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“…W-what the?”
Lee Juwon was unsure of the situation.
“Where… Where am I?”
It was neither the Gyeongsam River, the funeral parlour, the company, nor atop his bed. All he could see was a low cave ceiling, white stones, and a hard, damp stone floor…
He blankly squeezed his eyes shut, opened them and rubbed them, but the scene didn’t change.
He was now in the dungeon from his dream.
So, meeting the Gareum and being trapped in the dungeon wasn’t a pipe dream, but being with Kang Inheon just now was?
Lee Juwon was confused as to whether he was dreaming, whether he was dreaming while in a dream, or what was real and what wasn’t. Lying on the stone floor cold enough for shivers to go down his spine, he wasn’t sure if his current situation was real, if the Gyeongsam River he’d fallen into with Kang Inheon was a dream, or if it was the opposite and all of this was just a dream.
“Here is…”
For a moment, he just stared blankly at his grotesquely white palm and blinked.
Slap!
Lee Juwon slapped himself hard on the cheek with that hand and sat up.
His cheek stung from the blow. This must be real, not a dream.
His hand turned white. He was in a dungeon.
It was the effect of drinking from the mysterious spring. Anyhow, it seemed to be his reality that he was currently trapped in a dungeon. Or maybe that was what he wanted to believe because he wanted it to be.
“Huu…”
Lee Juwon groaned and covered his face with his hands. His mind was a jumble of thoughts, a tangle of all his emotions, but one thing was clear.
Thank God.
He was glad that Kang Inheon was an illusion.
His stiffened muscles relaxed and he felt drained. A sigh escaped his parted lips.
The accumulated fatigue only now rushed in and his body felt heavy. And yet, he felt no thirst. There was only one way to explain it.
“Congratulations, you have discovered the Spring of After Death… Drinking water from this spring will keep you from feeling thirsty for 15 hours…”
Lee Juwon thought back to the status window describing the spring water. If this really was the Gnipahellir dungeon, and if this was his current reality…
“It also reveals your future…”
It meant that what had just happened was his future.
“…It really is shitty.”
Lee Juwon laughed emptily. He was not an optimist. He always thought the worst and prepared for it.
But he hadn’t really prepared for his own death. The afterlife was far shittier than what Lee Juwon had vaguely imagined.
Looking back on all the years he had lived, it was a very real possibility. But wasn’t it said that people believe in their own immortality without realizing it? Lee Juwon had lived his life not knowing when he would die.
In the future he saw, there was only one thing he couldn’t predict.
“…Kang Inheon.”
A sunset riverbank, deep blue river water, milky white porcelain, and a black suit… all of those did not match Kang Inheon. Thinking of such a sight again, his breath caught in his throat and he felt nauseous.
“Ugh…!”
He grabbed the wall and retched, but since he hadn’t eaten anything, only watery gastric fluid flowed out.
“Hu…”
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.
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If he stayed trapped in the dungeon like this and let time pass by, it seemed like the future he saw just now would become a reality outside the dungeon. He couldn’t let that happen.
“I have to get out somehow…”
Anyway, now that he’d completed the quest by drinking from the spring and seeing the future, there must be a way out. If there was no path, he had to make one, or at least get out of there by any means necessary.
He composed himself and took a look around and his surroundings were a bit different from before. There wasn’t a drop of water in the puddle, and the path he had come from was blocked as if it had never been there in the first place. He was trapped in a dome-shaped clearing with no way out.
“Haa…”
He was desperate, but there was nothing he could do so a sigh escaped on its own. He couldn’t stay trapped like this for 18 hours.
Lee Juwon got up and looked around the cave carefully. After a while, he noticed that one wall was a little different from the others.
The rough white stone wall was wet and damp. He pounded on it with his fist, and unlike the other walls, it made a hollow, echoing sound. But the hand hitting the stone wall didn’t hurt much.
“What…?”
After lifting his hand, which had turned white, and turning it here and there and looking at it, he slammed it against the stone wall with force. Then, he grabbed his hand and sunk down.
“Ugh!”
It hurt too much. It probably hadn’t hurt so much earlier because he had hit it gently. But there seemed to be no other way but to break this wall.
Thud! Thud!
He tried to muffle the sound at first, fearing that any monsters that might be present would feel that their habitat had been invaded by an enemy, but the wall didn’t budge.
Bang! Bang!
He increased the intensity, but the wall remained firm. The hwayeon stone may be soft, but stone was stone.
“I’m not even a hunter, so why am I here?” Lee Juwon muttered, shaking his wrist. There was plenty of hard work to be done in a dungeon, and he’d never considered breaking through such a thin wall to be work, but it was frustrating to have to do it himself instead of having someone else do it.
After a while of pushing with his shoulder and bang, bang, kicking it, the stone finally started to crack a bit. When he finally gathered all his strength and slammed his foot against the wall, it finally made a cracking sound and the thin wall was pierced through.
“Finally…!”
But he wasn’t exactly in the mood to celebrate. His ankle was sore from kicking the wall as if it were sprained, and though he expected it, what he found was a narrow cave barely big enough for one person to fit through. About a metre high, the cave was so narrow and low that Lee Juwon had to bend in half at the waist.
“Is this the way?”
He wished someone would tell him it wasn’t, but there was no one to answer him, not in the future in his dream, not in the dungeon now. He had no choice but to go.
He walked for quite a while, his shoulders, arms, and head pressed against the narrow cave walls, but the path just kept going. No, if it was just continuity, he would’ve been grateful.
In the middle of the way, a stone wall blocked the way again. He had to break through it, just like the first time. The thought of digging with his bare hands was enough to make him want to turn around.
“Damn it, at least give me a shovel.”
Or even a spoon… But all Lee Juwon had was his body, and the only way to move forward was to break through the wall somehow.
His ankle, which he thought was only slightly sprained, was swollen at some point. His ankle wasn’t the only problem. His entire body, from the shoulders, wrists, elbows, to knees, ached all over. He was exhausted and the clock was helplessly ticking, but he had another problem.
“I’m hungry…”
Due to the influence of the spring water, he wasn’t thirsty but he was hungry. He usually didn’t even have an appetite, but in this situation, he lost to hunger… He felt like a stranger to himself.
That wasn’t the only strange thing. He had seen his aunt and uncle as so fierce when he was young, but standing in front of Kang Inheon, they were just small and weak. He was grateful that the one to take care of his funeral to the end was Kang Inheon and not them. Even if it was just a dream.
“Sigh…”
But he wasn’t thankful towards him until after the funeral. He wanted to somehow stop the future from unfolding.
Lee Juwon wasn’t exactly sure why Kang Inheon had so relentlessly kicked his aunt and uncle out of the funeral, but he had vaguely suspected it was because of the inheritance. Rather than Kang Inheon being greedy for money, it must have been because the stakes in the company would become complicated and there would be problems managing the company.
But neither the company nor the inheritance was the reason. Rather, he…
Lee Juwon shook his head and pushed the thought away. He didn’t want to think about it anymore. His stomach rumbled as if it would turn inside out. Right now, he had to focus on getting out of there.
There was no time to sit around, so he pushed himself up again. A grunt escaped him. He wished he could stretch his body, but the cave was getting lower and lower, and he hit his head on the low ceiling in the dark.
Later on, he almost had to walk in a crawling position. He was exempt from the military because he had no parents, but he thought it’d be better if he had just gone.
“Ugh… I’m hungry…”
For the first time in a very long time, Lee Juwon thought about what he wanted to eat. With nothing to do but crawl and walk, all sorts of thoughts raced through his head. If he thought about anything else now, his head would explode. Instead, Lee Juwon decided to think about food, something he usually doesn’t think about at all.
When was the last time he had a decent meal…
Now that he thought about it, he could think of quite a few this month alone. A very well-organized table d’hôte at the luncheon he was invited to by the state secretary, a course meal at a French restaurant that a potions dealer had chattered on about booking months in advance, sashimi at a meeting of hunter service company CEOs where the chef had served up a flopping fish right on the spot…
“People who didn’t even come to my funeral hall…”
What was so important about having a meal with those people that he regularly attended them? He could remember every single conversation they had, but he couldn’t really remember the taste of the food.
After dying, whether through second-hand experience or otherwise, he regretted not being able to remember the taste of the food as much as he regretted not being able to buy raw materials for weapons when he was at his lowest point. Understandably, he couldn’t remember the last time he had enjoyed a good meal. He should have at least had dinner before he got stuck in this dungeon…
“…Hashed rice, stir-fried fish cakes, kimchi cabbage, cherry tomatoes…”
He remembered the dinner and lunch menus from that day that he hadn’t even eaten.
“Boiled glutinous millet, bean paste soup, sausage, pickled radish, radish kimchi…”
Kang Inheon would often send the cafeteria’s menu to Lee Juwon. He had thought he was using his kakaotalk window as a notepad, but did it mean he should eat something in case of a situation like this? Great plan, now he was as gaunt as he could be…
“Uwaa!”
Lee Juwon shook his head vigorously, trying to clear his mind of all the thoughts that had returned. There was no time to be occupied with this unknown feeling right now.
Whether it was lunch or dinner, he wasn’t happy with the menu. If he was just capable of getting out of here, he’ll tell them to change the menu a bit. Give them a choice of Western, Chinese, and Korean food…
“We should add pizza too…”
He thought he had eaten so much pizza he was sick of it now, but he couldn’t figure out why it suddenly came to mind. He wanted a real hot pizza this time, not one that came from a freezer.
The thought of eating energized him a little, but only for a moment. Even after crawling for a while in a crouching position, there was no end to the low, dark cave.
The longer he went on with an empty stomach, his stomach was not only hungry but also hurt. To the point that if there was grass poking out of the ground, he would’ve plucked it and eaten it.
By the time he realized the reason why he was able to bluff about not remembering the taste of the food or not liking the menu in the cafeteria was because it made him less hungry, Lee Juwon was met with another wall.
“Stop this…”
Lee Juwon touched the wall in front of him with faltering fingertips and flopped down on the floor. He felt the uneven, cold stone floor against his cheek. He found himself pitiful for laying in a defenceless position inside a dungeon, but there was no answer.
He didn’t even have the strength to crawl anymore, and now he was being asked to break another wall. He didn’t care if there was a time limit or monsters, he was just on the verge of dying from exhaustion now. There wasn’t even a way to break the stone wall while laying down like this.
He was going crazy from feeling suffocated. Even bombs were used when demolishing buildings…
“Bombs…?”
Lee Juwon jumped to his feet and nearly hit his head on the low ceiling. Barely able to keep his upper body up, he dug into the inside pocket of his suit.
One of the trash items Kang Inheon had brought from the dungeon with bad cost-effectiveness, a piece of paper that exploded when a certain mandala was drawn, was in his pocket. He kept it in his pocket to test its explosive power later.
Lee Juwon was thrilled. He quickly pulled out the monami pen that he always brought around with him.
He had only caught a glimpse of the mandala diagram for the explosion on the monitor, but as always, Lee Juwon remembered it exactly. Lee Juwon could have hundreds of similar-looking diagrams shoved in his face and he’d still be able to accurately point out what function it had and what class it was at first sight.
However, when it came time to put pen to paper, he couldn’t help but be a little hesitant. It was reckless to detonate a bomb with unknown performance in such a small space. He wasn’t just blowing up a wall, but he could possibly blow up the little remnant of his life too.
What if the cave collapsed and he was crushed to death in the rubble? It was concerning, but he couldn’t just lie there and let time pass.
“Hm…?”
But as he drew the mandala, Lee Juwon came to a realization. It was useless to worry.
Just because you know something well doesn’t mean you can draw it well. It wasn’t his forte to actually create the shapes he knew in his head. Lee Juwon had known this hearing his many art classes back when he was in school, but he had gone so long without drawing anything resembling a picture that he had forgotten it in the excitement of being able to break down the wall.
The diagram he barely managed to draw while laying down and facing the wall was a scrawl. It was a given since he found it hard to even draw a line properly.
Finally, he managed to somewhat finish the drawing by placing a circle in the middle, but far from a proper explosion, all he got was faint smoke rising from the paper.
“Damn it…”
No matter how many times he redrew it, it was all the same. He even failed at triggering the diagram at all.
“…Last one.”
There was hardly any space left on the paper now. Thinking it was his last chance, Lee Juwon carefully drew the diagram. It wasn’t that he could draw well just because he was determined to draw well, but it seemed to be better than before, so Lee Juwon was a little hopeful.
When he put a dot in the centre with the explosion command—
Boom!
With a light explosion, the paper finally exploded. The force of the explosion sent shattered stone dust and billowing smoke into his face.
“Cough, co, cough…”
Coughing incessantly as his mouth and nose itched, Lee Juwon waved his hand to blow away the smoke and dust in front of him. The drawing was crude so the explosive force was crude, but that was rather fortunate. If he’d drawn it too well, the cave would have collapsed and killed him.
His eyes stung from the stone dust and smoke, and his vision was blurry from the physiological tears he was producing to flush out the foreign substance in his eyeballs. Lee Juwon squeezed his eyes shut and opened them a few times, wondering if he had really seen right.
“Cough, ugh…”
No matter how many times he looked again, a faint light leaked through the tiny pierced hole.
“…Is, is that, is that the exit?”
The light was coming from the outside of the wall, so the way out was clear.
“…Finally!”
Thud, thud, Lee Juwon slammed his elbows and fists into the wall again. It wasn’t as difficult to break the already shocked thin wall as it had been earlier. Moreover, the faint amount of light he could see gave him as much hope.
As the hole grew larger and larger, the light grew brighter and brighter. Lee Juwon took a deep breath, gathered his strength, and bang! He slammed down on the wall, causing it to collapse with a crumbling sound.
“Phew…”
Finally, he saw a clear space in front of him. At the thought of no longer having to shovel with his bare hands, Lee Juwon’s energy drained from his body. With a grunt, he slipped through the wall and finally stretched his waist which felt like it snapped in half.
“Uuuuh…!”
Lee Juwon beat against his waist and shoulders and looked towards the centre of the clearing. An unfamiliar sight caught his eye. A large pot hung over a blazing brazier.
“Now what’s this…?”
Nine white snakes were tangled and wriggled in the boiling black water.
“…Snakes?”
As soon as Lee Juwon finished speaking, a light alarm sounded and words appeared above the snake pot.
Wow, the lucky you have discovered <the Snake of the Present>.
Eating this snake will restore your strength for 8 hours*_*
Of course, you’ll be more tired after 8 hours, but isn’t that what nutritious tonics are for, to borrow stamina?
Besides, you can see the present.
May you live as you were meant to live…
orcinus comments:
though lee juwon is trash, he’s not incapable!
Ahhh thank you so much for translating! I can’t wait to see what happens next! ❤
Thank you!
Thank u
I love this novel, really
Where’s is chapter 1
Where is chapter 1
check the page of the novel, the link to chapter one is stated before the chapters ^^ if you dont know where to check, just go on novelupdates
Thanks for the translation! Eating snakes does not seem appetizing at all lol 😬
awh i like him
thanks for the chapter <33333
People flipping on ml fast chapters ago despite his colossal contributions makes me disgusted with their society :< Wonder why mc kept on saving money. Is it because of their past or is he saving up for something or emergency money, or truly just a scrooge 🤔Sad that only ml seemed geniune.. Every time mc felt like that person looked like they care about him, in the next few scenes, they actually don’t 😭 we also got to finally know what’s in the box. And how ml was so ready to submerge in water, holding mc’s urn huhu
Anyways, glad that this dungeon is changing him. A character development dungeon and way to let him know to properly eat 😭
Reading that part again where ml kept texting mc food made me emotional, thinking if it’s ml’s way to get mc to feel hungry and eat at least.
They fit each other 🥺
here go get your pizza!! 🍕🍕🍕
Now babyy resign from the CEO position no from the whole December company and live overseas ×^×
Scrooge and trash LMAO XD
I’m really loving this but I’m scared 90% of the novel is going to be MC’s pov and “illusion versions of ML” so none of the interactions between the characters feel important because they don’t really count towards building a relationship. I’ll keep reading for now because I want to see the aftermath of the dungeon and them build a relationship or at least interact with each other.