- It's been 2 weeks and 1 day since the Double Dungeon, the world didn't change, that much... Anyways, according to the Korean Hunters Association, or KHA, although the dungeon leaks have became more common they're still in control of the Hunters - The Reporter explained, clearly reading a script.
The Hospital TV was tiny, and clearly old, but it was enough to inform about the recent developments around the world.
"Sir!" A nurse called, knocking on the white door. After a confirmation, she entered the room. "We confirmed it! You're good to go, please just walk to the reception and sign the papers okay?"
The man nodded, cleaning the sweat of his forehead, his muscular and lean frame towered over the nurse, his eyes focused on something else, on something that didn't see to exist somehow.
'Must be the Side Effects...' The nurse thought to herself, then excused herself and walked away.
15 minutes passed, and the man approached the receptionist.
"Hey" He waved, leaning over the balcon.
"Aaa... What's your name, Sir?" The receptionist asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Sung Jin-Woo" Jin-Woo responded quickly.
"Oh! Mr.Sung! I didn't even recognized you!" She laughed it off, putting his name on the system, the white and blocky shape of the keyboard showed how old it was. "So... Here to get the check-out ready?"
"Yep"
"Oookay... Just please sign this for me" The receptionist asked, handing him the documents needed.
Jin-Woo did as asked, and signed the papers. To his surprise, even his handwriting got better, the system was definitely trying to improve him.
"Here you go" Sung Jin-Woo said, handing the papers back to the gentle receptionist. She nodded and waved goodbye.
'That is it... I'm free' Jin-Woo thought to himself, looking around the city. He then opened the system, checking if any mission popped or anything, but what caught his eyes was the number of money he had: 0.
'Gotta make some money...' He continued, then finally deciding to go visit the Hunters Association, after all, where would a hunter find something to do?
- Meanwhile, at Noon's House -
"Mom!" Maki called out, putting her shoes as fast as she can. Makawa just looks at her knowingly.
"You're late again..." She says, still sleepy. Makawa then stands up and approaches her daughter, reaching out to tie her daughter's hair. "Crimea called me, he said he was leaving work, so he could pick you up"
"Really?!" Maki beamed with relief, it seems like she wouldn't be late after all. Makawa chuckles and finishes brushing Maki's hair.
Makawa then grabs a tiny lunchbox, full of tenderness and goodies (yummy!), and hands it to Maki, to which reacts with a smile.
"I'm home!" Crimea said, entering the living room area. He looks around and sees his sister and mom laughing together. "Come on"
Maki nodded and hugged her mom, then walked with Crimea outside. "Be safe!" Makawa added, looking at them through a open window. Maki giggled and waved goodbye, climbing behind her brother on the black motorcycle, Crimea nodded firmly.
Then, both the siblings rode away.
---------
Post Blossom University - 09:13 am
"Thanks Crim!" Maki waves, walking inside the big building. Crimea just watches, almost as if he never experienced something like it.
His red eyes continued to scan the environment, a instinct by now, until a loud voice interrupted his calm line of thought. He looks behind him and see a tall guy, towering over him, he remained silent.
"Who are you?! Never seen you around here... A newcomer?" The jackass mocked, using his height to try to threaten Crimea. "My name is Jackson! And you should remember it, softie!" Then, him and his comrades started laughing loudly.
Crimea just sighs, and ignores him, turning around and climbing onto his motorcycle. But then, even to his surprise, Jackson approaches him, not sastified with his response. Crimea was ready to kick his ass, but then another voice reached his ears.
"Oi, Jackson!" Another teenager approached, smirking.
Jackson turned to the other dude and his eyes widened immediately. "This isn't your business, Kim!"
'Kim? Seems like Korean to me' Crimea thought, still with the same expression.
"Oh? Well... Sorry, princess... But now it is" Kim whispers with a hint of threat, removing one of his hand from the pocket and grabbing one of his backpack straps.
Then in a swift motion, he lunged towards Jackson and hit his face with the heavy backpack. "Unlucky~ my bag is filled today" He mocks, smiling at the now kneeled man.
"Crim!" Maki called out, rushing to the scene. "you okay?" She asks, already examining her brother's face.
"Of course i am" Crimea responded, pulling away. "Besides the spit... Gross"
Maki smiled and turned to Kim. "Thanks for putting Jackson on his place" She bowed respectfully, Kim looked at her and smiled back.
"Always, princess! I loved protecting your puppy of a brother." He mocked, causing Crimea's eyes to dart to him. Kim responded by winking and walking away. "Till later!"
As the rest of the students walk away, Crimea and Maki just watch. "This place sucks" Crimea speaks, climbing onto his motorcycle. Maki laughed and nodded, "It isn't that bad... Once you know the right people."
"Is that guy your definition of right people? Thankfully you're into girls" Crimea said, making sure there wasn't any more spit on his clothes.
"Hey!" Maki protested, approaching him. "You're such a dork... Anyways, Kim rules over this place... Well, almost i guess. Nobody knows why, but he has this authority in him" she concluded.
As much as Crimea didn't agree, he felt that indeed there was something different about that guy, but unlike his sister said... He was the one that felt powerful during their short interaction.
...
As Kim walked back inside, he couldn't stop thinking about his previous interaction with Maki's older brother. He felt somewhat different, a knot in the throat hit him and the next thing he saw when opening his eyes, was him biting onto his own hand.
...
Korean Hunters Association
Sung Jin-Woo entered the tall building, searching for any guild looking for help, a few steps deeper and he overheard something about a Rank C Dungeon, that needed some more hunters.
"Yeah, amazing idea! Except for the fact that we don't have any extra weapons to distribute" One of the Guild members said, throwing a pile of documents on the round table between them.
Before any other reply, Jin-Woo approached. "I can lend a hand, and i have my own weapon" He said, looking at the tallest man of the group, probably the leader.
"Oh really?" The man whispered darkly, standing up right and approach Sung Jin-Woo to greet him, lifting his hand for a handshake. "Name's Hwang Dongsuk, and we're the Lizards Guild"
"I'm Sung Jin-Woo" Jin-Woo replied, maintaining a nonchalant expression on his face.
"Oh we know! You're been quite famous around here! Survivor of the Double Dungeon right?" He asked, laughing out loudly. "Actually we're done, right? The other guy is still around, isn't he?"
"The D-Rank? He should be, we're heading out in... A hour, almost" Another of the Lizards guild spoke, a tag revealed his name, Nama, looking at his expensive watch.
Sung Jin-Woo just watched their interaction, then another guy entered the hall. "There you are!" Hwang Dongsuk called, wrapping a arm around the much smaller guy shoulders.
The Lizards Guild and the 2 newcomers sat down to continue discussing details, payments and strategies for the Dungeon. Quickly, the 1 hour passed and everyone got ready and headed out.
As they reached the portal, everyone checked their gear one last time, while doing so, Sung Jin-Woo approached the D-Rank, named Yoo Jinho.
"Why are you here?" Jin-Woo asked, with a raised eyebrow. He wondered why would Jinho joined a dungeon higher than his rank, after all, it reminded him of his own experience before.
"A-Ah! I just w-wanted to experience it... You know?" Jinho responded with a nervous tone, clearly scared. However his armor and gear were surprisingly good, maybe he was from a rich family, but Jin-Woo quickly stopped thinking about that as he saw everyone gathering closer to the portal.
"Let's go Lizards!" Hwang Dongsuk shouted, entering the portal.
Inside, the C-Rank dungeon seemed like a cavern, and a long one, the group needed to light up some torches, and took advantage of them to lit some blades in fire. Jin-Woo looked around, noticing the large amount of webs and tiny holes on the walls.
As their footsteps echoed deeper into the dungeon, they started hearing purr like sounds, accentuated by the growing cold and quietness.
"These sounds are giving me the shivers..." Nama said, readying his spear.
"Couldn't we just set the webs ablaze?" Jinho asked, noticing how the sounds were coming from every single one of the tiny holes on the walls.
Before anyone could respond, several small spiders left the holes, cascading over the Hunters.
"AAAAAH!" A female screamed from the very bottom of their formation, but her scream quickly stopped when Jin-Woo killed the spiders crawling on her bag.
But when Jin-Woo looked back to the frontline, we notice tiny white reflexes on the holes. 'More spiders?' He thought, readying his dagger.
"Light them up!" Hwang Dongsuk shouted, making the archer shoot the holes and webs, with their flaming arrows. In the middle of the fight, Jin-Woo and Jinho even forgot that they were with a guild, probably experienced and used to this situations.
The stony walls resisted the fire, but not the webs, that quickly lit up the environment, making easier for the Hunters to see the enemies. But also easier to get nauseous, seeing the tiny spiders burning alive, 'screaming' in pain.
"Let's head deeper!" Hwang Dongsuk shouted, raising his sword and shield, confidently walking deeper into the darkness. Nama quickly followed behind, and so the did the rest.
While everyone walked slowly towards the possible final chamber, Jin-Woo checked the system, specifically, his stats. He saw that the tiny spiders indeed gave him a generous amount of XP, probably because of the quantity of them, which was also scary to think about.
The group quickly stopped in front of a large group of webs, Nama nodded and used his spear to cut right through them, as the pieces of webs fell, but then, larger human-sized spiders rushed from them.
"Attack!" Hwang Dongsuk shouted, rushing to use his shield to bash the spiders while Nama and other sword wielding Guild members used that to slash open a way forward.
"They know what they're doing" Jinho said, holding a torch.
Jin-Woo thought about that, and his eyes remained focused on the scene in front of them. "Seems like it" He said, walking forward.
Jin-Woo joined the other Hunters, quickly making them gain the upper hand and once they finished the spiders, and tried to catch their breath, more large spiders appeared, quickly crawling over to them.
Hwang Dongsuk spat on the dead ones and shouted, activating his ability "Taunt", making the spiders flinch for a moment. But to their surprise, they didn't seem that affected, and threw webs towards the tired hunters, that got trapped immediately. Nama looked behind, checking their situation, and saw more glowing red eyes coming from behind.
"Shit! They're behind too!" Nama yelled, rushing to help the trapped hunters. Hwang Dongsuk and Jin-Woo were busy with the large spiders that threw the webs, Jinho remained near them, tried to help them by illuminating their surroundings.
The formation quickly fell apart, but they still managed to win against the large spiders. Hwang Dongsuk looked at his group and sighed, seeing how wounded their numbers were, and the bodies of some weaker members of his group, were now laying dead.
"Wow... I didn't expect this..." He said, cleaning his sword. Jinho walked next to him, trying to avoid looking at the bloodied corpses of the spiders.
"But... Shouldn't this be a normal raid? I mean... Your group is a Rank C, isn't it?" Jinho asked, trying to understand why they were having so much difficulties.
"Yeah... I mean, not all are C-Rankers..." Hwang Dongsuk responded, not even sure of why this was happening. "Maybe... We weren't ready for their numbers?"
'Well... At least the large numbers mean more XP' Jin-Woo thought, looking at his stats.
Nama and the other hunters approached, and then they decided to continue, walking a little slower this time, due to the injured men. And then, they spotted the large treasures, and crystals, that they were hoping to find.
Hwang Dongsuk smirked darkly, quickly rushing to besides the treasures. "Well, well, well... Gotcha"
Then, in a sudden movement, Nama used his skill 'Flash', and everyone got blinded, while Hwang Dongsuk and Nama laughed. "Ahaha! Less People, more amount of clinking coin to my wallet!" He mocked, putting a sword on Jin-Woo's neck.
Jin-Woo eyes widened, and he quickly realized, it was all a scheme. It was all done in purpose, he checked Hwang Dongsuk profile before, and he was one of the stronger C-Ranks, followed by Nama, that was also specifically stronger than average.
They had chosen weaker members of their guild, to have losses, and accepted Jin-Woo and Jinho help so they didn't need to fill out that space with members of the Lizards.
His blindess dissipated before the others, probably a specific perk he had collected before. He looked around, and saw the fear expressed in the weaker hunters faces, including Jinho, who stumbled backwards, pointing to the darker side of the cave.
But, as Jin-Woo's eyes darted to the place, 8 red glowing ones pierced through the darkness, stalking it's prey.
--_____-- Boss Identified: Giant Arachnid Buryura, C-Rank -- ____-
'The boss, huh? Finally you appeared' Jin-Woo thought, readying his dagger, eager to put his newfound strength to use.
As Buryura left her webs, the spider roared, showing off her mouth full of white, sword-sized fangs. With that, the weaker hunters stopped moving, paralyzed by fear. Jin-Woo cursed, and dashed towards Buryura, trying to stop it before it ate the mortified hunters.
But even to his surprise, one of the hunters managed to struggle free, and dashed towards the spider also, accompanying Jin-Woo.
There wasn't time for introductions, and both the Hunters used their weapons to cut through Buryura front legs, the spider roared in pain and sent both the mysterious female and Jin-Woo flying away with another thundering roar.
"Dammit" Jin-Woo muttered, feeling pain on his ribs. As he stood up, his eyes weakly searched for the boss, but only captured pieces of limbs and guts. The weakened hunters, were being eaten alive by something invisible.
The female hunter cursed out loudly, throwing her sword towards the invisible creature, and it hit her. "She... Can turn.. Invisible?" The hunter asked herself, as her eyes saw Buryura appearing in thin air.
The spider's mouth was engorged in blood and viscera, it was feeding desperately in order to heal her lost legs.
"It's healing herself!" The female hunter shouted. Jinho nodded, and shook of his fear, standing up and throwing the torch to the spider, that quickly got lit up in flames. The screams almost didn't leave the bloodied mouth of the spider, it was choking on the viscera and guts of the hunters.
Jin-Woo watched as the spider was set aflame, and ran to finish it for once. He removed the female Hunter's sword from the spider flaming grey carapace, and jumped towards the head of the creature, that was rubbing it with it's legs to extinguish the fire.
But it still didn't work, Buryura managed to extinguish the fire, and although weakened, opened her mouth and tried to swallow Jin-Woo whole. The sword was the only thing trapping the strong jaws, while Jin-Woo used all his strength to force the mouth open.
"Jin-Woo!" The female hunter yelled, with her eyes glowing pink, she closed her hand and the sword started shaking. "Cut through the bitch!"
Jin-Woo nodded and shouted, as the sword accompanied his hand movements, cut through the spider with ease, Jin-Woo jumped away, landing on the floor. Buryura was squirming in pain, with her jaws cut open, the spider's last resort was to throw up venomous blood. Sung Jin-Woo, dodged the desperate attack and used the still growing sword to pierce the spider's body, making it finally fall on the floor.
The 3 hunters breathed out slowly, approaching the carcass.
"Nice sword you have there" Jin-Woo whispered weakly, handing it to the female hunter, who smiled brightly and nodded.
"She's my precious baby" She said, 'calming' the sword, making it return to it's weaker stage.
"What's your name?" Jinho asked, helping her bandage her leg.
"Kureha... Ouch~" She responded, flinching slightly.
"Sorry!" Jinho exclaimed, fixing the tiny mistake he made while patching her up.
"No problem... Just don't make it again" She said, making a serious expression to scare Jinho. Jin-Woo saw through the disguise, she was just messing around with the fragile boy. "Well, resuming the introductions! My name is Kureha, B-Rank Hunter!" She excitedly introduced herself, chuckling like they weren't in a fight with a giant spider before.
"B-Rank? Shouldn't this dungeon be easy for you?" Jinho asked, raising an eyebrow
"Ah well... Let's not talk about that, okay? I just came back from vacations and stuff..." The girl tried to explain, but Jin-Woo was only think of the betrayal that led to this fight.
"Part of the lizards?" Jin-Woo asked, clearly more than upset with Hwang Dongsuk betrayal. He also pointed to what was left of the other hunters.
"Ah-No!" She responded, running her hand through her silver hair. "Just came here to earn some cash... Thought it was going to be easier"
"Guess we all did" Jinho whispered, focused on what he was doing. Jin-Woo just gave him the 'you are a D-Rank, how did you thought it was going to be easier' look.
But when the trio was still recovering, Nama and Hwang Dongsuk approached, with big smirks on their face.
"Look at them! All injured and gross!" Nama laughed, readying his spear.
"Look at the amount of crystals! We're going to be rich, so fucking much..." Hwang Dongsuk exclaimed, going for a swing at Kureha.
But a hand stopped his sword, it was Sung Jin-Woo, whose eyes were changed, something did change inside the once weak man. Nama saw it and went for a strike with the spear, Jin-Woo saw it coming miles away, and used his dagger to split the spear in two.
"Congratulations, Hwang Dongsuck" Jin-Woo whispered in a dangerously calm tone, grabbing the stick that was now Nama's spear, and using it to send the shocked man to the floor. Then we walked towards Hwang Dongsuk, and with a clean swing, beheaded the man.
Even the sound of his head rolling onto the floor was miserable, at least to Jin-Woo's ears.
Nama screamed and tried to run away, but Kureha stood up with Jinho help, and used her skill: 'Domina', making Nama fall onto his knees. She, with Jinho, stumbled towards him, then cutting him in half with her sword. "Piece of shit" She cursed, trying to maintain her balance.
"We agree on that" Jin-Woo said, as he approached and draped her other arm, the one holding the sword, over his shoulders. "That thing is heavy"
Kureha chuckles and sighs "Yeah... Especially now". Then the trio walked away, leaving the cavern-like dungeon. To their surprise, as they left the portal, they saw the mining team already there to collect the crystals. In the middle of the trucks, there was a figure in a black suit, that slowly walked towards the survivors.
"Kureha... What the fuck are you doing here?" He asked, crossing his arms, completely ignoring the 2 males supporting her.
"I wanted some fun~ Went wrong though, don't worry Castro! I will fill ya a report." She responded, handling him the sword. "Uh... By the way... Is dad pissed??" She asked, not sure if she wanted to know the answer.
"No." Castro responded, holding the sword with his both arms due to its weight. "Let's go home, you surely need time to write the report" He continued, helping Kureha onto a black SUV.
Kureha opened the window and winked at Jin-Woo and Jinho. "Till Someday!" She waved.
Both men watched the scene with a confused expression, but ultimately decided to breathe out and relax. Jinho checked himself and sighed in relief, seeing he wasn't injured at all, contrasting with Jin-Woo, who was covered in blood.
"How did she..." Jin-Woo spoke out loud, looking at the void. "Had a Legendary Weapon?" He completed, massaging his chin.
"A... Legendary Weapon!" Jinho exclaimed, scratching his head, deep in thought. "She's rank B... She's strong but it is enough to obtain a legendary weapon? Could also be from a rich family... I mean, I'm rank D and have a powerful armor and weapon... But nothing legendary... Maybe, maybe... What if she crafted it herself? Is that possible?" Jinho asked, looking at Jin-Woo for confirmation.
Jin-Woo looked at him and shrugged "Dunno." He simply said, walking away.
__---- __ Legendary Weapon: Not Identified - - __--_-
--__ __ Class: Greatsword. _--___----
"Ah well, guess you're not always that useful" Sung Jin-Woo said, walking back to the Association to collect his reward, write a report and then, finally go home.
- 21:00pm, Noon's House -
In the dim light of the wooden living room, Makawa was relaxing on the couch, looking at how the flames danced on the old fireplace. Her mind was tired, but she tried to remain awake, to greet her son when he gets home.
...
Crimea entered the house, and locked the door behind him, putting his backpack down and removing his jacket, then walked on the hallway and saw by the corner of his eyes a figure on the couch. He sighed, knowingly, and approached the sleeping woman, scooped her in his arms and carried her to her bed. Then, turned the lights off and looked at the fragile woman, worried by her growing exhaustion since the death of his father.
"Don't exhaust yourself, woman... Your daughter still needs you" He said, closing the door slowly to not wake her. "So do I" He finished, finally closing the door completely.
Unknown to him, his mother heard everything, and sighed in happiness. "Thanks Crimson... For giving me 2 angels" She whispered, closing her eyes and drifting off to sleep.
Crimea entered his room and removed his clothes, standing only in his sweatpants, that he always found cozier to sleep. He threw himself on the bed and looked at the ceiling, wondering about everything that happened recently.
"Leaks... A guy that creates dungeons... The Juwon guy..." He whispered, his usual deep and calm voice, now tired and weak. "I guess... That's the world we live in... One filled with madness" He completed, closing his eyes and joining his mom and sister on the dreamland.
Author's Notes: So... I drew basic... Cards... For the new characters I'm introducing here, the important ones i mean (Fuck Jackson, Nama and Castro) I'm going to put the cards here on the end, hope you find them beautiful (=ↀωↀ=).
ALSO, i wrote down Jin-Woo instead of Sung Jin-Woo but i don't think i will repeat that in the next chapters, it kinda confused me when i needed to write both Sung Jin-Woo and Yoo Ji-nho (That also got shortened to Jinho), so from here on out: Sung Jin-Woo and Jinho.
Characters:
Info about the man himself: 19 years old, 6'3" (192 cm), black dragon tattoo that goes around his arm and finishes on his chest. Not much to say besides that, after all i won't spoil it since he will be pretty important. (Remember him)
Info about The Protagonist Sister: 18 years old, 5'5" (167 cm), inspired by JJK'S Maki Zenin, i didn't had the creativity to choose another name, so went with Maki, and ended up choosing her to be similar to her more baddass counterpart.
Info about the strong girl: 22 years old, 5'8" (176 cm), i wanted her to be unique and went for a albino character, never drew one before, it was pretty funny. Her art style is also a bit different because i was in a hurry to finish it, so decided to draw her in a more simple way.