WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Oblivious
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Surviving as a B-Rank Hunter ◈
Chapter 37
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[PorkStir-fry: Are there no unusual dungeons in Korea?
I saw foreign news saying there’s some dungeon in Italy or somewhere that hasn’t closed in five years. I don’t think we see cases like that in Korea?]
Anonymous 1: There are so many overseas, so why wouldn’t we have any?
Anonymous 2: If you spend all day on the Dungeon Forum, you can sometimes get information about them. Still, there probably aren’t many.
⤷PorkStir-fry: Why?
⤷⤷Anonymous 2: Why do you think? Koreans can’t stand seeing a dungeon left open.
⤷⤷⤷PorkStir-fry: I mean, why is it only Korea?
⤷⤷⤷Anonymous 2: Are you stupid? Don’t you know old people throw every kind of fit at the government and corporations because an open dungeon lowers housing prices? And do you think Korea became the world’s largest Vanaskelium producer for no reason?
Every day, hundreds of hunters with cheaply issued B-rank licenses pour into dungeons, you asshole.
EyeOfHorus: Those hundreds go in, and hundreds die too. They die too easily before they gain experience. If you include dungeon missing persons who are practically dead, the number would be far higher. Yet no one stops them.
There are Oriental Hitler bastards who say it’s better to clean out the nonproductive population that way, and armchair psycho-economist bastards who say they’ll ultimately earn Vana and contribute to the national economy. Anyway, that’s why Korea produces the most Vana in the world...
⤷Anonymous 3: But thanks to that, our country gets called developed now. Isn’t that a good thing?
⤷⤷Ppakdori: Armchair psycho-economist.
PorkStir-fry: So? I asked about unusual dungeons in Korea. If there are any, tell me what they are and where they are.
⤷Anonymous 4: Why? Going to die and reduce the collapsing welfare budget? Thanks, then. Hurry up and die, B-rankroach.
⤷⤷Ppakdori: Oriental Hitler.
Kyokyo793: There is one dungeon people have been talking about lately.
It appeared right in the middle of the equipment at Samgyeong’s Vanaskelium processing factory, so it caused quite a problem. Since that factory isn’t for Samgyeong alone, they rushed to solve it by pouring in A-ranks and their affiliated hunters, but apparently none of them returned.
⤷PorkStir-fry: Does that alone make it an unusual dungeon? A lot of people went in and couldn’t come out?
⤷⤷Kyokyo793: Ordinary dungeons disappear naturally after a long time even if nobody enters them, but this one has remained unchanged for months already.
They also can’t just ignore it and run the equipment, because the machinery keeps malfunctioning. Apparently, the factory management AI suddenly went insane and started worshipping Odin.
⤷⤷⤷EyeOfHorus: Sounds like news from the corporate side. Advanced equipment around a dungeon that remains open for a long time always breaks down, especially AI technology. So rather than that, the truly unusual thing is probably that not a single person who entered made it out.
⤷⤷⤷PorkStir-fry: Why? Every dungeon is dangerous.
⤷⤷⤷EyeOfHorus: Aside from the military getting wiped out, what do you think was the worst dungeon in Korean history? The Gyeongbokgung Dungeon was the worst so far. In the early days of the Odin Shock, it devoured hundreds of clueless civilians and corporate hunters raising hell to establish private-security laws. Later, it swallowed even dozens of National Hunters sent in to resolve it.
That incident snowballed into the National Hunters being disbanded, and the Private Security Act and Corporate Hunter Act being passed.
Yet even that worst dungeon had one person escape in the end.
EyeOfHorus: Dungeons and Yggdrasil act as though they always want someone to survive and escape. You know Choi Sangguk, the First Hunter? If you read the interview after their first dungeon, they said that when they became the last survivor in the dungeon, Yggdrasil’s messages strangely seemed to become more detailed and kind.
Of course, that interview was buried after the military got wiped out, but unless it’s an exceptional situation like the military, dungeons want someone to escape.
So if there’s a dungeon where nobody comes out at all, even after several months, that alone makes it an unusual dungeon.
⤷ReasonAndScienceWin: Ooh, acting like you know so fucking much. Just like a boomer conspiracy-theory shitposter, you sure get excited and rattle on when it’s something you know about. Was it fun writing that? I hope it was.
Anonymous Newbie: Then unusual dungeons aren’t as big a deal as I thought? If they just stay open a long time and people can’t get out?
⤷Anonymous 666: Sometimes that’s all there is, and sometimes it isn’t. If you stay on the Dungeon Forum long enough, you’ll naturally see plenty of dungeons surrounded by strange incidents even without entering them.
⤷⤷Anonymous Newbie: Why are you copying my username gimmick?
⤷⤷⤷Anonymous 666: My choice. Change yours if you’re salty.
* * *
Dohyeon opened his eyes on the bed.
“...”
Rather than getting up, he simply blinked and stared blankly at the ceiling.
Last night, after calling Lee Seongbaek and returning home, Dohyeon had left Park Tae-eun in his care. He had asked Lee Seongbaek to take her home.
Naturally, she had wanted to stay with Dohyeon, but he refused. He returned home alone, took a quick shower, then collapsed onto his bed and slept.
“...”
Dohyeon blinked with a blank expression. Yet his mind was slowly waking up and turning at full speed.
The events of yesterday. Stepping in on impulse to save Park Tae-eun. The fight at the factory. The battle with a heavily armed A-rank hunter. And his transformation.
It hadn’t ended with the transformation. There had been the bizarre Asatru goth woman transforming into a crow and flying through reality, not even inside a dungeon. There had also been his meeting with Samgyeong’s second-next heir, as well as the dungeon expedition requested of him.
It had been a short yet long night.
After staring at the ceiling and blinking for a while, Dohyeon closed his eyes again.
Then he spoke.
“Valkyrie.”
[I am here, for my warrior who seeks me.]
“What are you?”
The Valkyrie did not answer. Dohyeon opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling again.
Perhaps he was trying to see the winged woman who might be floating in the air.
“Since meeting you, I have kept trying things I normally wouldn’t have done. I charged into the middle of gangsters and fought. I charged at monsters and enemies inside dungeons. I fought an A-rank hunter to save someone who had nothing to do with me.
“All of it was impulsive. You said you weren’t some demon that takes souls. Then what did you take instead? My reason? My composure? Or even my ability to judge danger?”
[...]
There was no answer.
Dohyeon stared blankly at the ceiling before closing his eyes again. Then the faint presence became a little clearer.
The sound of wings moving. Then a touch brushed his hair back.
[My warrior, my Helisbyorn. As you said, I have taken nothing from you. I merely brought to the surface what you already possessed, what you had pushed deep down.]
“You’re saying I did those stupid things?”
[Then whose hands acted in all those moments?]
“People think. If you live by instinct, aren’t you a beast rather than a human?”
[What is instinct, and what separates beasts from humans? Between reason and instinct, which is superior?]
“Obviously reason is more important. That’s what makes people human.”
[Do you feel that people in this world are human because they listen to the voice of reason?]
“...”
[Where does superiority lie? Do you believe there is a hierarchy of beings made of chains? Do you believe there is something better among all living things, and that humans stand above it? Do you believe that among the elements making up a human, there is a hierarchy that goes beyond their importance to life itself?]
Dohyeon opened his eyes with a frown.
“...Are you saying strange nonsense to avoid the fact that you’re egging me on?”
[My warrior. Every action you took in the past was taken by you. There was no other intention in it. No, to be precise, there was only your will.]
“Then are you going to claim I transformed into a monster all by myself too?”
[My Helisbyorn. That, too, is merely another form you possess. Of course, I guided you as well. But a lighthouse lights its lamp in a storm only to show a ship the harbor it must reach. I did the same.]
“Lighthouse, my ass. So what do you want? Do you want me to fight someone I can’t handle and die? So you can take me to Valhalla?”
[There is no Valhalla, Helisbyorn. There is no heaven. There is only reality.]
Dohyeon abruptly sat up in bed.
Then he looked around the room. He was looking for some reflective surface that might show the Valkyrie.
Soon, he found one. The Valkyrie’s figure was faintly reflected in the bedroom window. Since the window was transparent, the reflection was extremely dim.
“You look like that, only I can see you, and yet you say there is no Valhalla?”
[You speak of a heaven, a golden palace that you do not believe in yourself. As old writings say, perhaps heaven exists for those who believe. But even they will die, maggots will eat their flesh, their bones will decay into soil, and grass and trees will grow above that soil to become part of another life. That process will repeat endlessly as long as life exists. So where, in all this, is the heavenly kingdom the believer speaks of?]
Amid the faint reflection, only her eyes seemed to burn fiercely.
Those green eyes, eyes like suns made of emerald, stared directly at Dohyeon.
Dohyeon met that gaze with a hardened expression before opening his mouth.
“...I suppose I have to say what I said before. Get out of my head.”
[I shall give the same answer. Thoughts are free.]
Dohyeon got out of bed. He went to the bathroom and showered with the broken mirror beside him.
Afterward, he came out to the living room without a word, took a cup of coffee, and sat in his computer chair.
He did not even turn on the computer. He simply stared at the black screen until the steam from his coffee disappeared.
After he sat that way for a long time, an unseen presence drew close behind him.
[...Are you angry?]
“You could find out by reading my thoughts like you usually do.”
[I could, but I will not. My warrior would dislike it if I did so now.]
“...”
Dohyeon’s eyes looked at the faintly reflected Valkyrie in the black screen. Her fiercely burning eyes from earlier were gone. Only the shadow of someone with slumped shoulders remained.
“...Whether I did it or whatever, it is true that you brought out the impulses within me.”
[It is, Helisbyorn.]
“Why? Why are you doing this? Why me?”
But instead of an answer came a soft sensation.
It was as though wings had wrapped around him.
“...”
That warmth could not possibly answer his question. Yet Dohyeon felt his desire to press her further fading away.
Was this another ability like the one she used to stir up his impulses?
[Warmth is only warmth, warrior. Just feel it.]
Just as the Valkyrie had not answered, neither did Dohyeon.
That did not mean he let himself sink into the warmth, either. Dohyeon merely raised his left hand slightly and checked the Vargband on his index finger.
The warmth lingered for a moment. Then Dohyeon, still expressionless as he looked at the monitor’s black screen, picked up his smartphone.
He checked the business card Yoon Jiseong had given him yesterday.
There was neither a phone number nor a name on it. Only Samgyeong’s logo was embossed on the card.
Instead of searching for a number that wasn’t there, Dohyeon held up his smartphone and brought it close to the card.
The call app opened naturally, followed by ringing.
After a brief signal, someone answered.
[Kang Dohyeon?]
“What kind of dungeon is it?”
The person on the other end seemed startled by the question, which lacked even the beginning or end of an introduction.
But the surprise faded during a brief silence, and soon a smooth, relaxed voice returned.
[Would you not like to rest a little longer? I only gave you my business card last night. Not even twelve hours have passed, let alone twenty-four.]
“Send me a summary of everything you have learned about the dungeon so far. Also give me the dungeon’s location and a definite answer on when I can enter.”
Perhaps he sensed that Dohyeon was serious. Yoon Jiseong gave a quiet hum before replying.
[Your enthusiasm is commendable. But before entering the dungeon, should we not discuss both our demands and the precautions? Of course, we must negotiate the compensation as well. Or do none of those things matter to you as long as you can enter this dungeon?]
Dohyeon nearly answered, “Yes,” but barely stopped himself.
Perhaps Yoon Jiseong had not expected an answer, because he continued.
[I will first send you a compilation of the information we have gathered about the dungeon. I will also send a vehicle at one in the afternoon. We can settle the remaining details after meeting. Is that acceptable?]
“...Fine.”
Less than five minutes after the call ended, a message arrived.
When he connected the attached file to his computer, information poured out: the place and date the dungeon entrance had opened, and stories about the hunters who had entered it during the time since.
[Eat before you do anything. Do not skip another meal.]
Following the Valkyrie’s nagging, Dohyeon made do with frozen food and finished preparing before the vehicle Yoon Jiseong had sent arrived that afternoon.
After packing various pieces of equipment and weapons, he boarded Samgyeong’s flying vehicle, which descended into the parking lot, and left the apartment.
* * *
After roughly thirty minutes of flying, he arrived at the Samgyeong Special Vanaskelium Refining Center.
Dohyeon was immediately led farther into the center.
Soon, he was guided to a conference room that would serve as a waiting room. The moment he entered, Dohyeon spotted the people waiting inside and came to an abrupt stop.
There were two people in the conference room.
A tall, sturdy woman leaned against one wall. Dressed in a dark jacket and loose-legged trousers, she was taller than most men, with a strong figure visible even through her clothes.
When she saw Dohyeon enter the conference room, she grinned. He was certain he had never seen her before, yet her eyes held a strange welcome.
And by the table sat a middle-aged man.
The man looked at Dohyeon in an insolent slouch, leaning his chair back with both feet on the table.
No, it was impossible to be sure where he was looking. He wore black sunglasses even indoors.
Jo Gyeongtaek grinned at Dohyeon.
“Oh, Dohyeon. Get home okay last night?”
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