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Chapter 3: The Protagonist’s Rival (3)
Rumble…
A wave of fire swept through the dark deep sea.
Even though they had fallen into corruption, the monsters here were still spirits.
Water spirits.
They could not help but react with hostility toward their natural opposite.
Every monster in the dungeon turned its eyes at once.
“ROOOAAAR!”
Like moths flying toward a flame, the monsters rushed toward the fire.
There weren’t too many for him to handle.
But he had no intention of fighting them.
He couldn’t follow the same path as the Lee Shin from the webtoon.
While they’re distracted by the fire, I’ll purify only the final boss.
A corrupted mid-rank water spirit was imprisoned in a solitary cell.
Purifying it alone would be enough to earn first place in contribution.
He could ignore the weaker monsters.
***
A dungeon.
A concept made popular through games and web novels.
It was usually known as a labyrinth where people fought monsters to obtain treasure.
Some dungeons contained only traps and no monsters.
Some entire worlds were called dungeons.
The structure and rules differed depending on the story.
But in Otherworld Covenant, dungeons were actually prisons where criminals were locked away.
The beings called monsters had once been residents of other worlds.
They committed crimes and were imprisoned inside labyrinths.
To prevent them from escaping, the entire labyrinths were banished outside their dimensions.
Those prisons were called dungeons.
The definition of a criminal differed from world to world.
In the Spirit Realm, it referred to corrupted spirits.
Some lost their minds over countless years.
Others were corrupted after being exposed to opposing forces.
For many different reasons, spirits became corrupted.
Because spirits were pure beings, they were easily influenced by corruption around them.
To prevent all spirits from becoming corrupted, they were sealed inside labyrinths and exiled outside their dimension.
Where there were prisons, there were always escape attempts.
The prisoners spent countless years trying to break free.
Eventually, when the dimensional barriers weakened as other worlds became connected to Earth…
They were finally able to invade.
That was how dungeons were created in Otherworld Covenant.
Since Earth was connected to five different worlds, the origin of each dungeon also varied.
The Heavenly Realm.
The Demon Realm.
The Spirit Realm.
The Immortal Realm.
The Dragon Realm.
The strategy changed depending on which world the dungeon came from.
As for Spirit Realm dungeons…
You should avoid fighting as much as possible.
The moment he entered the dungeon, Lee Shin used a wave of fire to draw all the monsters’ attention.
Then he quietly headed toward the deepest part of the dungeon.
The prisoners in the Spirit Realm were corrupted members of their own kind.
They were different from criminals in other worlds.
The spirits imprisoned their corrupted brethren because they hoped they could someday return to normal.
That was why simply hunting monsters wasn’t the correct strategy.
You had to purify the monsters and restore them to their original spirit form.
Or remove the source of their corruption.
Killing them earned very few contribution points.
With Lee Shin’s ability, removing the corruption itself wasn’t difficult.
The problem was how.
How could a fire spirit contractor purify corruption?
There was only one answer.
Burn the corruption itself away with fire.
Rumble…
Ripples spread through the water above him.
The monsters rushing toward the fire were creating waves.
What would have happened if he had tried to purify corruption while surrounded by all of them?
He would have spent the entire time fighting weak monsters.
Meanwhile, Eugene would purify the final boss and finish in first place.
That was exactly how the webtoon had gone.
And Lee Shin refused to let history repeat itself.
Unless he was the one standing at the top.
I’ll focus on just one target.
In Hard Mode, defeating only the boss had changed the outcome.
If this was truly Hard Mode…
Then the future could still be changed.
By purifying only the boss.
I’m using more soul power than I expected.
Summoning Spirit Fire drained his soul power rapidly.
Using fire deep underwater, where water naturally opposed it, consumed much more energy than usual.
Only Lee Shin could summon fire in the deepest sea.
Others wouldn’t even attempt such a thing.
I need to move faster.
He increased his speed and descended even deeper.
The abyss was completely dark.
But thanks to his equipment, his vision wasn’t a problem.
Neither was navigation.
Left tunnel here.
Next comes a cliff.
There’s another opening above the right side…
Lee Jinwoo had challenged this tutorial dungeon over and over while trying to change the outcome.
Because of that, he remembered the path perfectly.
Lee Shin continued descending deeper into the maze-like abyss.
The dungeon resembled a spiral seashell.
He had to keep spiraling downward to reach the boss’s prison.
The tunnels were becoming narrower.
He was heading the right way.
After descending for quite some time…
Found it.
He reached the very bottom of the dungeon.
The deepest part of the sea.
A narrow opening barely large enough for one person.
Corrupted water poured out from inside.
As if trying to replace every drop Lee Shin burned away.
About seventy percent of my soul power remains.
That was enough to remove the corruption from a mid-rank spirit.
He even knew the correct order for purifying it.
Lee Shin withdrew the soul power, maintaining the wave of fire.
Then he wrapped himself in a protective aura created from the qi he had cultivated in the Immortal Realm.
Finally, he threw himself into the opening.
The tunnel twisted like a giant waterslide.
The water pressure and the boss’s aura threatened to shatter his protective aura.
Lee Shin compressed it further, strengthening his defense.
He pushed forward against the current.
Finally…
He reached the end.
The lowest floor.
The boss chamber.
Crackle…
What…?
Perhaps the energy flowing from the boss room was simply too powerful.
Static suddenly filled his vision.
The next instant…
Everything went black.
The equipment enhancing his vision had broken.
So the tutorial really won’t let me win?
Complete darkness.
Not even an inch ahead was visible.
This strange phenomenon had never happened when he played as Eugene.
When playing as Lee Shin, he had never possessed a Smart Glove or matching earpiece, so he had started with this limited vision.
But not now.
Even with the equipment… the result is the same.
Ridiculous.
At this point…
It wouldn’t be surprising if some invisible force truly existed to favor the protagonist.
“Does the game seriously become impossible whenever you meet Eugene?”
“That’s why I never play Lee Shin.”
“The protagonist definitely has 100% Luck.”
“That’s why I play Hard Mode trying to unlock the hidden Luck stat.”
“What’s the point if your luck drops whenever Eugene shows up? lol”
“Is the game rigged? Why does everything fail at the worst possible moment?!”
He remembered the complaints from Hard Mode players.
Whenever the rival tried to surpass the protagonist…
Bad luck always appeared at the most important moment.
No matter what they did…
They could never defeat Eugene.
If his own life followed those same rules…
No.
Reality is different from a game.
No matter how much freedom the game offered…
It was still just a game.
There were limits.
And he possessed the memories of Lee Jinwoo, someone who had mastered Otherworld Covenant.
He also had years of experience sharpening his battle instincts.
I’ll burn everything in one strike.
Lee Shin drew his sword from the Smart Glove and swung it toward the only entrance to the boss room.
Boom!
His flaming sword shattered the prison entrance.
Broken rocks immediately collapsed and sealed it shut.
The prison’s only exit disappeared.
Now only two things remained.
A prison filled with water.
And the master of this place, rushing toward the living intruder.
[Corrupted Mid-Rank Water Spirit—Impern]
The flames evaporated the water filling the prison.
The spirit’s figure appeared.
So did Lee Shin.
Standing with a confident smile…
his sword raised.
The moment Eugene was absorbed into the dungeon, he immediately rescued everyone nearby and gathered them together.
An area the size of a school field had formed in the middle of the sea.
A transparent barrier kept the water out.
Inside it, breathing was easy.
“How is it?”
“Did we rescue everyone?”
Eugene walked over to Sun Woo-yeon, who was checking the survivors.
Sun Woo-yeon was destined to assist the future Spirit King’s contractor.
He compared the rescued people with the official list.
[Dungeon: Spirit Realm Underwater F-92 (High Rank)]
[Superhumans: Kang Cheol-min, Kim Kyung-ho… Total: 114]
[Civilians: Kim Sun-hee, Nam Jeong-hyun… Total: 41]
The list sent by the Dungeon Management Bureau made the job much easier.
After checking everyone, Sun Woo-yeon looked at Eugene.
“Everyone except one person has been rescued.”
“One person?”
“Who?”
Eugene’s expression immediately filled with concern.
“I wouldn’t worry.”
“It’s Lee Shin.”
“Oh!”
“Shin!”
The moment he heard the name…
His worry disappeared.
Instead, admiration filled his face.
“That huge wave of fire earlier…”
“Shin made it, didn’t he?”
“Probably.”
“Nobody else would use such an outrageous method.”
“He’s amazing.”
“I don’t think I could even control water properly inside a fire domain.”
“How did he keep such a massive flame going for so long?”
Using fire inside a water domain…
was much harder than people imagined.
In an opposing-element dungeon, simply standing still made your body feel heavy.
The more power you used, the harder it became.
Soul power was consumed much faster as well.
Most people conserved their strength in opposing-element dungeons.
Instead, they relied on martial arts or other abilities.
Lee Shin simply overpowered everything with raw strength.
Only someone with enormous soul power and overwhelming control over fire could fight like that.
Ordinary people couldn’t even dream of copying him.
Unlike Eugene, who simply admired him…
Sun Woo-yeon calmly analyzed Lee Shin’s actions.
Where did he go?
Drawing the monsters away with fire couldn’t have been just to save people.
The Fire Spirit King’s family wasn’t known for being selfless.
Despite their overwhelming strength, they ignored dungeon raids because they weren’t profitable.
Instead, they focused entirely on developing other worlds for business.
Lee Shin was the same.
It was hard to believe he had wasted so much soul power just to reduce casualties.
Unless he had another objective.
He can’t be after resources.
Unlike developing other worlds, dungeon raids rarely produced valuable resources.
Who would store priceless treasures inside a prison?
Even though spirits cared about their own kind…
That didn’t change anything.
They might provide enough for prisoners to survive.
Nothing more.
There were no treasure chests like in games.
There might be materials useless to spirits but valuable to humans.
Nothing else.
He’s aiming for first place in contribution.
Lee Shin had never lost first place during his entire time at the academy.
He would probably try to claim first place even in a water dungeon.
Arrogantly, as always.
“Will he be okay?”
“No matter how strong Shin is, using that much soul power…”
Eugene sounded genuinely worried.
Even though Lee Shin only cared about competing…
Eugene still worried about him.
That was just the kind of person Eugene was.
“What if he runs out of strength when it really matters?”
“I don’t know.”
“His control over Spirit Fire is excellent, so he wastes very little energy…”
“But even for him…”
“It’ll be dangerous.”
No matter how talented Lee Shin was…
He couldn’t maintain a flame that enormous forever.
Soul power could only recover on Earth.
Inside a dungeon…
It only decreased.
“Ah!”
“What is it?”
“The wave of fire…”
“Shin’s Spirit Fire disappeared!”
There were only two reasons Spirit Fire would disappear.
Either the person who summoned it dismissed it…
…or they were too badly injured to borrow power from the spirit anymore.
Rumble!
The sound of something collapsing echoed through the dungeon.
It made the second possibility seem much more likely.
“I can’t stay here.”
“I’m going.”
This was an opportunity.
If Lee Shin had been defeated…
and Eugene purified every monster in the dungeon…
Then first place in contribution would be his.
“I’ll stay here.”
“Go quickly.”
A dungeon appearing inside the world’s greatest Superhuman Academy on graduation day.
There couldn’t have been a better stage.
On this stage…
Eugene had to become the protagonist.
