Chapter 52: 52

Episode 52.

When Jung Si-woo opened his eyes, he found himself in the middle of an extensive forest. There were towering trees and exquisite flora unbecoming of Earth’s. Above were butterflies that fluttered their wings in the sky. He was in a dark cave, moments prior, so the transition felt even more intense.

“Where is this?”

“It doesn’t seem like Earth.”

“It’s neither the Earth nor Ant Cave dungeon. If there is anything close to it, it is the Sky Castle Dungeon. When you enter a high-level dungeon, you feel like you’ve come to its world.”

In one of the most popular web novels back in the day, Breaking Out Reloaded, the main character’s fantasy always started in an environment like this. All he needed now was for an arrow to shoot towards him from the trees, as an elf popped its head out. As he was mindlessly daydreaming, he felt a sudden emptiness.

“Why isn’t there a notification telling me anything?”

“Uh… yeah, that’s odd?”

“An interface shouldn’t be doing this.”

It was customary to have a notification near one’s retina when a player entered a dungeon, or a quest was given. Jung Si-woo looked around to see if he missed anything, but he had not.

There was nothing.

“This all might be part of the test! Or something like that…”

“There is no way of knowing what we even have to do here.”

“This is vague. How about we wait here until something happens….”

“No, that’s not going to happen.”

The three racked their brains about it, but none had an answer. They couldn’t just stay here forever. Jung Si-woo decided to get out of the forest.

“So when we leave the forest, the people from this world will ask, ‘Are you a stranger?’ and will treat me like an outcast. But at that very moment, there will be monsters attacking the village, which I will defeat. They’ll end up liking me and awarding me as a warrior, which will help me settle down in this society.”

“You’ve read too many novels, Oppa. I told you that there are no people in the dungeon.”

“I’m only saying this because it doesn’t seem like a dungeon.”

“Then did the altar transport us to another world…. OMG!”

As they were speaking, there was a thought that struck Soo Ah-rin’s mind. There were Sky Castles and Ant Caves, so who’s to say this world wouldn’t have them? Maybe all the monsters the party hunted so far originated from this world! They planned to invade Earth and colonize it!

“You’ve been reading too many novels, Ah-rin.”

“The novels I’ve read generally had that pattern!”

The novels that Jung Si-woo read when he was a child were set in another world but never had any monsters coming over from the said world. They were only a few years apart, but there was a generational gap. He intentionally made no comments and quietly picked up the pace.

Shortly after that, they exited the forest and encountered an elaborate wall that was human-made.

“Found it. I told you, we’re still in our world.”

“No, it’s probably a monster. In high-level dungeons, buildings built by monsters appear time and time again.”

“If we check, we’ll know. Shall I investigate, Hyeong-nim?”

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Amid Jung Si-woo and Soo Ah-rin’s tiff, Yong Se-ha flapped his butterfly wings and flew into the air. Se-ha was the same mini size as Ah-rin but had a more solid body because he was a close-range soldier. Jung Si-woo could safely leave the investigating to him!

“Okay. I’m asking you.”

Yong Se-ha instantly straightened his butterfly wings and flew. As Jung Si-woo stared at Yong Se-ha’s back flying in the air, he suddenly asked Soo Ah-rin a question.

by wing type?”

“There is an analysis on the varying speeds depending on the wings’ type and size. But its effect on the level is insignificant. It’s also easy to have a sense of belonging between people with similar wings. There are even guilds for people who have obtained white feather wings like me.”

“So what you’re getting at is that it’s all useless.”

“Yes, it’s useless. The important thing is not wings, but mana.”

If so, what about the tail? Jung Si-woo thought to himself, as he swung his tail around. An elongated, thick tail wrapped in red, rigid scales that resembled a lizard’s. It was frustrating because there were no other underground players to compare.

“If I can ever reveal myself, I’m going to look for other underground players.”

It wouldn’t be too long. Jung Si-woo’s body, which gained a new power called mana, was continually evolving even now; his combat skills and equipment were also getting more abundant day by day. He would at least be able to surpass one of the players in the spotlight, Marina Bissett.

“Hyeo, Hyeong-nim.”

At that moment, Yong Se-ha returned to the party. But for some reason, his expression didn’t look too good.”

“Was it a monster den?”

“I’d rather have that. There is nothing. The city is just dead.”

“What!?”

Soo Ah-rin screamed at the word ‘dead,’ grabbing Jung Si-woo’s arm. She probably recalled the Serien Cemetery. However, the ‘dead’ that Yong Se-ha meant was different. Jung Si-woo noticed it immediately.

“Nothing at all? It’s completely barren?”

“Yes. There are signs of a sizable riot, but there are no corpses or even blood.”

“Tsk.”

Jung Si-woo would have felt less uncomfortable if there were at least monsters. Jung Si-woo bit his tongue and started chattering. Anyways, there was no feeling of hesitation now that there was no one. The party went around the wall and confirmed the existence of a tightly closed gate. Soon after, Jung Si-woo’s hammer demolished it to pieces.

“Wow.”

It was as Yong Se-ha said. There appeared a flat street, empty of people, lacking any signs of life—a familiar medieval European street. As the party went into the city, their eyebrows frowned.

“It’s very quiet…”

“Can you see the dust settled all over the building? I can’t even guess how long it has been like this.”

Many of the city’s buildings were worn out and dilapidated. It would be of no surprise if they collapsed at any moment. Jung Si-woo blankly looked around the dead city, pondering what exactly he could do here.

“Let’s take a similar approach to what we did at the Serien Cemetery. Something’s bound to come out if we look through everything. Sigh, this isn’t my vibe…”

“Yes, that seems like a good… Wait,” Soo Ah-rin stopped Jung Si-woo.

“I just thought that all medieval European cities look the same, but doesn’t this place look too similar to Serien?”

“What?”

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“Ah, now I think I see…”

She was right. It was daytime, and the state of the buildings was different, making it difficult to recognize. However, the city had the same appearance as the Serien Cemetery. Jung Si-woo felt a slight chill in his body, but Soo Ah-rin was relieved for some reason.

“If this is the same place as the Serien Cemetery, it is also a dungeon. There’s no way to know what’s hidden, but regardless let’s solve it quickly.”

“That’s a very positive interpretation.”

However, was this place really a dungeon?

Amongst the vast, open-world, and unusually thick Mana, Jung Si-woo had not the tiniest feeling that this was a dungeon. The sense of freedom he felt in this world was greater than that of any dungeon he had been through, which was why he felt this way.

“What if this was the original city?”

What if this was the original Serien Cemetery dungeon that appeared in the Sky Castle? Was it possible to assume that the Sky Castle and Ant Cave’s dungeons were mere reproductions of this city? Jung Si-woo did reach this city directly through the golden altar…

“Surely this city is not from this point in time, but way back.”

Whatever it was, it was an inference at this point. Jung Si-woo shrugged and started a full-fledged search.

Though the con was that every building Jung Si-woo entered fell apart, unable to withstand his weight and build. But it was not like Jung Si-woo at this point to get injured from falling rubble.

“Its contents are quite different.”

“A lot of things are missing.”

“It’s collapsing! There’s nothing here, so let’s get out!”

They broke down several buildings like that. After falling behind, Yong Se-ha finally made progress. Under the roof of a collapsing building, he found an old notebook placed on the table. He swiftly entered and snatched it out of there.

“Hyeong-nim, there is something new. It seems like a diary.”

Jung Si-woo carefully opened the old notebook. However, the moment Yong Se-ha saw the text written inside, his eyes widened. He yelped in astonishment.

“I have no idea! What are these curly letters!?”

“To think there was a problem like this…!”

Soo Ah-rin was in despair. On the other hand, Jung Si-woo was alarmed for a different reason.

“The Holy War awaits. We will fight without backing down in the face of death. Comrades who have already passed into the new world are waiting for us. In the name of the highest, Louisos.”

“Oppa?”

She was able to read the letters on the note.

“Hyeong-nim, can you read it?”

“Yeah.”

Jung Si-woo himself could not explain how he could read and pronounce the characters he saw for the first time. Like in Isekais, they grant interpreting skills to people who transfer over to the other world, solving communication problems.

“So I was right about it being of this world. I haven’t felt this protagonist feeling in a while… Not bad.”

“So who’s the one that’s positive without reason…?”

“Hyeong-nim, do you feel like a new skill is developing or?”

“I don’t feel anything.”

It made him feel uncomfortable, having the ability to read it so naturally. Maybe it happened in the process of passing through the altar’s gate. However, there was nothing he could pinpoint.

“Let me read a bit more.”

“Yes, yes.”

Jung Si-woo read the rest of the notebook. Most of them were personal, regarding their resolutions and family. The handwriting got messy from the middle, and then it was the final chapter, written in a very desperate tone.

[Setnak’s believers were resurrected. Now we have no hope. The seal will soon be released, and everything will bend to her will.]

“It’s the typical bad ending phrase for a game.”

“It’s perfect from the dragged ink on the period mark to the dried blood below that. It implies that they were attacked at the last minute. It even makes us look behind our backs.”

In short, it seemed that the humans who struggled under some guy named Louisos ended up losing everything because of this Setnak woman. Soo Ah-rin was thinking deeply about the matter and proceeded to speak, as she frowned.

“Louisos, I have heard of it. I’ve found traces related to it in the 31st level dungeon. For sure, he’s known by the monster tribe as the god of light.”

“I guess humans also believed in that god.”

“It seems the identity of this quest is slowly revealing itself. A quest to investigate the clash of two gods in this city, perhaps this world! I’m sure this is it.”

Every player entering the dungeon had these questions. Questions regarding the monster’s source, the gods they believed, and the existence of a world other than Earth! These very things were given as Jung Si-woo’s job quest. He couldn’t help but get excited.

“Or is it because you want to investigate that?”

“Of course, a part of me wants to!”

Jung Si-woo laughed at Soo Ah-rin’s confident declaration. Anyways, he was glad they found a direction. They needed to go straight to the other buildings and find more clues…

As Jung Si-woo was thinking this, he suddenly stopped walking. There in the sky, he saw a dark cloud, coupled with that feeling of ominous mana. Ahh, indeed, it was familiar.

“It seems like our conjecture was wrong.”

“Wrong?”

Soo Ah-rin cutely tilted her head. From breaking the buildings by jumping on and over them, Jung Si-woo could easily climb up the walls.

“Look.”

Jung Si-woo pointed. Opposite to the forest they came from, the other side of the gate was a road. It met the dark cloud, and from the horizon came a troubling amount of undead heading their way.

“I guess it was just a quest to destroy those things. What else would it be? Until now, all I’ve done is break things. No way I would be able to work on a quest of higher-level thinking.”

Soo Ah-rin was silent at Jung Si-woo’s perfectly logical statement.

She had passed out at the sheer number of the undead.

[Fun fact: Breaking Out Reloaded has the same author as Survival Story of A Sword King!]

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