Chapter 10 – To the Dungeon

Woojin grinned as he looked at his phone.

“This is great.”

He purposefully gave him a fake phone number…

Since he already knew where he lived, Woojin wasn’t worried about meeting him again. He had been wondering how to ask Jaemin if he could stay over for a couple days. However, it seemed like he could be a little shameless now.

He had earned a great excuse.

Woojin walked lightly towards Jaemin’s rented room.

*

“Whew.”

Do-jaemin let out a sigh as he saw the kids slowly look away from his gaze. It was great that the bullies didn’t bother him anymore, but now his other normal classmates avoided him, except one person.

He was eating lunch by himself on a 6-man table when someone put a tray in front of him.

“Hey, I heard your big brother beat up all the bullies. Is it true?”

Jaemin sighed when Lee-soolgi asked her question. He admitted Soolgi was pretty even to him. However, he had to focus on studying. If he started dating someone, then it would be a betrayal towards his hard-working sister.

“Let’s just eat.”

“Hehe. Is it true he is your older cousin?”

He guessed weird rumors were going around. Before Jaemin could explain the situation, Soolgi laughed lightly.

“Heh heh. I thought you were just handsome, but you also have some backing. Lee-soohyuk won’t bother us again.”

His guilt toward his sister wasn’t the only reason why he tried to distance himself from Soolgi. Everyone in the school knew Lee-soohyuk, the bully, had a crush on Soolgi.

However, Soolgi didn’t even look at Soohyuk. She only hung around the handsome Jaemin, so of course, Soohyuk wouldn’t look kindly at Jaemin.

Jaemin had put up a steel wall towards Soolgi, so he could act tactful in front of Soohyuk.

‘I don’t need to act tactful any more.’

Woojin wasn’t really his older cousin, but even if that rumor spread, it wasn’t a bad thing. The bullies won’t be able to do anything to him.

Jaemin decided to look at the positives. He didn’t have to walk on eggshells any more.

“Do you like me?”

Jaemin looked at her with a dumbfounded expression when she asked her straight-forward question. Why was this girl so aggressive?

Soolgi’s smooth brows furrowed, then she pouted.

“What? Am I not pretty?”

Of course, you are pretty. However, he couldn’t boldly say it with his mouth.

“Eh-he. Let’s just eat.”

Study over dating. It wasn’t too late for him to date after he got a job. After the lunch period ended, Soolgi bothered him for a long time. Jaemin broke free from her, then he headed toward his tutoring school.

Rrring.

“Uh, big sister.”

His sister, Do-jiwon, always called him around the time he headed toward his tutoring school.

[Is everything ok?]

“Nothing much. Oh yeah. I met a strange big brother yesterday. He said he was 5 years my senior, and he was an alumni of my school. Do you know him? He said his name was Kang-woojin.”

His sister was also an alumni of Mido High school. Now that he thought about it, his sister was 5 years his senior, so she should have been in the same grade as Woojin.

[Huh? Woojin? He was a kid who suddenly went missing before the Dungeon Shock…..]

Jiwon remembered Woojin. However, she knew of his existence only because the entire school had known he had gone missing. During her school days, it wasn’t as if she was close to him.

“Uh, you know about him, big sister. I’ll give you a more through explanation when you come home this weekend. That big brother helped me out a little bit..”

[Ok, Jaemin. Sister’s break time is over. Study hard.]

During her 3rd year in high school, his big sister was already busy working at the factory.

His big sister was the reason why he could go to school without worrying about his living expenses. Jaemin was also able attend a tutoring school. His sister, who was 5 years older, was both his mother and father.

She was the driving force fueling him to study hard.

“Oh yeah. He said he would give me my money back, but he just went away..”

Jaemin grinned before he knew it when he thought about Woojin.

He seemed to be crazy person, but he also didn’t seem like a bad person. He was really scary when he was beating up the bullies, but he had been nice to Jaemin.

Woojin’s beating of the bullies was well worth the 7300 won. From the beginning, he didn’t plan on taking back the money. However, Woojin had promised numerous times that he would repay him yet he had left without doing so. This thought made him laugh.

Ddi-dik, Ddi-rori.

After the tutoring school had ended, Jaemin dragged his tired body home when his eyes became round.

“Uh?”

He saw shoes he had never seen before. Moreover, that person was lying on his bed eating a tangerine.

“You are back, Jaemin?”

“B..big brother. How did you know my secret pass-code?”

“I saw it last time when you pressed it.”

“This…this is trespassing.”

“Ah, I tried to call you, but someone else answered the phone.”

“That…that is.”

As if he felt guilty, Jaemin stuttered when he spoke.

He really thought he would be extorted and put in a bad situation, so he had given him a fake number….

“Bitch. Do you think I’ll hit you? Just come over here. I have something I have to ask you.”

Jaemin was nervous, so he sat rigidly. It was a strange scene where it looked like the ownership of the house had been switched. Woojin popped a peeled tangerine in his mouth as he asked a question.

“You said the Roused make a lot of money?”

“Th…that’s true.”

“I read there were guilds, associations and a lot of things like affiliations. I’ve also read some Dungeons were disclosed to the public, and it was monopolized. Explain it to me.”

It was such an out-of-the-blue question that Jaemin tilted his head in confusion.

“Why are you asking about that all of a sudden?”

“I want to attack the dungeon.”

“Big brother is one of the Roused?”

Jaemin asked in surprised, then he kicked himself. Woojin had defeated over twenty bullies in a flash. If he wasn’t a Roused, his god-like movement couldn’t be explained.

He believed him like an idiot. He thought he had learned martial arts on the Jiri Mountain.

“I just need some money. Tell me what you know.”

“If you want to enter a private dungeon, you have to register yourself with the Association as a Roused.”

Originally, Jaemin already had a lot of interest in the Roused and the Guilds. No, it could be said every male around his age was interested in this topic.

Woojin quietly heard his zealous explanation, while he peeled another tangerine.

“So I just have to register myself as a Roused, then I can make the most money by attacking the Dungeon by myself?”

At Woojin’s words, Jaemin hit his chest as if he was frustrated. Did he even listen to his explanation?

“That is how the rate is calculated. However, it is too dangerous, so it would be best if one joins a Guild. If not, you could get a job at the Association or government bureau.”

“I hear you have to take an entrance exam for a Guild? I don’t have time to wait for the result. Doesn’t the Associations, and government bureaus all work on monthly salaries? I can’t wait for a month.”

Jaemin shook his head.

“Then, at the very least, you have to form a party. Dungeons are a really dangerous place. Oh yeah. You said you bought a cell phone? Be sure to download this app.”

“App?”

Woojin wasn’t familiar with smart phones, so Jaemin downloaded the app in his stead.

“I’ll do it for you. Uh? This is Gallery1. Wow, people still use this. Did one of your family member use this?”

“Is..isn’t that the newest model?”

“What? Maybe if it was 4 years ago. Did you perhaps buy it as a new item?”

At Jaemin’s reaction, Woojin knew he had been duped.

‘That mother fucking phone salesman.’

He conned the ultimate necromancer. If this was Planet Alphen, such an event was unthinkable.

“Ah, this is so slow. Anyways, this is the Dungeon Forum. Originally, this was the subway info app. However, the Roused Association purchased it, and they remade it. Now it is a comprehensive portal app that deals with everything related to the Dungeons. ”

Jaemin prattled on as he dumped out all the info he had. As he had said, the Dungeon Forum was a comprehensive app.

It had a section for hiring members to attack Dungeons. It also had a function where one could search for Dungeon in its attack time period. It also warned people of a dangerous Dungeon where a Dungeon Break will occur soon.

“Once you register as a Roused with the Association, you will log in with your Roused ID. It’ll even give you a record on who failed during mid-dungeon attack.”

“Hmm.”

Woojin fiddled with the app to learn how to use it.

“Anyways, I just need to search for a Dungeon in mid-attack, then I can challenge it?”

“I heard it is safe to go to a captured Mine.”

It displayed information about the captured Dungeon Mines. It gave the location of the most important item, the Return Stone. It also listed which monster appeared and it was much easier to form a party. It was considered to be comparatively safe.

The problem was he had to give a fixed amount of loot he found in the dungeon to the Guild or Roused, who first successfully captured the Dungeon. He also had to give a fixed service charge to the Association, and another commission to the first person who captured the Dungeon.

Since Woojin hadn’t recovered his previous power, he thought it was a good choice to enter a captured Dungeon with an exploration term. The problem was coming up with the entrance fee he had to pay when he entered the Mine for the first time. It was a burdensome sum for the current Woojin.

Since one had had to risk one’s life during a Dungeon Attack, everything was free. The Mine was a gold mine where one could get items, monster’s corpses and blood stones. Therefore, it required an incredible amount of commissions, and entrance fees.

“So a dungeon where I could make a fair amount of money has an entrance fees that is over 100,000 won?”

“T…that’s correct.”

There were numerous Dungeons with higher fees, but there were no Dungeons below it. The free Dungeons were abandoned Mines like the Gwachun Station’s 1st exit, where one couldn’t make any money.

Woojin thought about it. He could challenge a Dungeon in mid-capture to get a sizable windfall, or he could aim for a safe captured Mine with less profit.

He agonized over the decision, but his answer was decided. The thought of his family prevented him from doing a reckless challenge. He wasn’t some apostle of justice. He had no reason to put his life on the line to clear a Dungeon in mid-capture.

Moreover, he couldn’t return to his mother to ask for the entrance fee…..

“Let me borrow some money.”

“…….”

At the bold Woojin’s words, Jaemin felt like he had fallen into a trap he couldn’t escape from.