A Side Character's Mission ↠ Solo Leveling

Chapter 34.1: Bad End

Lanze looked at the blue screen in front of him, checking the Demon Castle Dungeon that Jin-woo would enter in the future. Unlike normal dungeon, there were four bosses stationed in there and their strength shouldn't be underestimated. It was a secret dungeon that could only get accessed by the player. If it appeared in public and all of the S-rank hunters in South Korea joined forces, they still  wouldn't be able to beat it easily.

"The Hunter guild's leader also noticed the capability of the player. Sire, which guild do you think is worthy to recruit Sung Jin-Woo? Since S-rank hunter is the highest rank, he can also make his own guild. So if you already have a plan in mind, then I'll go and make an immediate preparation."

Lanze looked at the shorter male in front of him but did not hear any response. After they left the A-rank gate filled with dead High Orcs, they had been walking silently on the road for few hours and his sire hadn't say anything. 

The street lamp flickered.

There were no cars passing them. It felt as if there were only the two of them in this world. And time stopped ticking. Lanze looked at the black crows that didn't move in the sky and suddenly had a bad premonition. 

"Sire-"

"Lanze, come with me. I need your opinion on this."

When his sire replied, Lanze unconsciously sighed in relief. They stopped in the middle of the bridge and a gate suddenly appeared. It was a gate that he had never seen before. Instead of red or blue, the color was pitch-black. Seung-Eun entered without hesitation and he followed from behind.

His relief only lasted for a short while when he suddenly felt heavy pressure assaulted him, causing him to kneel down on the ground. Lanze looked at the grey mist around them and the boy in front of him that wasn't affected by the pressure. He also had his back turned on him.

'I-It's hard to breath...'

'Is it this mist?'

"What do you think of this dungeon?"

The mist cleared up enough for him to observe their surrounding. Lanze finally had the chance to breath and stand up properly. 

They were standing on the edge of a cliff. The ground was black as all sign of life had withered and instead of the blue or starry night sky, there were hundred thousand of giant and featherless birds stuck on the sky upside down. Their eyes were closed as their head dangled in the air, as if they could fall any time soon. 

Lanze couldn't describe his feelings clearly when he saw their surrounding beside the fact that it was something unpleasant.

"Sire, this..." Lanze grew unsettled.

"I made this for the player, you know. But I think that it's too difficult for anyone to clear when hundreds of S-rank monsters that I created die within a minute before they can even scratch the dungeon boss."

"The dungeon boss?"

"That's right."

Seung-Eun craned his neck to look at the sleeping birds on the sky.

"Slaughter the birds."

"How about it, Lanze? Do you think that you can clear the gate?"

"If you can't, it's fine."

Lanze didn't even the existence of this gate until today. He hesitated for a while. "I can't. But if you want to, then..."

"It's alright." Seung-Eun raised his hand. Numerous portals that were the same as the one that they went through just now appeared on the ground below the cliff.