A-Rank Dungeon - ??? Apocalypse (13)

Kwa-jik!

Tuuwoong—

Ku-goong—

Kwon Seojin took down the androids that came down through the hole.

Right after, several beam shots rained onto the Infinite Corridor Hyeonseong had spread. The beams that ricocheted off the Corridor destroyed a few low-grade fighters.

‘So this really is an over–S-rank skill, huh?’

Kwagwagwang!

Another beam shot that bounced off the Infinite Corridor blew up a fighter.

It was basically the same as having an unlimited, zero-mana shield that reflected every physical attack.

She’d known from the circumstances that it was a tier above S-rank.

But this was practically the first time she’d felt performance worthy of that rating.

Of course, even an infinite subspace was absurd when you considered the restrictions of other subspace-type skills. But since it wasn’t a trait that produced flashy results, it was inevitable that she hadn’t really felt its power until now.

‘This skill definitely has more hidden in it…’

Teo-eong—

Ku-dangtang!

Tadadadadada

She wanted to think it through further, but this wasn’t the environment for it.

Bombardment kept falling onto the Infinite Corridor, and small androids and drones kept intruding through the ceiling hole.

Kwa-deuk!

Ji-jik—

Peo-eong!

A greatsword as tall as a person severed an android at the waist, and a spearpoint pierced its power core.

An android injected with lightning magic through its core collapsed with a small explosion.

So many enemies tried to breach that even the team members who were supposed to be handling monster herding had to join the fight.

They could protect Seona and the engineer thanks to that, but the battle inevitably bogged down.

‘And right now it’s hard to keep opening and closing this thing repeatedly.’

Kwaaang—

A beam shot—likely fired by an A-rank battleship—ricocheted off the Infinite Corridor. Somewhere outside, another explosion boomed, as if a fighter had been hit again by the deflected shot.

‘On that side…’

Hyeonseong briefly turned her gaze to the machine.

Seona was operating the device at a frantic pace. Every time she pressed something, all kinds of messages flickered across the screen.

Even the fragments she caught at a glance made it clear the situation wasn’t good.

‘The system’s playing power games.’

When they’d made the robots self-destruct at the central building, the commands had gone in cleanly. Now, they were being blocked for reasons like priority and “valid justification.”

There were no intervention messages from Constellations or the Interstellar Network. So this was the dungeon world’s central system at work.

As they failed to seize control from the central system, the Constellations started sending messages.

Among the ones enjoying themselves, a few occasionally brought up sponsorship.

‘If it comes down to it, we’ll have to steer this toward sponsorship…’

At minimum, they had no means of restraining the central system. There wasn’t even a hint of a lead inside the dungeon.

So if they couldn’t break the central system to the end, they’d have to borrow ability or items from Constellations.

‘Those sponsorship offers wouldn’t be coming only to me.’

Hyeonseong focused on Seona. She was the one actively fighting the system, so she’d be receiving far more proposals.

‘But it doesn’t look like she accepted any.’

If she’d gotten a proper sponsorship, they wouldn’t be stalling like this. By now, it would’ve shifted into a real authority battle—or they’d have successfully suppressed the central system altogether.

‘…So there probably aren’t any decent offers.’

In a situation like this, it was obvious what kind of terms would be attached—demands packed with coercion.

‘And she wouldn’t have the bandwidth to joke around and negotiate conditions anyway.’

Hyeonseong checked the others.

The engineer was supporting Seona, and the rest were dealing with the machines pressing into the building.

None of the fighters looked like they were performing a Constellation mission either.

‘Combat missions usually show up pretty clearly.’

In the end, the only one with room to talk sponsorship and Constellations was Hyeonseong herself.

Machine-related Constellations kept dangling bait.

Hyeonseong took a deep breath and looked back to Seona.

“Are we still far off?”

She asked Seona.

Even without asking, she could guess how it looked.

But she couldn’t demand sponsorship from Constellations without any “setup.” Those bastards cared obsessively about story beats and theatrics.

“Yes… It looks like they’re blocking other access in real time,”

Seona answered, sounding strained.

“Right now, is there no other way to break through?”

“No. We’d need a high-grade hacking skill…”

Seona trailed off. With her current skill level, it wasn’t enough.

Hearing Seona, the Constellations sent more messages.

“If it’s a high-grade hacking skill… the central system’s rank we confirmed was S, right? Even lowballing it, we’d need to be around that level.”

“Right… And that means it’s hard to get a skill or buff right now, too.”

S-rank skills, or buff items that temporarily pushed output to S-rank, were naturally extremely rare. Listings were scarce, and even if they existed, the prices were the kind you couldn’t dream of paying.

‘They know that too… so there’s a huge chance they’ll attach near-impossible missions under the name of ‘sponsorship’.’

So if she was going to extract something, it was better to do it in another direction than strengthening Seona’s hacking.

‘The other option is some kind of debuff that reduces the system’s performance?’

Cheaper than prying out an S-rank skill. Still, debuffing something S-rank wouldn’t come with a light price.

‘And it’s immediately usable in a very obvious way.’

If the sightseeing Constellations were even slightly generous, she’d have tried poking at it—but this wasn’t that kind of situation.

‘And it wasn’t just that swindler. They were all more or less the same.’

She could tell the overall temperament of the gathered Constellations from the forced missions near the central building and the sporadic messages so far.

The only Constellation she could call even remotely friendly was ‘Truth That Made the Plague God Kneel’—but that one didn’t have a trait useful right now.

‘What’s an alchemist going to know about computers or AI?’

It was a situation that forced her deeper into thought.

Because she said nothing at the right timing to draw sponsorship, the Constellations shoved more messages at her.

‘If there’s truly no other way, I’ll have to bite and haggle… but is there really no other method?’

After glaring at ‘Hands Faster Than Eyes’ and their prank, she thought a little more.

‘Why are they attacking us in the first place?’

The simple answer was that they saw them as intruders. That was the default in any dungeon, so it wasn’t something she usually needed to think hard about.

‘…No. Let’s look for another reason. What exactly are they hostile toward?’

There were more ways to avoid a monster’s unconditional aggression than people thought. They reacted to an Awakened’s element, and they also reacted to specific buffs or debuffs.

‘Like how undead might show less hostility toward a dark attribute, or treat someone under Ghostification as kin.’

If these mechanical monsters had a similar condition, she could exploit it.

‘If there’s a clear reason they attack humans, then we remove that reason.’

And Hyeonseong quickly thought of something that could qualify.

‘…The diary.’

She pulled the captain’s diary back out from the Infinite Corridor. Pages flipped quickly.

Her hand stopped at the point where the control system had gone berserk.

‘The system went berserk right when they were trying to withdraw the order to execute plague-infected citizens.’

According to the diary, the berserk control system soon began attacking all citizens indiscriminately.

In context, it meant either the system deleted the “infected by plague” condition, or it began treating all citizens as infected.

“Seona.”

Holding the diary open, Hyeonseong spoke.

“Yes, go ahead,”

Seona answered, still wrestling the central system.

“Can you talk, not hack?”

“Talk?”

Along with Seona’s question, Constellations’ confusion and complaints flew in.

“Yes. Talk. Ah—before that, there’s one thing I want you to confirm first.”

“What is it?”

“The most basic command assigned to those monsters. I think you can open that much.”

Before trying to address the central system, she needed to confirm that.

She had to know the foundational directive to decide the direction of “talk.”

“A basic command…”

Seona immediately operated the machine. Records related to directives came up quickly.

“…It’s an order to liquidate carriers of the Plague of Decay.”

She read exactly what appeared on the screen. The brutality of the wording put tension in her voice.

“Perfect.”

But for Hyeonseong, it was good news. At least they weren’t configured to exclude humans—or all living beings—unconditionally.

‘If the scope is limited, we can dig into that.’

“Then please check whether talking is possible, too.”

“Talking… you mean talking to that system over there?”

“Yes.”

She didn’t bother explaining further to Seona. She couldn’t expose the plan to the Constellations this early.

Seona worked the machine again, this time aiming to find a menu for communicating with terminals or auxiliary systems installed elsewhere.

“There is a menu to connect to the central government complex, but…”

Seona found one.

“I’m not sure if this can connect to the mayor’s office terminal specifically.”

“It probably can.”

If the command center couldn’t communicate with the central leadership, that would be the real problem.

“And if it can’t connect, couldn’t we send a message with a hacking skill?”

“That’s true. I can do that much. Then…”

Seona immediately attempted to contact the central government complex through the menu.

A connection animation appeared along with the message. Since it didn’t cut off immediately, it didn’t seem physically severed.

Not long after, the line connected. At least the other side was willing to pretend to listen.

“Can I type the message?”

Hyeonseong asked.

“Do you have something to say?”

“Yes. Something that might actually make them listen.”

Hyeonseong answered in a confident voice.

She wasn’t truly confident, but if she showed uncertainty, the Constellations would definitely try to pick at it.

“Then I’ll step aside.”

After showing her how to input a message, Seona yielded the seat. Hyeonseong took it.

She worked the console and briefly checked the menu.

‘There’s no function that hides the message on-screen.’

There was a function to encrypt right before sending, but nothing that masked the message like a password from the moment you typed it.

‘Well, of course. If you have to type an entire message with everything masked, how would you review it?’

It would’ve been nice, but it didn’t matter much.

Trying to hide it from Constellations that way would only buy a moment anyway.

After checking the functions, Hyeonseong began typing her message.