IOERG 03

Chapter 3

The sharp blade cut into the thick hide of the goblin.

With a sickening popping sound, the foul, fishy stench characteristic of rotten entrails spewed out.

Lim Chan-ho, squatting on the ground, nonchalantly rummaged through the corpse’s belly. Fumbling through the blood-pooled organs, his fingertips caught on a small, murky-glowing mana stone.

It was when he skillfully extracted the mana stone, stowed it in his pouch, and stood up.

“Ugh.”

With a short groan, Chan-ho unconsciously clutched his side. The bruises around his ribs from being kicked by the porter Choi Gyeong-soo a few days ago throbbed sharply.

His chest tightened inside every time he took a deep breath, but he didn’t show it.

The rent for his cramped rooftop room due right away and the medical bills for his parents back in his hometown. Remembering the precarious balance shown on his bank account, he didn’t have the luxury to lie down in pain. Thus, before the bruises had even faded, Chan-ho joined another temporary party.

Today’s schedule was also a common F-rank dungeon raid.

Of course, Chan-ho’s role in this party was not swinging a weapon at the vanguard to hunt monsters either. It was doing miscellaneous porter work, remaining behind like just a moment ago to dissect corpses and gather byproducts.

Though a hunter in name after undergoing awakening, the label of an unprecedented FFF-rank meant this field did not count him as a combatant.

“Hey, Hunter Lim. Did you pack everything there?”

One of the regular hunters walking ahead turned back and shouted in an annoyed voice.

“Yes. I’m almost finished.”

“Ah, seriously dragging your feet so damn much. Just scoop it up roughly and hurry the hell up. Do we have to wait around while wiping your ass for you?”

“Understood.”

At Chan-ho’s flat response, the hunter clicked his tongue and turned his head away.

“No, why do they even pay to cram a useless trash like that into a hunter slot? Wouldn’t it be way better to just use regular porters for cheap?”

“Eheh. Watch your mouth. Appearances aside, our dear Hunter Lim is a very precious person who gets his ass kicked by porters.”

“Ah, right. Didn’t he get beaten like a dog by an unawakened guy a few days ago? Word got out all over the bottom floor. He single-handedly brings shame to all hunters everywhere.”

Explicit sarcasm exchanged among themselves while snickering. Chan-ho silently kept his mouth shut.

It seemed that day’s incident had already spread through rumors among the daily laborers. However, Chan-ho did not flare up and charge at them or make pathetic excuses. To them, he was nothing more and nothing less than side-dish entertainment to pass the boring dungeon raid time.

Losing favor unnecessarily and being recorded as a bad worker or getting his pay cut was realistically far more critical.

Chan-ho squatted back down and scooped up the goblin bone fragments rolling on the ground.

They were pieces others kicked away, saying they made no money and only stank. However, gathering these and handing them over to a workshop added up to a decent bit of small change. To him, who desperately needed every 100 or 200 won, it was an indispensable, precious source of income.

“Alright, everyone start getting ready to head out.”

The raid leader standing at the front announced the completion of the raid and brushed off the sticky blood on his sword.

“Oh my, raid leader, great job today.”

“Thank you for your hard work! Let’s get out quickly and have a cool glass of beer.”

The regular hunters replied with brightened faces.

While packing his equipment, the raid leader glanced back at Chan-ho, who was packing his load while covered in dirt dust.

“Hey. Porter.”

When Chan-ho raised his head at the raid leader’s call, the raid leader snickered and corrected his words.

“Ah no, FFF-rank Hunter. We’ll head out first to prepare the settlement, so clean up what’s left neatly and bring it out.”

“Understood.”

“If there are any monster byproducts missing or if you’re too late, I’m deducting it from your daily wage. Got it?”

“Just make sure my daily wage is ready.”

Leaving Chan-ho behind in the dark corner of the dungeon, the party members walked toward the exit while giggling.

The gradually fading footsteps and noisy conversation sounds.

Soon, only Chan-ho remained all alone in the damp cave, breathing faintly.

He set his heavy backpack down on the ground and cracked his stiff neck side to side to loosen up. A popping sound resonated from his tight muscles.

Carefully stroking his throbbing ribs, Chan-ho inspected the floor once more.

With gloves caked in dirt dust and dried blood, he thoroughly swept around the protruding jagged rocks. He even neatly dug out a small tooth fragment stuck in a crack in the floor and put it into his pocket.

‘Looks like I’ve mostly cleaned up this side.’

It was right at the moment he finished the task completely and was about to stand up.

A dark corner of the cave. Chan-ho’s gaze, sweeping across the rough rock wall, froze on one spot.

A very subtle light was leaking from a crack in the rock thickly covered in moss.

‘Is it luminescent moss?’

Luminescent moss commonly seen in lower-grade dungeons usually bore a murky, unpleasant green color. However, that light leaking from the rock crack was subtly different in texture. A faint blue glow—a strange, alien light that did not match this crude environment at all.

A small crack that ordinary hunters would kick a stone at out of sheer annoyance and pass by.

However, to Chan-ho, who was adept at rolling on the bottom floor to scrape together even small change, that light did not look ordinary.

‘Could a valuable rare mineral be embedded inside there?’

If so, he could make several times the daily wage he rolled in the dirt for all day at once.

After looking around once, Chan-ho carefully approached the rock wall. Taking off his gloves, he fumbled around the cold rock crack with his bare hands.

Between the rough, damp stone surface, unlike the surrounding natural curves, an artificially, finely protruding section was felt.

He grabbed the protruding section and pulled outward with force. The rock did not budge.

This time, he pushed it in tightly with his body weight in reverse.

Click.

A dull vibration transmitted along his fingertips, as if some mechanical joint fit into place.

Ruuuuuuumble.

Instantly, the floor trembled finely, and a heavy friction sound echoed deeply inside the cave.

Chan-ho gasped in surprise and quickly backed away two steps.

A portion of the massive stone wall that had been stubbornly closed began to rotate slowly around its vertical axis. Stale stone powder poured down from the ceiling, and soon after, a narrow, dark passage wide enough for a single person to barely squeeze inside revealed itself.

Chilly, ancient air rushed out from inside the passage and brushed past Chan-ho’s cheek.

‘A secret passage?’

Chan-ho’s eyes widened. Although he had bounced around countless F-rank dungeons as a daily laborer, it was his first time discovering such a hidden space with his own eyes.

Inside his chest, his heart beat rapidly and irregularly.

He had heard rumors through the grapevine that hidden spaces tucked inside dungeons concealed vast rewards far exceeding the dungeon’s original rank.

However, Chan-ho did not get excited over the windfall before his eyes and instead activated his characteristic rational, cold judgment.

‘Should I inform those guys outside?’

By standard rules, informing the raid leader was the correct choice. Because no one knew what higher-rank monsters or traps might loom inside an unknown space, acting alone was tantamount to a suicidal act.

However, after a brief dilemma, Chan-ho shook his head.

The terrible helplessness he felt a few days ago when being thoroughly beaten while even his family was insulted by the group of porters was still vivid. The raid leader and regular hunters were complete bystanders. They did not regard Chan-ho as a fellow hunter, nor even as a human companion.

What would happen if he revealed this space?

One hundred percent, they would treat Chan-ho like a porter, shove him to the back, and monopolize the rewards inside entirely. If he were unlucky, he might be pushed forward as a meat shield to check for dangerous traps, or they might make forced complaints that he was slacking off alone and cut today’s pay.

Chan-ho stared down the dark cave path leading far toward the exit.

The presence of the party members had long vanished completely. They were probably enjoying the cool air outside, merely waiting for Chan-ho to carry the byproducts out quickly.

‘It’s dangerous… but a hundred times better than getting it stolen.’

Chan-ho made a cold decision. He would inspect the internal state very briefly, and if there was even the slightest sign of danger, he would retreat without lingering regret.

He squatted on the floor. Pulling a worn dismembering knife from his pocket, he began drawing a deep line on a flat stone on the floor at the entrance.

It was a small mark only he could recognize. In the worst-case scenario where he failed to come out from inside, it was the minimum clue left behind so someone could discover this crack.

Finishing his preparations, Chan-ho set the heavy backpack off his back down in a corner. Armed lightly, he carefully squeezed his body into the crack in the split rock wall.

The passage was far narrower than it appeared from the outside.

Every time he took a step, his shoulders and back kept scraping against the rough walls on both sides. Murky, stale air pierced his nose, but Chan-ho suppressed his breathing and advanced slowly while watching his step.

How long had he walked through the darkness?

The suffocating gap between the walls gradually widened, and the vision before his eyes began to open up dramatically.

Exiting the end of the passage, Chan-ho stopped in his tracks and stared blankly ahead.

“What is this…”

It was a space completely detached from the outside F-rank dungeon scenery composed of crude, damp dirt floors.

Smoothly crafted, massive stone walls locked together in geometric forms without a millimeter of error. Complex, unknown patterns were drawn on the floor, and along those lines flowed the faint blue light he had seen in the rock crack earlier.

It felt almost like an illusion of having dropped right into the middle of exquisite ruins from a long-forgotten ancient civilization.

And where Chan-ho’s gaze landed.

Right in the center of that massive ancient stone chamber, an old treasure chest emitting an intense presence that seemed to weigh down even the surrounding air sat quietly.