Chapter 101 · 12 min
chapter 101
The Painter Who Draws Dungeons - Episode 101
It was a world where anyone could become a hunter as long as they awakened, but that did not mean a B rank was low by any means.
Above all, he was a first-grade citizen by birth.
“...”
Not merely someone who lived in a city, but someone evaluated as first-grade because he protected that city.
So wherever he went, he was treated well and respected.
That was what a first-grade citizen was in this world.
“...”
It was something that could justify having strong confidence.
“...Uh...”
To the point of trying to deal with a mere third-grade citizen however he pleased.
“...Wh-what, what is this... where am I.”
Stagger...
He barely forced his limp body upright.
“Just what...?”
Park Eun-gyeom, a first-grade citizen and a B-rank hunter, looked around.
“...A dungeon?”
There was a reason someone with enough experience as a hunter to not be called inexperienced would hold such an obvious, foolish doubt.
“Is there a dungeon like this?”
Everything was achromatic.
A glaring white.
An abyss-like black.
A pale gray.
A slightly deeper gray.
A gray close to black.
A gray close to white.
A gray that gleamed like glass.
A gray that rippled as if alive and breathing.
Gray.
Gray.
The man had fallen into the middle of a gray city.
“...”
As if his lungs were stuffed full of cotton, his breath caught in his throat, and without realizing it he pawed at his chest.
Rationally, he knew there was nothing wrong with his body, but no—this wasn’t the feeling of something being filled.
This was...
“...Th-this... what is this...”
A lethargy so chilling it made his skin crawl.
He couldn’t put strength anywhere.
It felt like all the muscles in his body had vanished.
“Where is this, I’m asking.”
It was hollow, as if the organ called the lungs itself had disappeared.
Even while he was speaking, it felt as though his tongue had vanished, he couldn’t tell whether his vocal cords were vibrating, and even hearing his own voice didn’t feel like hearing.
“...Just what...”
This emptiness, enough to make him feel incongruous, was gradually swallowing his entire body.
It was a natural change, as if someone were whispering beside his ear, ‘That’s how it should be.’
It started with his breath cutting off in hitching spasms like a man about to die, then it felt as if his breathing hole had disappeared, and even in this strange fear his heart, which had been pounding, was so quiet he couldn’t understand it.
Even the warmth at his fingertips was fading.
“This can’t be, th-this can’t...”
Stumbling, the man rapidly swept his surroundings into his eyes.
Gray here too.
Gray there too.
Gray this way too.
Gray that way too.
The buildings were made into boring, simple rectangles, then into a more emotional shape that brought out Seoul’s unique curves, and also into very long and slender shapes, or very short ones.
‘Made?’
Who made this?
‘This is... this is a dungeon.
Yes, it’s a dungeon.’
But something was strange.
Too much was empty.
This damn gray city looked disgustingly vast, and there were many buildings, yet he couldn’t feel any presence at all.
What dungeon in the world could be this quiet?
‘You can’t even feel the enemy’s presence.’
He thought the fear was monsters rushing to kill him, but he was wrong.
What was frightening was that this vast dungeon, so enormous its end could not be seen, did nothing and only stared at him.
It was simply watching the man.
“...”
Scared.
Scared?
Am I scared?
‘...I can’t even tell a single emotion...’
First it had been his exhaled breath.
Next, organs branching out from his lungs, and the warmth that came from them.
Then, emotion.
“U-uhh...”
Then what would be next?
Little by little, the existence called ‘Park Eun-gyeom’ was disappearing.
“...Ugh!”
The man shook his head hard and kneaded his hands.
‘Don’t think weird thoughts. Disappearing, what do you mean disappearing.
My hand’s right here, and it isn’t even cold.’
All of this was nothing but a simple illusion.
This dungeon was also brainwashing meant to dry the man to death.
Because it was his first time with this quiet type of dungeon, he’d panicked for a moment, but he wasn’t someone who would be taken down that easily.
“If this is a dungeon, what kind of dungeon is it?”
Is it mobile, or fixed.
Is it virtual, a villa-type, or an entry-type.
Consciously calming himself and taking deep breaths, the man rolled his eyes around.
“I definitely... in that... I was pulled by... those hands...”
He couldn’t remember the exact process.
But he did remember that in the ‘Gem Vein,’ he had faced some frame, and had been forcibly dragged here by transparent hands that crawled out from inside it.
The man’s expression, steadying his mind and seeking survival, quickly crumpled into something miserable.
It wasn’t anger, but despair and fear.
“...”
He had recalled the moment he was dragged into the frame.
“...Hhk...”
The sensation as if his body turned into paint and ran down was vivid.
‘...I can’t think like this.
If I panic even more in a situation like this, it’ll only lower my survival rate, and... yes, I need to get a grip.
A grip...’
He tried to steady himself by force, but it wasn’t easy.
It was truly a strange feeling.
Was it painful?
It seems like it was.
Was it peaceful?
No, it wasn’t.
The sensation of being grabbed by transparent hands and, starting from the foot that got eaten first by the frame, slowly melting down like wax one part at a time.
That pain.
How could he forget the feeling of becoming a living liquid that could still think?
“...”
After losing consciousness from that pain and coming here without even resisting...
“...”
So.
“...”
What had he been going to do.
“...Ah, ah, ah.”
Thud—!!
Staggering, the man collapsed backward onto the ground.
“Ugh...”
Now even his thoughts were vanishing into this emptiness.
‘This can’t continue.’
He didn’t know exactly what kind of dungeon this was.
It could have a similar structure to the dungeons he knew, but it was completely different.
Still, as a B-rank hunter, he instinctively realized this dungeon was like a mutant.
So his chance of surviving would be low, but it didn’t matter.
More precisely, it was closer to not being able to think.
Realizing that after pain and fear he was turning into someone who couldn’t even think, the man tried to struggle somehow.
“Get up, get up.
Get up and...”
For some reason, he couldn’t put strength into his body from earlier.
It was similar to the sensation from before he awakened, when he’d just woken up, or when he collapsed after being swallowed by an overly intense emotion.
But even that made his skin crawl.
‘Isn’t this dungeon sucking out even the strength I should naturally be able to produce?’
Because that suspicion rose up.
After writhing on the floor like a bug several times, the man finally got to his feet.
He couldn’t understand it, but maybe because he’d rubbed his body against the dark gray asphalt several times, his whole body was covered in soot.
No, rather than that, it felt like paint was smearing off onto him.
‘Paint?’
Only then, and very belatedly, the man realized whose dungeon he had entered.
“...Black Cloak...”
Hadn’t it recently been an extremely famous story?
“...Black, Black Cloak...!!
Yeah, that bastard...!!
That monster bastard!!”
Even in a dungeon like this, the deep arrogance and overflowing rage ingrained in him were not hidden.
He’d been dragged here like a wretched dog, and this miserable image of him writhing like this was something that that dog-like monster bastard had created.
A mere vulgar monster, beastlike trash, doing this to a human...!
“Fuck, fuck, fuuuck!!
Just a pathetic monster that goes around handing out worthless gifts...!!!”
He didn’t even know what he was shouting anymore.
If he were a hunter who knew more and had better capability, he would have recognized that this was the ‘City of Emptiness’—the belly of the Black Cloak—and shown the utmost humility, and also a 모습 of repentance.
But if he were that kind of human, then why would ‘City of Emptiness’ have dragged in a person named Park Eun-gyeom in the first place?
Gio’s children knew exactly what their parent disliked.
It was exactly this kind of being, one that didn’t even know its place.
“Hhk, hhk... hngh...”
After raging for a long time, the man began to move his trembling feet and slowly left the spot.
It all looked like the same scenery, but a dungeon was bound to have an exit.
A dungeon with no way out did not exist.
That couldn’t be called a dungeon.
So it would be there—of course it would be there.
Even as he thought that, the doubt kept lingering.
‘Why would Black Cloak do this?’
Even though the response grade on the Hunters Association website had been adjusted quite high, the ones managing that information were all humans too—maybe they were just being overly cautious.
The explanation said to be cautious and whatever, but in truth the Black Cloak had never harmed humans.
‘Except for a few idiots who died after it suddenly left...’
The man briefly recalled the ‘Kingdom of the Deep Sea,’ then shook his head.
‘I’ve never even heard of it attacking like this.’
The ‘Black Cloak’ he knew was a stupid monster that suddenly popped out, greeted you gloomily, handed out gifts, and vanished.
Maybe because it was so insignificant, he’d even heard nonsense about some people gathering to talk about the Black Cloak and pass the time...
‘So why would that monster take me?’
It was as he was laboriously moving one foot at a time.
“...”
Freeze—.
The man’s body stiffened.
“...”
Ignoring his jaw, which creaked like an un-oiled hinge, he turned his head to look behind him.
“...”
“...”
A suit was standing there.
“...What...”
“...”
“What is it.”
It was a suit of pure black.
A color like the shadow of a dark basement where not a single ray of light entered.
Even its shirt was black, and it was buttoned tightly, each and every button fastened with meticulous care to the point it looked stifling.
The matte black shoes, for some reason, also looked solid.
With its hands clasped behind its back, it was simply staring at the man.
‘...Staring?’
Looking at that thing with no face, what in the world was he even saying?
‘No, to begin with... me... why...’
Why did I know that thing was behind me?
“...”
Even though he hadn’t sensed any presence at all, the man knew there was a ‘suit’ behind him.
“...Ah...”
Between his brain that was emptying out, what kind of ink was flowing in?
He couldn’t tell what he was becoming right now.
“...G-go away.”
“...”
“Go away, you monster bastard.
This, this is just... I...”
“...”
“I’ll... I’ll just...”
With the suit in his sight, the man backed away in small steps.
Afraid he might bump into another suit behind him without noticing, he kept checking behind him, but there was nothing like that.
As he retreated, the first suit he’d seen didn’t come closer either.
“...”
“...”
Even after he moved for a long time, the suit still didn’t move at all.
When he made up his mind, the man suddenly ran and fled the spot.
“Hhk...!!”
Because he couldn’t put strength into his legs, he fell again and again onto the rough asphalt floor, but this wasn’t the time to care about that.
“Hngh, hhk, hhk...!!”
And as he ran like that—
“Ah...!!!”
“...”
“Ah, aagh.
Ugh...!!”
Once again, a pitch-black suit entered his eyes.
It was walking slowly down the street with its hands clasped behind its back, but he could tell, from the crooked direction of its body, that it was staring at him.
Its pace, an ordinary speed like someone going to work, gave an unbearable incongruity, and the man swallowed back a scream.
Even so, he ran.
He fell, his skin scraped, then ran again, repeating it over and over.
He had no room to analyze why, as a B-rank hunter, he was feeling pain from this trivial asphalt floor.
‘Crazy...!!’
After that, the man kept running into suits.
If he looked left, there was a pitch-black suit.
It sat on a bench and stared at the running man.
If he looked right, there was a suit running a little more slowly.
It, too, had turned its body toward the man’s direction and stared at him.
If he looked ahead, there were two suits.
They stood still and stared at the man’s movement.
And then, when he looked behind—
“...”
Right behind him, behind that, a little farther away, and in alleys, and inside buildings, and beyond glass windows, and on rooftops, and under streetlights, and beside benches, and inside bus stops, and inside convenience stores, and inside cars, and inside buses—there were black suits walking, running, standing still, staring at him.
“...”
And then.
If he looked ahead...?
“...”
If he looked ahead.
What would happen?
“...”
The man felt a black suit breathing right next to his body.
“Ugh...”
He couldn’t turn his head back forward.
It had no presence, and yet it had presence.
Even though it was only clothes moving, it felt as though a living person were inside.
No, of course, it could never be called a person, and must not be called that... but still.
“...Hhk...”
The man slowly twisted his body and sank down.
“Hngh, hhhh...”
Squatting miserably, he could see his own shape.
“Hngh... aagh... ugh...”
From skin that stung as if sanded down, what smeared out wasn’t blood, but black paint.
“Aagh...”
With trembling black hands, the man fumbled at his face with clumsy fingers.
It was damp.
“...”
When he turned his head and looked at the building’s glass, he saw his own 모습, mottled and blackened.
The black, dirtied as if rotten, looked like holes where flesh had been gouged out.
“...”
No matter how urgently he felt around, there were no holes.
But this was a shadow.
The man lowered his head and kept feeling around his body, then stared at his own pants, black as if wet tar had stuck to them, then at the legs inside, and then...
“...”
“...”
“...”
When he raised his head.
“Wow, look at this guy.”
A voice so familiar it made his skin crawl rang out.
“Why is he so blotchy?”
“He isn’t whole.”
“So you could call him an unfinished work.”
It was Park Eun-gyeom—his own voice.
He looked at the crowd of pitch-black suits surrounding him, gazing down at him.
“...”
They weren’t packed so tightly there wasn’t a gap, but there weren’t few of them either.
It was like citizens staring at someone having a heart attack.
The sheer incongruity made his teeth tremble.
“Wow, look at this guy.”
Exactly the same voice.
“Why is he so blotchy?”
“He isn’t whole.”
“So you could call him an unfinished work.”
Exactly the same lines.
“...”
And then.
Park Eun-gyeom felt around his throat.
“Wow.”
“...―”
“Look at this guy.”
...He couldn’t speak.
“Why is he so blotchy?”
“...”
“He isn’t whole.”
“...”
“So you could call him an unfinished work.”
“...”
“...”
“...”
Fantasy, Modern,