Dungeon Cleaning — Part 2
—
The men’s jaws dropped open.
“Am I dreaming?”
“This is crazy. Totally insane.”
“What the heck.”
“You really do live long enough to see everything.”
Hedgehog Head’s hands trembled.
“Are you… a superhuman?”
I quickly turned my head. The men’s eyes were practically glowing.
That word had tremendous power.
Superhuman.
Even Roe Deer, who had been stiff as a board, swallowed dryly.
“Hey… Are you really a superhuman?”
“No.”
“Then how the hell can you do something like that?”
“I told you.”
I just shrugged.
“I served in the army.”
“Oh…”
“Wait, are you from the Legion?”
“The Western Legion? Or maybe the Eastern Legion?”
“If he’s Legion, then it makes sense.”
This world is similar to the one I knew in many ways, but it has its differences too.
One of those differences is the military.
Unlike the Korea I came from, this world uses a voluntary enlistment system.
The shortage of manpower is supplemented by two Legions.
These powerful private military companies, formed by warrior-class superhumans, act as both profit-driven organizations and influential power groups within the country, even holding some degree of local autonomy.
“Let’s just get back to work.”
Whack! Whack!
I wandered around, collecting the mana cores from the shattered slime fragments.
The pieces with mana cores were still squirming, trying to regenerate, so gathering them wasn’t difficult.
The men stood up and helped me too.
“We should give all the mana cores to this guy.”
“Yeah, let’s do that.”
“If it wasn’t for him, we’d be in deep shit.”
“They’re not even worth that much anyway.”
In the past, even Level 0 mana cores were considered valuable resources.
But not anymore.
These days, all you can power with Level 0 mana cores are things like TVs or refrigerators, and it’s far cheaper to just pay the electric bill than to bother with expensive magic-tech devices.
The men gathered the Level 0 mana cores and handed them to me.
Roe Deer was the only one who refused to give his up.
“These are mine.”
He had only killed two slimes.
It wasn’t much compared to what I had done, but it looked like he was determined to keep them.
Seeing him roughly stuff the Level 0 mana cores into his bag, the other men took a step back.
“Hmph.”
“Whatever. Do as you like.”
It was obvious that Roe Deer wasn’t in a good mood.
His stiff back as he turned away said it all.
I chuckled inwardly.
‘What a child.’
He’s upset because he didn’t get the respect he thinks he deserves as the leader?
Well, it doesn’t matter. We’ll part ways in a few days anyway, so I wasn’t going to waste energy worrying about him.
In total, I received 21 Level 0 mana cores.
Trash to most people, but treasures to me.
I bowed my head with sincere gratitude.
“Thank you.”
“Thank us? We should be thanking you.”
“Yeah, thanks to you, this job was way easier… I mean, much easier.”
“Exactly. Without you, we’d be covered in sweat and drowning in mana contamination by now.”
Even their tone and the way they addressed me had changed.
I smirked quietly to myself and sat down, leaning back against the concrete wall.
“Let’s wrap this up and move on. We’ve got one more zone to clean today.”
“Ugh, I’m gonna die.”
“My lungs feel like they’re melting.”
“Damn it. If it weren’t for that gambling, I wouldn’t be stuck in this mess.”
The men grumbled as they settled down, sitting in a loose circle against the wall.
Roe Deer, however, distanced himself and lay down far away from the rest of us.
After taking one look at me, sitting there without any protective gear, he took off his scarf and gas mask and started breathing deeply.
Clearly, he felt the need to compete with me.
I ignored him and closed my eyes. I’ve never practiced deep breathing or meditation, but I tried to focus my mind on my belly button and take the longest breaths I could.
Inhale… exhale.
Long, slow breaths echoed in my ears, and as I did, the contaminated mana tickled my lungs.
No… it stabbed at them.
The sensation of my lungs being invaded by foreign mana, twisting my heartbeat out of rhythm—it was sickening.
Hoo…
I consciously puffed out my chest.
I focused on absorbing as much mana as possible with each breath, and after a while, I felt a warmth spreading to my stomach, causing my entire body to itch.
[Acquired the trait: Mana Absorption.]
When I opened my eyes, I could see a mass of black smoke gathering around me. The entire J-13 zone had become noticeably brighter. More accurately, some of the contaminated mana had been purified.
“Uweeeek!”
Roe Deer suddenly bolted outside and began vomiting violently.
“Oh, Roe Deer, are you okay?”
“Get a hold of yourself!”
“Hold your breath! Hold it!”
“What did you do?”
“Why the hell did you take off your gas mask? You’re gonna kill yourself, Roe Deer!”
I lightly shook my head.
Did he think he could compare to me, with my Contamination Resistance minimizing the harmful effects of mana contamination and my Vigor replenishing my lost stamina?
Besides, I—Warrior Kim—was a warrior-class superhuman.
Even though I hadn’t awakened yet, warrior-class superhumans have the highest contamination limits among the four major superhuman classes.
Roe Deer was an enhanced-type, so there was no comparison.
Hoo, haaa.
I took even deeper breaths, accelerating the absorption of contaminated mana.
In truth, getting rid of the contaminated slimes was just the appetizer.
The real work was absorbing the contaminated mana.
To put it simply, we were human filters.
We were thrown into these contamination zones to absorb the mana until we hit our limit.
That’s what dungeon cleaners did.
It was a bottom-tier job, even in a world as rotten as this one.
“Uwoooorgh!”
“Gah!”
“Cough! Cough!”
The men rushed outside one by one, vomiting, sweating, and even having diarrhea. It was chaos.
No wonder it smelled so bad.
I thought the stench of decay when we first entered was coming from the environment, but it was all them.
Hedgehog Head returned after puking outside, looking at me with bleary eyes.
“Huff, huff. You okay, rookie?”
“I’m fine.”
“Huh… We’ve really got a future superhuman here.”
Hedgehog Head glanced at Roe Deer and me nervously.
Roe Deer, clearly annoyed, shouted at him.
“The hell are you looking at?!”
“N-nothing, Roe Deer, sir.”
Startled, Hedgehog Head backed up against the wall.
I stared at the back of his head for a moment.
It wasn’t my imagination.
His quills had grown at least twice as long as before, and they now had a metallic sheen, reflecting the dull fluorescent light above.
—
A few hours later, after all the contaminated mana had been absorbed, the green light flicked on.
The men cheered with bright smiles.
“Holy crap!”
“We’re already done?”
“We usually have two more hours left at this point!”
“It’s all thanks to the rookie holding out for so long.”
“Thank you! Seriously, rookie!”
“Check out my hair! Still not sharp yet?”
“Yeah. I think you’ve got a bit more time.”
“You’re amazing, rookie.”
“With you here, we’ll get through today’s work no problem!”
The men bowed repeatedly, showering me with praise.
It felt a bit over the top, but I could tell things weren’t as good as they seemed.
Creak… creak…
My fist wasn’t closing properly.
The contaminated mana in Zone J-13 was far denser and more toxic than I’d anticipated.
Even with Contamination Resistance, my body—Warrior Kim’s body—was reaching dangerous levels of mana contamination.
‘Should I use the suppressant?’
The original plan was to avoid using the suppressant, but thanks to the Mana Absorption trait, I’d absorbed far more mana than expected.
I decided to think about it later and stood up.
“Let’s move to the next zone.”
“Yes, rookie.”
—
The dungeon cleaning proceeded smoothly.
In the next zone, we took just 30 minutes to deal with the contaminated slimes.
After that, we spent a few more hours inside, breathing in the contaminated mana.
“Agh!”
“Ooohhh!”
“Uweeeeek!”
The men’s groans grew louder.
At this point, vomiting, diarrhea, and sweating were the least of their worries.
They were now bleeding from their eyes, noses, and mouths. Their exposed skin was covered in rashes and boils. Their prosthetic limbs were falling off, and their mutated bodies were becoming even more grotesque.
Roe Deer was no exception.
His already twisted legs had swollen to twice their size, twitching like those of a mutated horse.
“Hoo… hoo.”
Luckily, it was all over before their transformations progressed further.
Ding!
A pleasant chime echoed as the green light flickered on.
The men let out sighs of relief from all around.
“Thank God…”
“I thought I was gonna die.”
“Dying would’ve been a mercy.”
“We don’t have time to sit around. Let’s head back to the bus.”
“Yeah, let’s get out of here.”
We slowly trudged back through the concrete structure.
But we couldn’t leave yet.
The only place we could go was the parking lot and the restroom and shower facilities off to the side.
When I asked why we couldn’t leave, Hedgehog Head, scratching at the scaly patches on his face, explained.
“Because of quarantine, we have to run the mana purifiers and contamination scanners at least once.”
“And why is that?”
“Come on, you know how it is. These government workers have been lazy for ages. They’ll run the machines once, claim they ran them three times on the paperwork, and pocket the difference.”
“Ah…”
A perfect combination of laziness and greed.
After a quick rinse in the showers, I dried off.
Strangely, there wasn’t a single bar of soap or bottle of shampoo to be found.
They’re cutting costs here too?
Cursing silently, I stared at my reflection in the mirror.
“What a mess.”
My face was covered in scales, like fish skin.
My hair had mutated, splitting into Y-shaped strands at the ends.
Even my eyes had a slick sheen, like oil floating on water.
Still, this was nothing.
Compared to Hedgehog Head, who now looked like a human porcupine, or Roe Deer, whose legs had swollen to twice their size, I was doing fine.
After leaving the shower, I returned to the bus.
The engine wasn’t running.
It was already dark, so it was impossible to see anything inside.
Roe Deer turned on the flashlight on his smartphone and started complaining.
“Ugh, that driver took the keys again.”
“He always does this, doesn’t he? He even did it back in winter.”
“Even after we did that exorcism, he’s still pulling the same crap.”
“What can you do? Manager Choi tells him to do it, and the guy needs to make money.”
“But how are we supposed to sleep in June without air conditioning?”
Grumbling, he settled into his seat.
He reclined his chair as far back as possible and pulled out a plastic bag.
A 1cc insulin syringe with a suppressant.
He jabbed the needle into his arm and injected it quickly.
“Huuu…”
Roe Deer let out a groan.
Amazingly, his swollen legs quickly returned to their normal size.
Even the excess hair on his face disappeared.
In just a few seconds, the hulking brute had turned back into a scrawny young man.
“Haaa!”
“Huff…”
The other men did the same.
It was almost miraculous how rapidly their grotesque bodies returned to normal.
But instead of using the suppressant, I pulled out my kimbap and bottled water.
‘There’s no way this stuff doesn’t have side effects.’
It’s cheap.
And Manager Choi Sunsoo is a notorious penny pincher. There’s no way he would’ve given them quality suppressants.
They were probably bottom-tier at best, or even worse—drugs.
In this world, drugs are often cheaper than high-quality medicine.
“Ahh, that’s better.”
Sure enough, Roe Deer’s eyes had a glassy, faraway look.
Fwoosh.
He took a long drag from his e-cigarette and blew out a cloud of teal-colored mana smoke.
Then he pulled out a few more syringes, jabbing several needles into his arm.
Only after that did he seem fully satisfied, sprawling out in his seat.
“Hah… this is heaven.”
His face had gone completely slack, drool running down his chin.
It was utterly disgusting.
As I turned my head away from the nauseating sight, a hand suddenly appeared in front of me.
“Hey, rookie. Wanna try some?”
A hand covered in spiky fuzz like a porcupine’s quills.
Hedgehog Head was holding something that looked like a cigar, exuding a sickly-sweet smell that assaulted my nose.
Just by looking at it, I knew it was a drug.
Seriously, this guy’s drowning in debt, and he’s still doing drugs?
I waved him off with a flat expression.
“I’m good.”
“This stuff’s amazing. Hardly any side effects, and it hits you right away. One puff, and you’re in heaven, I swear.”
“I’ll pass.”
“Well… suit yourself.”
Without hesitation, Hedgehog Head stuck the cigar in his mouth.
When he lit it, the mana-infused flame quickly turned fluorescent green, and a sweet scent filled the bus, dancing around in dizzying spirals.
The bus had turned into a den of drug addicts in no time.
The men—no, the junkies—were groaning and moaning in bliss, their voices nearly driving me insane.
But instead of getting off the bus, I gritted my teeth, enduring it as I bit into my kimbap, now tainted by the smell of mana smoke.
‘This is hell. Truly.’
My body was suffering from the stench, and my mind was corroding from the endless groaning.
It was an all-out assault, both physically and mentally.
It was at this moment that the conditions for the emergence of a new trait were fulfilled.
–TL Notes–
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