Chapter 3 — Lucky Day (3)
“Kyaaaaaa!”
“Wh-what is this sound? Did a bomb go off?”
“Fuck! Don’t you know bombs are forbidden in dungeons? Which bastard was it?!”
The defense line broke formation in an instant, and noise filled the surroundings.
‘What is happening?’
JaeHyun quickly looked around inside the dungeon with dizzy eyes.
However, there were no signs of an explosion anywhere.
‘What on earth is it? I’m sure it was the sound of an explosion……’
A strange black smoke started to rise from the ground.
Shhhhhhhhhh………
The smoke spread in an instant and blocked everyone’s sight.
“Kek! Cough!”
“Cough! What the hell is this?!”
JaeHyun immediately covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve and narrowed his eyes.
The black fog that wrapped itself around them was not normal.
‘This is… poison fog?’
Poison fog.
Like its name suggested, it was a special kind of fog that had a poisonous effect on those who inhaled it.
‘If I inhale too much, I’ll die. I have to get out of here first.’
“JaeHyun. I think we need to get out of here quickly. This fog…… however I look at it, it’s dangerous.”
Lee Myung-Ho, who had come to his side while he wasn’t paying attention, said so while covering his mouth with his sleeve.
JaeHyun nodded as he yelled.
“Everyone! We need to leave this place quic—”
Before he could finish his words, JaeHyun had to close his mouth tightly.
“Augh!”
“Myu… Myung-Ho!”
Beside JaeHyun, a sharp knife was sticking out through Lee Myung-Ho’s chest.
JaeHyun bit his lips.
‘This gear is not from the dungeon.’
Lee Myung-Ho was not the only one. He could hear other people’s screams from here and there.
The coppery scent of blood filled the dungeon in an instant.
‘I have to escape.’
Tap, tap, tap.
JaeHyun quickly left his position and tried to pull himself together.
The sudden sound of an explosion, poison fog that filled the dungeon, and the people getting murdered.
Instantly, JaeHyun’s whole body was covered in goosebumps.
‘This is… not done by monsters.’
***
“Pant… pant……”
JaeHyun barely escaped from the poison fog and the assassins’ attacks and went deeper into the dungeon.
At the same time, he pondered.
What if the motive of the assassins was the massacre of Meteor Guild?
It would be worse if he headed to the exit.
There was a big chance that he would be murdered by the assassin team waiting by the entrance.
In this situation, it should be safer to request for rescue from within the dungeon.
‘Damn! What on earth is happening right now?
……Never mind. This is not the time to think like that.’
JaeHyun took out his smartphone from his jacket and turned it on.
If he could request for rescue right now, there was a possibility of him making it out of all this alive.
“Do you think I’ll just lie down and die when I just got a Mythic item after so much difficulty?”
Krrrrr! Bang!
An attack suddenly brushed past JaeHyun’s shoulder and lodged itself in the wall behind him.
“Urgh!”
JaeHyun fell to the ground. He rolled and barely avoided the attack.
‘What is this? Who the hell…’
“I knew that you’d manage to stay alive, hyung.”
Hearing the voice, JaeHyun quickly frowned fiercely.
JaeHyun spoke to the enemy standing in front of him with a shaky voice.
“…Jeong WooMin.”
“I told you, didn’t I? That we’d see each other today.”
Jeong WooMin had a smile on his face as he slowly walked toward JaeHyun.
At a glance, one could see that he had a totally different aura from yesterday. The black hoodies and rectangular glasses gave off a feeling of unknown danger.
JaeHyun didn’t take his eyes off of Jeong WooMin as he asked in a sharp voice.
“Did you plan all this? Spreading the poison fog and murdering the Meteor Guild?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Jeong WooMin admitted in a mild tone. There was no sign of guilt in his expression. Instead of his usual good-natured smile, there was only a provocative and unfamiliar expression on his face.
JaeHyun was bewildered, but he tried hard not to show it as he asked.
“Why?”
“Well, that’s because it was a request from my client. Plus… there are so many people who dislike the Meteor Guild. They have been looking down on the other guilds too much. You know what they say, the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.”
JaeHyun bit down on his lips.
Of course, he had heard that as the Meteor Guild expanded, they looked down on other guilds, especially those composed of Warrior raiders.
But to think they would be hit from behind like this.
‘I thought it was merely a small argument between guilds… I miscalculated. Damn.’
“Phew……”
JaeHyun controlled his breathing.
Unfortunately, he had to forget about the guild. He had to understand this situation first.
‘The probability of murder inside a dungeon being known outside is 0. Even if a crime is committed, it ends with the testimony of a witness.’
Dungeon assassins.
The name used nowadays to refer to those who misused a closed dungeon and committed murder inside. According to circumstances, the surprise attack on the Meteor Guild this time was perpetrated under such a blind spot.
‘Damn.’
JaeHyun gritted his teeth as he looked at Jeong WooMin in front of him.
Blue mana emitted from his whole body.
‘He isn’t someone I can beat with my current skills.’
Jeong WooMin was an A-rank Magician. He was part of the geniuses that composed the top 2% of the country.
On the other hand, JaeHyun was only D-rank. He wasn’t particularly skilled nor was he weak. He was just average.
Additionally, JaeHyun could not use the strength of the Aesir System at the moment.
‘I just have to keep my mouth shut. Then that bastard will have no reason to kill me. I wasn’t their goal to begin with. It’s unfair, but… there is no other way.’
Of course, if it were possible, he would have liked to get revenge for the dead members of the Meteor Guild and those who fought with him in the defense line. Especially Lee Myung-Ho.
But realistically, JaeHyun could not do anything.
As the Yggdrasil sprouted and the Awakened appeared, the world was tragically intolerant of the weak.
And JaeHyun was in the lowest tier of that pyramid.
‘Ha.’
It hurt his pride, but he could only bow his head down here.
Organizing his thoughts, JaeHyun opened his mouth with difficulty.
“Jeong WooMin. I’ll pretend as if nothing happened today. So…”
Jeong WooMin interrupted his words and took another step forward.
“But hyung, do you know?”
Screeee!
A yellow lightning attack extending from Jeong WooMin’s arm shortened the distance between him and JaeHyun in an instant.
Craaaaaash! Boom!
JaeHyun avoided the extremely-sharp lightning attack by rolling his body on the ground, then he analyzed Jeong WooMin’s path of movement while breathing roughly.
His arm and cheek started to bleed where the attack had brushed past him.
‘If I’d reacted a little bit late…… I would be dead for sure.’
Jeong WooMin’s attack happened in an instant. An attack filled with obvious hostility. It was too strong to say he was just joking around.
Looking at JaeHyun’s stiff face, Jeong Woomin smiled coldly.
“The target for this dungeon wasn’t only the Meteor Guild.”
***
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The 《 Lightning Chain 》flew around rapidly.
It was possible for Magicians like Jeong WooMin above B-rank to cast magic without saying the spells out loud.
Runic language.
They were able to do so because they had a higher understanding of this language, which was the basis of magic, compared to others.
Of course, it was not as strong as saying the spells out loud, but it was more than enough when facing a D-rank like JaeHyun.
Looking down at his bloody self, JaeHyun bit down on his lips.
‘I have to think of something. I need to get out of this situation.’
Jeong WooMin’s attacks were coming toward JaeHyun without pause. As he was avoiding the attacks with difficulty, JaeHyun thought about who on earth would have commissioned his death.
And at that moment—
One person passed through JaeHyun’s mind.
His whole body shook, and his face twisted in an instant.
Jeong WooMin looked at the expression on JaeHyun’s face with interest and stopped attacking.
JaeHyun’s gaze sharpened.
“……was it my father?”
Seeing JaeHyun’s contorted expression that he’d never seen before, Jeong WooMin laughed with delight instead.
“You are really smart, hyung. That’s why I like you.”
JaeHyun clenched his fists. A drop of blood escaped his tightly-drawn mouth. His whole body shook with rage.
To think that the one who had ordered his death was his biological father.
Of course, he knew that his father didn’t consider him his child. He knew that his father considered him trash for a long time.
However, wasn’t this too much? He hired assassins to kill his own son?
Then, an uneasy thought abruptly passed through JaeHyun’s mind.
‘If that is true…… no way!’
While contempt filled his whole body, JaeHyun began to speak with difficulty.
“Let me ask one thing.”
Jeong WooMin shrugged in the face of Jaehyun’s seriousness. It was an agreement of sorts.
“Did that person also commission something like this before? About 5 years ago……”
“I didn’t think you would get that one right as well. You’re really amazing.”
Thump.
JaeHyun’s forehead twisted fiercely. It felt like he couldn’t breathe.
The violent beat of his heart resounded. Soon afterward, hot tears filled his eyes.
5 years ago, JaeHyun’s mother lost her life in a robbery.
During a very cold winter, his mother—who had loved him dearly—became a cold corpse and was brought into the morgue.
The autopsy concluded that she was murdered by someone. JaeHyun, who’d only been 22 at the time, found it hard to believe.
His tears fell without end.
He had promised to pay back his mother’s care in his youth. He was a son who had merely received and given nothing back.
His mother had already left him by then.
Right after the incident, JaeHyun went to the police station everyday to try and catch the murderer. But the killer was more meticulous than expected. He didn’t leave a clue anywhere, and the case remained unsolved.
Although five long years had passed, a loathing for his mother’s murderer still remained in JaeHyun’s heart. It was a loathing that always filled him with killing intent immediately.
And now, he knew where to direct that loathing.
Jeong WooMin. And his father.
Everything became clear.
The one who killed JaeHyun’s mother, Lee SeonHwa, was his father… and Jeong WooMin, who was currently right in front of him.
His insides were tingling. Truthfully, JaeHyun had had a vague idea to begin with. His mom and father had never gotten along.
However—
Thinking about his father as his mother’s killer was incredibly brutal on him.
He was the only family JaeHyun had left.
It scared him that the only one he could lean on would disappear. So he had decided to trust him. Even though he had a doubtful character.
But then—
‘The result of all that trust…… is this?’
Uncontrollable laughter burst out along with hot tears.
He gnashed his teeth.
JaeHyun’s father, who killed his only wife and now wanted to kill his son too.
Jeong WooMin, who affably called him ‘hyung’ and took care of low-ranked raiders like himself.
‘Now… I won’t trust anyone.’
Jeong WooMin left JaeHyun deep in thought and started to release his mana to create his lightning attack again. It was 《 Lightning Chain 》, a spell Jeong WooMin was proficient with.
Fzzzzzzz…
The attack that changed its form into a sharp chain cried out as if it wished to quickly rip JaeHyun’s body apart.
“Well, that’s what happened.”
Jeong WooMin’s eyes slanted down.
“Good-bye, hyung.”
____
