Jung Si-woo had been reborn as an Underground Player after clearing the test dungeon, gaining two passive skills. The first one was the symbol of an Underground Player, the ‘Tail of Chaos,’ and the other one was the skill that represented his spirit…‘Courage of the Ignorant.’ Soo Ah-rin was reborn as a supporter. Contrary to Jung Si-woo, she had two active skills.
The first one was ‘Advent,’ a skill that consumed mana and reverts her body to her previous state for a certain period of time. The other was ‘Stealth,’ a skill that allowed her to hide her appearance. Advent was a high-efficiency skill that enhanced all of her abilities, but it consumed just as much mana. However, in her state right now, she could use Stealth for more than 3 hours. On the first day, there was no reason to use it, and her mana was completely depleted so that she couldn’t test it, but that was different for today.
“But I can still see you.”
“That’s because I am your supporter! The others won’t be able to see me. Unlike Advent, Stealth is highly efficient. The other Players would never be able to see me at their current levels.”
Soo Ah-rin confidently puffed her chest out. Her action just seemed cute when she was in her mini-sized body.
“Yes, yes. Tell me when your mana is running out. I will hide you until you recover.”
Jung Si-woo laughed and started his motorbike. Of course, right now, they were outside his house. It was two weeks since Jung Si-woo started practicing mana, and now he had grown tired of training in his house, so he was determined to go on a dungeon exploration. Soo Ah-rin, who had seen the results of his training, decided that he would be able to clear the first-level dungeon in the Ant Cave easily with nothing to fear. No, actually, there was already nothing to fear from the beginning.
“But Si-woo, that bike…”
“Hm?”
It’s not like they could take any public transport to the dungeons, so Jung Si-woo bought a new bike with the money he earned in the test dungeon. Soo Ah-rin took a double-take.
“It’s good that you bought a bike…but why is it a Chinese restaurant’s delivery motorcycle?”
“Now you know.”
Jung Si-woo smiled mysteriously. The bike itself was an 800cc-class, but he painted it in a familiar color to the Koreans: red and white. Though, it looked a little flimsy as he painted it himself. At the end of the seat, a familiar iron box was placed, so at first glance, it looked like a perfect Chinese restaurant delivery motorcycle. No, even if you looked closely…
“If even you manage to be fooled, then no one would find it suspicious. This is perfect.”
“On the contrary, it is overflowing with suspicion!”
Finally, Soo Ah-rin exploded.
“This bike is over 10 million won, right?! Who uses such a bike to deliver for Chinese restaurants?!”
“Are you looking down on Chinese food delivery men? You better apologize to all the delivery men in the country.”
“Ah! I’m not looking down on them, sorry!”
“Be nice.”
This is also one of Jung Si-woo’s tricks. If it were a delivery bike, then it wouldn’t be weird no matter where you go in Korea, and it wouldn’t attract attention! In other words, you could drive across the country without being suspicious. Of course, if you look at it in detail, you’d realize that the body and engine of this bike are different from the ordinary 125cc motorcycle, but Jung Si-woo assured her that there would be no humans who would look closely at a Chinese restaurant motorcycle in this world.
“Hop on.”
“Ah, to think that my first motorcycle ride with a man would be on a food delivery motorcycle…”
Soo Ah-rin, unable to refute him any longer, went inside Jung Si-Woo’s shirt pocket with a complicated expression. However, when Jung Si-woo quietly tried to pull the throttle, a sudden voice was heard.
“Where are you going?”
“Ah, my heart almost stopped.”
The owner of the voice was Jung Si-woo’s mother. His mother’s eyes had nearly popped out when she ran out of the house to investigate the unfamiliar sound. Of course, it was the mom radar, Jung Si-woo quietly muttered. Her mother then narrowed her eyes.
“Where did you get the money to buy this?”
“My friend who works at a Chinese restaurant gave it to me.”
“Are you lying to me?”
His mother was suspicious, but Jung Si-woo retained his poker face not to be caught by her.
“…Don’t go around doing dangerous things. There are also strange rumors about seeing someone weird late at night these days, and watch out on the road.”
“Alright.”
She noticed that her son was acting strange these days, but she knew that he wasn’t ignorant. She thought it would be time for him, who had been lazing at home since graduating from college, to get bored, so she thought that he was out looking for new things to do.
“Don’t get into an accident. Even if you’re going to crash into a car, don’t crash into the foreign cars, but the local ones.”
“Okay.”
Motorcycles were very dangerous. You could get into an accident easily and die. However, that wasn’t the case for Jung Si-woo. His body was the strongest weapon in the world, and if he died in a bike accident, that would be a miracle! Even if the bike and the other vehicle were crushed, it would be difficult to even leave a scratch on Jung Si-woo’s body.
“I’ll get going now. I may not come back for a few days.”
“Okay. Don’t forget to buy some souvenirs.”
Jung Si-woo, who gave a cool goodbye, started the bike after his mother threw back a cool reply. Soo Ah-rin had to try hard not to laugh.
“Huu.”
Soo Ah-rin laughed gently and poked her head out of his pocket after they completely left the residential area. It was chaotic, but it felt nice. She felt a bit more excited now than before.
“Now, the only problem is how to find the dungeon.”
“I already thought about that part.”
Soo Ah-rin thought of the situation when they first discovered the Ant Cave. At that time, Soo Ah-rin was falling from the sky, and Jung Si-woo, who never hesitated, immediately caught her, and as a result, the two fell together in the Ant Cave. It was hard to imagine that the test dungeon was located right where Jung Si-woo landed with Soo Ah-rin. She hypothesized that the creation of the test dungeon itself might have been triggered by her falling there.
“So, the dungeon was created because you fell there?”
“It could also have been a dungeon that originally existed but moved thereafter being triggered. Anyway, I think it’s like that.”
“So, in order to find a dungeon, we have to find where the players fell…their grave.”
Actually, Jung Si-woo already thought of that possibility, but there was one problem. It was common for players to fall and never be found again, so no-one marked where they fell!
“H-Hey, I wasn’t just playing while you were training. I went through my memory and the community of players online and investigated when and which players fell from which dungeons!”
“Really? Then, there is a way to find the location?”
Soo Ah-rin proudly raised her shoulders and shouted.
“There is none yet!”
“Okay, it doesn’t mean anything then.”
“It’s not like this doesn’t have anything to do with the crashing position because I need to calculate the wind direction and speed at the time…”
After all, it seemed like there was no choice but to go all over the country searching for a dungeon. Jung Si-woo sighed and accelerated his bike a little. The Chinese food motorcycle camouflage method was really effective; no one looked over even when Jung Si-woo was idling on such a large bike. On the contrary, if Jung Si-woo had been sitting on a small delivery motorcycle, he might’ve felt more uncomfortable.
“Fuuh, it’s exciting to ride after a long time.”
“Si-woo, you’re not a biker or something of that sort, right?”
“When I was younger, I did love riding bikes.”
He ignored Soo Ah-rin and recalled the news of a biker-related incident, who raced endlessly with their bike. He was a free spirit. There was nothing in this world that could stop him except the red light.
“When I was in school, even if I didn’t do anything, the kids parted and made way for me.”
“Yeah. The cars are like that too right now.”
The appearance of Jung Si-woo, driving a bike without a helmet, was terrifying for the other drivers.
Although he wasn’t born with a tough appearance, the aura of someone with a strong innate force existed. For professional drivers, they could guess just by looking at Jung Si-woo’s face that he was dangerous.
“I’ll do the driving, so you find the dungeon. You know how to find dungeons, right?”
“If it’s something like a test dungeon, then maybe. I’m not an underground player’s supporter for nothing…huh?”
Soo Ah-rin suddenly made a startled noise. Jung Si-woo thought it was to make fun of him, but the next moment, Soo Ah-rin grabbed his collar and exclaimed.
“Dungeon! I found the dungeon!”
“It’s only been 30 minutes since we left home?”
“I can’t believe it either, but it’s true! Turn left, turn left!”
“No signal…?!”
Immediately after slowing down the speed of the bike, Jung Si-woo, who set up his bike on the side of the road, looked around and checked whether any human’s eyes or CCTV were present. The moment he was sure that they were completely out of anyone’s sight, he put his bike into his inventory. Similar to the sledgehammer, the bike only occupied a 2×4 space, or in other words, only eight spaces.
“Won’t we get caught?”
“It’s okay; no one saw it.”
“Seriously, what are your senses made of…?”
Jung Si-woo picked up the flustered Soo Ah-rin in his pocket and walked calmly. As he said, no one on the street noticed him, making Soo Ah-rin feel like she was the weird one.
“Oh.”
The dungeon that Soo Ah-rin discovered soon entered Jung Si-woo’s view. In the middle of the vacant residential lot, a cursor in the shape of an inverted pyramid floated in the air with the word [Interface] next to it. He presumed it was only visible to Soo Ah-rin and his eyes.
“I guess this place must have been up for sale.”
“Yes, but this dungeon…”
Soo Ah-rin frowned. Looking at the inverted pyramid-shaped cursor, they noticed a window explaining the dungeon next to it, but the content…
[??? Dungeon: Standard Difficulty]
Jung Si-woo also confirmed the content. When he looked at Soo Ah-rin, she avoided his eyes.
“I don’t know even if you ask me.”
“Yeah, I thought so.”
Of course, he didn’t think that he could enter a normal first-level dungeon as an Underground Player, but to think the level itself was omitted altogether. However, if he didn’t have to enter the dungeons in order of difficulty, then that explained how the dungeon was discovered so quickly. He felt bitter, but it wasn’t his way to step back now. Didn’t the interface explain that the difficulty is normal? Normal…the yellow color of the pyramid cursor was an obvious sign for him; from years of gameplay experience, it was evident that it meant ‘this dungeon is just the right dungeon for you to challenge.’
“Okay, then let’s dig.”
“Please don’t be a difficult dungeon…”
Jung Si-woo looked around and stood under the cursor. Strangely, at that moment, the cursor expanded and covered the whole area. Still, Jung Si-woo, who trained with mana these days, could intuitively feel that it was some barrier. This was to help the Players who were entering the dungeon not be exposed to outsider’s eyes.
“This is pretty good?”
“It’s good to know that they are considerate to the Underground Players. Hurry up, though; I don’t know how long this barrier will last.”
Jung Si-woo nodded and struck the floor with his fist. However, despite the fact that the building near them was affected by the blow, the ground strangely stayed unaffected. This time, he tried to hit the ground with his tail by gathering mana near his tailbone. Then, mysteriously, the ground was crushed under his tail.
“As I thought, this is the role of the key.”
“Why do you bother…?”
The time he spent training to handle his tail wasn’t in vain after all, and within a few minutes, Jung Si-woo succeeded in making a hole that would be enough for him to put his tail in.
“How much more do I need to dig here…aaaah?!”
“Kyaaaaah!”
At that very moment, as in the previous test dungeon, Jung Si-woo and Soo Ah-rin fell into the underground and disappeared. They met the dungeon’s admission requirements!
The spot where the both of them disappeared, the vacant lot gradually filling in the hole as if nothing had happened. At that moment, a large centipede passing over it was sucked into the hole and disappeared, but no one discovered it.
