Chapter 32

The day the party regrouped, Theresa and Sang-Soo—even Soso, who normally couldn’t care less about people—were all staring at Do-Jin with overwhelming curiosity.

It was obvious that he had figured something out back in the dungeon, and whatever it was had been important enough for him to disappear without a word. The problem was that they had no way of knowing what the hell it was. Their unanswered questions had been driving them insane, but no one was more obsessed than Theresa.

She had spent the entire night glued to her screen, searching MeTube for “hidden content,” “hidden content discoveries,” “hidden content rewards,” and any other thing she could think of that might give her a lead. She had not even slept, but here Do-Jin was without a care in the world.

“Apologies for last time. I know you’re all wondering why I left so suddenly, but we’ll get to that later. First, I need your agreement on something,” he said.

The party members exchanged glances before looking back at him.

“What kind of agreement?” one of them asked.

“Today’s hunt is going to be different. It’s going to be significantly harder than before, and the risk level is going to be much higher.”

Before he could say anything else, Theresa immediately cut in. “We’re not idiots, you know! We all figured that out already! You found something in that tunnel, and whatever it is, it’s dangerous. But if you’ll let us, we still want to go with you. You might not think much of it, but I take this game seriously. I’ve practically bet my life on it.”

She took a breath, hands clenched into fists. “We might die. We might lose experience and delevel. Doesn’t matter. I’m not afraid. I won’t be dead weight and I’ll do whatever it takes. So please, let me come with you.”

Theresa’s eyes were practically shining with desperation. Her brain had already gone full conspiracy mode, connecting dots that probably didn’t even exist.

Do-Jin felt a headache forming.

Why the hell is she acting like a soldier marching off to war?

𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

All he had meant was that the difficulty would go up, so they needed to stay sharp, not that they needed to prepare their last wills and testaments. She was way too fired up for something this simple.

“You don’t need to be that dramatic,” he said calmly. “I just meant that this won’t be mindless grinding like before, so stay alert and don’t screw up. I’m not asking you to risk your life. In fact, I’ll make sure it doesn’t come to that.”

Theresa’s face turned bright red. She had just realized that she completely overreacted.

Sang-Soo snickered and smacked her on the back. “Relax. I might not be as ride-or-die about this game as she is, but I’m not the type to half-ass things, either. And Soso, for all her attitude, hates causing problems for other people.”

Soso scoffed. “What the hell do you know about me?”

Sang-Soo smirked. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

“I mean, you’re not.”

Do-Jin nodded, then added, “Right, I almost forgot. The mood got so serious that I nearly skipped the actual agreement I needed from you.”

For a brief moment, things felt a little more relaxed.

Then, Do-Jin dropped the bombshell. “Up until now, we’ve been hunting at a reasonable pace, taking breaks in between. That won’t be possible this time. Once we start, we’re pushing until we physically can’t move anymore. I’m estimating a minimum of three days, maybe up to a full week without leaving the hunting grounds. This is something we all need to be on the same page about.”

Do-Jin stopped mid-sentence when he saw the looks on Theresa and Sang-Soo’s faces. They looked like they had long passed away.

“S-Sir...?” Theresa, who had somehow transformed into an undead in the blink of an eye, slowly raised her trembling hand. “Did... I hear that right? What do you mean we’ve been taking it easy this whole time?”

She turned to Sang-Soo for confirmation, but he said nothing. The most overworked bastard in the party, the puller-turned-sub-DPS-slave, was just staring into the void with lifeless, sunken eyes. If he had not just made a huge speech about commitment, he would have logged out on the spot.

As the two spiraled into silent panic, Do-Jin spoke again. “There’s no need to worry. We’ll take enough breaks to maintain our combat performance. I’ve prepared food and sleeping bags, so just think of it as a casual camping trip.”

Camping? Camping?!

They did not utter a single word, but their wide eyes screamed the truth.

This man is a fucking demon.

Do-Jin met their eyes, a sly thought settling in.

Are you really gonna back out? After all that talk? With this much EXP and loot on the line?

The silent stare-off was brief, and the answer was written all over their faces.

***

Once again, they stood at the end of the sealed tunnel. Theresa, Sang-Soo, and Soso watched the wall with burning curiosity.

What was hidden behind it? A secret passage? A Magic Circle only visible to mages? Or maybe... something even bigger?

He’s not actually planning to break through that thing... right?

Theresa had already tested the wall herself. It was hard as hell. Not even her full-power hammer swings had left a scratch, so she had already crossed that possibility off the list.

Just then, Do-Jin gestured for them to move as he pulled something from his inventory. “Step back.”

With haste, he activated a massive, intricate Magic Circle. At first, a single tiny red dot appeared on the wall. It was such a small, underwhelming reaction from such a complex spell that it almost felt like something had gone wrong. However, Theresa and the others soon realized the truth. The tiny red dot began to spread, growing brighter and hotter as it rapidly ate through the wall.

“Shit...!”

The heat blasting from the tunnel forced them several steps back, yet their eyes stayed locked on what was happening. The glowing red energy kept drilling deeper, carving a perfectly human-sized hole through the solid rock. It was not breaking the stone but

melting

it into lava, clearing a path as if the entire tunnel were made of butter under a blowtorch.

“Wait... mages can do that?”

No, they couldn’t. At least, no player in the game right now should have been able to pull off something like this, so how did Do-Jin do it? Theresa, Sang-Soo, and even Soso felt the same burning question clawing at them.

Do-Jin turned to them with a casual shrug. “You just have to throw enough money at the problem.”

A wave of cold air rolled off his fingertips. The moment the spell took effect, a massive wave of steam erupted, but Do-Jin was already ahead of it. He gathered the steam, condensed it back into ice, and shot it deeper into the tunnel, forcing the lingering heat to continue pushing forward. By the time he was finished, the once-impenetrable wall that was three to four meters thick had a clean, human-sized hole leading inside.

***

“Listen up. The monsters inside won’t be that different from the ones outside, but there’s going to be a shitload of them. It’s just us in there, so we need to fight with our backs to the wall as much as possible. That way, we can keep the formation tight, protect the healer and me, and avoid getting surrounded.”

Theresa and Sang-Soo exchanged a glance.

Would have been nice if he told us this earlier.

Do-Jin had an annoying habit of giving them critical information only at the last possible second. It was a reasonable complaint, but he never liked over-explaining things before the situation occurred. In his past life, he had rarely been in any parties to begin with, so he’d never felt the need to.

Besides, his philosophy was simple. Instead of wasting time explaining everything, it was better to throw them in and tell them what to do as they went. It wasn’t as if this was complicated; it was just going to be absolute hell. And when things got that bad, the trick was to never give them time to think about how much they were suffering.

“Get ready.” As he spoke, Do-Jin channeled mana into his circuits.

[Light]

The room flared to life, pushing back the dense shadows and revealing what lay ahead. Motionless golem bodies littered the area, silent and dormant. There were one, two, three, four, five—at least, that was just what they could see with the naked eye.

Then, countless faint red dots began flickering in the darkness. One after another, more and more glowing orbs appeared, as if something was slowly waking up. Each one of them belonged to a pair of Iron Golem eyes. Suddenly, one of them snapped in their direction, its gaze locking onto Do-Jin.

[You are the first to enter the Hidden Area of the Closed Iron Mine!]

[A one-time EXP boost has been granted to the first explorers!]

[A one-time drop rate boost has been granted to the first explorers!]

[These buffs will be removed upon leaving the dungeon.]

The game definitely knew how to reward first discoveries, not that it mattered right now. The buffs were great, but the real priority was getting into position before these things fully woke up.

“Come this way!” Do-Jin’s low, commanding voice cut through the tension, snapping everyone to attention.

Before they even had time to think, they reacted on pure instinct. As Do-Jin sprinted toward the wall, the other three bolted after him, running like hellhounds were nipping at their heels.

Behind them, the ancient, slumbering Iron Golems began to rise. A grating, crunching noise echoed through the mine as the Iron Golems’ joints snapped and ground together, breaking apart the impurities that had built up inside them over time. They were waking up.

After reaching the far wall, Do-Jin was greeted with a dead end. Although there were no escape routes, it was the perfect place to hold their ground.

“What are you standing around for?! Warrior, Swordsman, hold the left and right! Healer, stay directly behind me! If something unexpected happens, I’ll handle it. Unless I call for it, do not break formation, no matter what. Healer, ignore everything else and focus on keeping those two alive with healing and buffs.”

The two melee fighters scrambled into position, hastily gripping their weapons. Soso took her place behind Do-Jin without hesitation.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The Iron Golems approached with steady, heavy steps with their movements unnervingly synchronized. The sheer number of them was dizzying.

“W-what do we do?! There are way more than we expected!”

“This is actually possible, right?! There are too fucking many! There’s gotta be at least a hundred of them!”

Theresa and Sang-Soo’s voices shook as they took in the ocean of glowing red eyes. Their panic was not unreasonable, but they were missing something important.

“Look at their size. Even the small ones are over two meters tall,” Do-Jin pointed out. “No matter how many of them there are, they can’t all rush us at once. The most we’ll be fighting at the same time is three to five. Keep your nerves steady. If you let fear get to you, you’ll get fucking eaten alive.”

Theresa nodded so hard her whole body moved. Sang-Soo clenched his jaw, steeling himself.

Behind them, Do-Jin spoke in a tone laced with amusement, “Well, looks like the EXP event is about to begin.”

As if responding to his words, the Iron Golems roared to life, their hostility toward the intruders surging with murderous intent.

[Curse of Softening]

A wide-area curse spell spread across the battlefield, coating the iron husks in its weakening effect. Normally, cursing multiple enemies at once would dilute the spell’s effectiveness, but this time, that wasn’t a problem. After all, these golems had the lowest magic resistance of any monster in LOST.

BANG.

Theresa’s hammer slammed diagonally into a cursed golem’s shoulder, shattering it instantly. Shards of iron and stone exploded outward, scattering across the floor.

Watching the chaos unfold, Do-Jin took a slow drag from his mana cigarette. His artificial mana heart pulsed quietly in sync.