Treasure Map

[ ? ]

I discovered a path to the underground at the village fountain.

[Overview]

An unfamiliar, heterogeneous power emanates from the location marked on the map stored by Disnier-nim.

If you don’t have the strength, run away immediately.

[Information]

Time Limit: 60 minutes / Dungeon

[Participation Requirements]

Level 100

Average Item Level: 800

ㄴItem Level Adjustment: 800

*Once you enter the dungeon, you cannot escape until you clear it or are wiped out.

*This is a high-difficulty dungeon. Please come prepared.

,Oh.

,What’s a level 100 dungeon doing in a newbie village?

Bae-Ddeopgae’s question was met with nods and bewildered reactions from Arang and the other party members.

The newbie villages in the Ferde Continent are where players grow from level 1 to level 30.

It’s a tutorial village where you receive basic first job advancements like Swordsman, Fighter, Archer, Assassin, and Mage, and learn the overall systems of Leore.

For such a village to have a highest-level dungeon.

And not in the combat zone on the outskirts of the village, but inside the village itself.

The place marked on the treasure map was none other than the fountain.

When I pressed the hidden switch in the fountain, the channel changed. All the users around disappeared, leaving only Arang, Pingku, Bae-Ddeopgae, Kang Han-gil, and Ye-sol who were in the party.

,Eing? The dungeon name is [?] huh. Sounds fun?

Arang was slightly dumbfounded that the dungeon title wasn’t even revealed, but she wanted to enter this dungeon right away more than she felt dumbfounded.

A level 100 dungeon was hidden in a level 1 newbie village. And it wasn’t just opened by pressing a switch, but a switch that only reacted when the treasure map from Disnier-nim’s warehouse was nearby.

Usually, once you reach the highest level, 100, you never come to newbie villages.

You sometimes go to low-level dungeons when you match for random dungeons because of daily quests, but even if you go into a low-level dungeon and finish it, you don’t come out in the low-level area; you come back to the place where you originally matched, so there’s no reason to come to low-level areas.

,Keu. I’ve never discovered a dungeon while broadcasting, but I’m discovering it here. Arang-i is really a lucky charm.

,Ahjussi. It’s not me who discovered it, but Bae-Ddeopgae who found this treasure map and Ye-sol unni who found the dungeon location.

,Ah, that’s right. That’s right. Isn’t this exciting? Plus, has there ever been a dungeon with an item level of 800 among the dungeons discovered so far?

At Kang Han-gil’s words, everyone checked the quest window again.

,Huh? What? It’s really level 800?

,Heol, no way.

Item Level 800.

This number 800 is the full-geared item level based on the current Leore standard. In other words, it’s a level that’s only possible if you’ve matched all the items from all the hard difficulty raids that have been released so far.

In short, it’s not an ordinary dungeon, but a hard difficulty raid-level dungeon that only top-tier users go to.

Until now, dungeons in Leore were solely content for light users.

But suddenly, a hard raid difficulty dungeon.

No, it’ll be even harder than that.

The entry item level for the latest raid is 780. The item level that comes out after clearing that raid is 800.

,Wow. Let’s go in right away.

,Well, at that level, it seems like we’ll be in big trouble if we go as we are now, Arang-a.

,Well, for a dungeon of this level, we should definitely prepare properly.

==

I want to do content as a Black Mage, but my Black Mage equipment isn’t very good.

Only the characters I’ve raised have the highest level equipment. I received it at the highest level because I was the one who discovered the Black Mage class, but I haven’t been consistently going to raids because I’ve been busy with Space War, so my item level isn’t 800.

Plus, since this is the first level 800 dungeon in Leore, everyone decided to go with their main jobs.

For me, it’s naturally my first job and main job, Sword Master.

Pingku Berry is a White Mage, Bae-Ddeopgae is a Grim Reaper, and Kang Han-gil ahjussi is a Great Swordsman.

It’s been a while since we’ve prepared with a classic combination, and Ye-sol prepared as a commander, attaching a camera to us and providing briefings.

,Alright. Let’s go!

I raised my sword and ran into the underground.

,Arang-a, get back!

I heard the shout of Kang Han-gil ahjussi, the tanker, but I kept running until I saw a monster.

In a dungeon, if the dealer goes ahead of the tanker, it’s basically trolling, but it’s fine as long as I don’t get aggro from the monster first.

Of course, if this wasn’t a virtual world but reality, I wouldn’t act like this, but in the virtual world, it’s okay to die and come back to life.

==

,What is it.

,I know right.

Usually, in a dungeon, monsters appear after walking for about a minute, and the fight begins. It usually takes about 15 minutes to clear one dungeon.

Out of those 15 minutes, about 10 minutes are spent fighting 2-3 bosses, and the remaining 5 minutes are spent catching 잡몹/japmob (trash mobs).

But now, we’ve been walking for a whopping 5 minutes. Yet, not a single monster has appeared.

[It just looks like a cave, and there’s only one path, but there are no monsters. What is it?]

Everyone nodded at Ye-sol’s words.

Usually, dungeons only have one path, so there’s no reason to get lost, but even so, it’s not always a straight line; the path moves around, but here, it’s just a straight line from start to finish.

It would be nice if there was something in the background so I wouldn’t feel bored, but the background is just like an underground cave, so I’m starting to lose interest, but then.

A small light appeared.

Knowing that this was the end of the cave, anyone would run forward.

As the light grew bigger and the cave ended, what appeared before my eyes were people. To be exact, NPCs.

Seueuk.

Pingku Berry’s hand covered my eyes.

The reason Pingku covered my eyes was because it was a more gruesome scene than expected for Leore, which is rated for 15-year-olds.

It’s not extremely brutal, but if I were an ordinary middle school student, I would have felt scared.

[That person is the merchant who disappeared in the last patch.]

Ye-sol’s voice sounded like it was trembling.

[When they disappeared during the patch and I asked the next merchant, they just brushed it off like they had taken over, so I just thought they had changed, but they were captured here…]

Pingku Berry was still covering my eyes, but it was already vividly stored in my head.

The dungeon we’re in now is an altar made by someone.

In the center, there’s an altar that anyone can see, and around it, people are hanging from something, as if their life force has been sucked out, turning them into mummies.

There are nearly a hundred people hanging like meat in a slaughterhouse, and the sight is so grotesque and horrific.

And on that altar, there’s a large sphere floating, which seems to be the core of the dungeon.

,In other words. Let’s just try breaking that round core in the center and see what happens.

I grabbed Pingku Berry’s hand and lowered it, then slowly analyzed what was in front of me.

No matter how I look at it, that round core floating on the altar is sucking the life force of the people hanging around it.

Some people had already turned into mummies and died, and even the people who seemed to be alive wouldn’t last much longer.

[Wouldn’t a boss come out if we break that sphere?]

,Probably.

[Just in case, Pingku Berry unni, let’s see the reaction with a ranged attack.]

,Alright.

The moment Pingku Berry raised her staff and attacked the sphere with a basic healer skill.

The sphere glowed and blocked the attack.

But the problem is that in the process of blocking the attack, it stole the life force of the people hanging there.

,What do we do about this? If we attack like this, the people hanging there will die.

[Is there a way to rescue the hanging people first?]

No matter how I look at it, it’s connected to the sphere, so we need to attack the hose-like things that connect the sphere and the people.

,But will it be that easy?

First, Bae-Ddeopgae cut the hose connected to the heart of the person hanging closest.

The moment Bae-Ddeopgae tried to stop the person from falling like a doll with its strings cut.

,Kiyaaaaaaa!

It tried to bite Bae-Ddeopgae’s neck with its teeth.

Kwang!

,That was a surprise.

Bae-Ddeopgae calmly hit the man who tried to attack with his hand, sending him flying.

,Keureureureu.

The person whose body was grotesquely twisted by Bae-Ddeopgae’s attack looked like.

[ A zombie…? ]

It looked like a zombie.

What’s even scarier is that, starting with that person, everyone who was hanging suddenly started falling to the ground, then they all grotesquely raised their bodies and looked at us.

,Oh, shit.

,Looks like it’s starting now.

,No, do I have to get aggro from all of them? That’s gonna be tough.

,Han-gil-nim. You need to think about your invincibility skill.

,Understood.

,,Kiyaaaaaaaaaaak!

As the people who had turned into zombies started running towards us, Kang Han-gil ahjussi went forward first and cast a wide-area aggro skill.

All eyes turned to Kang Han-gil ahjussi in an instant, and they rushed at him, trying to kill him as fiercely as any zombie movie.