Dungeon Hunter - Chapter 5
Chapter 5: Episode 2. Easter Egg (1)
March 14th, 2016. 1
People would never be able to forget this day.
It was the day that seventy-two dungeons appeared without any warning. Each dungeon was gigantic. It was impossible to measure their size with the naked eye, and they covered up the sky. People were stuck under their gigantic shadows and became speechless. The scales of dungeons were incomparable and overwhelming.
People speculated that they were houses of aliens, a place of God or something that came from the underworld. Some brave men got inside out of curiosity, but most who walked in never came back. A few survivors shivered, telling people that they saw monsters. Some of them lost their minds, and more of them killed themselves out of fear.
But then, a man named John from the United States uploaded a video on Youtube with his cell phone. The video John shared showed the inside of a dungeon and shocked people all around the world. 1
There were all kinds of monsters in the dungeon. They weren’t the creatures of this world; they only had hostility and killing instinct! Humans couldn’t stand in front of them long.
“Wow~ It is better than computer graphics!”
“Terrible!”
“This video was not manipulated and no computer graphic was used.”
“The world will end in 2020 because of these monsters.” 4
The world was in a panic, and no country could control the spreading of information. Youtube, social media, blogs, personal broadcasts, newspapers, and any other media that was available talked about the dungeons. As the days went by, there were more questions and people found the existence of the dungeons more troubling.
An official announcement from the U.S. Secretary of Defense gave people some answers about the dungeons, which had produced countless speculations from the public. “That is a den of devils, something called a dungeon. It’s like what you could find in some fantasy adventure novel where monsters live. We used all our high-tech devices to look inside of the dungeons, but it was not successful. Monsters have a tendency to attack every moving thing, even if those things are small and the outside of the dungeon is covered by a layer… or an invisible barrier that neutralizes all attacks.” 1
Gulp!
The announcement made everyone nervous. The dungeons were the hottest topic of 2016, and for the first time, an official institution was announcing information about the dungeons.
The U.S. Secretary of Defense sipped water and continued. “We sent a SWAT team to investigate the inside of the dungeon, however, firearms didn’t work inside of the dungeon. As if space was distorted, bullets changed their course so it was impossible to target, and explosives couldn’t be triggered. We were able to neutralize some monsters, but there were unexplainably strong monsters that couldn’t be handled. Our attack couldn’t affect those monsters, and their speed made them invisible. Our only choice was to retreat.”
The announcement shocked all the journalists and everyone who watched it. Several months after the appearance of dungeons, the first announcement that broke the United States’ silence was ‘retreat’. It was natural that people were stunned.
Moreover, it was shocking that firearms didn’t work inside dungeons. That meant monsters were invincible inside them. 1
A journalist raised his hand to ask a question. “That means…there’s no way to solve this problem? It would be a huge problem if they got out, don’t you think?”
The U.S. Secretary of Defense shook his head. “No, monsters are only difficult to handle inside of the dungeons. When they come out, we can neutralize them using our weapons.”
It was clear that they didn’t just sit outside and wait because firearms were useless inside the dungeons. They had sacrificed lives to collect enough data to understand that inside of the dungeons, they had no chance, but once monsters were out of the dungeons, they could kill them.
Minor monsters could be killed by a gun, but inside the dungeon, there was a risk that the bullet would attack the shooter. That was the reason it was difficult to send troops into the dungeons.
The journalist who had asked the question was a bit confused. “Are you going to leave the risk as it is?”
The U.S. Secretary of Defense smiled lightly and answered, “Have you heard of the heroes? In Asia, they call them warriors.”
“Those heroes that people are talking about?” the journalist asked.
“Correct. They are the only people who can fight against monsters in dungeons.”
When dungeons appeared, heroes appeared along with them. People called them ‘The Awakened’. They were beyond the physical limits of normal people. Their attacks were fatal to the monsters. One hit from them was worth more than a few dozen bullets.
“Moreover…when you slay a monster, you can find a Core. A Core is something that we call the Philosopher’s Stone,” the Secretary of Defense added.
The hall became noisy as journalists started to talk to each other. The Philosopher’s Stone was known as a ‘perfect substance’. It seemed like a random thing to come from an announcement made by the U.S. Secretary of Defense, but when he continued, it all made sense.
“A Core can be obtained by hunting monsters. Even a toenail-sized Core contains a significant amount of energy. Although the Core looks like a stone, you can burn it. It burns for over a few hours while generating a new kind of energy. When you grind the Core and apply it on a wound, the wound heals in a heartbeat. Drinking it with water was a cure for everything; it gives you stamina and rejuvenates you. The term ‘Philosopher’s Stone’ is probably the only way to explain the Core.” 2
“Huh…”
“That is absurd.”
Only a few people knew about the Core, but with this announcement, everyone in the world would know about them. That made the journalists curious about why the U.S Defense Department would just share such information.
That information was worth countless money, but the United States didn’t think about that. There were seventy-two dungeons, and it was not a secret that could be kept for a long time. They thought it would work to their advantage since they knew more about the dungeons.
Moreover, there were more and more awakened heroes as time went by. If they kept the dungeons a secret, it would only bring chaos to society. Anyways, people were already talking about it with or without the official announcement.
Humans become weaker when they have more power. With power, they cause trouble to break down society, which makes them weaker. So the United States decided that they couldn’t keep the secret any longer. They opened up about the dungeon even though it meant that the United States had to share that they were not strong enough to slay the monsters inside the dungeons. They also shared the top-secret information about the Core.
“We will not discriminate against the awakened heroes. We will give them what they deserve and support them.”
The only reason the United States did this was to have more awakened heroes! First, they tried to destroy dungeons, but once they realized how to use the Core and that Core was more valuable than anything else, they stopped the plan to destroy the dungeons. There was nothing more valuable than the Core. In the near future, if humans successfully domesticated the Core, that would solve all the problems with energy and humanity could even step forward and experience evolution.
There were only a limited number of dungeons, but there were endless monsters. So to slay monsters to get the Core, they needed many awakened heroes. The heroes explored the dungeons to research the secret and reach the truth. It was possible to think that at the end of the dungeon, there would be something even better than the Core.
It was a chance for humanity to reach the truth. At least, that was what they thought when the United States made the announcement.
“But, is the Core really the perfect substance?” The journalists were still not convinced.
The U.S. Secretary of Defense smiled and answered, “We are open to the possibility of showing you the Core that we have. If a nation made an official request, we would provide the Core so that the nation could verify and study the use of the Core.”
Just like he said, the United States shared the Core right after their official announcement, and it didn’t take long for them to prove the value and use of the Core.
It was the grand opening of the Era of Heroes.
***
‘The beginner protection period is coming to its end,’ I thought.
After clearing the training room, I was looking around inside of my dungeon using my dungeon core. Apart from the ground floor, my dungeon was empty, but I had to check what was there and what was not.
‘I left it for a while, but it is not too bad.’
I didn’t try to manage the dungeon and was in the training room for a while, but when I looked at the first floor, it looked like it would be okay even if I left it as it was for a few more months.
‘But I can’t just leave it like this.’
To protect my dungeon and to become stronger, I had to make my dungeon stronger. To do so, all the floors of my dungeon had to operate organically.
“Inside affair mode.”
Zing-
[Inside affair mode activated.]
The dungeon core started to vibrate and displayed a hologram to show the small-scale figure of my dungeon. The ground floor was the only floor that was not empty out of thirty-one floors. On the ground floor, I was able to see multiple blue dots.
A few red dots meant that there were a few humans who had entered the dungeon.
‘32,144 kobolds. 87,112 goblins. 12,246 earthworms… 400,000 carnivore bats? That’s too many. I should reduce the number.’
It was important to take care of the ecosystem of the dungeon if I wanted to manage my dungeon properly. The carnivore bats were hostile monsters that would attack every living creature when they are hungry. They would even eat each other as well.
‘There are so many because they don’t have predators here. But still, that’s too many.’
Without managing it, soon there would be only carnivore bats left on the ground floor. That wouldn’t be a good thing.
I thought for a while and then asked Lyhee, who was sitting on my shoulder, half-asleep.
“What is the predator of carnivore bats?”
“Huh! Yes, yeah? Lyhee wasn’t sleeping!”
“Clean up your saliva; you’ve been drooling.”
Lyhee cleaned up her mouth with both hands. “Hmmm. The predator of the carnivore bats? Lyhee knows very well. Monsters in the cat, snake and weasel family.”
Monsters in the cat or weasel family can’t be hunted by kobolds and goblins easily. It would create an organic ecosystem.
“What monsters do we have in the snake family? Something that is not too expensive.”
It cost points to have monsters in the dungeon even if the monster was not a high level. To have a predator, I had to spend a lot of points because purchasing one or two predators wouldn’t change the number of carnivore bats.
“Aisle snakes are the most reasonable choice; they only cost 20pt per snake.”
The aisle snake was the lowest level of monster, but it adapted itself to the environment easily and was the perfect enemy to fight against carnivore bats.
The aisle snake had a considerable amount of poison, so that would be useful to fight against the warriors who enter the dungeon.
“How many do you think I need?”
“Lyhee thinks hmm, around a thousand of them, perhaps?”
20,000pt at once…that was the price of a magical item.
But it was also a necessary investment to improve the ground floor.
“Purchase 1,000 Aisle Snakes.”
And the message window came up.
[You have purchased 1,000 Aisle snake with 20,000pt.]
[Designate the location to place the Aisle Snakes.]
“Randomly on the ground floor.”
[1,000 Aisle Snakes placed on the ground floor randomly.]
When the message window disappeared, there were more blue dots on the hologram.
The low-level monsters that could be purchased like this were not very effective. They had very low intelligence, so they wouldn’t follow orders from the dungeon master. They repopulated and died by themselves.
It was just an investment to keep my dungeon ecosystem consistent and to generate warriors. I cleared the ground floor, so it was time to look at the remaining floors.
‘I need to make it gradually more difficult until the 4th floor so that they can feel more confident and believe that they are becoming stronger. I should place some magical items for adventure, research, and so on to give them better motivation,’ I thought.
I was planning to help them improve their skills and become a real warrior. A plan to train warriors! That was my most important plan, and I’d just made the first step. 1