The location of number N-383125 was the parking lot of one of the buildings in a district of studio apartments.
He stepped over the police line strung up as at the first dungeon.
This time too, someone was standing there.
Geon-mu could tell instinctively that this one had come to do the same thing as the thugs.
"Not one piece of the information is ever right."
Chuckling at Kang Ho-seok's intelligence-gathering, he walked over.
Geon-mu approached the man and came face to face with him.
"Hm?"
The instant he saw the man's face, Geon-mu's body checked itself.
Shaggy hair that hid his features. Dark circles that hung lower still beneath it, and a strange expression that could not decide whether to laugh or cry.
For all that dank appearance, the suit he wore and the blade he carried were immaculate.
And the madness bursting out of those features, impossible to conceal.
"Excuse me......"
It was the man who opened his mouth first.
Geon-mu replied placidly, as though nothing at all were the matter.
"What is it?"
"Well, it's about this. Could you not sell this dungeon to us?"
He had expected it; the man was the same sort of human as the thugs.
"Sorry, but this is something I bought, and I did not buy it with the purpose of selling it on to someone."
"Going in alone, there's no chance you'll survive anyway. So sell it to us."
This is quite the repertoire, too.
"Do you have a reason to be so certain?"
"That's...... advice from experience, you might say?"
"You have never had experience of a human called me, have you?"
"Hmm...... that's true, yes."
Heo Jin-ho bit lightly at his lip.
He forced down the irritation rising in him.
"So could you not sell it to me?"
"I will think about it, but if you want something from me, isn't it manners to at least exchange names?"
"Sorry? Ah, come to think of it, exchanging names is the principle of the thing. My apologies. I'm called Heo Jin-ho."
"I am called Cha Geon-mu."
"Right, Mister Cha Geon-mu. We've exchanged names, so now the dungeon......"
"No."
CRUNCH! A sound of something breaking came from inside Heo Jin-ho's mouth.
It was the sound of Geon-mu refusing as cleanly as a blade.
Heo Jin-ho opened his mouth and let out a trembling voice.
"We exchanged names, didn't we?"
"That is that, and there is no reason to sell it to you."
"Haa......"
At the very moment he was about to swear, a voice came through the earphone lodged in his ear.
-Offer a sum.
It bound him so that he could not entertain other ideas.
Heo Jin-ho made only a regretful noise, then lifted his head again.
"Then I'll give you one and a half times what you bought it for. How's that?"
"You mean to buy it with cash on top?"
"Yes, I think this much would be about right."
At Heo Jin-ho's proposal, Geon-mu saw through his intent.
'He named a suitably middling price.'
Geon-mu caught that the intent behind the proposal just made was to signal 'a dungeon of middling value.'
Which meant, conversely, that it was by no means a middling dungeon.
Geon-mu thought that both the thugs earlier and the shaggy-haired man before him surely had it in mind to make a killing.
But there was one point where this matter differed slightly from the thugs.
'And the fact that he'd suppress this much madness to make the offer.......'
It meant there was something inside of value high enough to make him hold down even his own madness.
That would certainly be a concept on a wholly different plane from the money the thugs were after.
'Which means all the more reason not to sell.'
It did not matter what was inside.
Geon-mu was the sort who, once he began to be curious about something, absolutely would not endure it.
"Sorry, but I can't sell it at that price."
"Then...... three times?"
"Generous of you. But I don't need it."
The offer was raised drastically, yet Geon-mu still gave the same answer.
"Then what would make you give this dungeon to me?"
"If I die in the dungeon, you may have it. But until then, it is mine, exactly as the contract here says."
"......."
"I would like to end the conversation with that."
Heo Jin-ho said nothing more.
Chewing over what Geon-mu had said, he stood there and watched Geon-mu go inside.
A moment later, the woman's voice came into his ear.
-Damn it, it seems he has no intention of selling no matter what you offer.
"Well, that works out. No need to waste money for nothing."
-What do you mean?
A smile rose at Heo Jin-ho's mouth.
"That man just said this, didn't he. 'If I die in the dungeon, you may have it.'"
-He did. He said that.
"Then...... if he dies inside the dungeon, it becomes mine, doesn't it?"
-Don't tell me you.......
A brief silence.
Then a sigh, as though she had resigned herself.
-Haa...... Understood. If it happens inside a dungeon....... those above will turn a blind eye.
Heo Jin-ho grinned.
The chance to have the fight he had held back so long had finally come.
Heo Jin-ho left a gap of about five minutes before going into the dungeon.
Finishing off prey that had already worn itself out.
That was Heo Jin-ho's favorite way of hunting.
***
Having come inside the dungeon, Geon-mu began his search in earnest.
When you have no information given to you, you must always move calmly and gather information.
It was wisdom Geon-mu had picked up during his mercenary days.
"Shall I move?"
After topping himself up with three energy bars, Geon-mu swept his eyes over the dungeon's setting.
The place was a fog-laden forest, and the time was evening, with the sun going down.
It was a setting that looked well suited to ambush-type monsters living in it.
TAK-TAK-TAK—
Geon-mu unfolded his light-body technique and began to range through the forest.
Only after ten minutes did Geon-mu learn what creature he had to fight.
'Wolves? And I think they're wolves I know.......'
Wolves with grey manes. If there was anything special about them, it was that their manes flowed down to the ground like dry ice.
Geon-mu had seen them once before, when he was in another world.
[<Myriad Phenomena> sees through the monster.]
[Shadow Wolf]
Level: 55
Lineage: Beast
Rank: Rabble
Strength: 90
Agility: 210
Perception: 100
Stamina: 130
Magic Power: 30
Skills
<Howling>, <Shadow Walk>, <Bite>, <Strategic Attack>
Being rabble, its stats were on the low side, but its Agility was abnormally high.
In one sense it was a set of stats he could understand.
They were creatures that had given even Geon-mu trouble once.
'I can understand why it was never surveyed.'
Money mattered, but a life mattered more than anything.
The sinister aura the Shadow Wolves gave off would have been hard for ordinary people to endure and walk into.
Geon-mu swept his eyes over them and took stock of the numbers.
Only two were visible.
Standing still in place like that, they would be on watch.
'A head-on fight...... is not a good choice.'
The Shadow Wolf was a monster most vulnerable in a head-on fight.
They attacked while crossing between shadows, so light magic that could remove shadows was needed.
'It isn't as though you absolutely have to rely on magic.'
Use a little cunning and it was a problem that could be overcome.
Geon-mu decided to carry out an ambush.
Up in a tree, Geon-mu took a stone out of his pocket.
He threw the stone onto the fallen leaves on the far side from himself, opposite the wolves standing watch.
RUSTLE—
The wolves' attention was pulled away.
The instant the stone touched the ground, Geon-mu's body sprang out like a compressed spring.
CRACK!
At the sound of a branch snapping the wolves realized they had been fooled and hurriedly turned their bodies.
But it was already too late.
SQUELCH!
Geon-mu's short sword pierced the Shadow Wolf's head.
Instant death, without a doubt.
He did not stop.
The instant his feet touched the ground, he carried the motion into a follow-up attack with the sword in his other hand.
SHNK!
YELP!
He had aimed at the neck to end it in one stroke, but it strayed slightly from the vertebrae.
Geon-mu simply put his strength into it and severed the Shadow Wolf's vertebrae.
SNAP—
With the sound of the break, the other Shadow Wolf sprawled out as well.
The two Shadow Wolves had thus fallen into death's shadow.
'Was I spotted?'
The sound had not been loud, but it was within the range that keen hearing could pick up.
Geon-mu closed his eyes and poured all of his senses into hearing.
[Level up!]
The message of a level up came through.
As always, he left the stat allocation undone.
His mind was always on the dungeon first.
Hearing no footsteps running toward him, he lowered his guard.
[<Wolf Bound by the Thinnest Cord> marvels at your battle.]
[<Reaper in the Silence> acknowledges your skill at assassination.]
Assassinating two wolves at once, alone, with their quick reaction speed, was hard work unless you were an assassin.
"Succeeded in killing two...... and how many more will there be?"
He had succeeded in assassinating them all, so nothing much would come of it.
Only, they were nimbler than the elite goblins, so once he entered a fight he would have to be prepared to fail to deflect every attack and take wounds.
'What on earth is inside here?'
What in the world lay beyond the Shadow Wolves?
Whether it was what that man Heo Jin-ho wanted so badly was still lost in the fog.
Geon-mu crossed between the trees and went further in.
It was just as he began to think he was somewhere near the depths.
[<Nine Dragon Divine Meridians> responds.]
Heat rose up from inside his heart.
Something hot enough that had he loosened his focus even slightly he would have staggered ungracefully came rising out of his body.
'It's the first time I've felt this...... but I know what it is.'
It was the pull between kin.
There was only one race that could feel that pull.
Dragons.
It meant that ahead in the direction Geon-mu was going, there was a dragon.
Geon-mu smiled bitterly.
Wearing the title of Dragon-Slaying Emperor, he found it hard to believe a day would come when he faced a dragon again.
'If there really is a dragon beyond this...... can I put it down myself?'
Geon-mu believed he could somehow win even if dozens of Anubises were driven at him, but not a dragon.
Dragons were always beings beyond imagining.
Every time he met them, Geon-mu had despaired, and he had feared their existence.
So was he afraid even now?
'Terrified. Fucking terrified.'
Fear must never be forgotten.
He had grown on the foundation of that fear, so in order to grow he needed to remember the fear he had felt more than the successes.
Geon-mu tapped his own cheek lightly and steadied himself.
Fear it, but face it.
Dread it, but go forward.
And so Geon-mu moved.
Shadow Wolves came into view along the way, but all of them were at a level Geon-mu could assassinate.
When he went as far as the deep parts of the forest, the Shadow Wolves became aware of Geon-mu's presence.
"Hm?"
But they did not lunge at him.
They were staring quietly at Geon-mu up in his tree.
He tossed a stone lightly to test them.
They only dodged the stone and showed no hostility.
Someone was holding back their aggression.
They had invited the invader who had trespassed into their territory to come inside.
'Going in is the same as putting your head into a tiger's maw.'
In a case like this, withdrawing was the most ideal choice.
Had the Nine Dragon Divine Meridians not responded, he might have done so.
Geon-mu chose the path down from the tree.
"All right."
He sheathed his sword and concealed his hostility.
At that, one Shadow Wolf took the lead and began guiding Geon-mu inward.
The place they guided him to was a ruin weathered by the ages.
Shadow Wolves had taken up positions on the walls and floor that had not entirely collapsed, and their numbers were more than fifty.
Had it been a trap, it was a situation dangerous enough to leave him dead with no recourse.
But Geon-mu knew they would not move.
The most dangerous thing would be the stairs leading underground that he could see right in front of him.
A moment later, something large began to walk up the stairs that led below.
It was a dire wolf standing about three meters at the shoulder.
-Interesting. I thought a great being was heading this way, and it turns out to be a human.
"I'm plenty interested myself. A talking wolf."
Geon-mu looked at the dire wolf with interested eyes.
-Only when you came quite deep in did I become aware of your presence. How did you break through the watch?
"It isn't as though I threw them jerky and put them quietly to sleep, is it?"
GRRRRR—.
Perhaps understanding the words, the Shadow Wolves bared their teeth.
The dire wolf glanced sidelong at them, and the Shadow Wolves tucked their tails and sat back down.
-We serve a great one. However you managed it, impersonating that one is a grave crime.
"And if that great one is me?"
Sharp blades sprouted from the dire wolf's forepaws.
Their edges were fierce enough to leave a sword made by most artisans in the dust.
-Then prove it.
"I like that."
Geon-mu drew his sword.
He did not know precisely what he was to prove, but knowing that a fight was about to happen was enough.