The satisfaction of unlocking Necromancy and gaining Bishap as a spirit was immense.
Bishap, a creature of myth in my previous world, was now my loyal companion.
He was the final boss of a B-rank dungeon before my transmigration, a formidable dragon with sharp eyes and a terrifying aura, known for his relentless aerial attacks and devastating dragon breath.
Yet, to me, standing before his colossal, true form, he just looked cute.
The sheer power he exuded was undeniable, but the familiarity of having him by my side, like an old friend, overshadowed any intimidation.
“It’s been too long!”
I exclaimed, a genuine smile gracing my lips. In the early morning, as the bright city lights of Seoul had dimmed a bit, I mounted Bishap’s back and soared freely through the cloudy, dark sky.
Bishap, a black dragon, completely blended into the darkness, a shadow among shadows.
Flying through the sky on his sleek back after so long felt incredibly refreshing, the wind whipping through my hair, the world a miniature diorama below.
This was true freedom, a sensation I had sorely missed.
Perhaps that’s why, though I had come out specifically to find a gate, I’d flown too far.
When I used to search for gates alone, I mostly stayed within my neighborhood or nearby ones, relying on my own two feet.
But now that I had a means of transportation again, a magnificent dragon at my command, I’d crossed over into an entirely different district, the city sprawling beneath us.
I lowered my head slightly and looked down.
Having flown away from the light-filled neighborhoods, I saw a fairly large mountain.
It was Gwanak Mountain.
“Let’s go down there.”
I murmured, the mountain offering a promising expanse for a hidden gate.
No one would be hiking at this hour, I thought, glancing at the early morning gloom.
Looking down from above, I didn’t sense any human presence, only the quiet stillness of nature.
Bishap immediately flew towards the spot I indicated, his powerful wings cutting silently through the air.
Midway up the mountain, far from the hiking trail, Bishap’s massive body landed softly, a surprisingly gentle descent for such a large creature.
I hopped down and slowly began to walk. Before a rugged rock nestled among the trees, a gate shimmered, emitting an ominous aura, its edges wavering with unrestrained mana.
“[Master, the mana fluctuation is unstable.]”
Bishap seemed to share my thoughts, his brow furrowing as he spoke, his draconic voice a rumble in my mind.
“It wouldn’t be strange if monsters popped out any moment, would it?”
I muttered, confirming his observation.
The monsters’ mana beyond the gate was seeping out bit by bit, piercing through the gate, a palpable pressure in the air.
It looked like a dungeon break, caused by not clearing the dungeon in time, was about to happen.
Which guild won the bid for this one?
I remembered hearing news about the Gwanak Mountain gate bid a few days ago, a brief blurb in a news report.
What had they been doing that they hadn’t cleared it yet, letting it get to this point, to the verge of a dungeon break?
In front of the tall rock, a female student and a plump black lizard flapping its wings next to her looked incredibly suspicious to anyone who might stumble upon us.
I should have either slipped away, used Shadow Form to conceal myself, or entered the gate before being discovered, but I couldn’t move recklessly, not with Bishap’s current size.
Bishap, aware of my current situation from hearing the past events, blinked his large, round eyes, patiently waiting for me to move, ready to shrink if needed.
I gently scratched Bishap’s neck, who I held tightly in my arms in case someone came, and contemplated how to deal with this impending crisis.
Wait, didn’t the Four Heavenly Kings win the bid for this?
Suddenly, a news report I’d seen in passing flashed into my mind, a fleeting memory that now held crucial information.
The gate in Gwanak Mountain.
It was the gate the Four Heavenly Kings had won the bid for three days ago.
It should be fine for up to a week.
Why is it like this…?
The usual grace period for gates was seven days.
This rapid escalation was alarming.
I couldn’t blame the guild for not closing the gate in time.
They probably didn’t expect the gate to overheat so quickly either, a rare occurrence for a gate so recently acquired.
I wondered if the Four Heavenly Kings might show up if I went inside, but remembering the information I’d gathered recently by getting closer to them, my tension eased.
They said they intentionally closed the gates they won bids for during school hours.
It made for a perfectly valid excuse to skip class, a typical teenage indulgence.
As if they’d come out at dawn to check a gate, a ridiculous thought.
My contemplation was brief. If I didn’t take action immediately, Gwanak Mountain might be overrun with monsters, a catastrophe waiting to happen.
If no one else was coming anyway, it was better if I closed it.
I looked around once more, taking in the quiet solitude, then cautiously stepped inside the gate.
“[You have entered the dungeon.]”
The status window, which I usually ignored, was strangely bothersome.
It flickered with an unsettling light, giving me a bad feeling about this, a premonition of trouble.
***
At the entrance of Gwanak Mountain, far below where I had entered, a tall man ruffled his hair as if annoyed, looking up at the mountain.
He was just standing there with his weight shifted to one leg, dressed in training clothes, but there was a subtle sense of intimidation emanating from his back, even in his relaxed posture.
“Why is that thing causing trouble at dawn?”
His grumbling voice echoed through the quiet mountain entrance, a testament to his irritation.
The man read the message that had brought him here once more, his eyes scanning the digital text.
“[Mana fluctuation anomaly detected at gate. Immediate confirmation required. This is an emergency notification automatically sent to the guild that won the bid for the gate.]”
It was a message sent when the Dungeon Management Bureau’s mana detection item detected an unusual flow or dangerous elements in a gate’s mana.
It was a sophisticated system that automatically sent to the guild master of the guild that won the bid for that gate, created by an Awakener who had awakened abilities related to development early on, a brilliant piece of technology.
The man, keeping his posture as he looked at his phone screen, only rolled his eyes to look at the top edge of the screen.
The current time was clearly visible above the message: 1:12 AM.
Normally, he’d be lounging in bed, or playing games, enjoying the tranquility of the late hours. Han Ji-bin, the good little child, would have been asleep by now, tucked cozily in her bed, and Eun Ba-da would probably be studying diligently.
Ji Kang-han, he’d confirmed was online playing a game before he left, so he’d be diligently gaming right about now, lost in his virtual world.
Ban Eun-hye, who had intentionally come to check the gate alone without telling his friends, shoved his hands into his pockets and walked briskly, a sense of urgency guiding his steps.
It was enough to figure things out himself first and then inform his friends later; as a guild master, he should handle these kinds of checks alone, a silent burden of responsibility.
Thinking so, he quickly ascended the mountain, his annoyance growing with every step.
The higher he climbed the mountain, the more annoyance colored his face.
He hated mountains.
The steep inclines, the uneven terrain, the claustrophobic feeling of the trees pressing in – it was all anathema to him.
If given a choice between mountains and the sea, he would choose the sea without hesitation, its vast openness a welcome contrast.
And if someone asked him to go hiking, he would fiercely glare with sharp eyes, clearly expressing his refusal, his dislike palpable.
Who would have imagined that he would be climbing a mountain, pushing through overgrown grass, all because of an unstable gate?
With a single irritable gesture of his hand, the long grasses blocking his path fell back weakly, making way for him, his mana effortlessly clearing the way.
Who suggested bidding on this?
A grinding sound of teeth revealed his discomfort, a low growl of frustration.
The gate, unfortunately, was quite a distance from the hiking trail, making it incredibly bothersome to climb a path that wasn’t even a recognized trail.
As he got closer to the gate, his face contorted in a grimace of pure vexation.
He firmly vowed never to bid on a gate in the mountains again, the arduous climb cementing his resolve.
Increasing his speed, he quickly ascended, reaching the location of the open gate, and then his steps gradually slowed, a sense of apprehension replacing his earlier annoyance.
Standing tall before a towering rock nestled in the forest, he focused all his senses on the mana fluctuations emanating from the gate, his attention honed on the anomaly.
That’s when it happened.
A blue status window appeared before his eyes, shimmering in the dim light of dawn.
Normally, he rarely saw status windows outside a dungeon, their appearance usually confined to the interior of gates.
First the emergency message, now a status window.
He wondered what was going on today as he carefully read the text displayed in the status window.
Only a single line was written, but it was enough to shock him to his core.
Wiping away the annoyance that had covered his face, he stared at the status window intently, his mind struggling to process the implications, then muttered in a bewildered tone.
“What does this mean?”
The status window contained content that would not only surprise him, but the entire nation, a profound shift in the very fabric of their reality.
***
As soon as I entered the gate, a new status window appeared, following the one announcing dungeon entry, its blue light an unwelcome beacon.
I stood there, mouth agape, only rolling my eyes to reconfirm the contents of the status window.
No matter how many times I reread it, the content didn’t change, its message stark and uncompromising.
[Dungeon clear difficulty increases due to the rank increase of an extradimensional being.]
“What does this mean?”
A dazed voice escaped me, a whisper of disbelief.
An extradimensional being?
If this status window only appeared for me, it wouldn’t refer to me in such a way.
The implication was chilling.
Then, an ominous aura enveloped my entire body, a sudden chill in the air that wasn’t from the mountain’s cold.
Surely… this isn’t appearing to the entire nation like last time, is it?
The thought sent a fresh wave of dread through me.
It seemed likely, a pervasive, system-wide announcement.
So, now, because my rank increased, the dungeon clear difficulty went up?
That means… ‘because of me?’
The realization hit me with the force of a physical blow.
I quickly realized it wasn’t just talking about the difficulty of the dungeon I was currently in.
It meant the difficulty of all gates would increase, just like how gates started appearing across the country in the first place.
To make clearing them more difficult, a global escalation.
Even if it’s still a D-rank like before, it means the monsters will be stronger than they used to be, right?
With no detailed explanation, no specific numbers or changes, I could only make an educated guess, the uncertainty gnawing at me.
All I could do was sigh.
Does this darn status window have a grudge against me?
Why does it keep messing with me, constantly throwing new, unwelcome challenges my way?
Soon after, a status window announcing the dungeon’s rank appeared, as if to mock me, a final, taunting confirmation of my predicament.
[Rank:C]
It didn’t put a space again, it didn’t!
The way dungeon ranks were displayed as something like [Rank :D] during my transmigration came back like a nightmare, a petty, annoying detail that still managed to frustrate me.
Back then, I just let it slide because the rank was lowered, which was a good thing, a welcome reprieve.
But this time, the emoticon-like shape seemed to emphasize an unfavorable situation once again, its whimsical appearance in stark contrast to the grim reality, which annoyed me immensely.
My silent cry of anger towards the system lasted only a moment before a wave of worry washed over me as I re-evaluated my situation.
What if, just what if, the dungeon’s clear difficulty had changed to be like the world before my transmigration?
A world where dungeons were true trials, not merely stepping stones.
In that case, the good old days of me barely closing C-rank gates alone and easily closing D-rank gates would never return, a lost era of relative ease.
Before transmigration, when there were no penalties like skill locks, it might have been different, but now my skills and spirits are locked, and my rank has even dropped, a triple whammy of disadvantages.
And this is a C-rank gate, a level that would have been a struggle even before this sudden, unwelcome difficulty adjustment.
Even though my rank had increased with the unlocking of Necromancy, clearing it by myself was still too much, a daunting prospect.
But leaving the gate and running away?
I didn’t know when a dungeon break might occur and monsters would spill out, wreaking havoc on Seoul.
I was between a rock and a hard place, a perilous choice.
Damn it.
If I wanted to get home before dawn, I needed to hurry.
The sun would soon rise, bringing with it hikers and the inevitable discovery of the dungeon.
Thump, thump, thump—!
From ahead, the sound of something very heavy hitting the ground began to get closer, the vibrations echoing through the dungeon.