Chapter 180

<Full Text of Cha Dohwan’s Report ― PART 2>

[Dungeon Clear Report]

Author: Cha Dohwan

-Day 135

-Total Personnel: 13

-9 casualties during the 117th-floor clear.

-2 suicides.

-9 reporting symptoms of depression, headaches, and insomnia.

(List of names attached on the back.)

Overcoming the lethargy wasn’t easy. The sound of crying every night felt like it would drive me mad.

Whenever I fell asleep, I would dream. A dream of me killing my comrades.

No one spoke of it, but everyone knew. We knew that we had hallucinated, mistaking our comrades for monsters and killing them.

I wasn’t the only one who killed a comrade. Ryu Saan even killed three of them. I was a little glad about that.

I can’t forget the feeling of killing a person. Goosebumps crawled up my skin, and my hair stood on end. My ears rang, and a faint dizziness washed over me.

At the same time, I felt a thrill. It was nauseating and terrifying, yet exhilarating. I was clearly in a state of excitement at the time.

(Page 129 has been completely erased. It appears to have been done by the author, but please check if any data is missing, just in case.)

[There are no monsters here]

The 118th floor was, in its entirety, a small town. Houses big and small, a pub, a salon, a supermarket—it wasn’t fancy, but it had everything. It even had town residents.

It was just an ordinary town, the kind you might find somewhere in America.

We didn’t let our guard down. Even if no monsters were visible, they could appear anywhere, at any time.

The residents were the most suspicious. Humans in an underground dungeon? They had to be monsters disguised as residents.

The townspeople welcomed us. They prepared places for us to rest and brought us food.

The bastards. As if anyone would fall for this.

Naturally, we didn’t eat the food they offered. We ate our emergency rations and took turns resting, preparing for the inevitable attack.

But one day passed, then two, then three, and still there was no attack.

The residents were still kind to us. They were just ordinary people. We couldn’t find anything suspicious about them.

After a week with no developments, the tension began to ease a little.

Some party members had already befriended the townspeople.

So what did the clear hint mean?

No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t find a connection. No, I couldn’t even figure out what we were supposed to be clearing.

The other party members were just as clueless.

We decided to wait and see. We had to identify the target before we could form a strategy.

The party members quickly assimilated into the town. As their psychological states stabilized, they no longer had seizures.

There was even a party member who started a relationship with one of the townspeople.

That crazy bastard.

Ryu Saan and Ye Shinwoo stayed near the elevator, not in the town. It seemed they were still living on emergency rations.

I went to check when they were away, and those crazy fuckers had set up a whole household with the supplies.

What kind of filthy business are those two up to, living away from the town? Disgusting things, they have no shame. It makes me sick.

I found my own method for clearing the floor and began my work.

It was to kill the town residents, one by one. It would be a pain if those lunatics found out, so I lured them to my house and killed them there.

The ones who died by my hand did not reappear. They were gone forever.

That’s when I realized it. I had found the way to clear the 118th floor.

[Dungeon Clear Report]

Author: Cha Dohwan

-Day 188

-Total Personnel: 12

-1 death due to drug overdose.

(List of names attached on the back.)

A party member was found dead. Cause of death: sleeping pill overdose.

Dozens had already witnessed him drunk for a week straight, rambling about breaking up with his lover.

He was in so much pain, did he choose suicide? Good riddance. I don’t feel good about this.

This incident served as a wake-up call for the party members’ lax mental state, making them more vigilant.

Looks like they were afraid they’d end up like the party member who killed himself if they stayed here any longer, right?

I shared the information I’d discovered with those idiots who had finally come to their senses.

The town residents are the monsters. There’s no way people could live in a dungeon.

In other words, we just have to kill all the residents to make this a town with no monsters.

That’s why the clear hint is ‘There are no monsters here.’ I’ve already eliminated nearly thirty of them.

The party members were confused. They seemed reluctant to kill the people they had grown close to for almost two months.

At first, the party members helped a few times, but at some point, they became uncooperative. Eventually, they started demanding to give up the clear and escape.

The elevator only moves if every living member is on board. It was a system where escape was impossible if even one person refused to get on.

When I alone opposed the escape, the party members went from begging to threatening me. It looked like they were ready to drag me onto the elevator by force if I refused.

Ha, who the fuck do those motherfuckers think they are, dreaming of escape? If we leave now, I’m the one who’ll be utterly humiliated! They don’t have a care in the world, is that it?

I changed my targets from the town residents to the party members.

[Dungeon Clear Report]

Author: Cha Dohwan

-Day 267

-Total Personnel: 3

-9 deaths due to drug overdose.

(List of names attached on the back.)

The party members, tormented by the fact that they had to kill the residents with their own hands, committed suicide one after another. I killed them, you idiots.

It seemed the side effects of surviving in the dungeon for over six months had taken a heavy toll on their minds.

The remaining party members were me, Ryu Saan, and Ye Shinwoo. I should have killed those two as well. A shame.

With only three of us left, we had no choice but to deliberate. Would we escape now, or would we challenge the 119th floor?

I strongly argued for clearing the 119th floor, while Ye Shinwoo was on the side of giving up. The coward.

I worked hard to persuade the neutral Ryu Saan.

The 120th floor was a save floor, so the 119th was effectively the dungeon’s final floor.

Clearing just one more floor could bring peace to the world. Peace, my ass. But isn’t it too much of a waste to give up here?

After deep consideration, Ryu Saan sided with me on the condition that we would escape immediately if it got dangerous. To openly take my side in front of Ye Shinwoo. She must still like me.

But Ye Shinwoo opposed it to the very end. He insisted we leave immediately, and it seemed he had clashed with Ryu Saan over this issue several times.

That’s when I realized Ye Shinwoo’s condition was not normal.

I had known since the 117th floor that Ryu Saan’s mind was unstable. But looking at him now, Ye Shinwoo was even stranger.

His eyes were bloodshot, and he couldn’t control his anger. Above all, the aura he gave off was as savage and unstable as a maddened beast.

It was clear that Ye Shinwoo had also been affected by the underground dungeon.

It was my mistake. Well, good for me. Since I was the only sane one left, I should have taken good care of them. Because we had been living apart, I realized it far too late.

While I was flustered, Ye Shinwoo dragged Ryu Saan and forced her onto the elevator.

I was next.

I struggled as Ye Shinwoo’s hand dragged me along. But for some reason, he didn’t budge. The difference in our strength was just too stark. Did the son of a bitch take some kind of drug?

Ye Shinwoo lifted me like a piece of luggage, threw me toward the elevator, and stepped onto it himself. All the effort I had poured in until now was about to be undone.

I recklessly ran toward the elevator’s number panel. I was going to smash it so we couldn’t go up.

But the elevator moved.

The three of us froze, stopping in our tracks. It wasn’t a mistake. The elevator was going down.

‘There are no monsters here.’

The clear hint was accurate.

There were no monsters on the 118th floor, so there was nothing to clear. It was a floor you just had to pass through. Then what about the 183 townspeople I killed?

The button for the 119th floor had been lit up on the panel from the very beginning. But we were so caught up in the fixed idea that we had to clear the 118th floor that no one checked the panel. For a whole six months.

We reached the 119th floor without any preparation.

[There is only one hero]

The 119th floor was similar to a save floor. It was a completely empty, white space. No monsters, no maze, no strange fog.

Just then, Ryu Saan called out to me and pointed at the floor.

A white circle was drawn there. It was so small that one person’s feet would fill it completely.

The moment I saw it, the clear hint popped into my head.

‘There is only one hero.’

From their expressions, it looked like Ryu Saan and Ye Shinwoo had figured it out too. Dammit.

The clear hint meant that we had to choose one person from among us to stand in that circle.

In other words, only the person standing in that circle could leave the dungeon and become a hero.

Then what about the other two? The elevator doesn’t move if the number of people isn’t right. The remaining two would have to stay here. Forever.

Ye Shinwoo and Ryu Saan tried to persuade me to give up, saying all three of us should get out alive together.

Am I crazy? If we give up now, we’ll have to start over from the 115th floor. Why would I do that? I’m going to be the hero, so you two can just die here.

But how do I kill them?

Ryu Saan, who’s a higher rank than me, and the monstrous Ye Shinwoo. There was no way I could beat them in a fair fight.

We decided to rest here for a day and think it over carefully. For a solution that would be good for everyone.

Of course, that was a lie. I’ll wait until night, and when they fall asleep, I’ll kill them.

In my storage, I had a poison I’d exchanged for at the shop before entering the dungeon.

I’ll poison them with it, then step into the circle. It was a foolproof plan.

I can’t wait for night to fall.

(The condition of the report deteriorates rapidly from pages 165 to 197. The restorable sections have been completed, but the remainder requires precision work. Please coordinate the work schedule.)