Chapter 179

From: Kim Gyeongshik <[email protected]&C.com>

To: Lee Haejun

Subject: Restoration Request

To Lee Haejun, First-Class Restorer.

Hello, this is Kim Gyeongshik, a senior researcher at the C&C Hunter Preservation Research Institute. I contacted you a few days ago.

As mentioned, the dungeon raid report of the late Hunter Cha Dohwan has been discovered.

The report is divided into two volumes, and I am sending you the full text. Please understand that it was difficult to extract portions due to severe damage.

※ Please handle with care, as this material will be displayed in a museum.

* * *

<Full Text of Cha Dohwan’s Report ― PART 1>

(The situation at the time has been reconstructed into a document based on the text you provided. Please note that parts that were difficult to restore due to severe damage have been marked separately.)

[Dungeon Raid Report]

Author: Cha Dohwan

-Day 2

-Total Personnel: 32

-No unusual incidents

The party members woke at 6 AM, had a simple breakfast, and gathered in front of the elevator.

Everyone seemed tense, but not terrified. The party members boarded the elevator with high spirits.

[Labyrinthos]

The 115th floor was a maze.

Based on the hint sign for the raid, it seemed to be themed after Labyrinthos, the maze in the Palace of Knossos where the Minotaur was imprisoned in mythology.

If so, the final boss of the 115th floor had to be the Minotaur.

The Minotaur was an SS-rank boss, standing about 10 meters tall. The power emanating from its flexible and mighty body was comparable to a natural disaster. On top of that, it could breathe fire from its mouth and shoot lightning from its horns.

The party members’ expressions brightened. The difficulty was lower than they had expected.

Of course, the Minotaur was strong enough to single-handedly reduce a city to ruins.

However, it wasn’t accompanied by mobs, which made it less tricky. Excluding myself, there were six S-rank members in the party. And wasn’t Ryu Saan SSS-rank?

If we could provide proper magical defense and healing support, a raid with zero casualties would be possible. For the 115th floor, it was quite easy.

But it wasn’t long before I had to revise my thinking.

The problem wasn’t the boss, but the navigation. The paths were absurdly complex. There were almost no straight sections, only countless forks in the road. There was even a junction that split into fifteen different paths.

To make matters worse, traps were hidden everywhere, so we couldn’t even search for the path with peace of mind. It was just as you’d expect from the 115th floor.

We wandered the maze like blind mice.

We had definitely started by following a standard approach, but at some point, we began to lose our way.

Monotonous paths, dim lighting, and the anxiety that we might never escape. It was the perfect environment to fall into depression.

We desperately needed something to occupy our minds.

I found books, poker cards, board games, and other items to pass the time from our supplies and distributed them to the party members.

After two months in the maze, conversation ceased.

No one laughed. No one played games or read books. Nerves were frayed, and arguments broke out over trivial matters.

Even that didn’t last long. Outside of eating and sleeping, the party members just walked in silence. They were suffering from such extreme fatigue that they couldn’t even react to one another.

I tried my best to encourage them, but it didn’t help.

Around the time three months had passed, one of the party members began to have a seizure.

They suddenly started scratching their whole body, then began bashing their head against the wall in a fit of self-harm. They also spewed unspeakable profanities.

Just as the number of people having seizures increased from one to three…

The maze suddenly vanished, and the Minotaur appeared.

We had finally found the exit.

The Minotaur raid took less than four hours. Even so, one person died, and many were injured.

I ordered the party members to rest. It was our first rest in a staggering 96 days.

[Dungeon Raid Report]

Author: Cha Dohwan

-Day 101

-Total Personnel: 31

-Casualties during the 115th-floor raid: 1 dead, 12 injured.

-The injured have fully recovered, but aftereffects are a concern.

-4 members showing symptoms of depression.

(List of names attached on the back)

Thanks to the rest, morale recovered to some extent.

The party members encouraged one another. Card games and board games resumed. It seemed their camaraderie had strengthened after overcoming a major crisis.

We spent five days on the 115th floor recovering our bodies and minds before descending to the 116th floor.

The 116th floor was a giant chessboard, a half-board filled only with black pieces. It seemed the condition for clearing it was for us to act as the white pieces and defeat the opponent.

[Zugzwang]

Zugzwang is a chess term referring to a situation where one is forced to make a move that is disadvantageous.

Unfortunately, only two people in the party, including myself, knew how to play chess.

I decided to strategize with them and placed 16 volunteers from the remaining party members on the chessboard.

The game began.

Unexpectedly, the black pieces played at a novice level. They moved according to very common tactics, with no unorthodox attacks.

As someone who loved chess and had played for a long time, this was a very fortunate situation for me.

I carefully moved my pieces and attacked the opponent. While we eliminated three of their pawns and one knight, we suffered no losses.

Just as a triumphant smile spread across my face at the overwhelming difference in skill…

The floor where one of our pawns stood suddenly gave way. The party member positioned there vanished without even a scream. A black bishop leisurely took its place.

We froze. We had expected to be attacked, but we never imagined they would die so helplessly, without any chance to react.

Only then did I understand the meaning of the hint. Any move we made was essentially a bad one.

This very situation, where we were forced to move knowing it meant death, was zugzwang.

But in chess, you can’t win while preserving all your pieces. That means the only way is to win with minimal sacrifice…

I should have used Ye Shinwoo as a chess piece.

(This section is unrecoverable.)

Even though we cleared the 116th floor in a single day, no one was happy.

Depression spread among the party members like an epidemic. Some couldn’t sleep at night, while others suffered from severe headaches.

Curiously, most of the party members suffering from psychological aftereffects were swordsmen. I was deeply concerned it would affect our combat strength.

We rested on the 116th floor for ten days before boarding the elevator again.

[Dungeon Raid Report]

Author: Cha Dohwan

-Day 112

-Total Personnel: 24

-Casualties during the 116th-floor raid: 7 dead.

-3 members showing symptoms of depression, 4 complaining of headaches and insomnia.

(List of names attached on the back)

The 117th floor was, surprisingly, a forest. A dawn forest filled with a thick fog.

[Hide-and-Seek]

The condition for clearing the floor was to find the boss hidden somewhere in the forest.

I was inwardly relieved. An outdoor environment, rather than an enclosed space, would help lift the party members’ spirits.

Even if it was a strange forest where no sound could be heard.

The most likely place for the boss was the center of the forest. We began our march.

Half a day passed, and still nothing happened. Not even mobs appeared. The entire forest was shrouded in an ominous silence.

I halted the march and ordered the party members to scout. We decided to send three teams in three different directions to search and then regroup.

About three hours later, the party members returned with little to show for their efforts.

They said that to obtain a core, monsters had to appear, but they couldn’t find any monsters, not even small animals or insects.

This was a dead forest. The only living things were the dense, towering trees and unidentifiable wild grasses.

The key was how to find the boss in this vast place.

We set up a base for the time being. We decided to divide the area and explore deeper starting tomorrow, then went to sleep.

And then, around the time night fell, the incident occurred.

The party member on watch duty screamed. The monster we had been unable to find had finally appeared.

Waking from my sleep, I was startled. The fog was so thick I couldn’t see in front of me.

I literally couldn’t see my own hand in front of my face. The comrades sleeping beside me, the bonfire we had lit in the center—everything had vanished into the fog.

With my vision blocked, my sense of direction became distorted. I stood still for a moment, waiting to hear a sound, but strangely, I couldn’t sense any presence. The last thing I heard was the scream of the person on watch.

If a monster had invaded, I should have heard a roar, or at the very least, footsteps. But there was no sound at all. It felt as though I had lost my hearing after my sight.

I didn’t move rashly. As I stood there, paying close attention, I felt a presence behind me.

Heavy breathing and the foul stench of a beast. It was definitely a monster.

I immediately swung my sword, and the sensation of slicing through something heavy was transmitted through the blade.

When I turned around, a werewolf-like monster about 2 meters tall was trembling, its neck half-severed. Blood sprayed like a fountain.

I completely severed its dangling neck, and the creature fell backward. I drew a dagger and dismantled the monster’s corpse, but I couldn’t find a core.

I wandered around, searching for another monster. But it was no easy task to search in a fog where I couldn’t see an inch in front of me.

It was Ryu Saan who found the core. As she shouted that she’d found it, the fog dissipated, and objects began to come into view.

The next moment, something unbelievable happened.

Ryu Saan was holding not a monster’s core, but a human heart.

I couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing. Was the heart Ryu Saan was holding really human? If so, whose was it?

With a deathly pale face, Ryu Saan dropped what she was holding. It seemed she had only just realized what it was.

All the party members fell into a state of panic. I was no different.

While my thoughts were frozen, someone suddenly screamed. It was a chilling shriek that sent a cold dread down my spine.

Only then did the surrounding situation register in my eyes.

Absurdly, there wasn’t a single monster. Only the corpses of our party members were scattered everywhere.

Among them was a party member who had died in the exact same way I had killed the monster.

I had clearly killed a monster, so why was a party member in that state…? Did we really mistake our comrades for monsters and kill them?

(This section is unrecoverable.)

The boss of the 117th floor was a fog imbued with powerful illusion magic.

I couldn’t find out any more details. The party members refused to speak about what they had experienced.

We decided to stay here for the time being.