Chapter 81
“Uh, what else are you going to take…”
“Not now, though.”
I answered with a gentle smile towards him, trembling with fear.
“Let’s keep this favor as a burden deep in your heart, and repay it in about 10 years.”
For the final battle between humanity and the evil gods, my companions and I alone won’t be enough.
We need to secure as much strength as possible.
The Ganghwa Island survivor camp will surely be a great help then.
Leaving behind Seo Jae-hyun, who nodded visibly relieved at my words that I wouldn’t take more for now, we finally left Ganghwa Island.
Just as we were leaving the island in our camper van.
“Are we going to Mount Baekdu now?”
Baek Yi-heon, who was sitting next to me, asked.
He was asking if we were going to chase after Rahab.
Through the tracking device we secretly attached, we found out that Rahab was heading to Mount Baekdu.
The signal was cut off shortly after arriving there.
As we expected, they probably found the tracking device soon after.
“What are Yoo Hyun-min and his apostles plotting there?”
Lee Yu suddenly asked from behind, listening to our conversation.
We had been debating what to call the dolls Yoo Hyun-min made, and decided to call them ‘apostles’ from now on.
“What does it mean that Yoo Hyun-min isn’t an avatar?”
“If he hasn’t made a contract with an evil god, how can he wield such power?”
“And to create humans, even if they’re dolls…”
“The most suspicious thing is that the prophecy book called the ‘original’ was on his bookshelf.”
“To be able to ‘read’ the future…”
My companions spat out questions one after another.
They probably couldn’t speak up actively until now, watching my reactions.
Baek Yi-heon gave a very simple answer to all these questions.
“Won’t we find out when we get to Mount Baekdu?”
As expected of a combat-type awakened who made a contract with the Yaksha.
Although he looked calm, it was a manly answer from someone with a heart hotter than anyone else’s.
But.
“No.”
A firm answer came out from me, who was driving.
Yoo Hyun-min didn’t choose Mount Baekdu as his base for nothing.
In Cheonji (Heavenly Lake) there, resides a dragon, known as the most powerful monster.
“If we go in this state, we’ll all die.”
“… Is the difference in power that great?”
I nodded, looking at my companions through the rearview mirror.
In the original story, Baek Yi-heon visited Mount Baekdu in the latter half, after becoming much stronger than now.
And that was with much more powerful companions.
We need to grow stronger. Much stronger than now.
I muttered with a grave face as I gripped the steering wheel:
“You all need to become f*cking strong from now on.”
“Fu…”
Baek Yi-heon, the moral compass, muttered quietly, detecting the bad word.
Ignoring him, I continued.
“In this crazy apocalyptic world, not a single one of us should die.”
And I’ll make sure of that.
Absolutely.
[(Messenger) Indra cheers for your determination.]
Hearing the supreme god’s nonsense, further enhanced with the synchronization rate, I stepped hard on the accelerator.
Yes. I’ve definitely changed.
From a person who only knew myself, to a person who knows us.
“So, let’s go level up our skills!”
Now there’s nothing more to hide from them, let’s try using some original story information!
💎
10. Leveling Up Together
The camper van relentlessly headed north.
“Isn’t this Paju?”
Choi Kkang-kang asked, suddenly poking his head between the driver’s and passenger’s seats.
His expression was very wary.
“Why? Don’t tell me you still…”
“I have no more attachment to the shelter.”
I answered calmly.
It would have been destroyed by the apostle called Adam or whatever anyway.
“Then why…”
Instead of answering, I just smiled.
My destination was the publishing complex in Paju.
After driving through occasional wandering monsters with the barrier stone attached:
“Ah, there it is.”
I stopped the car in front of a quite large, massive building.
Fortunately, the building I was looking for was still standing intact.
‘Well, considering what’s inside, monsters wouldn’t have destroyed this.’
“Let’s go inside.”
“Where is this place?”
Choi Kkang-kang, following behind me, immediately answered his own question.
“…A library?”
It was a space filled with bookshelves reaching the ceiling and books tightly packed inside them.
“Follow me.”
I moved without hesitation, scanning the library.
Where would ‘it’ be…
After thoroughly searching the vast bookshelves for a while, I soon exclaimed happily.
“Ah, found it.”
The bookshelf contains copies of the ‘Annals of the Joseon Dynasty’, a product of great records.
I unhesitatingly pulled out a book from the third shelf.
“Hey, aren’t you going to explain what this place is?”
“Well…”
At that moment.
From the empty space where the book was pulled out, a black light gushed forth.
Then that light rushed towards us as if reaching out!
Baek Yi-heon, with surprising reflexes, immediately drew his molar blade.
I smiled gently at the surprised group.
“It’s okay. We won’t die. This is…”
Before I could finish my explanation, the scene before our eyes changed.
[(Messenger) Entered the hidden dungeon ‘Tree of Wisdom’.]
[Dungeon difficulty estimated at C-rank.]
[*Caution! The dungeon’s difficulty may vary depending on the subject.]
My companions, who were pulled into the dungeon with me, looked around.
“…Where is this?”
“It’s a place called the ‘Tree of Wisdom’.”
Each dungeon is influenced by its location and environment.
Before our eyes was a massive tree, unlike anything we’d ever seen.
A tree so lush it seemed to cover the entire sky.
And the path to that tree was a maze made of adult-height bushes in a complex pattern.
“On that tree hangs all the knowledge of the world.”
Looking closely, books were hanging abundantly on the trunk of the massive tree instead of leaves or fruit.
“If we pass through that maze and reach the tree, we can obtain the information most needed for us right now.”
“…..!”
“I didn’t know such dungeons existed.”
I nodded at Yu’s words of admiration and explained.
“Yes. This is a dungeon, but it’s more like a database created by the evil gods.”
It was somewhat different in nature from other dungeons set up to kill humans.
That’s why it was hidden in a space between bookshelves that would never be discovered under normal circumstances.
It was so well hidden that even Baek Yi-heon in the original story never discovered this place.
‘Come to think of it, that novel was strange.’
Unlike other novels, it was more like a settings book.
It was full of explanatory notes about what happened when and where, and what was where.
‘As if it was written with the purpose of informing someone…’
“Then, can we obtain all the information we want from this place?”
I was momentarily lost in thought.
Awakened by Baek Yi-heon’s question, I quickly gathered my thoughts and answered.
“No. Causality wouldn’t allow that.”
I added, somewhat cynically.
“Here, we can only obtain one piece of information that’s most necessary for us.”
“Just one…”
Also, the reason why I could confidently bring my companions to this dungeon…
There are no monsters here, so there’s no worry about dying.
“Have you ever gotten so absorbed in a book that you lost track of time?”
The drawback and advantage of this dungeon is that time flows differently for each person.
I smiled gently and slowly pushed my companions toward the maze.
“Now then, let’s go get what each of us needs most… For example, a skill book, or something like a skill book!”
Preferably something powerful and well-suited to oneself!
I smiled and pushed them into the maze.
💎
Thank you for reading! ♡
