Chapter 180: Their Circumstances, Part II

Translator: HunterW

Editor: RED

I Blinked right next to the stranger and stabbed at him with my spear, making it clear that I had no intention of getting pulled around, but as soon as I got close to him, he disappeared and my spear struck thin air.

I had attacked without any warning and had moved literally in a blink of any eye. And yet, the stronger had moved away as if he was expecting that I would do that.

“You’re more impatient than I thought.”

“That only depends on whoever I’m up against,” I calmly retorted back as I withdrew my spear. He had reappeared about seven meters away from my right.

A failed attack was a failed attack. I wasn’t going to break out in a cold sweat because I missed once. If we were going to fight for real, I knew I can kill him five times over.

“Fine then. If you’re that impatient, I’ll get straight to the point. I came here because I wanted to invite you.”

“Invite me?”

“That’s right. I want to invite you to the best party in the world where only the strongest and best looking men and women attend,” the stranger said, spreading his hands out grandly.

“What a load of bullshit.” If he came all the way here under the Sunbin Guild’s radar, then he wasn’t here with good intentions. He was an enemy. Even if he wasn’t, he would be.

“Ha…you’re too serious. Have you no sense of humor?”

“Was that a joke, then? I thought you just had your head up your ass,” I said as I gripped my spear, waiting for the right timing. Judge’s Gavel was still active.

“Ah, fine! I’ll have to drag this boring man to the party myself.”

“Why don’t you just go by yourself!?” I charged in without using Blink 2. I was going to use it after he disappeared again.

“I invite you to my dungeon.”

“What?” That sounded eerily familiar. There was a famous warning that went around in the past.

-Beware of that man and his dungeon invitations-

That man was the Dungeon Creator, one of the Seven Monarchs!

==[You have received an invitation from the Dungeon Creator.

You will be forcibly moved to his dungeon.

You must fulfill whatever requirements in place in order to leave the dungeon.]==

“Dungeon Creator?” It was him. Shit!

“Yup, that’s right. It’s a special dungeon I made especially for you. I hope you like it,” he replied with a shit-eating grin. I badly wanted to wipe it off his face and curbstomp him, but I couldn’t. My body was already being sucked into a black hole-like substance. I remembered more of the warning.

-Beware of that man and his dungeon invitation. You will never be able to leave.-

I couldn’t get away. “Blink 2.”

==[You have been invited by the Dungeon Creator. You are not able to use Blink.]==

“Now, now. I went through all this trouble making it for you, so don’t go turning me down or anything.”

“Ha…” I could only sigh as the black hole had already come up to my neck. Once again, I had another bullshit skill used on me against my will, like Muskan’s Comrade and the Duke’s Absolute Predation. If I was weak and had no skill, I wouldn’t be this mad. What could I do against someone stronger, right? But I wasn’t weak. I was strong, but despite that, this shit was happening again!

“Have a wonderful time,” he said, waving.

I stared at his face, so that I wouldn’t ever forget him for the next time we meet. “I’ll definitely pay you back for this kindness,” I said, as if talking to a good friend. Soon, the black hole swallowed me whole.

—

“Hmm.” Kazunari’s bright smile disappeared in an instant once Lee Jiwon vanished from view. Lee Jiwon reacted completely different from all those Kazunari had invited to his dungeons before. They had all raged, vowing to have their revenge. He did only have ten victims so far, but one thing was certain; Lee Jiwon’s reaction was just too different.

“I’ll need to get stronger over the next year or two, if I don’t want to lose to Lee Jiwon the next time we meet.”

Dungeon Invitation was a forced skill. No matter how much stronger his targets were than him, he could forcibly Invite them to his created dungeon. The only downside and penalty to this skill was that if his target ever cleared his created dungeon and successfully left it, he couldn’t use Dungeon Invitation on anyone else for the next three years.

Then again, he had never thought badly of that penalty, since none of his targets had ever succeeded. Hell, if he didn’t have the penalty to worry about, he would have thrown Okamoto into a dungeon and taken over the Nayuta Guild. He would have even done the same to the Predator Duke. However, because his targets would always eventually reemerge into the outside world, he had to carefully pick his targets.

Lee Jiwon was definitely someone he shouldn’t have targeted in the first place, but he did it anyway because he was afraid of Lee Jiwon. He was afraid that Lee Jiwon would turn his attention to him, so he decided to take action first. He believed that this was the only chance he would ever get.

“Either way, I don’t expect Lee Jiwon to stay there for all three years. I just need at least a year. That’ll be enough for me,” Kazunari said to himself and left his spot. It wouldn’t be easy to leave without attracting Sunbin’s attention, either.

“I do feel a little lonely without the mole.” Lee Jiwon was the only reason Kazunari had to part with his Dungeon Mole; otherwise he would never have left it alone in the dungeon. It was all he had, after all.

Just then, Kazunari stopped in his tracks and burst out laughing. He laughed so hard, he almost doubled over. Then, he stopped just as suddenly as he started laughing. “I’ve must have been very afraid of Lee Jiwon to be talking to myself this much.”

Kazunari stayed quiet for a while, before his body turned to smoke and vanished. All he left were a few parting words.

“I’ve already passed the point of no return.”

——

==[You have arrived at the dungeon’s safe room.

You must fulfill whatever requirements are in place in order to leave the dungeon.]==

A message appeared before me when I came out of the black hole-like thing, but I didn’t pay attention to it. The party hall of the Dungeon Creator was obviously a dungeon.

“The Dungeon Creator, huh…?” This was the first time I had seen him. I did hear a lot about him in the past, though. I knew he was Asian, but I had no idea he was Japanese.

“It won’t work, will it?” I took out a Warp Scroll and the Clan Badge I received from the Werewolves from my inventory. If I could use a Warp Scroll and easily leave this dungeon, the warning wouldn’t have existed in the first place, but I used it nonetheless. Hell, maybe the power of the Rank 10 Clan Badge could work.

==[You cannot leave this place.

You must fulfill whatever requirements in place in order to leave the dungeon.]==

It was just as I had expected. “But the power of a Rank 10 item won’t work either, eh?” That meant that the power of the dungeon itself was that much stronger.

I plopped down on the ground to think calmly about my situation. It had been five minutes since I was transported to this dungeon. There was no reason to start panicking now. I looked around at the safe room I was in. It looked like the safe rooms in normal dungeons, but it was much smaller than a low-grade dungeon’s safe room. Thankfully, it also had the spring that all safe rooms had that restored HP and MP, and lowered Fatigue to 0.

“I guess he still has to include the basics of a dungeon as details.” This was a real safe room. In other words, the Dungeon Creator could only create real dungeons, not fake ones. It was not like he had any reason to go this far for me, his enemy.

“I wonder if I’m a genius.” I found it amazing that I could learn that much just by looking around at the safe room. I put my feet up and took the break I was planning to back in Siberia, trying to remember what I knew about the Dungeon Creator.

“I can’t leave here even if I die, right? Yeah, that’s right. I’ll resurrect in this safe room if I die here. What else was there?” I racked my brain, but couldn’t remember anything else. It wasn’t like I could ever learn much in the past.

“Oh, that’s right! I should check the Comm Link.” I took out my Comm Link from my inventory.

==[Use of Comm Links is restricted.]==

“Tsk. This is so unfair. This is pretty much a prison.” I was completely cut off from the outside world. I was beginning to get worried now. The dungeon was completely limiting my actions, so there would be no way the boss here would be normal.

“No, no. I shouldn’t get scared when nothing’s happened yet. I’ll find out soon enough what it is anyway.”

I spent the next two hours taking it easy while my Fatigue went down to 0 and all of my skills cooldowns reset. I took out a piece of Bread from my Inventory. I still had a lot of Bread and Drink in my inventory and in the Infinite Space. At least I didn’t have to worry about starving to death. I got up and looked down the one path leading out of the safe room; the path to the boss room.

“Is there really nowhere else to go?” I picked up my spear and poked around the safe room, but found nothing.

“Fine then. Let’s see what sort of party you prepared for me.” What I had to do was simple; defeat the boss. If I do that, all this nonsense would be over. I confidently walked down the path.

==[You have entered the boss room.

Defeating the boss will yield a Rank 8 Random Item Chest.

A Random Golden Ring Chest containing 100,000,000-300,000,000 golden rings will also be rewarded.]==

I ignored the message that appeared as I entered the room. “Mana Conversion – Lightning. Warrior’s Brave Spirit. Howl of the Wolf.” I quickly prepared for battle as the boss room was small, like the safe room.

==[Mana Conversion – Lightning Level 3 has been activated.]==

==[Warrior’s Brave Spirit Level 1 has been activated.]==

==[Howl of the Wolf has been activated.]==

I looked around the boss room as I activated my skills for the dungeon boss. At first, I couldn’t see it and I thought that it was a smaller monster type. A big boss monster didn’t always mean that it was strong. I had heard of human-sized boss monsters that were of legendary class.

I kept looking around, but still didn’t see anything else in the room; that is, until I heard it. I heard a voice that sounded similar to the one I heard at Goyrung Mountain.

-It’d be nice if he was a piece of banana candy.-

Just like with the voice I heard at Goryung Mountain, I couldn’t pinpoint the source of this voice. Confused, I looked around the room from ceiling to floor, and found a single animal in the middle of the room.

“Kyuu?” It was a mole.

“There’s no way…right?” It couldn’t be it. A boss needed to be intimidating and…

“God. Damnit! There’s nothing else here but this damn, fucking mole!” Only this mole was here in this boss room, and boss rooms were where boss monsters resided. In other words, this mole was the boss monster.

What I had to do was simple. I walked over to the mole with my spear in hand and stabbed it as I stood over it without a single moment of hesitation.

The spearhead slammed right on top of the mole. The damage was enough to leave not a single trace of a mole behind, but when I moved my spear away, the mole was still here.

“Kyuu? Kyuu?”

“Huh?” I was even more confused when I first noticed the mole. I examined the mole closely.

==[Dungeon Mole (Invincible)

Dungeon Moles are extremely rare.

They prefer to roll around in damp earth and have quite the sweet tooth. Give one a piece of candy and it will follow you around.]==

“…” I had no idea what to say. After a while, I finally opened my mouth again.

“Fuck.” It had only been two months since I dealt with a boss monster that had the Invincible effect. Invincibility was really the most overpowered effect any monster could ever have, and this damn rat had it.

“The Dark Caster only occasionally turned Invincible. This rat is constantly Invincible?”

-Is he not banana candy?-

“Kyuu. Kyuu.” The mole seemed to lose interest in me and I watched it scamper around the boss room. I at least got to learn one thing: I could understand its squeaking thanks to Listen. I could actually Listen to what it was saying!

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