“Then let’s go in.”

Having finished setting up our equipment, we slowly walked towards the ominous gate floating above the lawn.

Peculiarly, there was a feeling of suction coming from this gate. It felt as if wind was blowing from inside the gate, pulling people in as they got closer.

In front of the watching soldiers, the six of us slowly entered the gate.

It feels like being sucked into a typhoon instead of passing through firm jelly. It doesn’t seem like a feeling one could get used to no matter how many times they experience it.

Benjamin, Teacher Gina, Allen and Victor, and lastly Adrian and I entered.

And as soon as we passed through the gate, I opened my mouth at the revealed scenery.

“Wow……”

We had closed six dungeons so far and this was the seventh, but the scenery of the dungeon we entered this time was the most unique.

Barren, dried red earth. A sandy gale blew, likely due to the high altitude, and the sunlight was so dazzling it made the skin tingle.

On top of that, a clear and deep sky without a single cloud. Even the air was suffocatingly warm.

Having left the football field, we were now on a vast canyon.

“It seems the setting for this dungeon is a canyon.”

Benjamin boldly approached the edge and looked down. Below, which seemed to be easily several hundred meters down, a clear stream could be seen flowing from afar.

If one were to fall down there without equipment, it would likely mean instant death.

Below the canyon, a clear river spread out widely, and above it, dry land and an endless horizon.

“Wow. It’s like a free Grand Canyon experience……”

It was a scenery that seemed to have been transplanted directly from Earth’s great nature.

However, we must not forget that this is a dungeon teeming with monsters.

“But the monsters aren’t immediately visible. There are no traces of them either.”

Adrian said quietly.

Usually when entering a dungeon and walking to a suspicious place, monsters are bound to appear.

But here, there was no space for monsters to hide their bodies, nor any stacks.

It was just vast land and dust, nothing more.

Where on earth should we head towards – east, west, south or north?

“We don’t have to walk for hours like with the Amethyst Golem, right?”

I looked around, hands on my waist, hair tangling from wind blowing from everywhere.

Allen was a little distance away, examining the canyon.

I quietly approached him.

“Allen, where do you think we should go? You have a lot of experience so you’d know.”

Of course, it was a probing question.

To know how much the experiential gap between Allen and our team is, how skilled he has become.

At my question, Allen glanced at me, then turned his head the other way.

“Let’s ride that and go north.”

“That…?”

Ride what?

I looked at where Allen pointed, face puzzled.

There, two jeeps, yellow with sand-blasted grime, were parked.

The car keys were stuck in the chassis, and although a little old, both started up well.

It was a vast canyon with no end in sight. Moreover, there was no need to purposely leave the jeeps that were blatantly placed there for us to use and walk to find monsters.

Since the chassis had no roof, in case of emergency we could stand up from our seats and take an attack stance.

Benjamin and Teacher Gina, and Adrian formed one team. Victor, Allen and I split into teams and drove along the canyon side by side.

Large wheels left tracks on the barren land.

“Do you really think going north will let us find the monsters’ main base, squirrel?”

Victor, the only one among us three with a license, grumbled as he increased speed.

I spoke, looking at the vast wilderness.

“There’s nothing else we can do. It’s not like we have any other clever solutions.”

Military companies and dungeon byproducts are creating groundbreaking inventions every day, but right now is a transitional period not long after dungeons appeared.

With our knowledge about dungeons being almost ignorant now, we have no choice but to headbutt the bare ground, no matter how brutish, and break through the dungeon.

So we can only follow Allen who seems to know something.

Allen had long ago stood up in the backseat, gripping the chassis and gazing forward. He held his magic sword in his right hand.

Even in the desolate sand wind, even in the jolting chassis stepping on rocks, his unflinching appearance seemed closer to the one I saw on the news rather than the one I knew.

The jeep kept driving along the canyon.

To the right were sheer cliffs and a river, to the left was Adrian’s team’s car keeping pace with us side by side.

And after driving for a few minutes.

“There they are.”

Allen muttered quietly.

Far in the distance towards the horizon, black objects began to appear. Seemed to be around a dozen.

Allen stepped on the backseat and stood up. Seeing him resisting the wind and holding his sword, Victor asked.

“What are you doing?”

“Slow down soon. We’ve almost arrived.”

“Where do you get off ordering…”

No sooner had Allen finished his words than he swung his sword horizontally, slicing through the air. A dark green sword energy flew and pierced the ground near the horizon.

Boom!

With a huge roar, something black was hit by the sword energy and collapsed. Yellowish-brown rocks shattered and flew up.

“Allen!”

“They’re miner zombies.”

When I shouted in surprise, Allen spoke calmly.

Victor gradually reduced speed, and soon we could see the monsters Allen had felled.

Zombies with dark, sooty skin, wearing helmets with lights and pickaxes on their backs.

Hunched backs and bleached, ghastly white eyes. Missing teeth, the appearance of undeniable zombies. They seemed to have died immediately upon being hit by the sword energy.

Adrian’s team also stopped nearby.

Benjamin, who had been in the driver’s seat, got out right away and examined the monsters.

“Sewer monsters. Seeing as the sewers emerge from here, there must be a monster base in this area.”

Victor, who got out of the car, grumbled.

“You have good eyesight too. Did you actually know they were monsters before striking?”

While we were examining the monsters’ corpses, Allen turned his steps towards where the monsters had walked from. And he looked down the cliff.

“Seems to be here.”

We followed after Allen.

Below the cliff, instead of a clear river, an unfamiliar sight unfolded.

A huge mine, concavely dug as if a meteorite had landed. Larger and deeper than a decent soccer field.

As we got closer, a suction similar to when passing through the gate was felt. Hair whipped towards the mine and the body faltered.

“Ugh.”

As I staggered, Adrian pulled me back by the back.

Benjamin spoke, looking down at the mine.

“The mine seems to be so deep and large that suction is generated. Shall we carefully go down and take a look?”

“Can we use the cars?”

“Since the mine is so large, it would still be dangerous even if we lower our speed. It’s a suction that seems like it would shake even a decent airplane. The road leading down to the mine looks narrow to begin with. The jeeps don’t seem like they would fit.”

“Then we’re walking down here? The depth looks to be easily 700m.”

700m. It would take ages just to spiral down.

Then, a black swarm began to gather and buzz from the center of the mine, having heard the commotion.

Zombies revealed themselves from various places.

They appeared from the deepest groove of the mine and even through the mining holes drilled here and there on the edges of the mine.

Zombie hordes with ragged flesh, unheeding, with yellow and white eyes rolling.

Perhaps because we often saw them in video media or because it was broad daylight, they weren’t very scary.

But the problem was their number.

“The zombies seem to have noticed.”

Allen said.

“Looks to be easily 50 of them. They keep coming out.”

Benjamin immediately activated his support skill without a word.

[system: Active skill activated.] [‘Power Increase (A)’ will be executed. Greatly increases the attack power, defense power, and vision of team members.]

Then Teacher Gina discovered something and shouted.

“We can ride this down!”

She pointed to a worn-out cart in a corner of the mine, looking as if she had discovered ginseng.

It was so old that the wooden chunks were ragged, and rust had formed or screws were about to fall out at the joint parts.

Seeing that, my face and Victor’s turned pale.

“We’re riding that down? Are you serious, Teacher Gina?”

“It looks more shoddy than an amusement park flume ride.”

Riding something like that to go down a huge mine with a depth of 700m?

Of course, there were rails laid out in a way that spiraled down along the edges, but the rails too had rusted and corroded in places, likely due to age.

I recalled what Michelle had said.

“Damn, a brilliant idiot indeed……”

We might die before we beat the monsters to death.

Then Adrian approached the mine carts lined up in a row.

“I’ll give it a try.”

Adrian put his hand on a cart.

As he placed his hand on the rusted cart, ice meticulously formed on the joint parts with screws falling out and rattling, and even on the parts where wooden chunks had been ripped out and were sticking out threateningly.

“Wow.”

A temporary fix was applied to the worn-out carts that seemed like they would crumble as soon as we boarded. Adrian smiled at us as if to reassure us.

“The ice won’t melt at least until we leave the dungeon. I’ll freeze any broken parts of the rails as soon as I see them, so don’t worry too much. This should be okay, right?”

“Adrian, you’re a real genius.”

“It’s nothing much.”

I spoke admiringly.

Meanwhile, Allen, arms crossed, quietly stared at Adrian.

“……”

Allen’s eyes, which had been observing Adrian, sank coldly.