Ch.52Ansila Mountain Range Dungeon

# 52. Ansila Mountain Range Dungeon

“Oppa. Oppa. It’s time to wake up.”

“…Mmm. It’s that time already?”

“Pfft. Listen to your groggy voice. Want to sleep a bit more?”

“No. No. I’m fully awake. Thanks for your hard work. You should get some rest.”

“…Okay. You worked hard too, Oppa.”

I was just getting a massage when my eyes naturally closed, and time simply vanished. This might be the real fantasy, I thought, wondering if it had all been a dream, but Saeaeks was still calling me “Oppa.”

“So it wasn’t a dream after all.”

I stepped outside the tent and poked at the dying embers of the campfire. After staring blankly at it for a while to shake off the remaining sleep and yesterday’s memories, I checked my character window and those of my party members to compare before and after.

‘The level and skill proficiency definitely increased quest-level amounts, probably because we fought so much.’

I thought that perhaps finding a portal somewhere in this mountain range might be the goal for floor 2-2. It was enough to let my optimism run wild.

Finding a portal to the next floor somewhere in this vast mountain range wouldn’t be easy at all.

‘Still, I have a rough idea.’

In the game, while mountain ranges tended to look similar, the main areas were clearly distinguishable.

We had climbed high enough that we would have reached the summit by now if this were a mountain near where we lived. In fact, after occasional discussions with Yebeop Nojeong, we confirmed that the terrain was starting to change.

‘Today if we’re lucky, tomorrow at the latest.’

We’ll find out whether a fork in the path will appear, whether we need to clear a dungeon in the entrance area, or if neither happens and we need to find a portal hidden somewhere.

“What should I do about Seyeon and Yuri…?”

After thinking about today and tomorrow’s plans, the thoughts I had pushed away came rushing back. I remembered the warm towel and the heavy sensation on my back.

After the underwear temptation incident, they had been quiet for a while, but now they were showing interest again. I wondered why.

Yebeop Nojeong wouldn’t have encouraged them. She’s someone who prioritizes the party.

And it’s not like Kutjukyeora and Saeaeks were being pushy without considering the situation.

My head and heart were complicated. How nice it would be if I could just close my eyes and pick one of them. Though I’d probably still agonize over it due to my indecisiveness.

“Wait.”

A chilling thought suddenly crossed my mind.

‘Surely Mulchi and Muldabal and Dwitmun couldn’t all be women too? No, what am I thinking?’

It was truly an absurd, almost delusional thought.

In a game where the male-to-female ratio is at best 7:3, usually accepted as 8:2, how could all six party members be women? That would be pure fantasy, whether in games or novels.

But once the thought took hold, it stuck like gum.

‘Come to think of it, I’ve rarely heard them use male voice chat.’

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

What would it matter if they were women anyway?

I stopped my endless spiral of delusions and started preparing breakfast.

Ah. I wish someone would cook for me.

Anyone but Yebeop.

**

“How’s everyone feeling?”

“Great! Maybe because the breakfast you made was so delicious?”

“That’s right. You put in extra effort this morning, didn’t you?”

“Thanks. I did put in more effort since we might have a tougher day ahead.”

Yebeop Nojeong just nodded without saying anything. It would take some time to get used to Saeaeks calling me “Oppa” without the raid leader title.

“Argggh! With our skill levels up and stat points distributed, I’m confident we can destroy enemies even more efficiently than yesterday!”

“Yeah. I couldn’t hold back on allocating stats any longer. Subin, you’ve been focusing on magic power all along, right?”

“Yes. I’ll need to balance other stats later, but right now, even one point in magic power is precious.”

It’s obvious that leveling gets harder as you go up. At lower levels, differences can exist, but eventually everyone catches up. Yet I was still leading in levels despite not having the most kills.

I looked proudly at my “10% Growth Bonus” title and said:

“Great. Let’s keep up this momentum.”

Truly stronger now, we advanced faster than yesterday. Despite the higher altitude, the monster composition hadn’t changed since we were still in the same region, and we could defeat them more easily than yesterday.

The orcs of the Ansila Mountain Range were still fierce, and the goblins were still cunning.

But as if yesterday’s crisis had been just a practice game, Kutjukyeora’s shield was sturdier, Saeaeks’s twin axes were more ferocious, and Yebeop Nojeong’s fireballs were more destructive.

Saeaeks’s comment yesterday about “sweeping through enemies in the game” had become literal.

While we were taking a break, not having leveled up but feeling uplifted, Saeaeks, who had gone to look around, came running back with a bright smile.

“Oppa!”

“Oh, Yuri. What is it?”

“I think I found it!”

“What? Found what?”

I calmed down Saeaeks, who seemed ready to drag us along immediately. She took a couple of deep breaths following my lead, then spoke again in a more composed tone.

“There’s a basin that suddenly opens up just a little way from here! It’s hidden by trees from this angle, but it’s there! You know what that means, right?”

“Great job, Yuri! Um, was there any portal or obvious fork in the path?”

“Heh. Uh, no.”

I looked at Yebeop Nojeong. She was already looking at me.

“It’s a dungeon.”

“A dungeon.”

No portal to the next floor, whether 2-3 or 3-0, and no path deeper into the mountain range?

Saeaeks has the best physical abilities and instincts among us. She’s playful but wouldn’t joke about something like this.

We’d verify it ourselves, but the happy theory that 2-2 was just a transit floor was likely debunked.

We finished our rest and headed toward the basin Saeaeks mentioned.

“Tch. Really nothing here.”

“A dungeon might be better anyway. We’ll get floor rewards that way.”

“That’s true, but it’s still disappointing to miss an easy pass.”

After confirming it ourselves, the happy theory was 100% debunked. Instead, there was a 100% chance that floor 2-2 was a dungeon in the entrance area of the Ansila Mountain Range.

“I get that it’s automatically a dungeon since there are no other options. But where is it?”

“Yuri. Didn’t you say you hunted in the Ansila Mountain Range for a while?”

“I did, but I can’t remember the details. Heh.”

Yebeop Nojeong let out a soft sigh.

“This is how it works. The dungeon entrance is hidden somewhere in the basin. It resets weekly, and in the game, the first person to discover it got a discovery title and a dungeon-specific buff.”

“It was a big deal back then. Now it’s just a place people pass through unless they’re trying to get the discovery title…”

“Oppa, Unni! Don’t you remember where it is?”

I shook my head. I had once tried to figure out if there was a pattern to its appearance, but there wasn’t. It was completely random.

“We just have to search. If you suddenly feel the ground sink beneath you, or get an eerie feeling, that’s likely the spot.”

“The ground sinks? Isn’t that dangerous?”

“You’d get a message like ‘You’ve sunk up to your waist. This isn’t just a hole or trap; there seems to be something below.’ If we move carefully, there shouldn’t be much danger. There are no monsters near the dungeon either.”

Yebeop Wiki immediately allayed Kutjukyeora’s concerns. When I nodded in agreement, she looked relieved and began searching.

I also carefully watched my step as I explored the basin. The mountain range was majestic, making the basin quite vast, but it wouldn’t take more than a day to search.

Just like when we were searching for mines during the Corruption Purification quest phase 2, we diligently explored, occasionally patting our waists, looking for a different kind of “mine.”

“Kyaa!”

“Unni!”

“Seyeon!”

“Seyeon!”

“Ow ow ow… I’m okay! I think I found it!”

“Stay still until we get there!”

“Okay!”

After about three hours, Kutjukyeora achieved the feat of falling into what was probably the dungeon entrance.

We pulled up Kutjukyeora, who couldn’t move, and since we couldn’t just throw fireballs to check, we started carefully digging around with shovels.

After about 30 minutes of unexpected digging…

[You have discovered the <Trees, Wind, Forest, and Mountain> dungeon.]

[Clear the dungeon.]

The first message since summoning Yebeop Nojeong appeared.

A message to “clear” the dungeon.

**

“…What should we do?”

“Hmm.”

“Since when do boss notices appear from floor 1-1? This is absolutely ridiculous!”

“Thanks to this, we can at least confirm the hypothesis that each floor is connected sequentially, and that we might meet others who started earlier.”

“That’s not important right now! Golden Wing ahjussi! Should we just give up?”

The Golden Wing raid leader scratched the back of his head at Aniri raid leader’s question. The Yalyali raid leader was sitting down, gasping for breath, while the Aniri raid leader didn’t even have the energy for that and was lying flat on the ground.

“We cleared the first trial without injuries, so should we try the second one?”

“And if something goes wrong?”

“We don’t even know how to quit midway yet. Besides, if we give up here, we definitely won’t get good rewards.”

A sigh deep enough to make the ground collapse was heard. The Golden Wing raid leader thought to himself:

‘Where did it all go wrong?’

They were busy teasing each other and constantly had stamina issues… he already desperately missed his own party members instead of these weak-willed people.