Chapter 33

The Key

Everything happened in the blink of an eye, before I had any chance to react.

At some point during the fight, the Dragon Bone Sword had begun rapidly absorbing energy from the Sword Wraiths. Eventually, the force radiating from the blade grew so immense that it slipped completely beyond my control.

Then, the sword tore itself free from my grip and sliced through the air toward the central statue on its own.

“Everyone, move!”

“W-What is that?!”

“What the hell—?!”

At my urgent shout, every hunter’s attention snapped toward me.

They had probably never seen anything like this before: a weapon escaping its wielder’s grip and flying through the air entirely on its own. The hunters ducked or twisted aside to avoid the path of the Dragon Bone Sword, while Taeseong immediately began casting a spell to prepare for the worst.

Before his magic could activate, however, the flying blade struck the lower section of the giant statue with a deafening CLANG and embedded itself perfectly inside the stone.

The entire sequence had taken only a few seconds.

Faced with something so far outside common sense, my mind froze.

Why had the sword suddenly flown away by itself? How was I supposed to fight without my primary weapon? Should I move toward the statue where Taeseong was while the others covered me? But that was where the sword had flown—wouldn’t moving closer actually be more dangerous?

Questions tangled in my head so quickly that my mind felt close to overloading.

Then, something even stranger happened: the instant the sword entered the statue, the countless Sword Wraiths all froze at exactly the same time, as though they shared a single body.

“…!”

The hunters began muttering in confusion as the strange phenomenon continued. The monsters that had been attacking us relentlessly only moments ago had all gone completely still the moment my sword embedded itself in the monument.

Yet the bizarre scene was far from over. Without warning, every Sword Wraith began floating slowly up into the sky.

“What… am I looking at?”

“My god…”

“What is about to happen…?”

Half fascinated and half terrified, every hunter—myself included—stopped attacking and stared upward as if hypnotized. Gates were already places where bizarre events beyond human understanding happened daily, but none of us had ever heard of anything quite like this.

A moment later, one of the hunters swore in utter disbelief.

“Holy…!”

The Sword Wraiths, which had been emitting a gloomy black glow moments ago, began changing color. Their pitch-black forms transformed into brilliant, dazzling rainbow light.

“Unbelievable…”

Hunters pulled out their phones one after another to record the phenomenon. I quickly adjusted the orientation of the new drone camera Sia had given me so it could capture everything clearly.

Not long afterward, the Sword Wraiths released an explosion of light as brilliant as a supernova—and vanished without leaving a single trace behind.

✦ ✦ ✦

Once the wraiths suddenly vanished, everyone’s attention returned to the ground.

Until moments ago, Sword Wraiths had emerged so constantly that we had grown sick of seeing them, but now not a single new monster appeared.

“Taeseong hyung, the time isn’t up yet, right?”

“No. We still have about thirty minutes before the full three hours are over…” Taeseong clutched his head as he answered the hunter’s question.

The monsters had suddenly disappeared before the three-hour clear condition had even been met.

“I don’t know what the hell is happening either…”

While everyone stood around in stunned confusion, Taeseong turned his gaze back toward the statue.

“By the way, Minjun, your sword…” He pointed toward the Dragon Bone Sword embedded in the stone. “What happened with that?”

“I… honestly don’t know. I was swinging it like normal, and then it suddenly flew away.”

I suspected it was related to the dragon’s power somehow, but I didn’t know the exact reason either. To figure out what had actually happened, I walked over to the statue where the blade was lodged.

When I examined it up close, I saw that the blade had driven so deeply into the stone that almost nothing but the hilt remained visible. Even stranger, however, was the fact that there wasn’t a single crack in the surrounding structure.

A sword made from dragon bone had flown into it at well over a hundred kilometers per hour. No matter how sturdy the statue was, was it really possible for it to take zero damage from an impact like that?

While I was wondering the same thing, the other hunters gathered around in small groups to inspect the embedded weapon.

“Wow.”

“How did a sword go in that cleanly?”

“Seriously. How is that even possible?”

As the others stared and took pictures, Taeseong suddenly spoke up. “There was already a deep slot here.”

“You mean the slot existed before today?” I asked.

“Yes. I saw it when I first came here about a year ago. There was a groove carved right around this spot.”

Taeseong pointed at the area where my sword was embedded. We hadn’t had time to inspect the statue closely earlier, which explained why I hadn’t noticed it before.

Taeseong took out his phone, searched through his gallery, and showed me an older picture. “Here. See it?”

Just as he had said, there had always been a narrow groove in the center of the statue, almost exactly wide enough to fit a single sword blade.

Taeseong went on to explain what had happened when it was first discovered. “At first, we thought it was just natural weathering, but once we looked closely, it was far too clean for that.”

In his opinion, the groove had clearly been created intentionally when the statue was built. Taeseong and the guild members who had raided the Dungeon with him at the time had discussed what purpose the opening might serve, but they never discovered any hidden mechanism. Someone had even tried inserting various objects into the slot, yet nothing happened, so eventually everyone stopped worrying about it.

“But after seeing this, I’m curious all over again. Why did your sword suddenly fly away on its own, and why did it happen to fit perfectly into that slot?”

Juwon, who had been watching quietly beside Taeseong, tossed out a casual thought. “Looking at it now, maybe the slot was meant for a sword from the very beginning. The size is perfect.”

Taeseong immediately shot him down. “Why would anyone construct a giant statue just so you could stick a sword into it?”

“Well, sure… but the fit is almost too perfect…” Juwon scratched his head awkwardly when Taeseong took his offhand remark seriously.

“I should report this to Team Leader Jeong soon. The guild probably needs to investigate this place properly,” Taeseong muttered almost to himself, before stepping aside to look at me. “Before that, though, we should probably get your sword back out.”

“Ah, right.”

So many bizarre things had happened in rapid succession that I had actually forgotten to retrieve it.

I reached out, grabbed the hilt, and pulled. Fortunately, the sword slid out cleanly without any resistance.

The instant it came free, however, the ground beneath our feet suddenly began to tremble.

RUMBLE…!

“Eek!”

“What the hell?!”

Everyone yelled and scrambled away the moment the tremor started. We had already witnessed two extremely abnormal events in quick succession—a flying sword and the sudden disappearance of every monster—so no one had expected yet another strange phenomenon to occur.

Then, one hunter who had retreated farthest from the statue pointed back with a trembling hand. “Why is… only that area shaking?”

Just as he said, the ground was trembling only around the base of the statue, while the earth farther away remained completely still.

Before we even had time to process why, the stone around the statue split open. As the ground separated, a dark staircase descending deep underground appeared beneath it.

“I’m getting tired of being surprised…”

“…Wow.”

The hunter beside me had put it perfectly. One astonishing event after another kept happening without pause.

“I’ve decided to give up on trying to understand anything that happens here.”

“Same. My head is starting to hurt.”

While the hunters voiced their shock, I stared silently down the underground staircase, whose bottom was completely lost in darkness.

The name Garden of Dragon Swords, the Dragon Bone Sword suddenly flying from my hand into the statue, every Sword Wraith vanishing at once, and now a secret passage discovered for the first time today… Could all of these things really have happened by mere coincidence?

‘Of course not.’

Considering everything that had transpired, there was a very high chance these phenomena had occurred specifically because of my presence. If so, I had only one real choice. No matter what it took, I needed to descend those stairs and find out why all these so-called coincidences were happening.

The question was whether everyone else would agree.

Realistically, I wasn’t the party leader, nor was I even a member of this guild—I was an outsider. They had no reason to go along with whatever I wanted to do. If they decided to withdraw and send a formal investigation team later, my opportunity to enter this Dungeon again might disappear entirely.

I was wondering how I could convince the others when a system notification suddenly materialized before my eyes:

[The Dungeon’s rank and clear conditions are changing.]

Apparently, the exact same message appeared for every hunter at once, because the entire group instantly erupted into chaos.

[Rank: D -> EX] [Clear Condition: Reach the lowest floor of ***’s Tomb, then ***]

“…That’s impossible!”

“EX-rank?!”

“Then how are we supposed to get out of here?!”

“Taeseong oppa, what do we do now?!”

Panic swallowed the group as everyone tried to make sense of the new rank and incomplete clear condition.

I had wanted to descend the stairs and uncover the Dungeon’s secrets, but this was absolutely not the kind of development I had hoped for. The EX designation was used when a Gate couldn’t be classified within the standard F-to-SSS ranking system. That meant the clear difficulty could either be absurdly simple, or the complete opposite: nearly impossible.

‘The second possibility is far more likely.’

That was precisely why the hunters around me were spiraling into a panic. Worse still, the new clear condition was cut off and incomplete. How were we supposed to clear a Dungeon when we didn’t even know the full objective?

In the middle of the chaos, one hunter suddenly grabbed me by the collar. “Isn’t this all because of you?! None of this would have happened if it weren’t for your sword!”

I could understand why he was reacting this way. He was overwhelmed by the sudden fear that we might fail the raid and die trapped inside this place, making it difficult for him to think rationally.

Still, that didn’t make his behavior acceptable.

“Let go of me.”

I firmly knocked his hand away from my collar as Taeseong and several other hunters rushed in to pull him back.

“Seongmin, get a hold of yourself! Hey!”

“Kim Seongmin, what the hell is wrong with you?!”

“Did Minjun deliberately trap us here?! If we can’t leave, he’s stuck in here with us too!”

Only after the others dragged him back did the hunter called Seongmin regain his senses. He lowered his head and offered a quiet apology. “…I’m sorry. I know this isn’t actually your fault, but…”

“It’s fine. I understand.”

Once the brief commotion passed, I turned and pointed toward the dark passage. “Then I guess we have no choice but to go down there.”

Taeseong nodded grimly. “That’s the only option we have left.”

He let out a long, heavy sigh before opening his spatial storage. “We have no idea what might be waiting down there, so let’s pause here for a moment and prepare before stepping inside.”

At his warning, several hunters swallowed nervously, opening their own spatial storage to equip extra armor and check their supplies.

After the incident in our previous Gate, Sia had worried about my safety and upgraded virtually all of my equipment. Even so, this place was now classified as EX-rank. It only made sense to use every resource available. I equipped every protective artifact I had on me and packed several Elixirs—potions considered to be among the finest healing items in existence.

Once I finished preparing, and before we entered the underground passage in earnest, I looked directly into the lens of the drone camera Sia had given me, which had been recording continuously since we entered the Dungeon.

Sia couldn’t watch the live feed right now, but for some reason, looking at the lens felt almost like her eyes were watching over me.

‘I’ll be back safely.’

I wished Sia could have been beside me, but simply having her drone camera there gave me a strange sense of reassurance.

‘All right. Let’s go.’

It was time to uncover the truth hidden inside this tomb.