# Chapter 83
Lee Hwan walked for a while, carrying the monster corpses he had prepared, heading toward the valley terrain.
Unlike the previous cave gate, the water flowing here wasn’t exactly clean, but at least no monsters lived in it. That’s what the records said. Until certain conditions were met, the valley water would always flow calmly, and monsters wouldn’t easily appear, making it just a good spot to rest.
‘I think I remember something about vulture mimics and giant dragonflies swarming over the valley occasionally when some condition is met upon entry… But honestly, I can’t remember the details clearly, so I’ll have to try some tricks.’
He recalled that if several vulture mimic and giant dragonfly corpses fell into the deep section where the valley water dropped, something would change. Maybe new monsters would appear, or something would open up.
Normally, during combat, dead monsters falling here would have led to the discovery of a hidden room.
To think that even though it was a hidden room, his memory of it would be this vague. Perhaps it was because there wasn’t anything particularly interesting in the recorded information. Deliberate omission. If this was also Naru’s doing, they were truly remarkable.
‘No, maybe I’m the remarkable one. Despite my lack of interest, I didn’t even realize that Naru was such a cesspool…’
Lee Hwan sighed deeply and looked at the hand holding the string. After mentally preparing himself, he casually tossed the heavy monster corpses. The vulture mimics and dragonfly blocks, strung together like dried pollack, were thrown onto the dark green water, then sank as they were hit by the water falling from above.
And after some time passed.
Brrgrgrr-
Crack!
With the sound of something breaking, the water surface suddenly bulged, and then—
Splash!
A giant catfish leaped out of the water.
“Ugh!”
Lee Hwan shouted in surprise before quickly shutting his mouth. Before him, a massive catfish, easily two meters long, was thrashing about.
The catfish made loud gulping sounds as it devoured the monster corpses. In two or three gulps, all the corpses disappeared along with a large amount of water, leaving only the gentle breeze, the grotesque giant catfish, and Lee Hwan in the valley area.
The catfish, having finished its meal in an instant, twisted its tail fin greatly and turned toward Lee Hwan. Just when he thought it would leave after eating what he’d thrown, its house-sized mouth opened wide, and something like tentacles inside it suddenly shot out.
“Ughak, what the fuck!”
Disgusting. Lee Hwan jumped back in shock and cursed. Five or six tentacles attached to the inside of its mouth were moving like tongues.
He’d thought it was a catfish because of the whiskers around its mouth, but looking again, they weren’t whiskers at all. They were tentacles. Tentacles that writhed as if they had their own consciousness…
‘Why does this gate have to spawn only disgusting monsters, seriously.’
Lee Hwan brushed the back of his neck where goosebumps had formed and drew out his Dolpeung, shouldering it. He had bad memories of tentacles. He’d been caught by them once before, and that creeping sensation of being constricted was incredibly unpleasant.
Since it had summoned unpleasant memories without permission, this unidentifiable tentacled fish monster deserved to suffer a similar fate.
With malicious resolve, the battle began again.
Bang!
Boom-!
He set off explosions, thinking the fish would be weak to firearms. But surprisingly, the bombs weren’t effective. The monster quickly hid underwater, and even when explosions went off near its body, they strangely caused no damage.
Lee Hwan narrowed his eyes and looked closely, noticing that the fish’s scales were thickly coated with a slippery liquid. That seemed to be what was protecting it from his firearms.
Just to test, he threw a stone. As expected, the rock slid off without causing any injury and splashed into the water. The same would likely happen with a knife. He’d be lucky if he could even scratch those scales.
And whenever he showed an opening like this, those disgusting tentacles would shoot out with perfect timing.
“Aik, shit!”
Lee Hwan twisted his body nimbly to avoid them and burst out in irritation. The fact that he didn’t know about a monster like this meant it wasn’t in the monster guide.
They couldn’t pretend that continuously appearing monsters didn’t exist, so this creature was probably a one-time hidden room guardian that wouldn’t respawn in the dungeon.
This was a C-rank gate. That meant a group of hunters ranging from C to D rank had been able to defeat it easily, which meant Lee Hwan should be able to handle it too.
He rummaged through his bag and took out a large piece of beef jerky. The traumatic memory of his last stranding had made him pack more provisions than before. He threw the jerky over the valley as bait.
Splash- Plop!
The monster leaped toward the jerky. However, like before, it only briefly showed its body before quickly diving back in. Its tentacles extended to snatch the jerky when it couldn’t reach high enough.
It didn’t emerge as much as he’d hoped, but it was good that it responded to food. Lee Hwan looked around, picked up a stone, took out another piece of jerky, and tied them together tightly.
Crack!
Splash- Plop!
The monster jumped out and swallowed the bait again. A few seconds later, it spit the stone back onto the surface with a splashing sound. Despite its limited intelligence, it seemed to inspect and separate what it had in its mouth rather than swallowing everything. With those writhing tentacles.
‘A few seconds is enough.’
Lee Hwan took out a small bomb, wrapped it loosely with two or three pieces of jerky, and tied it tightly with the rubber band that had been holding the jerky. Tight enough that even those dexterous tentacles couldn’t easily untie it.
He removed the bomb’s safety device and threw it forcefully over the water.
Splash!
The monster jumped up again and swallowed the jerky bundle. As it sank underwater, barely a few seconds passed before—crack!—a sound like a popping balloon was heard.
The water’s surface rippled with a small vibration. Lee Hwan rushed to the water’s edge and saw what appeared to be chunks of catfish flesh rising to the surface, with a reddish color spreading from beneath the water.
“Wow, really…”
That’s gross and disgusting. Lee Hwan briefly commented to himself as he took a step back. Not because he couldn’t bear the sight, but because he had a feeling the monster wasn’t dead yet.
Right after Lee Hwan backed away, the monster leaped up with perfect timing. Its bloody mouth, with all tentacles severed off, tried to bite off Lee Hwan’s head but failed and fell back into the water with a growling sound.
‘It’ll die soon enough.’
In that brief glimpse, Lee Hwan saw that the monster’s gills were all burst open with holes punched through them. Now he just had to wait. Lee Hwan finally sat down to rest, taking out the remaining jerky and chewing on it earnestly.
The monster’s body floated to the surface nearly thirty minutes later. It certainly had a tenacious life befitting its size. Lee Hwan stared blankly at the red water with catfish fragments floating on it, then rose from his spot with a disturbed expression.
Before the monster appeared, he’d heard something breaking underwater. If that was the sound of it breaking through the entrance to a hidden room, Lee Hwan would probably need to go into that water.
‘Maybe I should have killed it more cleanly…’
Still, if there really was a hidden room down there, there was no reason not to enter. Lee Hwan sighed deeply, took off his jacket and placed it neatly on the ground, then slid into the water with a flashlight in hand.
An air layer formed around his head like an astronaut’s helmet. Thanks to this, he could slowly search the murky red valley floor while observing the unpleasant debris that didn’t touch his eyes or mouth.
‘That…’
Below where the water poured down and bubbles rose, a shattered rock caught his eye. Lee Hwan anxiously counted the time he’d been in the water and quickly swam toward it.
As expected, there was a hole like a dog’s den where the rock had broken. Shining his flashlight, he could see cave-like walls that appeared melted and uneven.
Lee Hwan unconsciously turned his body slightly and looked back, only to realize belatedly that there was no one behind him to examine the hole with. This was his first gate entry alone since the accident, and in this cold water, he was all by himself.
‘…Am I an idiot?’
As he rubbed his head in embarrassment, somehow a hot breath seemed to brush inside his throat. Lee Hwan shook his head vigorously to clear away useless thoughts and grabbed the entrance to the passage.
‘Let’s look around quickly and get out.’
Worried that there might be more monsters, he threw a few stones inside, but there was no response. Only then did he swim into the hole with some relief.
Rumble…
After passing through a short passage, he emerged into an air-filled dugout. It was a space about the size of a very small studio, with water sloshing up to just below his knees.
Splash, swoosh- splash… Every step he took echoed with water sounds. On the low ceiling, stones emitting a faint light were embedded, illuminating the dark cave at least a little.
Even though he hadn’t fully explored the surroundings yet, Lee Hwan felt a tingling sensation from the top of his head. He had felt this peculiar sensation many times before.
‘A hidden room…’
Though he had expected it, it still felt like his heart dropped.
These were two unusually suspicious gates among dozens. It was also something he would never have noticed without memories of the future. The previous place he’d uncovered contained attribute minerals that Naru had buried entirely. So what secret would be unearthed this time?
He’d heard there were no casualties, so whatever they’d buried and pretended not to know about wasn’t at least a human accident. Still, Lee Hwan kept looking around and tapping loudly as he moved around the small space, in case there were any trap mechanisms.
He also tied a rope to a protruding rock and let it hang down, so he could respond even if the floor suddenly collapsed.
On the carefully examined floor, giant scales were scattered here and there, and on the water’s surface, unknown mucus occasionally floated by. It seemed this place had been the habitat of the tentacled fish. Since there were no traces of prey, it might have been sleeping for a long time.
If so, could there be monsters that hadn’t awakened yet hiding somewhere?
Lee Hwan looked around and repeatedly turned his flashlight on and off several times. If something was watching, this would create confusion in its vision.
During one particularly long moment when the light was off, he discovered the floor glowing whitish in one corner.
“Huh…”
Unknown objects submerged in the water were glowing like fragments of the moon placed there. In the appropriately dark dugout where only what was right in front of you was visible, the sight appeared quite dreamlike.
Lee Hwan approached as quietly as possible, minimizing the splashing sounds, and picked up the objects one by one as they came into view.
A few raw stones with some luminescent components mixed in, the faintly glowing eyeballs of long-horned crickets, special scales that appeared to belong to the tentacled fish…
Things that looked mysterious from a distance turned out to be all junk upon closer inspection. However, one object buried under them exuded an ominous atmosphere even from its partially revealed form.
What he discovered was a gem, half-buried in the sand, glowing transparently.
Click… Splash!
Lee Hwan accidentally dropped his flashlight into the water.
