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slightly graphic descriptions
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“Gasp… Pant, gasp…”
Lee Juwon suddenly opened his eyes.
“Pant, ha…”
It was dark in front of him. But Lee Juwon recognized this situation. Now, he was in the dungeon again.
“Ha…”
The moment he crashed into the tree came back to him vividly and intensely.
‘Excuse me!’
‘Are you okay?’
Knock, knock, someone rapped on the car window outside.
‘119, did you call 119?’
‘Minwoo is calling.’
‘Is… is he dead?’
White smoke billowed in his upside-down vision, and the wipers quickly shook while facing the sky. The iron plate that had been the ceiling turned into the floor and was crushed. Wee woo wee woo, ambulance sirens wailed in the distance.
As a result of ignoring the airbag’s warning light, the white nylon fabric sagged in front of him without nitrogen. His body took the brunt of the impact as the car overturned and was partially destroyed.
Lee Juwon’s case, as pronounced by the doctor, was a fractured cervical spine and multiple organ failures. The pain of his organs bursting and bleeding from every orifice in his body was still vivid and intense. What remained equally vivid and intense was the sound of Kang Inheon’s voice.
– …Lee Juwon!
– …Lee Juwon?
– …Juwon-ah…
The sound of Kang Inheon calling his name rang clearly in his ears. It was said that hearing cells remain the longest after death, so he couldn’t forget Kang Inheon’s voice as if it was etched in his brain.
He had never heard it before. The terrified voice of Kang Inheon.
A voice crushed by fear, a voice that could guess from the harsh explosive and friction sounds that must have come through the receiver but refused to admit it, a voice that later seemed hollow…
His eyes adapted to the dark and slowly became aware of their surroundings. Inside the Gnipahellir dungeon, the brazier that had once held the boiling snake soup was reduced to a pile of black ashes, and Lee Juwon was lying all alone beside it.
“Still…”
Lee Juwon breathed in and out slowly.
“I’m alive…”
He didn’t even question whether he was alive or not. He was definitely alive. He could feel the sensation of life throughout his entire body. His pulse raced and his heart thumped. His breath came in wheezing gasps, creating a white fog in the below-zero temperature dungeon.
The things he took for granted, even the white frost he breathed out on his own, were overwhelming at this moment.
“Not yet…”
Lee Juwon breathed a sigh of relief mixed with a groan.
This was how he was supposed to die.
The present he had just seen was the last Christmas he would have spent if he hadn’t been trapped in the dungeon. And the future he’d seen when he’d first entered the dungeon was the day after. Both of them were a sight to see.
“I really died on Christmas, huh…”
He wasn’t dead yet. But he was about to be. He didn’t know if he should be happy to be alive or unhappy to be trapped in the dungeon again. His mind raced with the memories of the future that he remembered so clearly as if it had actually happened and the time of the present.
“I couldn’t even eat some pizza…”
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.
Like how the alarm of the quest window said, he lived as he had lived before. To think that was the last day of his life, it was such a waste spending it like that.
He vaguely thought that because he had lived so intensely, he wouldn’t have any regrets when he died, but he was wrong. He had too many regrets. Among the things he left behind, what stood out the most was…
“…Kang Inheon.”
He couldn’t believe that was the last conversation they shared on Christmas. His heart stung and hurt when he thought of his tired face guarding his funeral hall until the end overlapped with his appearance sinking in the river. Even when he was surrounded by monsters, Kang Inheon was always relaxed…
“Argh, damn it!”
Lee Juwon sat up and beat his fist on the floor.
If he’d known it would be the last time, he wouldn’t have ended it like that.
But he was bound not to realize that moment was his last until after it passed. Even if he knew that was the last time, he couldn’t help but let him go like that.
“No, it won’t end like that,” Lee Juwon recited as if promising himself. He couldn’t let the rest of his life be so empty and meaningless, and he couldn’t let Kang Inheon end his.
He checked his watch and saw that it had already been over 16 hours since he was trapped in the dungeon. There were less than eight hours left, and there was no turning back after that.
Lee Juwon chewed on the inside of his lip and pushed himself up. He had to solve the next quest, whatever it was.
But no matter how much he looked around, he couldn’t see a way out of the clearing. There was nothing to break either. Except for the narrow cave where Lee Juwon had come from the Spring of After Death, he was surrounded by solid walls.
“…I don’t have to go back that way, do I?”
He hoped not, but as far as he could see, there was no other path or opening.
“I have to do what I have to do…”
There was no time for delay. After beating his already aching waist a few times with his fist, Lee Juwon retraced his steps back the way he came.
The scraps of paper left over from blowing up the wall fluttered at his feet.
Ktf aeccfi ugfk cjggbkfg jcv cjggbkfg jcv ibkfg lc tfluta. Ktf vjgxcfrr gfwjlcfv. Pa kjr ralii tjgv ab kjix klat tlr kjlra yfca, yea tf kjr mbwobgafv ys atf ojma atja tf tjv j gbeut lvfj bo tbk ojg tf tjv ab ub.
Off Aekbc’r fzqgfrrlbc aklrafv jr tf kjixfv yglrxis obg j ibcu alwf klatbea ajxlcu j ygfjx, mbwqeirlnfis uijcmlcu ja atf kjamt bc tlr kglra.
“Ugh…”
As soon as the minute hand moved, he already had a rough guess, but his throat suddenly became way too dry. It wasn’t just any normal thirst, but the inside of his mouth felt like sandpaper as if the moisture in his salivary glands had dried up in an instant.
“Co, cough…”
The burning in his mouth and throat, as if he had chewed a handful of hot desert sand and swallowed it, made him cough. The irritated mucous membrane in his airway burned his throat even more.
It had been fifteen hours since he’d drunk from the Spring of After Death or whatever it was called, and now the effects were wearing off. The thirst he hadn’t felt all this time was calculated as compound interest and rushed in all at once.
“If more time passes…”
His swollen ankle was the problem. His ankle, which he had sprained in the spring, had swollen to red from the overwork it had been put through.
Amazingly, it didn’t hurt that much right now but when it came time for the snake’s effect to wear off, he didn’t know how much that pain would double in return. So, he had to get to his next destination as quickly as possible while he could still walk. Lee Juwon hurried his steps.
How many quick steps had he taken while walking and bending his body into a ㄱ shape? Turning a corner, Lee Juwon saw a faint light shining in the distance and let out a light groan.
“Sigh…”
He finally exited the long tunnel and arrived at where the spring was. But the sight before him was not a very happy one.
The spring was as dry as when he left. He didn’t expect to be able to drink the water again. What was out of his expectations, however, was to find the path he had come down when he first fell into the dungeon stretching out before him as if it had never disappeared.
“…How far back do you want me to go?”
At least he could stretch his back. As Lee Juwon retraced his steps from the road he had come from, he promised himself that if he was ever able to escape, he’d never tell people to change the report they gave him back to their first draft. He wasn’t joking…
He came to the same fork road he had encountered the first time. He had turned right then, and now it was time to take the left turn.
The burning thirst in his throat was unbearable, but he didn’t stop walking. Whether he died from thirst, from a monster showing up, from the time limit ending and being stuck in the dungeon, the ending always seemed to be the same; he’d die.
Lee Juwon wanted to rewrite that ending and what happened after the ending too.
The path to the left was a slight downhill slope. The path, which was fairly gentle at first, became steeper as he went on.
He repeatedly ran and walked down the narrow downhill slope without rest. He needed to go more when he still had a bit of strength left, but at some point, Lee Juwon’s footsteps stopped.
He didn’t stop because he was tired. As soon as he smelled the fragrance, the hairs on his body stood up.
It was faint, but unmistakably the smell of chrysanthemums. The smell he had gotten sick of smelling for days in his funeral parlour. It wasn’t a funeral hall, and there was no way chrysanthemums would bloom in the cave. So, he couldn’t think of any other possibilities.
He would encounter a monster not far away. The Crita, a monster that uncharacteristically emitted the smell of flowers.
It was not much larger than a wolf, but it had a long whip-like tail and some intelligence. Moreover, the outer skin layer of its body was covered in bumpy, hard muscles and veins.
If Lee Juwon, who wasn’t even a hunter, took on the Crita, he wouldn’t stand a winning chance. It was best to turn back. The moment he realized what the scent was, he instinctively backed away with hesitation.
But he couldn’t take any more steps back. Even if he turned back, there was no answer. If he stopped, he’d die; if he returned, he’d die; if he continued on, he’d die…
“I’d rather go…”
Lee Juwon took off his shoes and held them in one hand. He could feel the uneven, cold ground beneath his feet.
He searched both of his suit’s inside pockets again just in case, but all he found was a ballpoint pen and a scrap of paper with burnt edges. A sigh escaped on its own, but he silenced the sound of his breathing and slowly walked forward.
The scent of flowers grew stronger and stronger as he walked further in. Kung, his heart sank when his eyes fell upon a large, curled-up figure.
The Crita was sleeping with its long tail curled around it. Its body rose and fell with regularity.
The path was narrow, and the monster was blocking it. The monster was clearly guarding this cave. Even an attempt at a standard attack tactic to cleanly get rid of it was impossible. The Crita’s senses weren’t the sharpest, so the only option was to pass by it as quietly as possible without it noticing.
Lee Juwon walked cautiously, not making a sound. Lee Juwon stuck close to the wall and took one step at a time as if he were walking on thin ice out of fear of even touching the tip of the Crita’s hair.
It was like walking through a minefield where a wrong step could get him torn to death. He thought that he should have gone to the army after all, but even the army didn’t make people walk through minefields these days.
The still monster’s back twitched as he passed by the middle of the Crita’s body. Its long tail followed suit and wiggled.
Lee Juwon stood frozen, unable to move. Unable to breathe properly, he watched for the Crita’s reaction. Luckily, the Crita’s movements soon faded. It must have been tossing and turning in its sleep.
Goosebumps rose from every pore. Lee Juwon wasn’t sure if the sound of his heart could be heard outside. The pulse already pounding beneath his ear was enough to make his head feel like it’ll explode.
There was no time to breathe a sigh of relief. With his back stuck against the wall, Lee Juwon walked cautiously by the Crita’s side again.
After a while, he finally made it through. His pulse raced and sweat trickled down his back as if he had just sprinted 100 metres when he just passed by a short road without making a sound.
Now that he had passed the monster, he just needed to pass that corner and he’d be outside of range. Of course, there was no telling what else might lie beyond.
As Lee Juwon exhaled the breath he had been holding as he rounded the corner of the cave, he felt a painful sensation on his ankle.
Lee Juwon looked down at his ankle. At the same time, he felt his body float. Against the laws of gravity.
“Ugh!”
The long tail wrapped around Lee Juwon’s ankle. Lee Juwon was dragged on the stone floor.
In an instant, he was violently led back to the road he had passed through breathlessly. He came face to face with the Crita he wanted to avoid so much.
The monster’s eyes glowed in the darkness of the dungeon. At the sight of those eyes, devoid of any hint of sleepiness, Lee Juwon spat out a mocking laugh.
“Haha…”
It had been pretending to sleep this entire time, that bastard.
He didn’t even have the time to curse. The long tail that had been wrapped around his ankle unravelled free and it stood midair. For a moment, the whip-like tail lashed down on the stone floor in proximity of him. The floor caved in, and stone dust flew near his ears.
He instinctively knew. If he got hit, he’d instantly die.
The Crita’s tail lifted again. The monster slammed its tail into the ground.
Bam!
Lee Juwon barely managed to roll and avoid it. But the Crita’s tail didn’t hit the spot where he was. It just got a little closer than before.
But there was no way the Crita would fail to aim? Did it hit there knowing he’d dodge? In the split moment of confusion, the tail rose into the air again and flew towards Lee Juwon.
Boom! The stone floor caved in. Shards of broken stone ricocheted out and made a sharp scratch on Lee Juwon’s cheek. Blood trickled down his cheek.
“Is this bastard missing on purpose…?”
Even within the same monster species, each individual had its own personality. The monster in front of him seemed to enjoy playing with creatures much weaker than it.
He could tell that it was playing with him and intending to kill him by the way it slammed its tail down, deliberately shortening the distance between them. There was no point in arguing with a monster over its malice. It was up to it what to do with the prey in its hands.
It put him in a bad mood, but he was weaker than the monster, so he couldn’t help it. Who wanted to be prey? As far as he knew, there was only one being who could be an apex predator in any situation.
As his already risky life was pushed to the edge, he desperately thought of Kang Inheon. He remembered the image of him defeating monsters. Whether it was a Crita or whatever, he would have pierced it with a single blow from his pulse. Like the protagonist in a hero film. He wouldn’t be bumbling around like this.
The Crita slammed its tail into the ground around Lee Juwon a few more times. It wasn’t hitting its mark, but Lee Juwon still had a hard time dodging it. Still, it was a good thing the monster wasn’t using its full strength.
“…I only need one hand to deal with the likes of you, is that what you’re thinking?”
It was possible for Lee Juwon, desperate to survive, to do his best to avoid the monster’s attack, which was just wriggling its tail and playing around with him to kill time. But then came the problem.
The Crita quickly grew bored and stopped playing around. Instead of hitting the ground, its tail was aimed squarely at Lee Juwon’s neck. The long tail whipped around Lee Juwon’s neck.
“Do you start with eating the head, or the tail…?”
The Crita opened its mouth wide to tear off Lee Juwon’s head and eat it. To think it started off with eating the head, thank God its tastes were different.
There was only one chance, so the angle was important. Lee Juwon jabbed the monami pen clutched tightly in his hand into the Crita’s upturned nostrils.
The only place on the Crita’s body that was somewhat soft was its nostrils. He saluted the hunter, whoever they were, for being the first to realize that the nostrils were its weakness.
Gwiiik! Kiik!
The Crita cried out in sudden pain. Kung! It snorted hard, but the pen was deeply embedded in the cartilage and wouldn’t come out.
But only for a moment, as the Crita strained its facial muscles, and the plastic pen shattered. He had stuck his pen in its weakness, its nostril, but the small plastic stick wasn’t enough to kill it. It would only enrage it further and hasten his disastrous end, like ruffling the nose hairs of a sleeping lion.
As he predicted, the enraged Crita used its tail to crush Lee Juwon’s neck bone first.
Boom!
Before his neck bone could snap, there was an explosion, and the monster’s head exploded first
A piece of paper with the explosion diagram had been stuck to the tip of the ballpoint pen. The moment the pen holder twisted and broke, the protruding nib dotted the centre of the diagram, triggering the explosion.
Inside the Crita’s nose was a paranasal cavity. Filled with air to help sound resonate, the organ also aided the explosion.
Flesh and brain fluid splattered onto Lee Juwon’s face. Half of its head was blown off, but the Crita was still writhing. The explosive power was weak, given his poor drawing skills and the small amount of paper left over from blowing up the stone wall earlier. It was only enough to explode the monster’s head in half but not enough to shock the outer area.
Bam! Lee Juwon slammed his fist into what was left of the Crita’s head.
“Once is too cold…”
With two more blows to the head, the Crita’s breathing finally stopped.
“Haa…”
Before the post-mortem stiffness could set in, he unwound the tail from around his neck first. Barely free, his legs finally gave way. Lee Juwon slid to a sitting position against the stone wall.
The strong scent of chrysanthemums lingered in the air, making his head ache. As he picked up the shoes he had left on the floor and put them on, Lee Juwon muttered, “In the future, don’t look down on me for being weak…”
But the dead Crita didn’t answer. It was dead, so even if it wanted to ignore him, it couldn’t… Even if it wasn’t dead, it couldn’t speak…
“This isn’t something I should say…”
The Crita’s corpse looked like his impending future appearance. If his gamble against the low odds had failed, it would have been him, not the Crita, torn apart and lying on the floor.
His whole body was still tattered. Wiping the Crita’s flesh and blood from his face, he stood up again. He couldn’t just sit back and rest just because he had killed a single monster. There was no time to waste. I have to get to you somehow…
“I have to go…”
orcinus comments:
lee juwon is a stronger person than i am… sorry inheon-ah but i would’ve given up and died 😭
Thanks for the chapter! <3
Thank you translator! 😭❤️
Agradezco que traduzcas la historia 😍 me encanta la relación de los personajes y la dinámica de la historia 😊 gracias por traducir
Esperare los próximos capitulos
Pls tell me it’s a HE 😭💔🤧🤧🤧🤧🤧
many struggles along the way, but they will be happy!!
Idc as long as they’re happy!!! 🤧🤧🤧🤧
Thank you for the chapter
😭👍❤️
Thank you for the chapppyyy~
Dayum Slayyy Lee Juwon
Good job Lee Juwon!
Thank you for the chapter ❤️
Thank you for translating!
Thanks for the chapter.
Lee Juwon hang in there. Inheon is the goal.
Dangg, our mc is amazing~!! That fight was brutal 😭 really low chances of survival, but our mc was able to make it!!!!! Got the drive to survive and meet up ml again wuwuwuwuwuwuuwu
Me too
The writing and translation both go so hard what?! When he was stealthing, I was legitimately finding it hard to breathe. Thank you so much!! 감사해요!!