The 5 Apostles stood in front of the SS-ranked dungeon with their eyes wide and a trepidation in their hearts that they had not expected to feel before.
"What's wrong? You're not backing out now right?" the director asked.
"N-no," Soo-Yun said. "It's just… let me leave for a moment, I need to consult with my god if there is any help he can give me before I approach this."
"Me too," Bak said.
"I should probably do that too," Park said as well.
Soon, all 5 of them were gone with Ning and the director was left alone to wait for a while.
"So, young man. It seems we are alone," the director said.
"It seems so indeed," Ning said.
The director looked at him for a moment before asking. "Are you really 25? You look so young," he said.
"Haha, I get that a lot. People are usually surprised when I tell them my age. They never seem to be able to tell that I am much older than I appear to be," Ning said.
"By the way, you didn't just suddenly awaken as a hunter right? What were you doing before deciding to be a hunter?" the director asked.
"Oh, I was doing nothing really. Just going around the world visiting different places," Ning said. "I probably would've continued if I didn't realize I had some kin in South Korea. When I realized the situation here, I decided to become a hunter. Who would've thought I would become an SSS-ranked hunter."
The director got curious after listening to Ning's words. "You must've had some bountiful encounters during your travel," he said.
"Haha, you could say that," Ning said as his eyes slowly shifted toward his right. He could feel a presence there, watching him intently.
'Hah! So the Constellations actually came huh?' he thought. He didn't give his mind to them as long as they weren't interrupting him.
He talked with the director for a while longer before the Apostles finally decided to show their face again.
"I am going in," Bak said as soon as he returned.
"I have my god's blessing," Lee said.
The others said similar things to denote that they were also allowed to enter. Each time they said that the person would sneakily look at Ning with a weird look on their face.
Perhaps the only person without such a weird look was Kim Min-Soo, and that was only because she was used to Ning's existence.
As for the rest, they were only just learning about something called 'System'.
"If you are all ready, then you can enter," the director said.
Everyone nodded and one by one they entered the dungeon.
As soon as they appeared, they landed on some sort of swamp with their legs sinking nearly halfway deep.
"Ewww! I've got mud all over my dress," Soo-Yun said as she tried to pull up her white dress, but it was already brown from the mud.
Kim Min-Soo looked disgusted as well. The men were disgusted as well, but the fear they felt at the new dungeon made them accept the situation relatively early.
Ning looked around the swamp. There was a white haze around them that was limiting their visibility by a lot.
Still, Ning could see better than the others. Once he released his spiritual sense, he could see everything.
The swamp ran forever. In fact, the entire dungeon was nothing but a swamp. There were trees, most of which were rotting, as well as aquatic plants that grew in the swamp.
Most pathways were either muddy or mossy, making the terrain incredibly hard to walk on. On top of that, there were many monsters lurking around the trees, or underneath the water, just a few paces away from them, hiding behind the white haze.
Ning smiled when he realized this was going to be fun.
Bak created a barrier around himself as he slowly floated above the swamp, sitting inside the barrier.
Soo-Yun used some sort of skill and made herself light as a feather and floated on top of the water.
Lee and Park had nothing they could really do to leave the swamp, so they just remained in it.
Kim, however, did and so she used her own skill. Dark energy flowed down her palms as they entered the water below her. The water turned dark as an enormous hand appeared from beneath her, holding her up.
"Hmm? An Orc skeleton?" Lee asked.
The bone Orc took Kim and placed her on its shoulder so that she was no longer in the water.
Ning looked at her curiously, wondering if she had summoned the skeleton or just brought it out from someplace where she was keeping it.
"Let's move," Bak said. "But be careful. Who knows what this wretched place has for us."
The others nodded and walked through the swamp.
Barely a few meters away, Soo-Yun shouted. "Head's up. There's a monster in the mud in front of us," she said.
"Move!" Park said as he punched in front of him. His punch brought forth an unimaginable amount of wind with it that it felt physically impossible to have come without any sort of magical spell.
The gloomy haze in the air moved away for a moment, giving them all a clearer view of the swamp ahead of them.
At the same time, the wind pushed the water as well as the mud aside, showing scales of something beneath the mud.
Suddenly, the beast woke up, large as a train and it loomed over the 6. Ning looked at the beast with a look that seemed to be thinking about something he had forgotten long ago.
"Dragonborn Centipede…" he said softly as the information about the beasts in his mind gave him the answer he desired.
The beast in front of them was a giant, towering centipede, the head of which lay beyond the haze. Its body was clad in blue dragon scales, with talons instead of arms.
If not for the centipede-like head or the many limbs, this beast would be easily mistaken for a dragon.
And this was only the first encounter in the SS-ranked dungeon.
