Nonhyeon-dong Dungeon Explosion Incident (1)

“Let’s see……. It was here.”

After peering at the map app on her phone, Hyeonseong lifted her head. The signboard for the Sinwol System Direct Store came into view.

Confirming she had arrived, Hyeonseong went straight inside.

-Welcome, customer!

As soon as she entered, a service robot that had been waiting near the entrance approached. It was the newest model among the customer-guidance robots manufactured and sold by Sinwol System.

-Do you need assistance? Tell me what you need, and I will help you.

With its text line, the robot displayed a simple menu as a hologram. Hyeonseong selected the product purchase menu. A detailed product list printed out. From the newly appeared menu, she chose smartphones.

-Smartphones are available for hands-on trials and purchase assistance on the 1st floor. Do you need directions?

“No, I won’t need that.”

Hyeonseong answered the robot’s question.

-Understood. We hope you enjoy your shopping. If you need help, please come find me again.

After finishing its guidance, the robot stepped back. Hyeonseong moved toward the section where smartphones were displayed.

‘So I could finally buy a new model.’

The Bone Wyvern (Remains) frame she had obtained in the dungeon where she killed the lich had sold for far more than she expected.

And the books and furniture she had grabbed indiscriminately during the raid had unexpectedly turned into money as well. Not all of it, but a few items sold for decent prices.

‘Luck was on my side. I could understand the books, but I didn’t think the furniture would sell.’

On top of that, they sold off as many byproducts as they could together. Thanks to that, she could now afford a high-spec device made by Sinwol System.

‘When all the record-type items got snatched away, I thought I’d gotten screwed again today.’

After entering the store, Hyeonseong began examining the phones on display.

‘More than anything, I had to check first whether Spirit of Cybernetics could be installed.’

Hyeonseong had come to buy a new phone for exactly one reason.

She needed a host device to summon the Spirit of Cybernetics.

‘I’d heard there were a few models that should work, but…….’

The day before visiting the store, she had done a customer consultation. Back then, they had recommended several high-spec models capable of installing the cybernetic spirit.

‘But they said it depends on the spirit.’

A suitable model could vary depending on the spirit’s rank and detailed traits. And to find that out, she had to bring the spirit directly—or bring the item that could summon the spirit and test it.

‘There had to be one here that matched.’

Checking the model names attached to the displays, Hyeonseong walked along.

When she found one of the models she’d heard during the consultation, she stopped and took out the cybernetic spirit summon ticket.

‘They said it would react on its own if I found a host I liked, right?’

Among spirits or summons that required a medium at the first summoning, there were individuals that could choose the medium they wanted to inhabit even before being summoned. The higher the rank, the stronger that tendency.

If its initial summoning rank was B, it should be able to pick an appropriate device on its own.

‘So this one is out?’

At the first model she tried, the ticket showed no reaction. Hyeonseong moved on to another model.

‘Not this one, not this one either……. It was supposed to react, right?’

She stopped once at each displayed model, but the ticket still gave no answer.

It was getting hard to tell whether there simply wasn’t a compatible model, or whether the spirit she could call with the ticket was just the taciturn type.

‘They recommended five, and four of them were already out. The last one was that, but…….’

Hyeonseong shifted her gaze to a display set apart from the others. The special display, even down to its case, stood out—and it showcased Sinwol System’s flagship top-spec special model.

Naturally, it was the most expensive phone sold here.

‘I did make enough money to put even that within budget, but…….’

A price tag she had seen yesterday on an online shop floated back into her mind. For some reason, Hyeonseong felt a chill at the back of her neck.

‘I wanted to end this with the cheapest option I could manage.’

Hyeonseong trudged toward the special display.

‘If this doesn’t react either, I’ll have to look again for Myeongseong’s model or something…….’

That was when it happened. The moment she stopped in front of the display, the ticket in her hand began to tremble.

“O…….”

A soulless exclamation slipped out of Hyeonseong. That spirit could recognize expensive things even before it was summoned.

‘Fine. If I looked at it positively, at least I could get it done today.’

After putting the ticket back into Infinite Corridor, Hyeonseong looked for an employee.

“Is there something you’re looking for?”

“Yes. I wanted to buy that model…….”

Hyeonseong pointed to the special model. The employee’s eyes flashed, and the whole process—swiping her card and activating the line—happened in an instant.

“Thank you! If you ever need a new device or dungeon-exploration support gear…….”

Letting the employee’s bright greeting go in one ear and out the other, Hyeonseong left the store.

‘Ugh. Phone salespeople, seriously…….’

She recalled the employee enthusiastically rattling off features and performance specs. Hyeonseong shook her head like she was sick of it.

‘Anyway, now that I bought it, I can go home and summon it…….’

As she looked for the bus stop, a Constellation message appeared in front of Hyeonseong.

‘What was wrong with this one again?’

Hyeonseong glared at the message with half-lidded eyes. She wondered what kind of trouble had come up this time.

‘What kind of Constellation learned to talk about “personal color” anyway……. Huh?’

Where it learned that expression was a secondary issue. What mattered was the other part.

‘This street is red……?’

The only red on this street would be bits of passersby’s clothing, or logos painted onto signboards.

So there was only one meaning she could draw from it.

‘It means a dungeon is going to open somewhere again?’

Hyeonseong scanned her surroundings. But she couldn’t see any immediate sign of a dungeon forming here. The messages were quiet too.

‘Is it somewhere else a bit away? Or is it later?’

As Hyeonseong continued to think.

‘Then give me a hint, you bastards.’

The two Constellations showed up as a pair again today, doing nothing but picking a fight.

‘……Either way, those two clearly won’t tell me anything until something actually happens, no matter how much I push. It’s faster if I figure it out myself or just wait until a message pops.’

Hyeonseong pulled out the new phone she’d just bought. Since activation and data transfer were already done, she could access the dungeon recruitment board with no problem.

‘This was Nonhyeon-dong, right?’

She searched for any active dungeons by entering the neighborhood name where she was standing. She quickly found traces of a few small, low-tier dungeons that had opened.

‘But these were either cleared already, or they looked like they were currently being raided…….’

As her thoughts reached dungeons that might still be in progress, a possibility flashed through her mind.

‘A dungeon explosion?’

If a dungeon wasn’t cleared in time, it would explode and the monsters inside would spill out. That fit perfectly with the “red street” line.

‘The warning message when it explodes is a deep red. The dungeon entrance color you see from outside then is like that too. And if you include the chaos once monsters spill out…….’

‘Which one?’

Letting the heckling messages wash past her, Hyeonseong accessed the recruitment board again. She needed to narrow down candidates among the listed dungeons.

‘If a proper raid team formed and entered, it wouldn’t be F or E rank. If it’s around D or C, there’s a chance an explosion incident could…….’

But Hyeonseong didn’t need to keep looking. The problematic dungeon wasn’t on the board at all.

“What?”

Hyeonseong jolted at the two lines that printed out without warning.

“W-what was that?”

“Didn’t it just say a dungeon spawned?”

“What the hell…….”

Hyeonseong wasn’t the only one startled. Other Awakened on this street also looked around in shock.

“A dungeon?”

“Where the hell…….”

Even civilians, seeing the flustered Awakened, began scanning around with tense eyes.

“Uh……!”

“Over there!”

Then a few people shouted loudly and pointed somewhere. Hyeonseong turned her head immediately.

A thin spatial crack was rising up over a manhole cover. The rising fissure was dyed a dark red.

‘That—trace of a dungeon entrance edge…….’

Hyeonseong’s gaze naturally dropped to the manhole cover.

‘……Don’t tell me the dungeon entrance is under there?’

KWAANG—!

The instant Hyeonseong realized where the entrance was, a thunderous explosion boomed.

Along with the blast, the spot with the manhole cover ruptured and a swarm of monsters burst out.

KRAAA……!

“Uh, uh…….”

“Aaaaargh!”

As a pack of chimeric beast monsters charged in with roars, the street turned into chaos in an instant.

“Run!”

“Kyaaaaargh!”

Terrified civilians fled in all directions.

“Damn it, what the hell happened……!”

“Why did a dungeon that just spawned explode?”

The Awakened were less panicked than the civilians, but they were just as confused. A dungeon exploding the moment it was generated was something that would shock anyone.

‘That aside, the spawn location itself was a problem.’

Most of the crack had manifested hidden under the manhole cover. If there hadn’t been a visible trace rising up, no one would’ve even known a dungeon had opened there.

‘This was malice from top to bottom.’

Hyeonseong dodged the swarm and pulled out her phone. She needed to call Hyeonju.

-What is it?

The moment the call connected, Hyeonju asked curtly.

“Put the Nonhyeon-dong branch on emergency standby.”

Hyeonseong stated her business immediately.

-A dungeon opened?

“It exploded.”

-What? There? Why?

Hyeonju asked in a voice that said she couldn’t understand.

It was an understandable reaction. This wasn’t some quiet low-population neighborhood—it was the middle of Seoul. Dungeon explosions weren’t common to begin with, and when they happened here, the damage would be enormous.

“I don’t know. It exploded the moment it opened.”

-I can’t really explain that.

“Yeah.”

Even now, screams and monster roars were echoing from every direction. There was no time for a calm explanation.

And even if there were, Hyeonseong couldn’t explain it. A dungeon that exploded at the moment of generation was something everyone here was experiencing for the first time—not just her.

-Got it. I’ll tell that branch right away. Should I tell Hyeonyeong too?

“Just pass along the situation.”

Hyeonyeong had separate guild-led dungeon raids in progress. Even if she called her, she wouldn’t have room to come.

-Okay. Be careful.

“Yeah.”

That was everything. Hyeonseong ended the call.

‘Potion-type items were covered with this. The problem was dealing with those things…….’

Hyeonseong began to evaluate the situation piece by piece.

KRHUHEONG……!

KKAAAAAAK—

The chimeric beasts that had burst out through the sewer were a mix of ground types and flying types.

The ground types attacked people with teeth, claws, and whipping tails, while the flying types looked for chances to snatch civilians who seemed easy prey.

‘Their ranks look roughly between C and A……. Then the exploded dungeon was at least B, maybe as high as S.’

Monsters released by a dungeon explosion often had their rank shift up or down by one step.

Accounting for that, the exploded dungeon could be estimated somewhere between B and S rank.

“Aaaaargh!”

“Help me……!”

“Sir over there! Don’t go that way!”

“It’s dangerous! Don’t shove the person in front of you—!”

Police who had rushed in tried to control civilians who were panicking.

But not many people followed the police directions properly. Countless people, possessed by the obsession that they had to escape, shoved others out of the way to run.

Some tried to flee blindly and instead shoved their heads straight into a monster’s jaws. Police receiving real-time reports blanched and tried to pull those people back, but it wasn’t easy.

“Here! Are there any more with combat traits?”

“What about the Hyeonghok Guild?”

“That side said the guildmaster’s bringing standby personnel……!”

“Call every nearby guild too! We can’t handle this ourselves!”

The Awakened weren’t standing still either. Combat-type Awakened were already fighting monsters in their own ways. Non-combat Awakened helped the police manage civilians while reaching out to nearby Awakened guilds.

KWAANG!

KREOAAAH……!

THUD!

“Aaagh……!”

“Help that person! Hurry!”

An Awakened fighting a quadrupedal chimera took a direct hit from a front-leg strike. Seeing the Awakened’s body fly sideways, other Awakened rushed in to rescue them.

‘There was no way the battlefield would look good.’

Even at the lowest estimate, the dungeon rank was B. A dungeon of that level exploded with zero preparation.

Compared to the raid difficulty, there was inevitably a severe shortage of combat manpower. There was no way the defense would hold.

‘For now, I should help too.’

KRHUHEONG……!

“Aah……!”

Two chimeras charged at one of the injured Awakened. Seeing that, others shouted urgently.

Hyeonseong sprinted into the middle of the chaos and unfolded an empty compartment of Infinite Corridor in front of them.