Translator: Min
Editors: Spade, Roki
They finally entered the third dungeon.
It was of S-class difficulty, had a time limit of 60 hours, and as Ki Joohyuk had predicted, it was raining inside. Large raindrops poured down from the black sky, while an occasional cool breeze swept through the area. As the Hunters checked the conditions inside, they looked at their leader and sighed.
Just like the previous dungeons, this one was also completely ruined. The path to the temple was broken, and the temple was blocked by collapsed pillars. The spaces off to the sides were pitch-black, looking more like a trap made to ensnare them rather than a place where one could walk unharmed.
Yisun examined the situation and stepped forward. They had agreed before not to waste too much stamina on the restoration, but it was clear that the floor would need to be restored, and since the battle would be fought inside the temple, anything that might restrict the Hunters’ movement would also need to be cleared.
With his hood pulled tightly over his head, Yisun swiftly got to work. He cleared the front pathway first while disregarding the side railings. The bricks on the floor flew up and piled up in front of him, followed by the stairs to the shrine. The stairs were low enough that they were quickly restored, but only to a degree that allowed them to climb up.
The next step was to erect the collapsed pillar blocking the front of the temple, which was about 11 meters high and took quite some time to lift. This time he had to correct the shape of the fallen pillar first and then return it to its original position, whereas in the public garden where all the pieces of the pillar were floated into the air and then stacked one by one.
The tilted columns creaked loudly as they finally fell back into place. In no time, the ground was also restored.
With a slight frown, Yisun turned to look back at Sa Hyeon for confirmation. He glanced at the restoration and nodded; it was a sign that they were done.
“Good work.”
With that, Yisun withdrew his hand from the wall. Chord’s main five had decided to stay behind, so the other members bowed as they passed by him and went in first. Some of them even applauded, once again expressing their admiration at his skillful restoration. Yisun simply nodded in acknowledgment. On a rainy day, the thought of being admired for using his Restoration ability felt terrible, but he pushed the emotions down and sealed its lid tightly.
The problem started on their way up to the temple.
The default monster for the third dungeon was a flying angel, which fell under the fallen angels monster type. This was everyone’s worst fear. They were prepared for the monster attacks in the second dungeon where vines would lunge at them from the floors and walls; however, it wasn’t easy to deal with flying monsters that could appear anywhere at any moment while simultaneously avoiding the suspicious pitch-black areas on both sides, greatly limiting their mobility.
“You crazy……!”
“Let’s go inside and fight it out, you bastards!”
Ki Joohyuk spat out harsh words and held the rod high. It looked like he was going to attack the flying monsters with fire, but because his casting couldn’t keep up with their flying speed, Han Arin quickly extended her staff and threw Ki Joohyuk aside. After being hit in the side by the staff and rolling on the ground, Ki Joohyuk complained, saying that he felt like a monster, but the other Hunters were in no position to help him.
Flying monsters were even harder to catch using Sa Hyeon’s shadows. Moreover, they had a tendency to prey on weaker targets first, so they kept flying towards Yisun, while Sa Hyeon, who was standing next to him, dealt with them. Although he was able to kill the monsters with a single hit, he frowned slightly, as if he wasn’t pleased with the whole situation.
While moving to enter the temple, the tanks kept the ranged dealers right next to them and dealt with the monsters until they could cast their attacks.
“No, how the hell are they flying so well when it’s raining?! Isn’t this a scam?!”
Ki Joohyuk grumbled while holding up his rod. Since it was raining, the attack power of his fire spells was greatly reduced, so he could only use water magic, which was quite annoying as the monsters flew through the water.
When they finally made it to the temple and entered, they were greeted with a strange silence. The only sound they could hear was the intermittent flickering of the lit torches on the pillars.
Before entering the temple, there was an endless stream of angel monsters flying at them, but the attacks stopped once they entered the temple., They only flew outside aimlessly, as if they couldn’t access the divine realm.
The entire space was overwhelming. The 10-meter-high pillars and the triangular ceiling above them were majestic. The Hunters walked with a mixture of sighs and admiration. They remained vigilant, not knowing when the monsters outside the temple would swoop down.
“Leader, should we extinguish all those torches?” one of the Hunters at the front asked. As extinguishing the torches would darken the space, Ki Joohyuk nodded in affirmation and offered to extinguish them with water himself, but Sa Hyeon’s eyes were fixed on the road ahead.
“Abilities off,” Sa Hyeon suddenly ordered. The Hunters stopped walking immediately and looked at him. Yisun, who was standing next to him, sighed.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“… The statue isn’t there…”
The statue of Zeus that was supposed to be sitting at the end of the temple, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the expected boss monster of the current dungeon, was missing. Yisun had been studying the temple’s restoration over the past week, and so he knew for sure that the statue was supposed to be there. Its original form was a giant wooden throne at the end of the path, inlaid with precious stones and ebony and decorated with gold, where Zeus sat and wielding a scepter.
And the fact that the statue was missing meant that…
“Get down!” Han Arin shouted urgently.
There was a tremor in the distance far away that came closer in an instant, and the statue of Zeus suddenly appeared between the pillars. The original Zeus in the temple was 13 meters tall as a ‘seated statue’, but the current statue was standing and looked to be about 18 meters tall. Moreover, the eyes of the statue brandishing a golden scepter were a dark red as it approached.
As expected, the statue of Zeus was the boss monster of the third dungeon.
The boss monster swung the scepter, which was as big as a temple pillar, and the pillars crumbled with a sound similar to an explosion. Yisun had only planned to repair the ground where the lightning struck, so he was stunned when the pillars suddenly collapsed as well. His body trembled as the air became tense with the appearance of the boss monster.
The collapsing pillars triggered the beginning of chaos. The panicked Hunters scattered and made a ruckus. Sa Hyeon grabbed Yisun’s arm, pulling him behind him, and called Han Arin. At his signal, Arin stepped forward, then glanced back at Jung Yisun.
Yisun couldn’t figure out why she was suddenly looking at him, so he met her gaze curiously, and she smiled awkwardly.
“You know I really like you, right, Yisun?”
As Yisun’s expression grew more and more puzzled at the offhand remark, Han Arin flipped the staff she was holding once before slamming it into the ground, causing the entire ground to vibrate with a loud rumble. The scattering Hunters were stunned for a brief moment, but soon calmed down once they realized it came from the area where Han Arin was standing.
The ground shook so violently that their whole bodies were shaking. The boss monster, which was about 20 meters away, spotted Han Arin and rushed towards her, the ground cracking with every heavy step. The floor that Yisun had restored was shattered into several pieces.
The ground where Han Arin was standing rose up with a loud crack. When Yisun, who was nearby, staggered, Sa Hyeon held onto him tightly so that he could watch properly. The ground within a two-meter radius of Han Arin’s position stretched upwards in an instant, rising as high as a pillar.
Once she was at the exact same eye level as the statue of Zeus, she flipped her staff and smirked.
“I really hate being looked down on, so let’s fight at eye level, shall we?”
This was the moment when S-class Hunter Han Arin demonstrated her ability, Earthquake.
Yisun watched in amazement. Although he expected something like earthquakes from her ability, he didn’t think the earth could rise up and move at her will. Han Arin moved the ground as if she were moving on clouds.
She struck the boss monster in the face with her staff, and just as the scepter was about to slam down, she quickly dodged to the side and landed on a pillar. Holding onto the torch, Han Arin shouted at Sa Hyeon.
“Turn off the torch?!”
“No need, I’ll use the boss monster’s shadow. Focus on the sides.”
At Sa Hyeon’s leisurely reply, Han Arin shouted, “Understood,” before charging at the boss monster again, sometimes landing on its shoulders, or running up its chest. Each time she struck the creature’s shoulder or neck with her staff, a tremendous crackling sound resonated through the air.
However, the statue’s body, made of wood and ivory, had been strengthened when it became the dungeon’s boss monster and couldn’t be easily broken by the staff’s strikes. Han Arin’s attacks on the stone pillars were repeatedly blocked. However, after several repeated blows, it finally seemed to be making an impact. At the same time, the boss monster seemed to understand her attack patterns and tried to capture her.
Although it was slow due to its massive size, every time it moved, it almost knocked Arin down. After shifting the ground and landing on top of it, Han Arin would laugh and curse, and watching that scene inevitably made Yisun feel a little uneasy.
Meanwhile, Sa Hyeon ordered the other Hunters to bind the lower part of the statue and restrict its movement. After a moment’s confusion, the Hunters immediately split into formations to attack the front, left and right sides of the statue. Sa Hyeon then led Yisun to the back.
“Hunter Shin Jian, Hunter Na Gunwoo.”
“Yes.”
“Understood.”
The two Hunters nodded in agreement. Shin Jian came forward to stand in front of Sa Hyeon, while Na Gunwoo stood behind him with Yisun at his side. In this position, Yisun could see Sa Hyeon using his abilities clearly.
He was about to use Shadow Possession, one of his shadow abilities. So far, he had only shifted some of his physical power into the shadows, but this time he was going to shift all of it. The rising Zeus statue was 18 meters tall and moving wildly, so he needed to transfer all of his power to the statue’s shadow to stop it from moving. With that in mind, he told Han Arin to focus on the sides so that the statue’s shadow would be long enough and visible.
While fully possessing shadows, Sa Hyeon lost control of his own body, and so Shin Jian, the Tank, stood in front to protect him while Na Gunwoo, the Healer, stood behind him, ready to heal in case of an emergency.
Following Han Arin’s attack, Shin Jian gradually turned to the side, and when the shadow was completely in Sa Hyeon’s line of sight, he spoke.
“If Yisun-ssi gets hurt while I’m possessing the shadows…”
The muffled words were followed by a quiet laugh from Sa Hyeon, implying he wasn’t going to bother finishing, and both Shin Jian and Na Gunwoo nodded firmly.
Shoving his hands into his coat pockets, Sa Hyeon soon closed his eyes. It wasn’t long before the shadow behind the statue of Zeus grew even darker, and then began to rise. Normally, a shadow was simply the shade cast behind an object, but once Sa Hyeon fully possessed it, it became a physical body. Moreover, both the range and the power of his shadow ability increased.
As if their struggles entering the temple had never happened, everyone came together, gaining the upper hand. Yisun was shocked and amazed by the whole situation. Even if he frantically turned his gaze around, he couldn’t manage to see everyone’s attacks.
Na Gunwoo, who had quickly adapted to this situation, muttered in a rueful tone, “Hunter Arin didn’t use her hidden ability. I thought we were going to see something spectacular.”
“Wasn’t it her hidden ability that made the ground rise?”
“Huh? That’s just one of Earthquake’s signature moves. She has a hidden ability, but, considering the situation, I don’t think she needs to use it.”
As if he still thought it was a waste, Na Gunwoo sighed regretfully. However, he said that it was understandable since the penalty of Han Arin’s hidden ability was so troublesome, and that she had probably talked to the leader about it. He would have told her that she didn’t have to use it if it wasn’t necessary for the situation, but Yisun just nodded at this information blankly. He was already surprised enough that Han Arin was riding on the ground and making it move like a cloud right now.
Little by little, the tension on his face was replaced by relief.
It was still raining outside, but deep inside the temple, it could no longer reach them. Not the sound of the rain, nor the chill of a rainy day. None of the things that would bring him back to the day he had lost all his friends. All he could hear was Han Arin’s voice calling out to Sa Hyeon from between the rising ground and the pillars, and the commotion made by the Hunters as they grabbed the statue’s feet.
The noise gave Yisun a sense of relief. The mere thought of entering the dungeon had left him shaking and breathless, but with Chord’s appearance, he thought he might no longer be afraid of it.
But then, the statue of Zeus raised its scepter high.
[I will judge you].
It was pinned down by the Hunters below, its body oppressed by the shadows, and attacked by Han Arin, who leapt swiftly all over. The boss monster raised its scepter and slammed it down.
“Urghh!”
“Ahh!”
The Hunters screamed. The ground suddenly shook as if there had been an earthquake, and Han Arin, who was on top of the raised ground, staggered for a moment and bent down. But that wasn’t the only anomaly. The air in the temple, the entire atmosphere of the dungeon, shuddered. For a moment, it felt like the air was being squeezed out of their lungs, and then….
A bolt of lightning pierced the ceiling.
For a moment, everyone’s vision went white. The shouts of the Hunters were drowned out by the thunder. A deafening, tinnitus-inducing sound echoed through the space, accompanied by a blinding heat.
Yisun thought that his vision was taking too long to return.
“…..”
The ground on which Han Arin had risen was shattered into pieces. Han Arin lay sprawled on the ground. She wriggled, but couldn’t get up. The staff she had always held had flown into the distance, and the Hunters who had been blocking the statue’s feet were stunned.
Hunters who were in the lightning attack’s range were burned, their clothes scorched. The healers hurriedly used their skills, but the wounds were too great, and the boss monster wasn’t going to wait for them to get back on their feet.
With a resounding thud, the boss monster began to walk forward. It meant to stomp on the people on the floor, and its shadow moved a little later. The shadow seemed to have lost its power for a moment as it disappeared when the lightning struck the entire temple and turned it white. Once he regained control over it, Sa Hyeon pulled the statue backwards.
The statue, trying to move forward, and the shadow, trying to hold it back, fought intensely. Yisun watched in disbelief as the shadow lengthened. It all happened in an instant.
Rain fell down.
It poured down like a torrent from the broken ceiling. The trickling on the moist floor and the muffled screams of people echoed in Yisun’s ears like a hallucination.
Shin Jian, Na Gunwoo, and Jung Yisun were far enough back that they weren’t in the direct line of the attack, but they were still indirectly affected. At the front, Shin Jian crossed her raised hands to block the attack. A blue barrier formed like a shield, blocking the aftermath, but her hands were burned bright red. Na Gunwoo, who was behind her, gasped and glared at the Zeus statue.
“That, that crazy……!”
As if it had heard them, Zeus’s blood-red eyes zeroed on them. Yisun couldn’t breathe under that gaze.
The boss monster struck down from above them with its scepter. With a loud crash, Shin Jian, who was standing in front of it, quickly grabbed the much larger top ring of the scepter to block the attack.
However, the boss monster immediately moved the scepter sideways, throwing Shin Jian’s body out of the way. She slammed into the wall and coughed up blood.
Yisun watched the events unfold in a daze. Suddenly, this dungeon and the one from his memories overlapped. The Second Great Dungeon, the first dungeon he’d ever entered. A horribly cruel dungeon that had taken everything from him.
In front of him, Sa Hyeon, who was possessing the shadows and lost control of his own body, had the boss monster’s next attack directed at him. Yisun watched as the events played out painfully in slow motion, the scepter rising upwards and slamming down. Even though it was in his sight, it didn’t seem to register in his mind.
Ah.
The person in front of him might die.
“No!”
Screaming, Yisun rushed forward and hugged Sa Hyeon’s body in an attempt to push him. It was an act driven by shock and fear. The thought that the man he believed could never die might meet his end, his body shattered to pieces under that scepter, drove him insane.
At that moment, Sa Hyeon returned to his original body. He had released the Shadow Possession as soon as he saw the statue attacking Shin Jian, but it still took time for him to return, from as little as a second to as long as three.
It was a very risky call. If he was fast enough, he’d barely manage to dodge it, if not, he’d have to accept some level of injury. But just as he returned to his body and prepared to see how far the scepter had reached, he was suddenly knocked off his feet and toppled sideways.
“…!”
Sa Hyeon, who had immediately grasped the situation, looked at Yisun with a terrifying expression on his face. The protective items he had bought and equipped him with a few days ago had all activated, so he was still unharmed, but if Yisun had shifted his body just a little less, he might have been hit by the scepter. Even though he had four high-level protective items, it wouldn’t do much against an attack from an S-level dungeon boss.
If Yisun had stood still, he wouldn’t have been swept up in the attack, but he dared to lunge at and shove him, enraging Sa Hyeon.
“Jung Yisun, are you crazy?! You almost got yourself killed–”
Sa Hyeon didn’t finish his sentence. Tears streamed down Yisun’s face as he clutched onto him.
“Don’t die, please… I was wrong, so please…….”
Yisun held onto Sa Hyeon and cried. His tear-filled eyes made it difficult for him to see clearly, but he stubbornly held onto Sa Hyeon’s arms and sobbed. As if trying to check whether the other person was still alive, he tightly grabbed his arms again and again, seeking warmth.
Shin Jian, who was back on her feet and fending off the boss monster, and Na Gunwoo, who was buffing them nearby, both looked at him in confusion. Yisun, breaking down in Sa Hyeon’s arms, looked far from okay.
It was as though he finally fell apart after barely managing to hold together the broken pieces of this life he’d been forced to live. He sobbed as if he had always been struggling to breathe. The fear of losing someone in the dungeon again on a rainy day, of seeing someone die in front of his eyes again, overwhelmed him.
He felt betrayed by this deceitful life that always had him holding his breath. Death seemed to lurk around him, yet he was forced to continue living.
“Please don’t die and leave me behind…”
Yisun cried, sounding completely crushed. Sa Hyeon’s steady gaze slowly swept over him as he sobbed in his arms.
It was then that the temple began to crumble. It was originally restored by Yisun’s hidden ability, so when he lost his senses, it started collapsing again.
The floor sank and disappeared, and the pillars he’d erected upon entering tilted sideways with a crunching sound, causing further collapse as the boss monster appeared and connected with the broken pillars.
By this time, the angelic monsters outside were flying in again. The Hunters all turned to look at their leader. Sa Hyeon stared down at Yisun, who had collapsed from crying in his arms, before finally sighing and wrapping his arms around his shoulders.
“We’re giving up…on clearing the dungeon. Everyone, use your teleportation stones.”
Min: #GiveYisunABreak
Oh no, my babe
Thank you for your translation 💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚
Thank you for reading~ 🌸
Thank you for the translation. Poor Yisun.
Thank you for reading~ 🌸
It was doomed to happen .. #giveyisunabreak
Thanks for the chapter! 🥰
Frrr, he’s not stable enough to handle taht sigh, and thank you for reading~ 🌸
Yisun wasn’t gonna hold it together on this one… hope this doesn’t mean they lose the dungeon entirely. Thanks for the update ❤️
Riiightt? considering 1-his trauma, 2- this is only his 3rd time in a dungeon ;-; can’t blaame himmm and Thanks for reading~ 🌸
thanks for the translate !
Thank you for reading 💞
Ohh noo😟😟