[You have entered a dungeon that has been fully opened.]
[Dungeon <Forged Labyrinth>]
[You have entered the labyrinth. Will you be able to find your way out?
Estimated Rank: E
Reward: ???]
It had been a while since I’d seen a system window. The memories from the past came flooding back, filling me with a strange nostalgia. Come to think of it, the very first time I ever saw this interface was when I rode the elevator with Baek Tae-beom, wasn’t it? At first, just looking at his back, I thought, Can someone really be this tall and good-looking? But then, realizing he would later become the villain of The Apocalypse Chronicles of Another World—the shock of that realization couldn’t even be put into words.
What happened after that was a total mess too. Ever since I was pulled into a contract with him, I’d gone through hell just trying to keep him out of danger. In hindsight, maybe that too was inevitable—Destruction, which was me, and Baek Tae-beom, who had brought ruin upon another world in a parallel dimension, naturally drawn to each other.
Maybe even our meeting was fate.
If that’s true, shouldn’t the path I’m meant to walk also be something decided by fate?
I felt completely alone. Everyone else was steadily moving forward, while I stood still, left behind, unable to do anything. The more time passed, the more anxious I became. I even felt like I’d shrunk down into a little kid.
At the very least, if the Constellations had been here, I wouldn’t be feeling like this.
The fact that just entering the dungeon was enough to make me feel so nauseous— I braced myself and got my nerves under control.
The inside of the dungeon was a lot different than I’d expected. I’d assumed it would be your typical cave-like dungeon, similar to the F to D-Rank dungeons I’d cleared before. But what unfolded before me looked more like ancient ruins.
The entrance resembled something straight out of the Labyrinth of Crete. From the entrance, I could see a corridor stretching straight ahead, ending in a sharp turn. It looked like a maze, but the path seemed fairly linear.
Thanks to all the filming equipment and crew that had poured in, the dungeon was already bustling from the entrance. I tried to calm Baek Tae-beom, who looked visibly irritated. Honestly, he looked like he was about ready to punch Lim Hee-seop in the face.
“I didn’t expect this…”
“Hm? What was that?”
“Nothing.”
Baek Tae-beom mumbled, brushing it off.
Then, right between us, Blue Star slipped in. With an arm casually slung over both of our shoulders, his smiling face looked as it always did—yet something about it felt subtly artificial. Blue Star turned his head and leaned in close to Baek Tae-beom, whispering in his ear. Normally, Baek Tae-beom would have recoiled and cussed him out, but today he stayed still.
Something was definitely up.
Meanwhile, Seo Chang-hyuk and Lee In-seo were smoothly introducing the dungeon. They covered the dungeon’s name, difficulty, and even its theme. From the looks of the ruins, they speculated that maybe a pharaoh lay entombed inside—delivering the commentary like pros. No wonder they were the show’s MCs.
While listening to their chatter, I checked out the weapon that had been issued to me. It was a sword, similar in appearance to the one Baek Tae-beom used. The only noticeable difference was that mine had a deep green tint. I couldn’t check the full specs, but they said it was an A-Rank weapon, which made me think Ahn Ki-yoon had pulled some strings.
The filming proceeded smoothly after that. Since it was a low-rank dungeon, the focus wasn’t so much on slaying monsters as it was on drawing out each person’s personal story. For example—
“Blue Star and Oh Kwon-hyuk, you two seem pretty close. How did you meet?”
Questions like that prompted people to naturally open up about the things viewers were most curious about.
The first to show a sour expression was Blue Star—but he was also the first to fix his face. With those sky-blue eyes blinking innocently, he put on such a convincing act that for a second, I wondered if he was even the same person.
“I mean, the two of you give off totally different vibes. You don’t exactly seem like the type to get along?”
“We get that a lot.”
Oh Kwon-hyuk raised an eyebrow, scoffing as if the whole thing was absurd.
“We’re not close at all—”
“The moment we met! It was just like a scene from a movie!”
Blue Star clamped a hand over Oh Kwon-hyuk’s mouth and chirped brightly.
“Kwon-hyuk was in danger, and I came to the rescue!”
“What kind of danger?”
“It was during the First Monster Calamity. I saw him surrounded by monsters and ran straight into the fray! He was bleeding so badly—”
“For the last time, that wasn’t even a dangerous situation. You just barged in and—”
“—or so he always says, but he’s just too shy to admit the truth!”
Blue Star smiled like sunlight through crystal, giving Oh Kwon-hyuk a hearty slap on the back. Oh Kwon-hyuk grimaced like he was being tortured and looked like he wanted nothing more than to shake him off. But with the cameras rolling, there was no way Blue Star would retreat so easily.
“He might look scary, but he’s actually super shy.”
“Really?”
Yoo Ji-won, the fellow broadcaster, asked with the same wide-eyed innocence, as if he truly didn’t know better.
“Absolutely. He acts all tough, but inside, he’s a total softie.”
“…Get your hand off me.”
Oh Kwon-hyuk’s demand went ignored.
“If you’re that close, you must know each other’s deep, dark secrets too, huh?”
At that moment, Lim Hee-seop spoke up. Blue Star blinked. Lee In-seo casually picked up the thread of the conversation.
“Now that you mention it~ Blue Star, don’t you think you could share just one secret?”
“A secret about him? That’d be dangerous,” Blue Star joked with a theatrical wave of his hand.
“All I know is that Oh Kwon-hyuk has the palate of a toddler.”
“Son Dong-chan.”
“I told you not to call me that.”
“Quit running your mouth.”
“You two really do get along so well~”
Seo Chang-hyuk said cheerfully. Just then, a monster appeared.
Though calling it a “monster” felt like a stretch—it was just a small, orb-shaped slime. It approached us sluggishly, and Oh Kwon-hyuk stomped on it irritably. Pop. The tiny monster burst instantly. The two MCs lightly praised his strength and moved on to the next question.
Apparently, this was the direction the segment was going. With Lim Hee-seop as the new face, he joined the MCs in tossing out occasional questions, aiming to satisfy viewers’ curiosity here and there.
Next came a question about Park Gil-seon’s first Awakening. That detail had never even been covered in The Apocalypse Chronicles of Another World, so I, too, was intrigued. All eyes turned to Park Gil-seon, who laughed awkwardly under the sudden attention before replying.
“It was a rainy day…”
Her story had an eerie, almost ghostly tone to it. That feeling of someone following behind on a rainy day. Everyone was hanging onto her every word as she spoke about the past—right up until a monster popped out at the climax. It had the form of a jet-black humanoid, its movements twitchy and puppet-like. Park Gil-seon effortlessly dispatched it with a casual swing of her axe.
Seo Chang-hyuk exclaimed with excitement.
“So! So what happened next?!”
“So, uh… that was pretty much it…”
“What kind of answer is that?! ‘Pretty much it’ isn’t an answer!”
Yoo Ji-won shouted in disbelief, but Park Gil-seon just laughed it off. As the others started expressing their complaints, Lim Hee-seop asked innocently,
“Then how did Baek Tae-beom first meet Choi Ga-hyeon?”
How did we meet? Caught off guard by the sudden shift in topic, I blinked and stared at Lim Hee-seop. He was smiling serenely as he looked at us, but something behind that smile carried a strange undertone.
The one who answered was, unexpectedly, Baek Tae-beom.
“We met when I first Awakened.”
He spoke slowly, in a quiet voice.
“I was in an elevator when a dungeon suddenly manifested. At the time, I didn’t know a thing. If it hadn’t been for hyung, I’d be dead. I survived thanks to his quick thinking.”
“It’s not… it wasn’t that big of a deal.”
“No. If hyung hadn’t been there, I would’ve died.”
Baek Tae-beom looked down at me and spoke with resolute certainty.
“Hyung saved a lot of lives. I just happened to be one of them.”
If it felt like those words were somehow meant to comfort me—was I imagining it?
Like he was saying, You’ve done so much already. It’s okay to rest now. That’s how it sounded to me. I looked up at Baek Tae-beom in silence, but then flinched at the loud fuss next to me from Lee In-seo.
“Whoa, that’s so cool! A world-saving hero, Choi Ga-hyeon!”
“Please… don’t call me that.”
“Even your shyness is adorable~”
“But now, you’re basically just an ordinary civilian, right?”
Lim Hee-seop cut in again, this time taking aim right at my weakness. I fell silent. The mood in the room shifted—turned heavy.
“So I’m curious how that makes you feel.”
It was obvious now. This guy definitely held some kind of grudge against Baek Tae-beom and me. The way he casually brought up what everyone else avoided—Even the usually tactless Oh Kwon-hyuk was giving Lim Hee-seop a look. I let out a slow sigh.
“Doesn’t really make me feel anything.”
“You don’t feel any sense of loss?”
“I do. But it’s easier to think it was never mine to begin with. I don’t have time to waste on being jealous or bitter about others.”
“……”
Lim Hee-seop’s brow creased slightly, then relaxed. He smiled brightly.
“I really admire that mindset of yours, Choi Ga-hyeon.”
“…Let’s just move on.”
Lee Myung-won said flatly, stepping in to steer things back on track.
And that’s when it happened.
The ground suddenly gave out beneath us, and in the same moment, Baek Tae-beom wrapped his arms around me. Holding me close as we fell, Baek Tae-beom landed expertly on the floor below. A few feet away, Lim Hee-seop dropped like a sack of potatoes, groaning and clutching his head, with a few pieces of camera equipment clattering down beside him.
Was it a trap? But before I could even process that—
“What the hell is this…?”
[A new quest has been updated.]
[Dungeon <Hidden Room>]
[You have stepped into a hidden chamber.
Estimated Rank: S
Reward: ???]
I stared blankly at the notification window.
An S-Rank dungeon? Inside this trap?
