Retire 258
by Cristae258 Jirisan Fairy (4)
“……!!”
My breath caught in my throat.
I leapt upward to avoid the collapsing ground. I climbed onto a nearby tree, but the branch I landed on bent sharply beneath me. Of course, it wasn’t so thin that it couldn’t support my weight.
The other branches were the same. The ground, heaving and trying to swallow us, could hardly be called ground anymore. My ankles sank deep into the thick, sticky mud. This was no longer a floor—it was a swamp. A bottomless mire. A mass of mud hungry for human flesh.
The trees, too, seemed intent on throwing me down as soon as I climbed up. Worse, their movements were growing rougher. At first, they only twitched faintly.
…It felt like watching a pile of machinery creak to life after years of disuse.
I quickly switched to another tree to cling to. Dodging the trees that thrashed about, desperate to shake me off, I moved from one to the next. Just holding on wasn’t difficult.
But if I kept repeating this, sooner or later, I’d fall.
What did Hong Seok-yeong say he did in the Siren Dungeon when there was nowhere to step? He used Kim Chae-min, didn’t he? I should have brought Kim Chae-min along. I really should have!
If I’d known the dungeon would be like this, I would have brought him. I would have!
……And I wouldn’t have lost my temper and burned the golem shards, either.
“Tsk!”
Hong Seok-yeong cut down a tree. I saw him leap onto the falling trunk and then swing up to another branch.
“…….”
No time to watch Hong Seok-yeong. I was in the same predicament.
No, but this really isn’t fair.
I only wanted to check if golems could burn, just in case. How was I supposed to know the golem’s master would throw such a fit over something so trivial?
If that was such a problem, why not throw a tantrum when we first smashed the golem’s head? Why wait until the all-out assault? If you didn’t want your golems destroyed, you shouldn’t have sent them at all! Or come out yourself!!
Are all fairies like this? There are too few examples to really understand what a fairy-type monster is. All I have is what Hong Seok-yeong told me. The only fairy—well, fairy-like being—I’ve ever met is Alex Hope.
When I think of that guy……
……
Yeah. I guess a fairy could be like this. Just look at it now.
<#(^%&%$@!>
It was shrieking in some incomprehensible tongue, throwing a fit. My head throbbed. It wasn’t enough to hinder my movements, but the pain was far from pleasant.
The scream—or was it a howl?—that drilled into my skull grew longer and longer. Each time, the entire dungeon heaved. The mud rippled across the ground, trees and vines writhed and reached for Hong Seok-yeong and me, trying to ensnare us.
Ironically, it resembled Kim Chae-min’s magic. Not as flamboyant or vibrant as his, but the vines moved in a similar way. Even so, the stiff, lifeless feeling that greeted us when we first entered the dungeon remained. There was no sense of life—just a bizarre, plastic-toy-like motion. The same was true of the golems.
Still, on the surface, they were plants. Kim Chae-min would have loved this dungeon. He might have laughed as he forced his flowers to bloom in that mud heap. No, he definitely would have.
But unfortunately, Kim Chae-min wasn’t here, and all that remained were two pitiful hunters floundering about with spear and sword.
“How far to the core?!”
Hong Seok-yeong shouted, climbing higher to escape the rising mud.
“Still a long way!!”
“At this rate, we won’t even make it to the core—wait. What’s that?”
“What?”
I turned to look in the direction Hong Seok-yeong pointed, and my face went pale.
As he hacked away at the vines clutching his ankles, Hong Seok-yeong gritted his teeth and yelled.
“That’s a tsunami!!!”
It was a forest so dense it felt like a jungle. Of course, the trees were tall. But now, a wave the size of a house was rolling in from the distance, high enough to tower over even those trees. And it wasn’t water—it was mud. A shadow swept across the forest canopy.
I was stunned by a sight I never imagined I’d see in a dungeon, especially one with a forest.
“The gate!”
“…What?”
“The gate!! Get out of the dungeon!!!”
Hong Seok-yeong’s words snapped me back to my senses.
If that wave hit us, even Hong Seok-yeong might not make it out alive. No matter how strong a hunter he was, he wasn’t even two meters tall. And that mud wave was dozens of meters high…
Shit!
<&&&@*$$^>
I immediately changed direction. Luckily, the mud wave was slow. I ran with every ounce of strength I had left.
<$(%&@!~*>
Somewhere, the fairy’s voice rang out, sounding almost amused as it watched us. Who knows if monsters can feel emotions like humans, but even beasts feel joy and anger—why not monsters…?
But it’s still a monster.
I gritted my teeth and ran until I saw the gate. Maybe the fairy realized we were trying to escape, because the ground and trees that had been hindering us grew a little quieter.
…Why?
In the distance, the gate’s blue light shimmered.
When we first entered the dungeon, the area around the gate was thick with trees. The moment we stepped through, I nearly hit my head on a branch.
But now?
The area around the gate was empty.
Not a speck of mud marred the ground. The dry earth crumbled beneath our feet. The cracks in the soil marked where the trees had moved. The trees encircling the gate, which had tried so violently to throw us off before, now stood utterly still.
What is this?
It’s as if…
“Just get out!”
Hong Seok-yeong grabbed me by the scruff and hurled us both toward the gate.
Just before we exited the dungeon, I saw the mud wave that had been chasing us. Instead of crashing down, it split in two and slowly collapsed.
As the wave crumbled, mud rained down on the dungeon like a storm. In the sky—no longer blue, but studded with stars—a single black spot hung like a black hole swallowing the light.
No, it was a tiny figure.
No, not a human.
<@^@#*%^)*#__&!>
A fairy.
Its hair was a bristling tangle of thorns. Its body, caked in mud, was almost unrecognizable.
<_)&@$>
But its luminous golden eyes stared straight at us.
“……Huh? You’re already out—what happened to you?”
…ello, Bonnie!
Han Tae-kyung, slouched in a camping chair, sprang to his feet at the sight of us. A child’s voice echoed from his tablet PC. Even in my dazed state, the name “Bonnie” rang out clearly.
How could he watch that anime so much and never get tired of it?
“What… Did you go to a mud festival or something?”
“Han Tae-kyung.”
“Yes?”
“Quiet.”
“Yessir.”
Sensing Hong Seok-yeong’s ominous mood, Han Tae-kyung shut his mouth at once.
I staggered upright. Mud dripped from my hair. I felt filthy.
I had to see, so I reluctantly pushed my hair back. The sensation of mud gluing my hair in place was disgusting. I didn’t want to know what it felt like.
I tried to brush the mud from my hands, gave up, and sighed. Beside me, Hong Seok-yeong wore the same expression.
“We should make them all turn in their licenses.”
Hong Seok-yeong muttered darkly. I edged away from him. Han Tae-kyung had already scurried off to a safe distance.
“Those lunatics… What? Not knowing there’s a fairy, fine. But not noticing this?”
“Well… We didn’t know at first, either.”
Everyone’s lenient with their own mistakes, but you still have to be honest.
Hong Seok-yeong glared at me.
“Whose side are you on!”
“My own.”
“Then you should be on my side!!”
“What sides are there here…”
I gestured to Han Tae-kyung. His head might be a little off, but he wasn’t stupid; he immediately realized what I wanted and brought over bottled water and a towel from the supplies.
I couldn’t wash myself, so I just wiped my hands and face as best I could.
“What are we going to do?”
“What else?”
Hong Seok-yeong washed his hands, looking torn between anger and disappointment.
“Since there’s a fairy, we… we have to catch it.”
“A fairy?”
“How?”
“Hmm… Normally, I’d catch it before it could pull a stunt like that, but this time, I don’t think that’s possible.”
Hong Seok-yeong spoke irritably.
“If there’d been any mention of a fairy—or an unidentified monster—I wouldn’t have entered the dungeon like that. I’d have hunted it down first.”
“Wasn’t that sort of thing only found in Europe?”
“That would be better.”
“You can’t trust the reports. We were too complacent.”
“We didn’t notice anything odd until we fought the golems, either. That just shows how cunning it is.”
“Are you listening to me?”
I frowned. There was something I’d sensed before we left the dungeon.
“And, um. That thing—it didn’t seem like it wanted to kill us.”
Hong Seok-yeong’s eyes widened.
“I…”
I infused my sword with mana. Flames flared along the blade. The mud dried instantly. With a sweep of the sword, the dried mud fell away.
Only then did I glance at Han Tae-kyung. Realizing his mistake, Hong Seok-yeong coughed loudly.
“Ahem, uh, did you notice too?”
“How could I not, when it cleared the area around the gate like that? And the mud—when we started heading for the gate, it slowed down.”
“I told you, didn’t I?”
“Sorry?”
“Fairies are cunning.”
Hong Seok-yeong ground his teeth.
“A lot of hunters have passed through that dungeon.”
“Well… yes.”
“The monsters they encountered were golems. There were a lot, but they weren’t much of a threat. But that dungeon has apples…”
“So it realized that no one would bother raiding a dungeon that wasn’t dangerous?”
“Probably.”
Hong Seok-yeong looked me straight in the eye. He didn’t say it aloud because Han Tae-kyung was there, but I knew what he was thinking.
He wanted to say that the fairy in that dungeon might be from the future.
“…….”
Was that why my sister entered that dungeon and then left without finishing it? Because she saw the fairy?
No, that doesn’t make sense. My sister didn’t go into that dungeon to gather apples. She went to clear it and failed. Even as a child, she wouldn’t have struggled with those golems.
So was it the fairy?
But the hunter who cleared the dungeon after her was far less skilled. And by then, the dungeon had already turned into a desert.
Why? Was it because the fairy was gone by then?
“Anyway… We can’t just leave things as they are.”
“Of course not.”
“But we can’t just charge in blindly, either.”
“Naturally.”
“…Even Mr. Kim wouldn’t have a way to deal with that kind of mud.”
“Hmm…”
Think, Woo Hee-jae. Finding a strategy with limited resources is your job.
“Hey? Are you listening? I said, are you listening?”
Han Tae-kyung refused to give up.
“Can I try going into the dungeon?”