Chapter 21
Despite the elf incident, nothing had changed between Deiodeun and Jeon.
They hadn’t been particularly close to begin with, so the indifferent atmosphere was not unfamiliar.
Deiodeun walked ahead, and Jeon followed behind him.
There were times when they didn’t exchange a single word all day.
Now, Deiodeun no longer gave Jeon advice.
Having done that much, it meant Jeon should figure the rest out on his own.
Jeon didn’t ask Deiodeun either.
He explored on his own, pondering how to make better use of his abilities.
He contemplated countless ways to utilize sand and occasionally tested them on demonic beasts that attacked him.
Now, low-grade demonic beasts were no match for Jeon.
Bang! Bang!
The low-grade demonic beasts’ heads burst one after another from the Sand Missiles Jeon fired.
Brains and blood fell onto the sand.
Jeon gazed at the corpses for a moment before moving on.
Deiodeun was walking far ahead.
He didn’t even glance back despite knowing Jeon was fighting the demonic beasts.
Now even Deiodeun knew.
That Jeon wouldn’t die to mere low-grade demonic beasts.
Now, Jeon didn’t let his guard down under any circumstances.
Thanks to the harsh training he had received from Deiodeun.
It was then.
Deiodeun, who had been walking quite far ahead, suddenly stopped.
Jeon watched him with a bewildered expression.
They had spent quite a long time together, but this was the first time Deiodeun had stopped before sunset.
Deiodeun muttered.
“I’m sure it was around here?”
After looking around briefly, he took something out from within his clothes.
It was a compass about the size of a child’s palm.
It was no ordinary compass.
It was an item created by combining Neo Seoul’s science and magic, serving as a sort of location storage device.
It worked by remembering places one had visited and saving them.
He had visited this place decades ago. It was so long ago that his memories were hazy.
The compass needle spun around a few times before pointing in a certain direction.
Deiodeun walked in the direction the needle pointed.
After walking for some time, Deiodeun finally stopped.
“This is the place.”
Clack!
He closed the compass and tucked it back into his clothes.
Jeon approached his side.
“What is here?”
No matter how he looked around, it was the same sandy desert.
It was identical to the scenery they had passed through until now.
Deiodeun spoke with a look of disappointment.
“Can’t you feel it?”
“What do you mean?”
“You still have a long way to go.”
In that instant, rage surged up from deep within Jeon’s chest. But he soon suppressed his anger and calmly looked around.
If Deiodeun spoke like this, there was definitely something nearby. But no matter how much he looked, there was nothing particularly eye-catching.
‘Could it be inside the sand?’
Jeon raised his dominion and resonated with the sand.
He felt nothing up to ten meters, twenty meters.
Nevertheless, Jeon didn’t give up and used his dominion to probe inside the sand.
At seventy meters, eighty meters, and finally when he reached one hundred meters, he felt something.
“What is this?”
There was definitely something foreign inside the sand.
Deiodeun asked.
“Did you find it?”
“Yes!”
“How deep?”
“About one hundred meters underground.”
“Deeper than I thought. It seems more sand has piled up in the meantime.”
When he had discovered this place in the past, it hadn’t been that deep. After a long time, it was clear that sand had piled up higher.
“Dig.”
“Understood.”
Jeon moved the sand along with his answer.
Whoooosh!
Sand piled up like a mountain streamed down to the left and right.
Jeon pushed the flowing sand far away.
Thick beads of sweat formed on his face.
It was because the mana consumption was that severe.
It was one thing to say one hundred meters underground, but if all the covering sand were excavated, it would form a gigantic mountain.
Naturally, it was impossible to dig it all out at once.
Jeon slowly dug away the sand bit by bit.
Deiodeun didn’t rush Jeon.
He too knew how difficult this task was.
Sand lacked cohesion, so even if it was dug out, the surrounding sand would collapse and fill it back in.
Only because Jeon possessed the ability to manipulate sand was any progress being made at all; if an ordinary person tried to dig through sand, it would be impossible even after a hundred years.
There was nothing Deiodeun could do to help.
He sat far away and simply waited for Jeon’s work to end.
The work of excavating the sand continued for nearly three days.
When his mana was depleted, he rested; when it recovered, he dug again.
After pushing himself to the absolute limit, Jeon was finally able to reach the point one hundred meters underground.
“What is this?”
Jeon furrowed his brow.
What existed one hundred meters below was a stone structure that was out of place in the desert.
To be precise, it was a door made of stone.
It was strange enough to find such a large stone deep in the desert, let alone one shaped like a door.
Deiodeun came down beside Jeon.
“You found it.”
“What… is this?”
“It’s a Dungeon.”
“A Dungeon? Then you mean this door leads to a Dungeon?”
“I suspect so.”
“You suspect? So you aren’t certain?”
“I discovered this place by chance decades ago. Before I could enter, it disappeared beneath the sand.”
“Is there a reason you had to find it again?”
“Because I must become stronger.”
“You mean you’ll get stronger in there?”
Jeon made a dumbfounded expression.
This was Deiodeun, who tore B-rank demonic beasts apart like paper.
His estimated stats alone were S-rank or higher.
He was already that strong, yet he had sought out a Dungeon he found long ago just to become even stronger.
At this point, it was as if the very concept of conscience didn’t exist.
Jeon couldn’t understand Deiodeun’s actions with common sense.
No, he had given up trying to understand.
Because he knew this wasn’t someone he could pass judgment on anyway.
Deiodeun briefly caressed the stone door.
Numerous inscriptions of unknown meaning were carved onto the door’s surface.
They were characters he had seen somewhere before.
Jeon recalled the books of the elves he had stored in his subspace.
He couldn’t understand the meaning, but they were identical to the characters written in the books.
‘Could it be related to the elves?’
Just then, as Deiodeun caressed the stone door, it suddenly emitted a bright light and swung wide open.
Deiodeun entered the stone door without telling Jeon to follow. But he didn’t tell him not to enter either.
It meant he was leaving the decision entirely up to Jeon.
‘That’s right! Not like I can die twice!’
Even Deiodeun, who was already strong enough, had entered an unidentified Dungeon to become stronger.
There was no reason for Jeon, who had resolved to become strong, to hesitate.
Jeon hurried inside before the door closed.
Thud!
The stone door closed again immediately after he entered.
As soon as he entered the Dungeon, Jeon felt as if he had suddenly dropped through the air.
However, since he had experience entering a Dungeon at the Magic Stone Mine, he soon adapted.
Jeon quickly came to his senses and looked around.
Massive stone pillars supported a towering ceiling.
On the stone walls, alongside the characters he had seen on the stone door, were carvings depicting what seemed like worship of a god.
“A… temple?”
Judging by the interior atmosphere and size, it was clearly a temple dedicated to some deity.
He had never heard of a Dungeon consisting of stone structures. But there was nothing strange about it.
Because Dungeons themselves were places beyond human common sense.
Jeon suddenly realized Deiodeun was nowhere to be seen.
“Did Deiodeun fall somewhere else?”
Just because there was one Dungeon entrance didn’t mean everyone entered the same place.
There were occasional cases where people started in completely different locations.
“We’ll have to go to where the boss is to meet.”
This too was something Deiodeun had told him.
To meet Deiodeun, he had to hurry to where the boss was.
The problem was which passage to choose.
In the great hall where he stood, there were four passages.
He couldn’t know which passage connected to where the boss was.
“Tch!”
Jeon clicked his tongue.
There was no information and no signposts.
There was no basis for a cool-headed decision.
It was the situation Jeon hated the most. But he couldn’t hesitate here forever.
Even at this moment, Deiodeun would be advancing toward the boss.
There was no time to hesitate.
“I’ll take the smallest passage.”
What Jeon chose was the one with the smallest entrance among the four passages.
He had a specific reason for choosing it.
“The larger the passage, the higher the probability of large demonic beasts appearing.”
It was true that the larger the demonic beast, the stronger it was.
Such large demonic beasts needed space befitting their size. That was why he chose the small passage.
If the passage was small, the demonic beasts that emerged would also be small in size.
Jeon entered the small passage without hesitation.
The inside of the passage was extremely dark.
There wasn’t even a tiny flicker of light, let alone a torch.
Jeon had to walk through the pitch-black passage relying solely on his senses.
“Huu!”
It hadn’t been this dark even when he went underground at the Magic Stone Mine.
It was as if the temple itself possessed a will that rejected outside light.
In this situation, his eyes were of no help at all.
Even when he focused mana into his eyes, he couldn’t see anything.
“I’ll give up on sight.”
Jeon discarded any attachment and focused solely on his hearing, smell, and touch.
Whish!
He felt a faint breeze.
The air in a sealed space doesn’t move.
The fact that wind was blowing meant there was a connected space somewhere.
Jeon moved toward where the wind was coming from and thought.
‘A Dungeon in the form of a temple? Just why do Dungeons like this appear?’
Although it had been quite some time since he became an Awakened, he didn’t know a single thing about the principles or origins of Dungeon creation.
He had asked Deiodeun about it before, but the man had kept his mouth tightly shut.
Judging by Deiodeun’s demeanor, he definitely seemed to know.
‘Could the creation of Dungeons be related to the reason Earth was destroyed like this?’
It was mere speculation; nothing was certain at the moment.
It was then.
Thud! Thud!
A sudden, dull sound rang out.
It was unmistakably the sound of a heavy object moving.
Jeon stopped and strained his ears.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The heavy sounds continued.
“What is that?”
In truth, the conclusion was already obvious.
The only things that moved in a temple-type Dungeon were demonic beasts.
Jeon raised his dominion and prepared for battle.
“What?”
A look of dismay appeared on Jeon’s face, who had been moving his mana.
It was because he couldn’t sense a single grain of sand nearby.
He was a Sand Sorcerer.
All his powers originated from sand.
Without sand, he was nothing more than a half-baked Awakened.
“There’s really no sand at all?”
Not a single grain of sand could be felt within the range of his dominion.
Since this was the first time it had happened, Jeon couldn’t help but panic.
“Damn it!”
Thud! Thud! Thump!
Even in that moment, the heavy footsteps were approaching.
Then, countless eyes appeared in the darkness.
Jeon stumbled backward.
But eyes appeared in the passage he had come through as well.
Their silhouettes were revealed by a faint glow illuminating the darkness.
The owners of those eyes had forms identical to humans.
The only difference was that their bodies were made of stone.
They were similar in height to Jeon, but much bulkier and rougher.
There was only one type of demonic beast like this.
“Golems?”
And they were Golems made entirely of stone.
They were the worst possible opponents, ones he couldn’t be sure of defeating even if he used sand normally.
Dozens of such Golems surrounded Jeon.
“Shit!”