abcnovels
Chapter 44
Chapter 44
Chapter 44 – Dungeon Strategy Meeting
“Dragons or whatever, I’m busy, so get off while I’m still being nice.”
Kang Hyeon said, gritting his teeth.
“What did you say? You bastard! Don’t you know the Fire Dragon Guild!?”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Haa… Shit.”
“W-what?! Shit? Are you done talking?!”
It was a situation where curses naturally came out.
Kang Hyeon roughly ran his hand through his hair.
He was already late for the meeting, and now he was going to be even later thanks to these idiots.
“Hyeon. It’s okay if I beat them all up, right?”
“Just stay put.”
An Yu-seong, also not in a good mood, looked ready to pull out his mace and smash their heads.
The cramped elevator was instantly filled with tension and heat.
“That’s enough. You guys get off.”
“But Guild Master!”
“I said get off.”
At the words of the man called Guild Master, several people moved out of the elevator.
Soon the alarm stopped, and the elevator moved upwards.
-Woooong
The noise of the moving elevator masked a strange discomfort.
“I apologize for earlier.”
Just before the awkwardness reached its peak.
The man called Guild Master opened his mouth.
“It’s fine.”
“I see you’re going to the 11th floor, are you participating in this raid?”
“Yes. Well… That’s right.”
“I’m Park Ho-yeon, the Guild Master of the Fire Dragon Guild.”
“I’m Kang Hyeon.”
When Park Ho-yeon extended his hand, Kang Hyeon reluctantly shook it.
His face clearly showed his annoyance.
‘Such an arrogant bastard…’
The Fire Dragon Guild is a mega-guild vying for second place in Korea along with the Immortal Guild.
Although their overall level was lower than the Immortal Guild, they never thought they were inferior, given their title of having the largest number of guild members in the country.
‘How dare he show such an attitude to me, the Guild Master of the Fire Dragon Guild?’
Park Ho-yeon barely suppressed his rising anger.
It wasn’t good in many ways to lose his temper hastily here.
-Ding!
Finally, the elevator arrived at the 11th floor.
When the doors opened, Shin Tae-gil greeted them with a stiff face.
“You’re 10 minutes late.”
“Sorry. Some idiots wouldn’t get off the elevator.”
At Kang Hyeon’s words, the atmosphere turned icy.
The faces of the Fire Dragon Guild members turned red and blue, and Park Ho-yeon could no longer maintain his composure.
“I-idiots?!”
Sparks flew from Park Ho-yeon’s raised eyes.
“Pfft!”
In contrast, An Yu-seong was giggling for some reason.
“…”
Shin Seong-a maintained a poker face from start to finish.
“What did you just say…? Say it again.”
Park Ho-yeon spat out the words.
“What? Did that upset you? Well, if you don’t want to be called an idiot, mind your manners next time, idiot.”
Kang Hyeon was unusually sensitive.
Seeing the attempt to throw their weight around over such a trivial matter reminded him of the Bait Guild.
Shin Tae-gil stepped in to mediate the situation that seemed about to explode.
“What are you doing now?”
“It’s nothing.”
“This disrespectful bastard…”
“Let’s go in quickly. The masters of other guilds are waiting. If we’re any later, you’ll be excluded from this dungeon raid.”
Only after the threat of being excluded from the raid did they all start to move.
-Thud, thud
The corridor, where only footsteps quietly echoed, felt like the calm before the storm.
The Fire Dragon Guild members kept glaring at Kang Hyeon.
It was a situation where one might worry they’d pull out their swords and strike the back of his head at any moment.
However, Kang Hyeon, not caring about his surroundings at all, boldly opened the conference room door.
“Sorry I’m late.”
Sharp gazes flew and stuck.
They rolled their eyes frantically to assess Kang Hyeon, whom they were seeing for the first time.
‘Is that man Kang Hyeon?’
‘Park Ho-yeon is always like that, but being late from the start. Tsk.’
‘His clothes look like some neighborhood punk.’
No one had a kind gaze, but Choi Dong-woo was different.
Upon seeing Kang Hyeon’s face, he greeted him warmly.
“Mr. Kang Hyeon. Nice to meet you.”
“Ah! Mr. Choi Dong-woo.”
Kang Hyeon, having already received help once before, smiled and returned the greeting warmly.
“This is our first actual conversation. Thank you for last time.”
“I’m honored to hear such words from the hero who saved people. Hahaha.”
While greeting Choi Dong-woo, Han Se-yeon also acknowledged him.
“It’s been a while.”
“Yes, it has been a while.”
“I heard you’ve been through a lot.”
“Ah, it was nothing.”
Choi Dong-woo and Han Se-yeon.
The only two tutorial graduates in South Korea both warmly welcomed Kang Hyeon.
Seeing this scene, people’s eyes lit up.
‘Well, Choi Dong-woo is famous for being sociable, but…’
‘He’s even on friendly terms with Dangun, which operates so exclusively?’
Meanwhile, Kang Hyeon sat down in his seat marked with his nameplate.
With that, all 7 chairs found their owners.
The chairman of the Ability User Union and the guild masters of the 5 most powerful guilds in the country had gathered.
Between them, even though it might have been uncomfortable, Kang Hyeon showed unwavering comfort.
“I’ve waited a long time. We’ll start the meeting right away.”
“Aren’t we introducing the new friend?”
Just as the meeting was about to begin, a man raised an objection.
It was Han Myeong-do, the guild master of the Immortal Guild, which competes for second place along with Fire Dragon.
“Umm, Mr. Kang Hyeon. Would you mind introducing yourself?”
“Sure.”
At Shin Tae-gil’s words, Kang Hyeon scratched his head and stood up.
“First, I apologize again for being late. I’m Kang Hyeon, the guild master of the Badass Guild.”
Ceremonial applause filled the conference room.
Soon after, people’s questions followed.
“Is it an existing guild?”
“No. I created it yesterday.”
“How many guild members are there?”
“The guild master, which is me, and two vice guild masters. Three in total.”
As Kang Hyeon’s answers continued, people’s faces gradually distorted.
It was because he didn’t have the career to fit in this place at all.
“Are you kidding? Not only is it a new guild, but you’re going to tackle a C-grade dungeon with just three people?! Who the hell are you!”
Park Ho-yeon of Fire Dragon pointed and shouted angrily.
“Ah… Really, you’ve been so annoying since earlier. You called me here, so what do you want me to do?”
“W-what?!”
Kang Hyeon answered indifferently while picking his ear.
“Hahaha! I like that guy!”
Han Myeong-do of the Immortal Guild, who was on bad terms with Fire Dragon, laughed heartily at the sight.
“This cheeky bastard!”
“That’s enough.”
Park Ho-yeon stood up with a reddened face.
But when Choi Dong-woo stopped him, he sat down, pretending to give in.
‘If only it wasn’t the conference room…’
None of the people gathered here were to be taken lightly.
Even for Park Ho-yeon, it wasn’t a place to hastily lose his temper.
“I’ll see you after the meeting.”
“That concludes the introductions.”
Kang Hyeon didn’t even answer Park Ho-yeon’s warning and sat down.
“Thank you. Then we’ll start the main meeting.”
Everyone’s attention focused on Shin Tae-gil’s words.
“The dungeon we’re going to tackle this time is the C-grade Forest of Benandi.”
“Forest of Benandi… Is it a jungle terrain?”
“Rather than a jungle, it’s a huge mountain range. According to the reconnaissance team’s report, a wide variety of monsters appear, from goblins to orcs, ogres, and more.”
As unexpectedly familiar monster names were listed, people looked puzzled.
“Then what does Benandi mean?”
Until now, dungeon names had mostly been derived from the names of monsters inhabiting the place.
Therefore, it could be expected that monsters called ‘Benandi’ would likely appear in large numbers in the ‘Forest of Benandi’ dungeon.
“Unfortunately, we haven’t discovered it. So we’re cautiously speculating that Benandi might be the name of the dungeon boss.”
“Hmm…”
“But that doesn’t mean you should let your guard down. The monsters in the forest are on a different level from the ones we’ve faced before. If the monsters we’ve dealt with so far were militia, these ones are regular army.”
“What does that mean?”
“Unlike before, they move systematically to hunt, and their individual skills have also improved significantly. You can think of them as a well-trained army.”
At the explanation of a trained army, people’s faces hardened.
It was a completely different problem when monsters moved systematically rather than rushing in recklessly, even if they were the same type of monster.
The guild masters could already envision what would happen in the dungeon.
“The basic strategy is to move in guild units… But I recommend moving in alliance with other guilds if possible.”
“We’ll decide that for ourselves.”
“Understood.”
They all had strong pride and were full of desire for dungeon rewards and the honor that comes with conquering it.
Shin Tae-gil was well aware of this fact.
Therefore, he didn’t mention the alliance further and moved on.
He knew that it wouldn’t change anything even if he said more.
“The following is about the scale of the attack. So far, no regular cores have been discovered in the Forest of Benandi.”
“…”
“Therefore, we are preparing under the assumption that there is only one main core in the dungeon…”
It was in the middle of the meeting.
‘Something seems off…’
An Yu-seong, who was standing in the back on standby, had his eyes glowing.
‘Who is that man?’
The man sitting next to Kang Hyeon.
It was Park Se-hyeon, the guild master of the Guardian Guild.
An Yu-seong, who was staring at Park Se-hyeon with drowsy eyes, moved slowly.
“What are you doing?”
The people standing with him called out, but An Yu-seong ignored them.
‘It’s been a while since my intuition rang this strongly.’
His unique skill, intuition, was screaming that something was about to go wrong.
“Bro. Something’s not right.”
“What are you talking about? We’re in a meeting. If it’s not urgent, talk to me later.”
“No, we need to move right now…”
It was then.
“Kruk, kuk…”
Suddenly, a bizarre sound was heard from the side.
An Yu-seong quickly pulled out a mace from his inventory.
“Hey, you! What are you doing?!”
“Wait a minute! Doesn’t the Guild Master seem a bit off?”
Park Se-hyeon of the Guardian Guild was groaning with his head down.
Hideous blood vessels could be seen rising on his skin exposed outside his armor.
Seeing this, Kang Hyeon frowned as if he had seen something unsightly.
“Hey. What’s wrong with this guy?”
“Bro. We need to kill him now.”
An Yu-seong tried to swing the mace without warning.
Kang Hyeon hurriedly grabbed An Yu-seong’s arm.
“Are you crazy!? Suddenly killing the Guild Master?”
As he spoke, Kang Hyeon realized his mistake.
‘Ah, he’s originally crazy.’
Even so, that couldn’t be an excuse.
They couldn’t just smash the head of a major guild’s master and then make excuses like, ‘He’s originally crazy. Haha!’.
“Get out of the way!”
At that moment, a Guardian Guild member rushed over and pushed An Yu-seong away.
The Guardian Guild member looked at Park Se-hyeon with a worried face.
“Guild Master, are you alright?!”
Hearing the call, Park Se-hyeon slowly raised his head.
“Krururuk…!”
“Guild Master…?”
It was the face of a monster.
A bizarre appearance that could no longer be called human.
“Kuaaa!”
Park Se-hyeon, whose eyes had turned completely red, let out a strange cry.
At the same time, his outstretched hand pierced through the guild member’s stomach, spraying blood everywhere.
“Kuk. I knew it. Die!”
An Yu-seong swung his mace without hesitation, as if he had known this would happen.
-Thwack!
However, Park Se-hyeon blocked the mace using the guild member’s corpse as a shield.
Then he swung his other arm to strike An Yu-seong.
“Kheuk!”
It looked like a light gesture, but.
An Yu-seong, hit by the arm, flew all the way to the building wall and crashed.
“You son of a bitch!”
Seeing An Yu-seong fly, Kang Hyeon immediately activated all his skills.
Kang Hyeon gritted his teeth and threw a punch with all his might.
“Die!”
His fist exploded accurately on Park Se-hyeon’s chin.
-Kwagwagwagwang!
Park Se-hyeon flew at an incredible speed, smashing all sorts of furniture before crashing into the end of the conference room.
The eyes of those who saw this widened to the point of popping out.
“What kind of power is that…?”
“Was that just a punch!?”
It was clearly just a simple punch.
But its power was enough to make the head of any ordinary monster or ability user explode in one hit.
‘Shit! I messed up the power control. It’ll be troublesome if he dies.’
He had put too much strength into it, excited by seeing An Yu-seong get hurt.
No matter how out of his mind he seemed.
It was obvious that problems would arise if he recklessly killed the master of a huge guild.
“What? He’s fine?”
However, contrary to his worries, Park Se-hyeon got up as if nothing had happened.
Park Se-hyeon’s neck was strangely twisted as if the bones were dislocated, but he didn’t seem to mind.
-Crick, crick crick
The chilling sound that filled the conference room every time Park Se-hyeon moved his neck.
Finally, when his neck settled back into place, Park Se-hyeon smiled as if satisfied.
Seeing this, Kang Hyeon smiled back.
“You’re quite tough, aren’t you?”
After the incident in the conference room was settled, Kang Hyeon looked indifferently at An Yu-seong as they came outside.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. It was nothing.”
Fortunately, there was an ability user with healing skills on standby at the dungeon management facility.
An Yu-seong, who had recovered his body with the skill, smiled looking fresh.
“By the way, how did you know that guild master had gone crazy?”
“Intuition.”
“Tsk.”
In the end, Park Se-hyeon was captured alive.
However, the process wasn’t easy.
He was originally strong, but he had become even more powerful after transforming into a monster-like state.
In terms of pure physical specs, he felt similar to Kang Hyeon with all buffs activated.
‘If I was alone, it might have been a bit difficult.’
However, those present were the best ability users in Korea.
When all the guild masters stepped in, Park Se-hyeon couldn’t hold out for long and was subdued.
“That man. I wonder why he changed like that?”
“Hmm…”
At Kang Hyeon’s question, Shin Seong-a rubbed her chin.
“The Guardian Guild is, as the name suggests, an organization gathered with the belief of protecting humanity. Guild Master Park Se-hyeon was famous for his upright character, and most of the guild members are his followers.”
“Sounds like some pseudo-religious group.”
Shin Seong-a shook her head at Kang Hyeon’s words.
“Moreover, it’s ranked 5th among domestic guilds.”
“Ahem…”
Kang Hyeon cleared his throat unnecessarily at the mention of domestic 5th rank.
“Anyway, why did the guild master of such a huge guild change like that… It probably wasn’t through forceful means. He was an extremely strong person.”
Shin Seong-a seemed to know quite a bit about Park Se-hyeon.
“Did you know him before?”
“No.”
“But you know quite a lot?”
“Protecting humanity! Isn’t it cool?”
Shin Seong-a Seonga said with sparkling eyes.
Kang Hyeon seemed to understand why Shin Seong-a was talking so fluently about Park Se-hyeon.
“Alright. The government said they’ll investigate, so they’ll handle it.”
“Yes.”
“You guys take a break for a while. There’s still quite some time until the C-rank dungeon raid. You’ve been going non-stop until now.”
“Do you have plans, Kang Hyeon?”
“No, I don’t. If there’s nothing to do, I should just raid dungeons.”
Kang Hyeon contradicted what he had said 5 seconds ago.
“If it’s alright, I’d like to go with you.”
“Bro, me too.”
“Okay.”
Before the C-rank dungeon raid.
They decided to take a break by raiding D-rank dungeons.