Part 5
Jonghyeon muttered in a voice cold enough to be considered icy, and stepped on the second hidden pedal.
At the same time, toward the back of the charging elephant, he jumped right onto it and even did a somersault.
Landing almost like an acrobat, Jonghyeon looked back. The stone statues, still not knowing what was going on, were simply staring at the elephant.
Fwing—!
Thud—!
The second trap was a ballista.
*I made it to smash a large number of stone statues at once. I didn't know I'd use it like this, though...*
Between trees balanced at regular intervals, he laid wooden beams.
There, he inserted stone statues sharpened like arrows and fixed them so they wouldn't fly off immediately.
Finally, he designed it so that stepping on the pedal would release the lock.
It sounded simple when explained, but the design itself had not been easy.
Without precise weight distribution, the pedal would release prematurely, or the arrows would collapse under the weight.
Jonghyeon had designed it to pierce through at least five or more stone statues, and he had tested it as well.
Trajectory, flight speed, and so on—he had calculated them quite carefully.
He had poured all remaining stone statue debris, except those from the first trap, into this trap, and it had consumed the most time.
Time was another asset this dungeon provided, and Jonghyeon felt he had chosen the hunting method best suited to the current situation.
From the recoil of the bolt embedded squarely in the elephant's forehead, he could even hear the elephant staggering backward.
*If the trajectory had been even slightly different, it would have passed overhead. The timing was good.*
Thud—
After a brief twitch, the elephant collapsed and stopped moving.
The remaining stone statues seemed unable to hide their confusion, not knowing what to do.
A smile spread across Jonghyeon's lips.
He couldn't hold back the smile.
"Heh heh..."
The remaining stone statues had no weapons. It seemed they had thrown them at Jonghyeon, trusting in the elephant.
Mere stone mutts like them posed no threat whatsoever to Jonghyeon.
Even though the stone statues seemed to have no emotions, they began to falter, pressured by the aura Jonghyeon exuded.
Jonghyeon stroked the wound on his cheek and drew his short sword.
His cheek throbbed with an inexplicable, burning pain.
Slowly walking forward, Jonghyeon lowered the hand that had been touching his cheek and began running toward the foremost stone statue.
"I've received the memories you've given me well. Now, I'll leave you with memories you won't forget."
Swish— Thud—!
He hacked and slashed at the stone statues as if taking revenge for all the suffering they had caused him!
Jonghyeon began reaping the stone statues' necks at high speed.
★ ★ ★
*I can't say the analysis was perfect, but as long as the result is good, that's what matters.*
Even after dealing with the last stone statue, a whopping three hours remained.
Jonghyeon spent the remaining time grilling and eating the meat he had butchered and set aside earlier in the day.
Filled with anticipation for what reward it would give.
*Please, just one skill this time too. But does this even apply outside?*
-Ding!
-Congratulations. You have cleared the Stage 3 mission.
-You have obtained the qualifications of a Hunter.
-The current dungeon will be converted into a personally-bound dungeon.
-You may open this dungeon at any time using the provided watch.
-The dungeon's format will change. From now on, this dungeon will be usable as a dungeon possessing both difficulty and growth.
Notifications poured out in an instant.
Jonghyeon tried hard to understand the lengthy announcements.
"Huh? What is this all of a sudden?"
It was a wristwatch.
6:48 AM
It was showing the time, but whether it matched the outside was something he would have to check after getting out.
A round watch, neither small nor large. On the right side of the watch were three buttons.
They were buttons commonly found on ordinary watches used to adjust the time.
*Couldn't they at least give me a manual?*
It's not like he was too scared to press them.
There was one more thing he was curious about.
The skill called 'One Accustomed to Darkness.'
Before, the description had at least indicated it was related to the eyes.
But "accustomed one"? Wasn't this a skill with an incomprehensible meaning?
Just as Jonghyeon's curiosity was running rampant...
Once the mission ended, the animals no longer appeared, and Jonghyeon began looking around for the exit.
At that moment, a voice came from the watch.
-Greetings, Master.
An unfamiliar man's voice came from the watch Jonghyeon was wearing.
Jonghyeon started with a question.
"Can you understand me?"
However, the watch didn't seem to understand Jonghyeon's words and continued its speech.
-I am the Dungeon Watch who will assist Master's Awakening.
-Master has earned both the qualifications to possess me and the qualifications of an Awakened.
-I possess three functions.
*Qualifications of an Awakened?*
As Jonghyeon listened to the continuing explanation, he felt it wouldn't replay and would likely go on for a while.
So he quickly took out a memo pad and began writing down the explanation.
[First Button = Dungeon Activation/Deactivation]
[Second Button = Skill List Check]
"Hmm?"
The explanation for the third button did not come out.
-Button 3 will activate when a special qualification is granted.
-That concludes the explanation. I wish you good fortune.
*That's all?*
Jonghyeon muttered that he could memorize something like this even without writing it down, crumpled the memo, and threw it away.
Having heard both the earlier explanation and the watch's explanation, Jonghyeon was in a rather complicated state of mind.
But for now, getting out of here was the top priority.
-Click.
Assuming the top button was naturally Button 1, he pressed it, and simultaneously above the watch,
*You have cleared the dungeon.
Will you escape?
A hologram with this message appeared.
"Ooh..."
Jonghyeon was unexpectedly surprised by the hologram.
When he pressed the Y button, just like when he had entered, his vision went dark for a moment, and he found himself back at the location where he had first entered.
*How much time has passed?*
As soon as he got out, Jonghyeon checked his smartphone and the watch he had originally been wearing.
But the already broken phone and watch were showing the time from when he had come out.
*Are they broken?*
Calling them broken seemed off, because the watch was ticking very normally.
Wearing two watches was, in itself, rather strange. After a moment of thought, Jonghyeon eventually took off his original watch and put it in his pocket.
Jonghyeon began adapting to reality once more.
First, looking around, he found his car.
"This is bad!"
He remembered he had parked near the daycare, and Jonghyeon hurriedly ran to his car.
"No way! Damn it!"
Jonghyeon let out a sigh at the sight of his car.
"Ha... there's already a parking ticket..."
Jonghyeon roughly scraped off the ticket, quickly got into his car, and turned on the navigation.
-Receiving GPS.
When the familiar announcement came and the screen turned on, Jonghyeon checked the time first.
*The time ratio inside and outside is the same.*
Exactly four days had passed since he had entered.
What came to mind most at this moment was,
*That bastard agent. I'll kill him.*
After rebooting, several text messages about missed calls that hadn't been logged came to Jonghyeon's phone.
The most frequent among them was from the agent.
Without hesitation, Jonghyeon called the agent immediately.
"Hello? Are you kidding me right now?"
When the agent got angry back at him instead, Jonghyeon snorted as if dumbfounded and said,
"What do you mean, kidding? You shoved me into some weird dungeon."
"Excuse me? I thought you didn't enter the dungeon?"
"What do you mean...?"
"Since the dungeon wasn't being cleared, I came here myself to confirm whether you were alive or dead and was about to enter."
He vaguely remembered hearing that among the agent's duties were checking the life or death of the hunter under his charge, and dealing with it before the monsters spilled outside if the dungeon activated unavoidably.
Jonghyeon stopped what he was about to say.
Whether it was a hidden dungeon or whatever, the dungeon he had entered seemed to be different from the one the agent had told him about.
*Then there's no need to tell him.*
Jonghyeon thought he could look into this kind of dungeon a bit more before mentioning it.
In a way, this was also a good thing for him.
One of Jonghyeon's tenets was that the more you shared good things, the more you lost.
If it became known for no reason, parasites would surely cling to him.
"Ah. Actually, I had some business too, so I was just about to enter now."
"What do you mean by weird dungeon?"
The agent asked again, sounding suspicious.
"Ah, it's nothing. By the way, where are you?"
Jonghyeon glossed over it hastily.
*I must have confused the dungeon's location.*
It was a stroke of luck if anything, but truthfully, Jonghyeon couldn't quite feel that this situation was real.
Discovering an irregular dungeon.
*But I definitely came according to the documents?*
A thought suddenly occurred to Jonghyeon, and he spoke to the agent.
"I'm at the address written on the documents you gave me?"
"I parked my car here, but you're not here, Hunter-nim."
"Huh? That's strange. That can't be... isn't it number 416?"
"614... ah.."
*So this guy gave me the wrong paperwork.*
Continuing this ordinary yet foolish conversation made Jonghyeon suddenly start to feel tired.
He had returned to the outside world.
Jonghyeon was inwardly happy, but he didn't show it.
"I'll just come over there."
"Yes, I'm sorry!!"
The agent seemed to grasp the situation and repeatedly apologized.
He felt truly relieved to be back alive through this trivial squabbling with an agent no different from ordinary life.
*I need to quickly deal with the original dungeon and properly test this watch.*
614.
Jonghyeon punched the address into the navigation and drove quickly.
★ ★ ★
"Yip! Yap!"
The hounds were hunted so quickly it was almost pitiful.
*At this level, compared to those stone mutts, they're practically not even moving.*
Looking around, Jonghyeon began hunting every monster in sight.
Corpses that appeared to be from previous D-rankers and hound corpses.
In fact, the hounds were traveling in packs of several dozen or more.
But to Jonghyeon, it was nothing more than repetitive labor, no different from a post-meal workout.
Jonghyeon felt he had grown in reaction speed and every other aspect.
Thanks to the training he had just finished.
Furthermore, thanks to the effect of the Eye of Detection, even chimeras hiding and aiming for surprise attacks were plainly visible.
He felt like he had grown several stages in just three days!
"45 minutes 20 seconds. Is that even humanly possible?"
"Phew, that was pretty tough."
Jonghyeon was making needless complaints.
Ignoring the agent waiting at the dungeon entrance with his mouth hanging open, Jonghyeon walked straight past him and got into his own car.
After starting the engine, he opened the window and spoke to the agent.
"I won't be taking jobs for the time being. And please don't contact me for about a month. I'll contact you once things are settled. Goodbye then."
Watching Jonghyeon drive off after saying only what he wanted to say, the agent frowned and forced an awkward smile.
"That personality of his, I swear."
The agent, having witnessed Jonghyeon's abilities firsthand, muttered to himself that while the man was amazing, he was ill-mannered.
At the same time, after finishing the call to the dedicated team tasked with collecting the D-rankers' and hounds' corpses, he disappeared from the spot.
-Beep beep!
Jonghyeon took off his shoes at the front door and muttered to himself.
"First, get some sleep."
Having come home, Jonghyeon wanted to test the watch.
But immediately feeling his extreme fatigue, he flung himself toward the bed.
*I didn't know I'd miss my bed this much.*
Lying down on the soft bed, Jonghyeon was about to fall asleep just like that when he picked up his phone and began searching.
*Hidden dungeon. Is this not the right keyword...*
Rubbing his sleepy eyes, he scoured the internet for about two hours.
But there was no information about the dungeon he had entered.
It was the same even after searching through encyclopedia apps.
*Well, whatever happens, happens. I really need to sleep now.*
Though he thought he should sleep, the tension of those three days didn't leave his body, so despite his fatigue, it took quite a while of tossing and turning before he could finally fall asleep.
★ ★ ★
"Better eat before I go. I should pack some rations too."
He didn't know how many days it would take.
When testing the watch, it would be troublesome if he got trapped inside the dungeon like last time.
He had to experiment to see if he had to press the first button again after clearing to escape, or if mid-way escape was possible.
For someone living alone, Jonghyeon had quite a lot of ingredients in his refrigerator. In fact, Jonghyeon didn't really have any hobbies; cooking was his only one, more or less.
"Hmm hmm~"
Jonghyeon had had to chew on meat without even salt for three days.
Thinking of cooking and eating something delicious after such a long time, Jonghyeon got so excited that he began humming a tune as he cooked.
Ring-a-ling~
His phone rang. Jonghyeon answered by pressing it against his shoulder, tilting his head while cooking.
"Who is this?"
"It's me."
Jonghyeon could tell who it was immediately from that characteristically heavy, low voice.
--------- = Author's Afterword = ---------
Well, at least the watch dutifully calls him 'Master'.