place is the first floor of the labyrinth, the Cave Maze.
The resolution was a bit different, sure, but this was unmistakably the sight I knew inside and out.
'Is this some kind of event?'
Like one of those live-action parties held for longtime players.
Granted, I know better than anyone that there's no way that's true.
What insane game company on earth would kidnap a player just to throw an event?
The problem was, if it wasn't even that, there was no good way to explain this situation.
The bigger problem was that my instincts had already found the answer.
And in a direction that made no sense at all, and offered zero hope.
"Now that the human is up, let us head out at once! As the strongest here, I will take the lead!"
"Hold on. We need time to get ready."
"What more is there to prepare?!"
"Our friend Yuta here needs to gear up too, does he not?"
"Right! Hurry up and get ready, human!"
Saying that, the green beast... no, the orc pointed at me.
"Say that again."
"Hurry up and get ready! We must set out!"
"Not that. Who did you say I am?"
"A human!"
"Yuta, are you still not feeling well?"
And the dwarf had been calling me "Yuta" this whole time.
I shifted slightly and checked my face.
In the polished blade of a spear lying on the ground, a complete stranger was staring back at me.
"...Ah."
It clicked.
I knew for sure what kind of situation I was in.
"Fuck."
I was screwed.
***
What are the odds of a person ending up inside the game they were playing?
"So what you are saying is that you lost your memories."
"Yeah."
In my opinion, the odds are fucking zero, obviously.
Not slim—just a flat zero. Something that shouldn't exist at all.
"Hm... This is troubling."
"Then what should we do?"
"It is fine! As long as he has not forgotten how to fight!"
Yet that exact thing had just happened.
And to me, of all people.
I decided to stop denying it.
I'd already denied it plenty, and this was unmistakably my inescapable reality.
"I need you to explain as much as you can."
The language leaving my mouth and entering my ears.
It wasn't Korean or English, just something completely foreign, yet right now it felt all too natural to me.
And these guys really weren't wearing costumes.
—I-If you touch my ears...!
—Why are you pulling on my beard?!
—Kuhaha! Any human would envy the body of a warrior! Touch it all you want!
It was the same with my own body.
It belonged to a complete stranger, yet it was undeniably mine.
"First off, your name is Yuta. You agreed to enter the labyrinth with us. Ah, though we are already inside. And aside from that... hm, I do not really know. You barely spoke a word, you see. In truth, we only met recently."
The name is "Yuta."
Quite handsome.
Long arms and legs, too.
"You said you were twenty-five years old."
Age, twenty-five.
I got four years younger.
Right, up to this point, it's fine.
It might even be welcome news.
If only this weren't inside [Dungeon Log].
'Of all places...'
[Dungeon Log]
The game I started in elementary school and devoted my life to.
Every moment I spent with that world was brilliant and fun.
Still, that was only true when I was playing it as a "game" behind a monitor.
The world inside [Dungeon Log] was anything but beautiful.
The hellish difficulty that earned it its notoriety was, in other words, the difficulty of surviving in this world.
Even at this very moment, all the characters of mine that had died on my screen were flashing through my mind like my life passing before my eyes.
'Fuck...'
Where did things go wrong?
Was it picking up [Dungeon Log], of all games, when I was nine years old?
Playing it for twenty straight years?
Working hard enough and getting good enough to be the only person with a clear record?
Managing to clear it twelve times?
Or was it downloading the expansion pack at the very last moment?
'...'
Hell if I know, damn it.
And what difference would it make if I knew the cause?
The only thing that matters is that I'm inside [Dungeon Log].
'Kim Yu-seong, stop whining.'
You already know full well that whining won't change a thing.
Now that it's happened, what I need to think about is "what to do from here on out."
I quickly pulled myself together and checked the things I needed to survive here, one by one.
"Is this my first time coming in here?"
"Yes."
"How do you know?"
"You came into the city with me two days ago, and we stayed together right up until we entered the labyrinth."
"And what have we done since coming in here?"
"Nothing at all. Well, we walked for about three minutes."
For starters, I—"Yuta"—am a complete beginner who hasn't earned a single point of experience.
That was the one piece of hopeful news.
Building a character in [Dungeon Log] was notoriously tricky.
If he'd already messed with his stats in a few places, it could have been a massive headache, but starting fresh like this means I can build the exact character I want, 100%.
'And I've got companions, too.'
If I'd been dropped into this labyrinth all by myself, it would have been utterly bleak.
Here, though, I have three comrades with me.
An elf, a dwarf, and an orc.
Their names are Tille, Brooks, and Urka, apparently.
True to form for a beginner party, there's zero role distribution, but having numbers on our side is reassuring all the same.
'And for weapons, a short spear and a shield... A solid, sensible pick.'
I usually pick this exact combination for my starting gear, too.
It's simple and strong.
See? Look hard enough, and there's plenty of good news.
"Human! Enough with the questions! None of that is needed for fighting anyway!"
Above all, who am I?
Aren't I the one and only ranker who cleared this insane game twelve times?
The entirety of [Dungeon Log] is in the palm of my hand.
'That's much better.'
Thinking positively really does make me feel like my energy is coming back.
I'm even starting to feel like things might work out just fine.
"Urka has a point. As long as you are feeling alright, we should probably get moving soon."
"Please wait just a little longer. Mr. Yuta only just woke up..."
"Yuta, is it still too much for you?"
As long as I keep my head on straight, clearing this a thirteenth time won't be hard.
At the very least, finishing this expedition safely and making it out alive is more than doable.
"..."
Wait, what is this feeling?
I feel like I'm forgetting something really important.
"Yuta? Answer me. Is it too hard on you? Strange. Were you not fine just a moment ago?"
"Maybe his symptoms flared up again?"
"His face looks fine to me, though."
"Do not worry! I will cure him the warrior's way!"
My party members chattered away around me.
Since we were right in the middle of a cave, their voices echoed quite loudly.
And one of them had a genuinely booming voice to begin with...
"...Oh, fuck."
Now I remembered.
What I'd left out.
The very first thing I should have checked the moment I woke up...
"Everyone, raise your weapons!"
I shouted as I snatched up my spear and shield.
Yet it was already too late.
SHUNK—!
Along with a rather gruesome sound I had never once heard in real life—
"Gah!"
The dwarf coughed up blood and collapsed.
And watching him fall, I immediately remembered the truth I had tried so hard to forget.
A place where merely talking out loud gets you a blade in the back.
That was what the labyrinth was like.
The place I had just been dropped into.
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