Chapter 33
[33] The Key
It happened in the blink of an eye, before I had any time to react.
The Dragon Bone Sword, which had been rapidly drawing energy from the sword’s lingering spirits, began to emit such a powerful force that it slipped beyond my control.
At last, the sword tore free from my grasp and flew through the air toward the statue in the center.
“Everyone, get out of the way!”
“W-What?”
“What is that—!”
At my urgent shout, the other Hunters turned to look.
They had probably never seen anything like this before, either.
A sword flying through the air on its own, beyond its user’s control.
The Hunters ducked or twisted aside, trying to avoid the Dragon Bone Sword, while Tae-seong, their leader, began casting a spell in case anything went wrong.
But before Tae-seong’s spell could take effect, the sword sliced through the air and struck the lower part of the massive statue with a loud clang.
And then—
The instant the sword pierced the statue, the countless clumps of sword spirits all stopped at once, as if they were one being.
“...!”
It had all happened in just a few seconds.
The sheer strangeness of it, something I had never experienced before and couldn’t make sense of, brought my thoughts to a halt.
Why had the sword suddenly flown off on its own?
How was I supposed to fight without it?
Should I move safely toward the statue where Tae-seong was, with the others covering me?
But that was the direction the sword had flown.
Wouldn’t that make it more dangerous over there?
...What was I supposed to do now?
In that single moment, so many thoughts tangled in my head that I felt as if my brain might short-circuit.
As the strange phenomenon continued, the Hunters began murmuring among themselves.
The monsters that had been attacking us had all stopped moving the instant the sword flew into the statue.
But the bizarre scene didn’t end there.
Suddenly, all the sword spirits began rising into the sky.
“Am I... seeing this right?”
“Good grief.”
“What on earth is about to happen...?”
Half wonder, half fear.
Every Hunter, myself included, stopped fighting and stared up at the sky in disbelief, murmuring among ourselves.
Gates were full of bizarre phenomena that humanity couldn’t yet understand, but...
I had never heard of anything like this happening anywhere.
Then, a little while later—
“Holy crap...!”
The color of the spirits, which had been giving off a gloomy black light moments earlier, began to change.
From a black as dark as pitch to a bright rainbow of colors.
“Whoa.”
The Hunters pulled out their phones and started recording the strange phenomenon. I turned the camera on the drone Sia had recently given me, capturing the scene in vivid detail.
And then—
A moment later, after releasing a blinding burst of light, like a supernova exploding,
the spirits vanished without a trace.
Once the spirits had suddenly disappeared, the Hunters turned their attention back to the ground.
The sword spirits, which had been appearing so relentlessly that we were sick of them, were gone.
“Tae-seong, we haven’t run out of time yet, have we?”
“No. We’ve still got about thirty minutes before the three hours are up...”
Tae-seong held his head at the Hunter’s question.
The monsters had suddenly vanished even though three hours hadn’t passed.
“I don’t know what just happened, either...”
While everyone stood there looking stunned—
“By the way, Minjun, your sword...”
Tae-seong pointed to the statue, where my sword was embedded.
“What happened to it?”
“I... don’t really know, either. I was swinging it like usual, and then it suddenly flew away.”
I could only guess that it had something to do with the dragon’s power. I didn’t know the exact reason myself.
For now, I headed toward the statue to find out what had happened.
The sword was lodged so deeply that only its hilt was visible.
Even so, one thing seemed strange...
The statue wasn’t cracked.
A sturdy sword made from a dragon’s bones had flown at what must have been over a hundred kilometers per hour and pierced the statue.
Could a statue really have taken no damage at all, no matter how sturdy it was?
As I wondered about that, the other Hunters gathered around to take a closer look at the sword stuck in the statue.
“Good grief.”
“How did it get embedded so cleanly?”
“Exactly. How is that even possible?”
While the Hunters stared in amazement and took pictures—
“There was already a deep groove here.”
Tae-seong spoke up.
“There was a groove here before?”
“Yes. I saw it when I first came here, about a year ago. There was a groove right around here.”
Tae-seong pointed to the spot where the sword was lodged.
We hadn’t had time to examine the statue closely earlier, so I guessed that was why I hadn’t noticed.
Tae-seong took out his phone, searched for a photo, and showed me one he’d taken before.
“Here. See?”
Just as Tae-seong had said, there had been a groove in the middle of the statue, exactly large enough to fit a single sword.
He told us how they had first discovered it.
“At first, I thought it was just a mark left by time. But when I looked closely, it was far too neat for that.”
Tae-seong had thought it must have been deliberately made when the statue was first built.
So, back then, he and the other members of his guild who had cleared this dungeon gate discussed what the groove might be for, but...
They never managed to uncover any secret hidden there.
Someone had even tried shoving something into the hole, but, of course, nothing happened.
Eventually, they’d simply stopped thinking about it.
“But now that this has happened, I’m curious again. Why did Minjun’s sword fly off on its own, and why did it happen to land exactly in that groove?”
Just then, Juwon, who had been quietly looking on beside Tae-seong, casually chimed in.
“Looking at it this way, maybe it was made to hold a sword from the start? It’s exactly the right size.”
Tae-seong scolded him for the suggestion.
“Why would anyone go and stick a sword in a statue?”
“Well, yeah, but... the groove fits so perfectly...”
Tae-seong had taken his offhand remark seriously, and Juwon scratched his head, looking embarrassed.
“I should tell Team Leader Jeong about this soon. The guild should probably look into it.”
Tae-seong muttered, almost to himself.
Then he looked at me and stepped aside.
“But first, we should pull your sword out.”
“Oh, right.”
With all the strange things happening one after another, I’d forgotten to retrieve my sword.
I grabbed the hilt and pulled.
Thankfully, it came out cleanly and easily.
But the instant the sword came free—
Rumble, rumble...
This time, the ground suddenly began to shake.
“Eek!”
“Ah, damn it! What now?”
As soon as the ground started trembling, everyone screamed and hurried away.
We’d already experienced two bizarre phenomena that most people would never see in their lives: a sword flying through the air and monsters vanishing.
We never imagined something else would happen.
But then—
“Why... is only that area shaking?”
One of the Hunters, who had run farthest from the statue, pointed at it with a trembling voice.
Just as he said, strangely, only the ground near the statue was shaking. Everywhere else seemed perfectly fine.
Before we could even wonder why, the ground near the statue suddenly began to split open.
As soon as it cracked, a staircase leading underground appeared.
“I’m getting tired of being surprised.”
“Wow.”
As the Hunter beside me said, one astonishing thing after another kept happening.
“I give up trying to understand what’s going on here.”
“Me too. My head’s pounding.”
While the Hunters shared their thoughts, I silently stared down the underground staircase, which seemed to have no end.
The dungeon’s name, “Garden of the Dragon Sword”; the Dragon Bone Sword that had suddenly flown from my hand into the statue; the sword spirits that had all vanished; and now this secret passage, which had only just been discovered today.
Could all of this really have happened by chance?
No way.
Considering everything, there was a good chance these strange phenomena had happened because of me.
If so, I had only one option.
No matter what, I had to go down those stairs and find out why all these “coincidences” had occurred.
But...
Would things really go the way I wanted?
To be realistic, I wasn’t the leader of this party, and I wasn’t even part of their guild. I was an outsider.
They had no reason to do what I wanted.
If we retreated and the guild sent an investigation team later, my chance to enter this dungeon would be gone.
Just as I was wondering how to persuade the others—
[The dungeon’s rank and clearance conditions have changed.]
A notification appeared before my eyes.
[Rank: D → EX
Clearance condition: Reach the lowest level of ***’s tomb, then ***]
It seemed the same notification had appeared before the other Hunters as well, because they began murmuring in confusion.
“...That’s impossible!”
“EX-rank?”
“Then how are we supposed to get out?”
“Tae-seong, what do we do now?”
It was utter chaos.
I had wanted to go down those stairs and uncover the secret sleeping inside this dungeon gate... but I hadn’t wanted things to unfold like this.
The rank “EX” was used when a dungeon couldn’t be classified between F and SSS.
In other words, the difficulty might have become incredibly easy... or it might have become almost impossible.
The latter is probably more likely.
That was why the Hunters here were panicking.
On top of that, the clearance conditions weren’t even clearly stated.
How were we supposed to clear the dungeon if we didn’t know what the conditions were?
While everyone was panicking, one of the Hunters suddenly grabbed me by the collar.
“This is all your fault, isn’t it? If it weren’t for your sword, this wouldn’t have happened!”
I could understand why he felt that way.
He was overwhelmed by the fear that we might fail to clear the dungeon and end up trapped here, possibly losing our lives. In a situation like this, it could be hard to think calmly.
But that didn’t justify what he was doing.
“Let go.”
I pried the Hunter’s hand off my collar.
At the same time, Tae-seong and the other Hunters tried to stop him.
“Seongmin, get a grip! Hey!”
“Kim Seongmin, what’s gotten into you?”
“Did Minjun deliberately trap us here? He’s stuck here too if we can’t get out!”
Only after the others pulled him away did the Hunter called Seongmin regain his composure and apologize to me.
“...I’m sorry. I know it’s not your fault, Minjun, but...”
“It’s fine. I understand.”
After that brief incident had passed—
“Well, I guess we’ll have to go down those stairs for now.”
I pointed toward the staircase, and Tae-seong nodded.
“It’s the only option we have.”
After letting out a deep sigh, Tae-seong opened his subspace.
“We don’t know what’s waiting for us down there, so let’s get ready before we go in.”
At Tae-seong’s words, some of the Hunters swallowed nervously and opened their subspaces, while a few others put on extra equipment.
After what had happened at the gate, Sia had upgraded all my equipment, worried that something might happen to me.
Still, since this was an EX-rank dungeon, I should bring everything I could.
I took out and equipped all the artifacts I could wear. I also packed a few elixirs, considered the best potions available.
Once we were ready, just before we entered the underground passage, I met the camera lens of the drone Sia had given me. I’d kept it running ever since we entered the dungeon.
Sia probably wasn’t watching me live right now.
Even so, for some reason, that camera felt just like Sia’s eyes.
I’ll be back soon.
I wished Sia could have been here with me.
Still, having the drone camera with me made me feel strangely reassured.
All right. Let’s go.
To uncover the secrets surrounding this tomb.