LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 13: Baek-ui Maze
‘I close my eyes and open them again to find myself in another world. Unbelievable.’
I hadn’t realized it before, but looking closely, it seemed I was inside some kind of building.
A high ceiling that felt like it could accommodate mythical giants, and a white corridor.
Behind me and to the sides were walls blocking any escape, with a straight path leading only forward.
“Is this really inside a gate?”
How could a frail creature like me, without even a single fireball spell, get through this predicament?
‘Save me, aliens…’
I really don’t want to end up in the worst-case scenario of encountering a monster at a dead end.
I started to walk while trembling.
A little while later, I arrived at a peculiar location.
“Hmm?”
A square room with four paths branching out.
The path directly ahead was blocked by a massive door that I couldn’t even begin to push with my strength.
The remaining three paths were completely clear, one of which was the way I had just come from.
“Something’s written here.”
But what caught my eye more was the monument stuck right in the center of the room.
I bent down to inspect the mysterious stone tablet.
At that moment, footsteps began echoing from the side corridors.
Thud, thud, thud!
‘Yikes!’
There are other beings here.
Being not alone is sometimes comforting, but it also induces a sense of terror.
I flinched for a moment…
‘Huh? Those are Earthling footsteps?’
Thud, thud, thud!
Before long, the owners of the footsteps revealed themselves.
From the left emerged a large human figure who looked to be in his thirties.
The person from the right seemed a bit younger than me, with a neat appearance.
Fortunately, I recognized one of them.
“Kang Chang-ho?”
“Hmm?”
I called his name absentmindedly, and Kang Chang-ho waved lightly.
Why he was here didn’t matter for now, but there was still one person left.
‘Black hair, black eyes. Quite typical.’
As I tried to guess who the figure on the right might be, Kang Chang-ho suddenly spoke up.
“Oh, Jeong Ha-seong!”
He greeted the person standing across from him cheerfully.
“I heard you were in Singapore?”
“I returned today.”
But if his response was that stiff, they didn’t seem too close.
“Do you two know each other?”
I walked over to them and threw out a simple question.
However, the two talking suddenly turned their heads towards me with startled expressions.
Why?
“Kim Gi-ryeo Hunter. Just asking, but you don’t know who Jeong Ha-seong is?”
I’ve only been on Earth for two weeks; how could I know?
That was something I couldn’t say out loud, so I kept my mouth shut.
Then Kang Chang-ho laughed, as if he had seen something amusing.
“Haha! Did you see? He really doesn’t know you!”
“……”
“This means you should probably be more active out there. Look, right in front of you is a Hunter who doesn’t seem to know what Jeong Ha-seong even does.”
What kind of person draws such reactions?
Not knowing the context left me speechless, and as they introduced themselves, a cold sweat trickled down my back.
“Anyway, if you two don’t know each other, it might get cumbersome with titles, so let me introduce. Here, this is Jeong Ha-seong.”
“Ah…”
“He’s ranked number one among Korean Hunters.”
What the heck.
“Outside, he’s called a National Hero, yet you’re saying you don’t know him. Let’s gloss over that.”
This guy is far more impressive than I expected.
What if they find out I’m an alien? Worrying, I glanced over at Jeong Ha-seong.
However, he remained silent, with a cold expression.
“And Jeong Ha-seong, this is Kim Gi-ryeo Hunter. His rank is F-Class.”
“Oh, hello.”
“Yeah.”
Jeong Ha-seong’s gaze lingered on me for quite a while.
Then he asked briefly, “Did you both also get pulled to this place suddenly?”
Seeing us nod, Jeong Ha-seong seemed to ponder for a moment before fiddling with the watch on his wrist.
Suddenly…
“Oh.”
A rectangular blue screen appeared in Jeong Ha-seong’s view.
It looked holographic or maybe made of light, but it was definitely something lit up.
[Unidentified Gate]
[Description: No gate information available.]
[Rank: EX]
Could that also be an analyzer?
‘Is this Earth’s level of technology…’
I never expected there could be such a sleek-looking analyzer.
I admired while sneaking a peek at the screen, and Jeong Ha-seong nodded as he read the text.
“It’s definitely inside a gate. The rank is Extra. This is troublesome.”
What did EX-Class mean again?
I attempted to pull out the device in my pocket and search for the unfamiliar term.
However, my mobile phone’s screen was glitching with rainbow colors and didn’t operate properly.
“Oh no, I came in without a protective case. If I don’t get out quickly, interference will ruin my phone.”
From what Kang Chang-ho said, it seems normal electronics are difficult to use inside a gate.
‘Then I have no way to contact Ahn Yoon-seung?’
I swallowed dryly and hugged my phone tightly.
Silence followed.
“Could you come over? There’s something written on the stone tablet.”
It was Jeong Ha-seong who broke the silence.
Kang Chang-ho and I walked toward the central item in the room upon his summons. On the strange stone there were words inscribed.
An intriguing message…
“Could this be a hint needed for clearing?”
From their expressions, it seemed this place wasn’t just about defeating monsters.
“It looks like the only direction we can proceed is through that door, so let’s go check it out.”
I thought if I opened my mouth randomly, it would reveal my empty head.
I forcibly adopted a taciturn attitude and followed behind Jeong Ha-seong, and the place we arrived at next was indeed this room.
‘Isn’t this exactly the same?’
After escaping a white room, I found another enormous white room.
However, the detailed structure was different.
There was only one exit. And instead of the stone tablet, there was something else.
Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be a lion statue with its mouth wide open.
It seemed there was a round opening in its mouth.
“This hole is just the right size to stick in a person’s arm.”
Kang Chang-ho, who was standing behind me, casually mentioned looking at the statue, but no one dared to try inserting their hand.
Am I crazy enough to stick my hand in a lion’s mouth? Especially when I’m already uneasy about being inside a gate.
“…Kang Chang-ho Hunter. Please assist me for a moment.”
“Me?”
But just at that moment…
Standing at the exit of this room, Jeong Ha-seong requested help with an expressionless face.
It might have seemed like a trivial request to him, but the ensuing situation was shocking.
“I can’t open this door by myself.”
An S-Class Hunter. Do they know what kind of existence these are on Earth?
These magicians, blessed with remarkable talent among those exposed to magic power, possess what could only be described as monstrous abilities.
Yet here we were, with two S-Class Hunters gathering…
‘Insane.’
They can’t even open a single door.
Minutes passed.
After Jeong Ha-seong unleashed a burst of magic onto the door as a last resort, we concluded one thing.
‘We can’t open it by force!’
So, what should we do to get it open?
As various methods failed, our gazes naturally converged on one spot.
‘No way…’
We glanced at the lion statue in the center of the room.
In this vacant room, the only thing we could attempt was that lion statue.
“Should we try breaking it?”
Several attempts followed, but we neither scratched the lion statue nor managed to open the door; we remained isolated.
Ten minutes passed like this.
‘We came here without any preparations, so if it goes on like this, the food supply…’
With my name being Kim Gi-ryeo, I was highly sensitive to the impending risk of starvation, and just then, perhaps Jeong Ha-seong was thinking the same, as he stepped forward towards the lion statue.
And cautiously, he inserted his hand into the hole of the lion’s mouth…
“…!”
At that moment, the lion’s once-white eyes turned red.
Immediately, the heavy door that hadn’t budged began to slide open smoothly.
“Oh.”
“It opened.”
But wait…
The expression on Jeong Ha-seong’s face as he withdrew his hand from the lion statue looked strange.
He seemed… flustered about something.
“What’s wrong?”
Upon a closer look, I noticed his hand had deep red bite marks as if bitten by a beast.
Jeong Ha-seong showed his hand’s wound and spoke.
“I’ve had my blood sucked.”
“What?”
“I accidentally pulled away out of surprise, but even trying to yank it free didn’t work. It’d be faster to just cut off my shoulder.”
Fortunately, it seemed the amount of blood sucked was minimal, as he casually proceeded to the next room without any fuss.
‘Somehow, I feel like a giant lab rat in a white experiment. Everything is so blank.’
However, what unfolded in the next room was mind-boggling.
“……”
“……”
Jeong Ha-seong and I were left speechless at the sight beyond the door.
Because, lo and behold, the same lion statue we had just seen stood right in the center of the room.
‘Are we expected to do that again?’
Did the creator of this gate perhaps watch Roman Holiday and get very inspired?
‘Ugh.’
Regardless, Jeong Ha-seong forwent any hesitation, not intending to linger in this dungeon, and plunged his arm into the statue again.
The door opened once more.
‘Phew, at least thanks to this, we’re somehow moving forward.’
If you stick your arm into the lion statue, the door opens.
Simple and straightforward. A puzzle even a rat could solve.
“Oh, there’s a lion statue in the next room too. Should we just repeat the same action to proceed?”
Thus, it seemed I had relaxed a bit.
“Kang Chang-ho Hunter, I have something to discuss.”
But the few words that came next from Jeong Ha-seong changed the mood to one where tension was ripe for explosion.
“Could you open the next door instead?”
“Why?”
“The amount of blood taken from the statue has increased.”
“……”
“The first time, it was nothing, but the second time, I felt a bit dizzy.”
“Really?”
“And dungeons usually require progressively more.”
“Let’s take turns then.”
He proposed in a polite manner, but Kang Chang-ho retorted sardonically.
“Hmm. You’ve been doing fine so far, so just keep leading till the end.”
To which Jeong Ha-seong coolly replied, as if expecting this.
“You’re being uncooperative in the strategy.”
“Do you not know my Hunter ranking?”
“I haven’t cared about pointless titles that rank based on the number of gate closures.”
Scrreeech, a sharp metallic sound echoed from somewhere.
It was the sound of Jeong Ha-seong drawing the sword he had at his waist, and Kang Chang-ho watched it loosely.
“I’ll ask one more time. Kang Chang-ho Hunter, let’s switch.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Shall we test if a severed arm can open the door?”
Hmm.
At this rate, these two might just end up fighting.
“Um…”
I barely inhaled as I tried to intervene, but the following words of the Hunters made me swallow hard.
“Jeong Ha-seong, consider my position as well. If we keep switching and it just happens to be my turn when the blood loss reaches life-threatening levels, how would that work? I should at least have the privilege to choose my timing, right?”
Right. Why didn’t I think of that sooner?
Everyone in this room was slowly catching onto the gate’s nature.
This place had a structure where one could only proceed by sacrificing the blood of a human. And the holes that drained the blood were only wide enough for one person’s arm.
In other words, the solution to this dungeon was that one person had to serve as the offering.
I finally started to recall just how dangerous an EX-Class could be.
Yeah. I had skimped through a story like that. So, the survival rate was around 60%, or so it went.
In short, this place might just be free of monsters, but it was certainly not a safe haven.
One could potentially die from having all their blood sucked out by a lion statue, just as Kang Chang-ho suggested.
Now I faced a minor problem.
“Hmm.”
I was trapped in a ‘gate that forced the sacrifice of one of the people who entered with me.’
What were their awakening ranks again?