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Chapter 177

Lee Jun-Young busied herself with the management of her labyrinth. If she had settled down on the 9th Floor, she wouldn’t have lasted long without Kim Jin-Woo’s help. Fortunately, the Labyrinth of Blood Lions was located in a spot that was neither entirely on the surface nor in the Underworld, and was protected by the Party Hall and the Labyrinth of Mandragoras.[1]

Besides, both labyrinth masters of those labyrinths were specialists in labyrinth management who had more than a year’s experience in warfare. She was perfectly protected.

Lee Jun-Young quickly realized that there was no need to worry about the defense of her labyrinth, and sought out other areas to utilize her abilities in. As she had been active as an explorer for a long time, she was well-versed in the workings on the surface.

The construction work resumed once again. Various pieces of high-tech equipment that Kim Jin-Woo couldn’t even have begun to imagine were brought in through Lee Jun-Young. Surveillance equipment and weapons were installed one after another at Kim Jin-Woo’s home in Paju.

“Anyway, if anyone’s likely to show interest in this place, it would be the explorers or the dungeon babies from the Association. And they don’t have a hard protective shell around them like Underworld creatures,” Lee Jun-Young said.

She had a cold expression as she fired a live round from her pistol, which she had bought with her own money from the black market. She was reaffirming the unchanging fact that no matter how skilled those explorers might be, they would all die to a single bullet.

“Hmm.” Kim Jin-Woo listened to her, letting out an ambiguous sound that may or may not have been an indication of admiration.

Thinking back, he realized how long and deeply he’d had to ponder when he was forced to choose a side between the Underworld and the surface. On the other hand, Lee Jun-Young seemed to have no hesitation in deciding to stand on the side of the Underworld.

But Lee Jun-Young noticed Kim Jin-Woo’s expression and seemed to have misunderstood him, as she remarked, “I can get more if I need to, but if I want to get better weapons, I have to go through the sources I was dealing with before, and I might risk exposing my identity.”

“You don’t have to push yourself anymore. After all, the Shadow Magicians can deal with most of those troublemakers by themselves,” Kim Jin-Woo replied.

The Shadow Magicians’ large-scale area-of-effect illusion magic had been strong enough to help avoid detection from the Moai for a year. It would easily work on some lowlife Terrans. If any were to somehow avoid being deceived and enter Kim Jin-Woo’s house, Morrigan would step in and take care of the matter.

Morrigan, also known as the Death Crow, was powerful enough that even the Deep Floor dungeon babies would be laughably weak in her presence. There was probably no one in all of South Korea that could avoid her song of death.

After the area’s defenses were set up, Kim Jin-Woo began his search for his father’s whereabouts in earnest.

Lee Jun-Young gave him some advice on his methods, when he had been mostly relying blindly on his power: Strike the weakest point of the Association. In addition to tracing the down gems’ routes, she gave him the locations of some of the businesses Song Jong-Chul operated.

“Krrghh.”

Kim Jin-Woo looked at the men rolling on the floor with twisted limbs before turning away.

[Half-broken low-grade down gem. This down gem has already lost a significant amount of energy due to its broken state, to the point that it is difficult to even call it a down gem.]

[Low-grade down gem powder. These powders of unknown purpose and efficacy seem useless.]

It wasn’t difficult to figure out what they were doing with the colorful powder and the destroyed down gems that had been discovered amid the messy lab equipment. They were creating a monster that had even been able to turn someone as strong-willed as Lee Jun-Young into a walking shell of her former self.

They were creating drugs.

“Motherfuckers.” Kim Jin-Woo had already been aware of what he was likely to find before his arrival at the lab, and yet he couldn’t help but feel angry again. Song Jong-Chul’s two-faced strategy was not only a despicable act in itself; it was also unacceptable that he was using these precious down gems for such disgusting purposes, when the Underworld was fighting wars over the scarce supply of them.

Filled with rage, Kim Jin-Woo gathered the broken down gems and crushed powder into a single spot as he contemplated what to do with them.

Just then, a group of men rushed in with a loud bang. One exclaimed, “Which bastard did this!?”

“You guys sure came quickly,” Kim Jin-Woo remarked. Although numerous business branches of the Association had been attacked previously, reinforcements had never arrived as quickly. “It must mean this place is that much more important than the others.” He smirked as he looked at the few obviously high-leveled dungeon babies. Blue streaks of light began to flow from the corners of his eyes.

“It’s that bastard! It’s him!” They were able to quickly recognize the attacker, thanks to all the commotion he had been causing. But Kim Jin-Woo didn’t care one bit. After all, they wouldn’t be able to identify him through his deep hood.

“Kargh!” Screams followed as Kim Jin-Woo made his move. It only took a minute for all the Association’s reinforcements to be on the floor along with the other men. There was even a Level 8 dungeon baby among them, but not even he could withstand a blow from Kim Jin-Woo.

“Kurgh!” One of the men lying on the floor grabbed his own neck as he let out a moan. That was only the beginning. The other men, who had been moaning as they cradled their broken limbs on the floor, started to follow suit, letting out dry coughs as they grabbed their necks one by one.

Kim Jin-Woo quietly observed what they were doing, before realizing that the down gem powder that he had collected into a pile had scattered all over the place during his brawl with the men.

“Kurgh. S-save me.” Someone managed to crawl across the floor as he grabbed Kim Jin-Woo by the ankle. Even though one of his arms and both of his legs were completely smashed, he was extremely desperate.

It seemed as if they were more afraid of being addicted to the very monster they had created than the pain of their broken limbs. But they were simply reaping what they had sown.

Kim Jin-Woo’s expression hardened as he took a step back. As his gaze trailed up the hands of the man who had fallen helplessly by his feet, what he saw was an ugly face dyed black with despair.

It wasn’t just that man. The men who had originally been there from the beginning, as well as the reinforcements that had come later, all had the same look on their faces. Their fear of the down gems’ dangerous addiction was above anything else, including the pain of their own broken bones and torn flesh.

However, those eyes soon became hazy as the men struggled to hold their breath. “Huff…”

In spite of their desperate struggles just moments ago, the men quickly began to squirm as they broke out into manic laughter. The men’s enraptured faces resembled a thirsty dog encountering water.

Kim Jin-Woo had no interest in watching such an ugly sight. He looked at them in silence before turning and walking out.

Shortly after his disappearance, additional reinforcements from the Association arrived, but they seemed afraid to check on the situation inside the building, as they withdrew as quickly as they arrived.

Only after a long time had passed did specialists from the Association arrive with gas masks and finally rescue the men trapped inside. Or rather, the men were collected.

“These sons of bitches are lost causes.” The other members of the Association shook their heads as they watched the rescued men, still entranced, being loaded into cars like luggage.

“Report to upper management,” ordered a man who seemed to be in a fairly high position within the association.

“What am I supposed to say?” asked his subordinate.

“What do you think! Just report the situation as it is! Report that we couldn’t scavenge anything, and that both the guards and the reinforcements have all gone retarded!” the man exclaimed.

“Urgh, understood,” his subordinate replied.

The man in charge of the operation looked terrified, perhaps thinking of what Song Jong-Chul, who had already been fuming due to recent events, might say.

“Fuck, I really don’t want to head back.” He swore as he handed over the report to his subordinate. He was reluctant to face Song Jong-Chul, who was on the verge of blowing his fuse.

But ultimately, his ordeal had only just begun, as the same incident had occurred thrice now. He called Song Jong-Chul and began, “Boss, this is Sung-Jin…”

[What the fuck are you doing! Why are you only calling m—]

He’d had to report the damage done to three businesses each time it happened, and each time, he had been humiliated beyond belief.

“Just wait until I catch you, you son of a bitch!” The man named Sung-Jin cursed at the unknown assailant, tired of being reprimanded by his superiors.

***

Kim Jin-Woo destroyed four businesses in a single day.

However, the amount of broken down gems and powder he had obtained from those businesses would have been enough to upgrade any labyrinth by one level.

He couldn’t imagine just how many people had been turned into addicts, judging by the sheer amount of down gems recovered. At that point, he found it rather surprising that the drugs made from the down gems weren’t a social problem yet.

“As long as people consume the right quantity, others won’t be able to tell. Most can live their daily lives while consuming the drug if they do so,” Lee Jun-Young explained. She said that it was rare for people to completely lose themselves like she had, and that there were probably a lot more people hiding their addictions as they lived their lives.

She also said that the symptoms weren’t obvious, but it was the withdrawal symptoms that were severe, which was what the Association was exploiting to dominate the market and control the supply of down gems.

Her prediction was closer to being a certainty than a speculation, and Kim Jin-Woo found it rather plausible as well. He mused, “I wonder what their endgame is.”

While they were discussing the Association’s atrocities in earnest, he suddenly raised his hand to stop the conversation and picked up his vibrating phone. “Who is this?”

[I-is this Kim Jin-Woo?]

Kim Jin-Woo frowned as he listened to the terrified voice on the other side of the line. “I’m asking who you are.”

[My name is Kim Jong-Bin…]

The moment Kim Jin-Woo heard the name, he raised a finger to his lips and turned on the speaker function on his phone.

[I’m sorry to disturb you, but there’s something I would like to meet you in person to discuss…]

After the call, Kim Jin-Woo frowned as he fell into deep deliberation.

“It’s most likely a trap.”

“At this point, there’s no reason for Kim Jong-Bin to contact you.”

Both Dominique and Lee Jun-Young revealed their honest thoughts as they tried to persuade him. It was way too suspicious for Kim Jong-Bin to suddenly be contacting him.

What they said was true. The Association might have been shaken up, but their losses weren’t great, and it wasn’t something the executives would lose sleep over.

There was also absolutely no reason for Kim Jong-Bin to be so terrified over a simple phone call with him.

“It’s possible that they think I’m the culprit in the most recent incident,” Kim Jin-Woo remarked.

He might have an alibi thanks to Espetos, but Song Jong-Chul and the Association weren’t fools. With the power and resources behind them, as well as the motivation to find the culprit driving them ever forward, it was possible that they’d finished investigating all the possible suspects.

Besides, they must have known by now. It was a fact that among those potential suspects in South Korea, there was no one who would be able to single-handedly destroy dozens of dungeon babies. Even the highest-leveled Kim Jin-Woo wouldn’t be able to achieve such a thing with his dungeon baby abilities alone.

However, Song Jong-Chul and the Association had never seen the Level 12 dungeon baby’s powers for themselves. The only fact they were certain of was that aside from Kim Jin-Woo, there was no other being in the country that would be able to do such a thing, and with the veil of mystery surrounding the Level 12 dungeon baby, all the fingers shrouded in delusion and suspicion would now point to him.

“It may sound like a forced conclusion, but there is a possibility.” After thinking about it, Lee Jun-Young also came to the same conclusion. “After all, before I met you, I too imagined what kind of monster the Level 12 dungeon baby would be.” She said she had imagined that a dungeon baby born in the Deep Floors would have at least one extraordinary ability.

“So, now that you’ve seen me in person, how was it?” Kim Jin-Woo asked playfully.

However, he was met with a sincere response. “It’s just as I imagined. No, in fact, you were beyond the monster I imagined.” Lee Jun-Young confessed her feelings of injustice at the thought of all the pain and sacrifice Kim Jin-Woo would have had to go through to escape the Hell Spiders and the Deep Floors all by himself.

“That’s right. Even if they do lay a trap for me, they know nothing about me,” Kim Jin-Woo said with a mischievous look. However, there was something off about it.

“If they’ve really laid a trap…” Blue streaks of light began to flow from the corners of his eyes as he spoke. “…Then all I have to do is to destroy them all with power they could never imagine.”

Kim Jin-Woo made his decision with not a single ounce of hesitation on his face.

1. This means that the Labyrinth of Blood Lions, and the other two labyrinths by extension, are technically ‘on the surface’; but they’re located in the basement of Kim Jin-Woo’s building and thus aren’t ‘entirely on the surface’ as per the author’s words. ☜