Dungeon & Commander

Dungeon & Commander – 5

“Even if they look relaxed, everyone is actually extremely tense. It’s best not to make eye contact,” Kang Jin-goo advised.

“Yes, Manager,” Kim Joon nodded.

Finally, the gate began to open. As the dark portal creaked and groaned, Kim Joon felt overwhelmed. It seemed as if the massive door might crash down on him. The noise of the broadcasting helicopter flying overhead filled the air.

Kim Joon never imagined that his face would be broadcasted live. Even though it was an E-grade dungeon, anything could happen inside. Anyone could die in there.

“Advance!” shouted Seo Seung-tae, the leader of the Han River team from the Jushin Guild.

The prepared tankers entered first, followed by the dealers and buffers, with the carriers bringing up the rear. As they passed through the rippling surface of the gate, the quality of the air changed. Earth’s light weakened dramatically upon entering, failing to illuminate the surroundings. Thanks to the light orbs conjured by the buffers’ magic, the darkness receded.

The gate slowly closed behind them.

Bang!

The sound signified their severance from the outside world.

“It’s starting,” Kang Jin-goo whispered.

“Jushin’s Han River will take the center, Thunderbolt Guild Blue Lightning will take the right, and Uramata’s Socrates will take the left for now. Depending on the situation, we may switch with Buksoori from Seongdong and Dongbang from Hanmoodan,” Seo Seung-tae, the tank from Jushin known by the nickname Tae-ak, announced without a hint of excitement.

He was a TD5 tank, with the attribute of Death, a 5th-grade ability user.

The expedition team entered an unfamiliar forest, dense with plants they had never seen before. Some trees glowed with bioluminescence, while others moved stealthily with their roots. The expedition attacked anything within their range. The forest, perhaps having experienced raids before, seemed to retreat from the team.

“They’re coming,” said Jo Han-geun, the buffer from Jushin’s Han River team.

The appearing monster was a Gelusaurus, standing 5 meters tall and 8 meters long. It resembled a dinosaur but had a silver body, and the icy storm that erupted from its mouth was unlike anything from the ancient past.

Han River’s buffers, Jo Han-geun and Chae Yeok, cast an ‘Anti-Ice’ buff over the entire expedition. The warm orange mist enveloped everyone, providing a comforting warmth before dissipating. The fact that Jushin could buff the entire expedition, not just their own team, demonstrated how formidable the guild was.

Kim Joon, receiving a buff for the first time, found the sensation novel and fascinating.

“Consider yourself lucky to be on your first raid with the Jushin Guild,” Kang Jin-goo whispered.

Kim Joon could only nod, his throat tight with excitement, rendering him speechless.

Suddenly, the Gelusaurus entered the range of the light. Seven of them charged towards the expedition team, spewing silver mist. The icy blast struck the tankers at the front, pushing them back a step, but none fell. Each team’s tankers had maximized their ice resistance.

At that moment, the dealers launched their dazzling attacks. Various beams of light, resembling rainbows, flew like arrows or mortars, striking the Gelusaurus. One Gelusaurus had its neck severed, while another, with a broken leg, stumbled and roared in pain. Some fled beyond the light’s range, groaning.

The dealers continued to bombard the dead Gelusaurus with more magic to ensure it was thoroughly killed.

“Separating!”

Seo Seung-tae commanded, and the expedition team naturally split into three groups. Jushin advanced through the center, Thunderbolt Guild Blue Lightning moved to the right, and Uramata’s Socrates took the left. Seongdong’s Buksoori followed Blue Lightning, while Hanmoodan’s Dongbang closely trailed Socrates.

“Now it’s our turn,” Kang Jin-goo said, his voice tinged with tension.

The tankers stepped over the Gelusaurus, ensuring it was truly dead. The dealers circled around. The team halted, scanning their surroundings, waiting for the carriers to finish their work before moving again.

Kang Jin-goo used the digger, a basic carrier tool, to pierce the Gelusaurus’s side and create an opening. Securing the digger, he inserted his gloved hand into the gap. A skilled carrier could locate and extract the core in a single attempt.

“Here it is,” Kang Jin-goo said, pulling out an ostrich egg-sized core from the Gelusaurus’s innards with a firm grip. He rolled it back, and Kim Joon, wearing the store bag, ran to place the core inside and retreated.

“Well done,” Han So-young, a dealer from Socrates, remarked, watching Kang Jin-goo and Kim Joon. She had been displeased about the sudden change in carriers but was impressed by the older carrier’s skill.

While anyone could become a carrier, not everyone could excel at it. The faster a carrier extracted the core from a monster, the higher the expedition’s chances of a safe return.

“Carrier complete!”

Kang Jin-goo shouted after extracting the core from the second Gelusaurus. The team began to advance.

A cheer erupted from Dongbang, the team from Hanmoodan Guild. It had taken only about five minutes to extract the cores from two Gelusaurus.

Kwon Joon-sang, leading Socrates, spoke up. “Hey, Yong-geun. You should come forward.”

“Shall I?” Oh Yong-geun, the leader of Dongbang, ordered his raiders to move to Socrates’s right. Two carriers hurriedly followed.

Just then, Park Hong-sik, the buffer from Socrates, shouted, “Pyrosaurus incoming!”

He quickly cast an ‘Anti-Fire’ buff, but his ability only covered the Socrates team. The sudden charge of the Pyrosaurus caught Dongbang off guard. Their buffer, on only his third raid, panicked at the sight of the fiery dinosaur and failed to cast his buff.

Two tankers blocked the Pyrosaurus’s initial fiery breath, but they couldn’t stop the Pyrosaurus that flanked them.

The Pyrosaurus suddenly bit down on Dongbang’s dealer, Song Hee-cheol. His upper body disappeared, leaving only his lower half twitching and spraying blood. The novice carrier, witnessing this, fainted on the spot and was trampled by the Pyrosaurus, breaking one of his legs.

“Turn around and help Dongbang. Left turn! Formation reverse triangle! Tankers, forward!” Kwon Joon-sang shouted.

As Lee Gyu-tae and Kwon Joon-sang charged forward, one of the startled Pyrosaurus retreated. Seizing the opportunity, Han So-young unleashed a barrage of magical arrows, taking down one of the monsters. However, with only one dealer, the attack momentum faltered. The cunning monsters circled the team, biding their time.

Kim Joon, frantically following Kang Jin-goo, tripped over Song Hee-cheol’s lower half. The sight of the convulsing body, the severed torso, and the torn entrails made his teeth chatter uncontrollably.

“Get a grip,” Kang Jin-goo said.

Kim Joon quickly turned his head to look at Kang Jin-goo, nodded, and followed closely behind him.

The four tankers from the two teams formed a square, with Han So-young and the carriers inside. This allowed Socrates’s buffer, Park Hong-sik, to cast buffs on everyone within the formation. The Pyrosaurus charged, spewing fire, but couldn’t break through the tankers’ defenses.

The Pyrosaurus then targeted a carrier outside the formation who was still screaming for help. Dongbang’s leader, Oh Yong-geun, was in despair, unable to do anything as his team member was devoured by the monsters. His screams echoed, but the monsters continued to feast calmly in the darkness. Soon, the desperate cries ceased, leaving an eerie silence.

“Send a signal,” Kwon Joon-sang ordered.

Han So-young cast a spell, launching a magical flare into the sky. They had no choice but to wait for the other teams to arrive.

“Phew,” Kang Jin-goo sighed, sitting down. He knew from experience that it would take at least an hour or two. If they were unlucky, they might never get out of there.

“Damn it!” Oh Yong-geun cursed. It was rare for both Pyrosaurus and Gelusaurus to appear in such numbers in an E-grade dungeon. There was nothing to say except that they were incredibly unlucky.

Kim Joon carefully sat next to Kang Jin-goo, trying to catch his breath. He had heard countless stories about dungeons and watched numerous raid videos online. But experiencing a dungeon firsthand was beyond imagination.

Dungeon grades were purely from a human perspective. The dungeon itself was an unpredictable, enigmatic space. Sometimes, the dungeon’s grade could suddenly change, and perhaps this expedition had entered during such a shift.

Kang Jin-goo pulled a chocolate bar from his pocket and handed it to Kim Joon. The moment Kim Joon saw the chocolate bar, he felt an intense hunger. He devoured it quickly but still felt ravenous.

“Breathe slowly. Don’t overexert yourself,” Kang Jin-goo advised.

“…Yes, Manager.”

“I take back what I said earlier. To experience such chaos on your first dungeon entry, you’re unlucky. But that means you’ll be lucky for the rest of your life. You’ve paid your dues today,” Kang Jin-goo joked, his years of experience showing even in this dire situation.

“I think so too,” Kim Joon whispered, close enough for everyone to hear. Oh Yong-geun turned his head to look at Kim Joon.

“Is this your first time today?” Oh Yong-geun asked.

“Yes,” Kim Joon nodded towards Oh Yong-geun, who looked like a mountain bandit.

“Your movements were good earlier. You could have lost your head and strayed from the formation, but you kept up well.”

“…I just followed the Manager with all my might.”

“Anyway, you did well for a rookie,” Oh Yong-geun said, turning his attention back to the darkness ahead.

Kim Joon was surprised by Oh Yong-geun’s demeanor. Two of his team members had just died, and the absence of a dealer, who was crucial for killing monsters, was a significant blow. Yet, Oh Yong-geun remained unfazed. His resilience felt almost miraculous.

“I’m Han So-young. I don’t know who named it, but I’m the dealer of this weird team, Socrates,” said Han So-young, a strikingly beautiful woman, extending her hand to Kim Joon.

Startled, Kim Joon glanced at Kang Jin-goo, who nodded approvingly. Kim Joon took her pale hand and bowed slightly.

“…I’m Kim Joon.”

“I’m Lee Gyu-tae, and this here is Manager Kwon Joon-sang, the one who named our team Socrates and our leader,” Lee Gyu-tae introduced.

“Kim Joon,” he repeated.

It felt strange to be exchanging names when death could be just around the corner. At the same time, Kim Joon realized he would never forget the names he heard today. As long as he lived, he would remember their breaths, expressions, and the atmosphere.

Kang Jin-goo whispered, “It took me until my seventh raid to be acknowledged, but you heard names on your first entry. That’s incredibly fast. In this dungeon, sharing names means you trust each other with your lives.”

“Ah!” Kim Joon couldn’t suppress the wave of emotion that washed over him.

“You can be moved after we get out of this damned dungeon,” Kwon Joon-sang said.

Silence fell around them. The light orbs still illuminated a 10-meter radius around the expedition team. If any monsters approached within 30 meters, the buffers would detect them.

“Water,” Han So-young said.

At Kang Jin-goo’s gesture, Kim Joon retrieved water bottles from the bottom of his backpack. He handed them to Han So-young, two tankers, and a buffer. He felt eyes watching him and turned to see the raiders from Dongbang.

With their carrier dead, they had no water.

Kim Joon looked at Kang Jin-goo, who shook his head. It wasn’t a decision a carrier could make.

“Share it,” Kwon Joon-sang permitted.

Kim Joon handed a bottle to each of the Dongbang raiders as well.

“How many bottles left?” Kang Jin-goo asked.

“Three, including the ones on my belt,” Kim Joon replied.

The store bag held twelve bottles of water. Each person in the raid carried one bottle on their belt, so combined with the store bag’s supply, each person could drink three bottles of water.

“You haven’t drunk the water on your belt yet?” Kang Jin-goo asked.

“What? Oh, no… I mean, yes. Actually, I didn’t even realize I was thirsty.”

“Drink it quickly. You’ll get exhausted.”

Kang Jin-goo didn’t need to explain further; Kim Joon understood immediately.

“Ah, yes.”

Kim Joon took the water bottle from his belt and drank deeply. The thirst that wouldn’t go away surged up. His body had been craving water, but in the chaos, Kim Joon had forgotten.

“Hey, newbie, how old are you?” Lee Gyu-tae asked. Surrounded by darkness and silence, he couldn’t bear it any longer and broke the silence.

“Nineteen.”

“High school student?”

“Yes, I’m in my third year, graduating next year.”

“Oh, I didn’t expect our guild to have another high school senior,” Lee Gyu-tae remarked, referring to Choi Moo-hyun, another young member.

“I joined yesterday,” Kim Joon said.

“He joined just yesterday,” Kang Jin-goo interjected.

“Joined yesterday?” Han So-young asked.

“That’s right.”

Suddenly, the atmosphere grew tense. Everyone knew that a guild sending a recruit into a dungeon just a day after joining was far from normal.

“Looks like Uramata Guild is going to be scary in the future. A carrier who’s only been here a day is already better than our six-month veterans,” Oh Yong-geun from Dongbang commented.

The tension eased, and everyone began to ask Kim Joon questions. They asked if he had wet himself, if his hands were shaking, and other such questions. As Kim Joon answered each one, he realized they weren’t really curious. They just needed something to talk about.

In the face of death, fostering animosity among themselves would lead to annihilation. Oh Yong-geun understood this and had stepped in to praise Uramata and Kim Joon, who had preserved the precious water.

The importance of a carrier becomes evident in such desperate moments. If surrounded, the need to hold out arises. If the carrier falls behind or is caught by monsters, the remaining raiders can’t escape death either.

Silence fell again, broken only by irregular breaths.

“They’re trying to wear us down,” Kwon Joon-sang muttered.

“I think so too,” Oh Yong-geun agreed.

As raids continued, monsters had become more cunning in dealing with expeditions composed of awakened individuals. Like wild animals fleeing at the sight of a hunter’s gun, monsters had grown accustomed to the expedition’s tactics, sometimes waiting from a distance.

When the expedition’s strength was overwhelming, it didn’t matter how the monsters behaved. The problem arose when, like now, they were isolated, and the monsters used such tactics. The expedition, trained by the guild, hunted by having tankers block the monsters’ attacks while dealers killed them with magic.

When monsters didn’t approach, they were at a loss.

“We need to draw their aggro.”

Kwon Joon-sang looked at Oh Yong-geun, who nodded in agreement. However, deciding who would take on the dangerous task was difficult.

Sending a tanker was not an option. Tankers, typically muscular and heavy, were slow and couldn’t effectively dodge and lure monster attacks. Moreover, disrupting the stable defensive formation could have disastrous consequences.

Sending the only dealer was also out of the question.

That left the buffers, but both were large and unlikely to return if they ventured out. Buffers, being support roles, often didn’t undergo rigorous physical training. Most importantly, the risk of death was high, and no one would volunteer for such a task.

Hearing this from Kang Jin-goo, Kim Joon pondered deeply. They needed to escape this situation. Staying put meant certain death. They would soon run out of water, and without it, their stamina would quickly deplete. In the worst case, they might die without even attempting a new strategy.

“Manager, can I go?” Kim Joon asked.