Chapter 30
The Awakened Kim Ji-hwan (2)
Kim Ji-hwan led the group to an F-rank dungeon located at the entrance of the Safe Dungeon Zone.
The place looked like an abandoned building—recently collapsed for some reason and then rebuilt.
Its danger level was extremely low, inhabited only by undeads and three-legged crows that dropped no relics. Even 9th-grade Awakeners rarely visited such a place.
“Should we wait outside?”
Choi Kyung-hwan smiled as he looked at the faintly visible undead wandering near the dungeon’s entrance.
“Or are we going in together?”
It seemed he wanted to learn the exact conditions for the hidden monster’s appearance.
Ji-hwan, who had been silently staring at the dungeon, finally spoke.
“I can go in alone.”
“Alone…? I see.”
Choi Kyung-hwan glanced down at the hot spot device in his hand and explained his plan.
“If the Masked Gentleman appears, I’ll detonate this and personally enter the dungeon.”
Ji-hwan nodded quietly and walked slowly into the dungeon.
“Without making eye contact with the undead, reach the rooftop.”
He closed his eyes and sprinted up the broken stairs of the ruined building.
Kim Ji-hyang—his former teammate and lover.
She had once come to this dungeon alone to obtain a feather from a three-legged crow, planning to craft a fountain pen as a gift for him.
With her eyes closed, she’d sprinted all the way to the roof and slain the crow in a single blow.
But as she descended the stairs again, a strange undead appeared before her.
Startled, Ji-hyang had thrown the bloodstained feather from the crow directly at the undead’s forehead.
Then, as she hurriedly exited the dungeon, a loud rumble followed—and behind her stood a man wearing a jeweled mask.
It was the Masked Gentleman, a hidden monster she had only seen in the bestiary.
“I tried exactly what Ji-hyang said… and the Masked Gentleman really appeared.”
The memory made Ji-hwan’s fingertips tremble. Back then, he had made an irreversible mistake.
He’d told his teammates about the appearance conditions for the Masked Gentleman—despite warning them repeatedly not to do anything reckless.
“Let’s capture it!”
But blinded by greed, his teammates successfully summoned the Masked Gentleman and immediately launched an attack.
“Kill it!”
The Masked Gentleman—until then known as a peaceful hidden monster who merely stood still—reacted for the first time.
With a light wave of his hand—
Swaash.
The result was devastating.
Everyone was annihilated in an instant—except for Ji-hwan, who had instinctively activated his Energy Field skill.
“Foolish thoughts…”
Thud.
Snapping out of his memory, Ji-hwan reached the rooftop, killed a three-legged crow, and obtained its feather. Then, gripping it in his mouth, he ran back down the stairs.
Thoom. Thoom.
Moments later, a deep tremor shook the ground, echoing up into the sky.
There was no doubt—a hidden monster had appeared.
“Alright, get ready.”
Crouching low, Choi Kyung-hwan ordered his teammates.
“When that thing comes out of the dungeon, we take him down first.”
They planned to kill Ji-hwan before anything else.
As everyone nodded, Choi added,
“I’ll keep the hot spot armed. From what I’ve heard, this ‘Masked Gentleman’ moves incredibly fast.”
The transparent device in his hand glowed faintly red.
Woom. Woom.
But the tremor beneath their feet suddenly changed—it wasn’t coming from the ground anymore. It was rising into the air.
“Does that monster… fly?”
Wooooom.
Then, from all directions, the rumbling grew louder as something emerged from black clouds above.
“W-what is that…”
Choi Kyung-hwan trembled as he looked up.
Floating in the air—blotting out the sky—were skeletal humanoids with wings charred black.
“Larvas…?”
A single undead larva had a danger level around 250.
But thousands of them forming an army—was another matter entirely.
“How do we even deal with that?”
Before Sung Kyung-ha could finish her words, the ground shook again.
Thoom. Thoom.
A gigantic skeletal figure—at least thirty meters tall—approached. Dressed in black robes and wearing a bizarre wide-brimmed hat.
The sight drained all hope from Choi Kyung-hwan’s eyes.
“L-Larva… King!”
It was the King of the Dead, a hidden monster from the bestiary—
the Larva King, said to possess near-immortal endurance.
“We can’t win against that.”
Its danger rating was nearly 15,000—a monster that would require multiple 1st-grade Awakeners working together to defeat.
Even a team of four 1st-grades couldn’t handle this army of thousands.
“Get inside the dungeon!”
Sung Kyung-ha shouted, but Kyung-hwan stood frozen, his gaze locked on the Larva King.
He had been caught in the monster’s innate skill—Oppression.
“Get in there!”
Sung Kyung-ha slapped his face.
“Uaaagh!”
Overwhelmed by fear, Choi Kyung-hwan turned and sprinted—not toward the dungeon, but toward the shielded city area.
“That idiot!”
Seeing him, Sung Kyung-ha, Kim Soo-mi, and Lee Hak-jun panicked and ran in the opposite direction.
The only saving grace was that most undead had poor eyesight and wouldn’t chase if one escaped fast enough.
Woooooom.
But that was only theory.
The thousands of larvas floating in the air began to pursue them.
Standing on the dungeon stairs, Ji-hwan blinked in confusion.
“What… is that?”
The monster climbing up toward him wasn’t one he recognized—it looked like an elderly man dressed in a clean white shroud.
“W-who are you?”
—Ah, we’re no longer mere vengeful spirits, you see. That big red-eyed Awakener from before released us from the darkness.
The old man spoke nonsense.
—But thanks to him, another monster appeared. Ooh, that one’s real scary, so be careful now.
And then the old man’s form vanished.
“W-wait!”
Still dazed, Ji-hwan looked down at the feather in his hand—
Boom.
A strange sound echoed from outside.
At the same time, a terrible pressure wrapped around his body, like ropes tightening from head to toe.
He ran outside immediately.
“What the hell…”
The sky was filled with corpses, and behind them stood the terrifying Larva King—a monster he’d only seen in the bestiary.
“Uaaaagh!”
In the distance, he saw Choi Kyung-hwan and the others running at full speed.
Then Ji-hwan noticed something horrifying—
Kyung-hwan’s arm was glowing red.
“That bastard—he’s running away with the hot spot still armed!”
Thud-thud-thud!
Like giant insects slamming against glass, deafening crashes filled the air.
The Larva King was hurling thousands of corpses against the shield barrier, trying to break it.
“That insane—!”
Ji-hwan sprinted toward the boundary.
But before he reached it, he saw the corpses of Kyung-hwan and his team—slaughtered right in front of the shield line.
Then he realized three massive problems:
The hot spot stuck to Kyung-hwan’s hand had rolled inside the shield.
Because of that, the Larva King kept summoning corpses to smash the barrier.
And finally—
Ziiing.
Thousands of corpses had nearly shattered part of the shield already.
“Damn it…”
Opening his phone, Ji-hwan pressed the emergency line to the Association.
“Larva King has appeared at the shield boundary! It’s breaking through—trace my location and get here fast!”
As he ended the call, sparks flickered in his eyes.
Then he realized the worst of it:
Even though this was near the dungeon entrance, Association Awakeners would need at least ten minutes to arrive.
And the shield wouldn’t last even five at this rate.
“Damn it… damn it!”
If the shield broke, everyone in the nearby residential district would die.
He didn’t care much about strangers—but the lady who ran Mom’s Hand Diner, who had treated him like family…
Even if he called her now, it was already too late.
“Daaamn it!”
Ji-hwan stepped inside the cracking shield and spread his arms.
A blue light radiated from his palms, forming a massive glowing barrier.
It was his only skill—Energy Field.
Thrum. Thrum. Thrum.
Perhaps startled by the sudden appearance of the field, the number of flying larvas began to drop.
“Please… just go away…”
He prayed desperately.
But his prayer went unanswered.
Thud. Thud.
The Larva King approached the weakened barrier.
It raised its enormous foot and stomped down on Ji-hwan’s field.
Crunch!
“Urgh!”
Blood burst from Ji-hwan’s mouth.
The force exceeded what his Energy Field could absorb—the backlash tore through his body.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
Each time the monster’s foot struck the barrier, more blood gushed out. His arms grew heavy. His vision dimmed.
“Am I… dying?”
