Chapter 44
I felt very wronged.
But how could I explain this situation?
A person who was imprisoned here managed to escape just by kicking the bars?
And that person disappeared in an instant?
Even I thought it was full of unbelievable words.
Just as I was trying to explain somehow while sweating profusely.
Ding!
[DUNGEON GUIDE] 00:30:00 until ‘Protect Faction from External Intruders – Stage 1’ begins
[DUNGEON GUIDE] All faction members are requested to return to their respective factions.
The second dungeon guide I’ve seen appeared.
A ‘dungeon guide’ different from the ‘survival guide’ given to me from the beginning.
What could be the difference, and why does only I get this ‘survival guide’? I wondered, but it wasn’t the time to focus on that.
After sighing, I looked at Lim Yuchan again.
“Let’s go to the faction first.”
The urgent matter now is the quest given by the ‘dungeon guide’. Just as I was about to move.
“Wait.”
Huh? Lim Yuchan stopped me.
“I need to be moved too.”
“What…”
“To your faction.”
Ah.
By this point, I had doubts. Cha Si-hyeon, Baek Doha, and even Lim Yuchan chose to be with me as if it were natural.
“Even if my faction is currently in first place, I might not be able to protect myself from people aiming for the top faction.”
Although we were together in the first dungeon… We don’t necessarily have to continue being that way, right? They could abandon me at any time.
“There’s a high chance I’ll lose the first place faction emblem to someone else. Will you still come?”
“So what.”
Lim Yuchan said calmly.
“I’m not going to your faction because it’s first place.”
“Why…”
“It doesn’t matter whether the chances of your emblem being taken are high or low.”
Even though we haven’t spent a long time together, and I haven’t been of much help.
“I’ll protect it.”
That’s what Lim Yuchan said.
“If the emblem is taken, we’ll just take it back.”
He reached out and grabbed my hand, which was wandering in the air.
As our palms overlapped top and bottom, in a moment of surprise at the sudden skinship.
[‘Lim Yuchan’ has sent you a faction membership request.]
The system window filled my vision. I stared at it blankly for a moment before smiling.
[Accepting the join request.]
[‘Lim Yuchan’ has joined the White Moon faction!]
“I’ve been waiting.”
It felt like I had gained a real ‘comrade.’
💎
We moved our steps right away.
Aside from the dungeon quest starting soon, we could clearly picture the people who would be worried because we hadn’t returned.
As expected, the one who greeted us as soon as we arrived at the faction was none other than…
“Yi-joo-ssi!”
Baek Doha.
He was the first to rush forward and greet us.
“I was wondering if I should go fetch you.”
Baek Doha sighed in relief only after scanning me for any injuries. Then he raised his head to look at me.
“What happened?”
“Huh? Nothing much—”
“It doesn’t seem like nothing much considering the penalty that appeared.”
Before I could finish speaking, another voice cut in.
Looking up, I could see Cha Si-hyeon slowly walking behind Baek Doha.
‘Right.’
The ‘penalty’ of the oath applies to all faction members when one person attacks.
This means that when I received the movement reduction penalty just before being kidnapped, all the other faction members received it too.
‘I’m doomed.’
In a word, it was clear that I was doomed.
Rolling my eyes, I nudged Lim Yuchan. As Lim Yuchan looked down at me, I tried to communicate with eye contact.
‘Please save me just this once.’
Please. I don’t have the confidence to explain.
Whether he understood my message or not, Lim Yuchan, who had been quietly watching, let out a small sigh.
“I came too.”
And then he suddenly said this.
In the awkward atmosphere, Baek Doha and Cha Si-hyeon’s gazes shifted to Lim Yuchan at his unexpected words.
A moment of silence followed.
“I know. How could I not notice Hyung-nim’s huge body?”
And then Cha Si-hyeon shrugged with his characteristic playful voice.
I survived. Just as I was inwardly sighing in relief, Gi Da-in, who was surprisingly perceptive, also changed the subject.
“Yi-joo-ssi, did you see the dungeon guide?”
…Come to think of it, there was a guide dungeon. This wasn’t the time for this.
I raised my head again to read the content sent by the system.
[DUNGEON GUIDE] 00:01:00 until ‘Protect Faction from External Intruders – Stage 1’ begins
[DUNGEON GUIDE] All faction members are requested to return to their respective factions.
“Yes. I came here urgently after seeing that.”
“Do you know what the intruders are, Yi-joo-ssi?”
Du Mansik, who had been silent among us, threw a question at me.
“No, I don’t really know that much…”
Wait a minute.
‘How many minutes did it say were left?’
I raised my head again to check the time.
[00:00:30 until start]
I had seen it correctly. Thinking about it, we couldn’t use the passage on our way here and had to go around. That’s why it took so much time. Damn.
“Wait, everyone get ready. There’s not much time left—”
That’s when it happened.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Cutting off my voice, the sound of footsteps running towards us from somewhere was heard.
“What’s that?”
Cha Si-hyeon, furrowing his brow, immediately moved his steps, so I followed him too.
The moment Cha Si-hyeon opened the faction entrance door without hesitation.
Whoosh!
Something suddenly attacked Cha Si-hyeon’s face.
Despite it happening in an instant, Cha Si-hyeon quickly pulled his face back to block the attack. At the same time, he kicked the attacker away and closed the door. However…
“Huh.”
Cha Si-hyeon put his hand to his forehead and then removed it. On his lowered hand was blood mixed with a purple liquid.
“…Poison?”
At the muttered words, I blinked blankly.
“Poison?”
“Yeah, it seems like poison.”
As Cha Si-hyeon muttered, Baek Doha beside him suddenly furrowed his brow.
“What’s this, I couldn’t feel any mana…”
I had heard that Baek Doha could sense mana better than anyone, so if even he couldn’t feel it…
“It seems there’s no mana.”
Cha Si-hyeon wiped his bloody forehead with his arm and raised his head.
The door was shaking, probably because the things outside were constantly trying to get in. As we were looking at that, Gi Da-in spoke.
“The door… looks like it’s going to break…”
“We need to open it before it breaks.”
“I’ll open it.”
As I answered Lim Yuchan’s words, he immediately frowned. Ignoring his expression, I reached out towards the door.
Whoosh! At the same time, as if it had been waiting, an arrow flew in and stuck in the wall.
“What’s that…?”
Cha Si-hyeon, who was reaching out to stop me from opening the door, muttered blankly looking at the things outside the door.
“What is it?”
What could it be? Lee Cheong-sin, who was standing at the very back, came closer and poked his head out from behind Du Mansik, who was standing blankly.
With threads wrapped around their necks fixing white cloth, and two buttons on their faces… in a word, dolls were rushing in en masse.
Ding!
The alarm sound rang above my head at that moment.
[DUNGEON GUIDE] ‘Protect Faction from External Intruders – Stage 1’ begins!
[DUNGEON GUIDE] Protect Faction from External Intruders – Stage 1 [Master of the Clones]
▸Eliminate the clones invading each faction to protect your faction and earn points! An additional 200 points will be given to those who find and eliminate the master of the clones.
*After each stage ends, individual score rankings and faction score rankings (sum of individual scores of faction members) will be announced.
*If faction protection fails, the faction leader dies and the faction is disbanded.
*Intruders are distributed according to the grade of faction members.
After confirming the clones, the master of the clones, and the additional explanation below, I froze on the spot.
To be clear, we have few people.
We didn’t intend to have many faction members from the start, wanting only those we could trust and rely on, and we didn’t have time to accept anyone new. As a result, our faction members number less than 10 in total. However, if there’s a problem…
‘There are three S-rank members.’
[SYSTEM] About 500 clones are rushing into the [White Moon] faction!
💎
As soon as we opened the door, the dolls that had been swarming in rushed into the faction as if they had been waiting. Pushing aside the feeling of being overwhelmed by their numbers, we hurriedly ran to the bedroom of the former 1st place faction leader in the hall.
As soon as we arrived, we opened the bedroom door and went inside.
“Hurry up!”
Lee Cheong-sin, who arrived quickly after Cha Si-hyeon and Lim Yuchan, shouted. As I watched Baek Doha and Du Mansik immediately follow in, I grabbed the hand of Gi Da-in, who was following behind me, panting while holding Myungchi, and quickly climbed the bedroom stairs.
‘Why on earth did they make so many stairs here?!’
Of course, Du Mansik had explained.
Originally, there was only one huge chair over there. But due to the former faction leader’s bad taste of wanting to call people to his bedroom in front of everyone, a bedroom was created behind the chair.
So, as a space that didn’t exist before was created, all these numerous stairs appeared along with it.
As I was grinding my teeth anew, recalling the face of that annoying guy, I looked back. The dolls seen from above were filling up this spacious faction and still squeezing in.
‘How can we kill all of those!’
Moreover, I could see several dolls that had caught up close behind me as I climbed the stairs.
“Noona! Hurry!”
With Lee Cheong-sin’s shout, as soon as I climbed the last step, I pushed Gi Da-in’s back to send her in first. Then, just as I was following in, my foot caught on the edge of the stairs.
“Ah!”
💎
Thank you for reading! ♡
