I Login Alone

[Please DM me on Discord if we missed any terms or changed any names. We will fix it ASAP and have them noted going forward.]

Episode 119.

[Ant Cave Area Extra 1. Monstrous Garden]

[Clear Time Limit- 5 Months]

“That’s one humongous Clear Time Limit.”

“I think what’s humongous is this dungeon’s scale, Oppa…what in the world is-”

370,000 dungeons were brought together, so it was assumed that it wouldn’t simply end only with an increased dungeon difficulty level. But this was…

“It’s as if a world was created.”

“I know, right? Look at them.”

Jung Si-woo called the companions’ attention forward as they looked up to gaze at the distant ceiling’s end. It was a safe area corresponding to the waiting room of an ordinary dungeon. The misty ghosts were now crowded in a space finished being built on a larger scale than the Seoul Station’s waiting room!

“They look like there are at least a few tens of thousands.”

“Oh, they’re having a reunion there.”

Since the dungeons with very low difficulty were integrated based on Jung Si-woo’s standards, dungeons from Level 1 to a bit more than Level 25 were combined at once. With so many dungeons gathered together, it was natural that the ghosts tied up in the dungeon would meet someone they know and greet each other!

“What a surreal thing…”

[It’s truly peculiar. Are they all ghosts bound by the master’s power?]

“No, that’s not it…although some of them will become that way.”

After Jung Si-woo replied to Caina’s simple yet critical question, he clapped loudly so that all the ghosts noisily murmuring in the supersized hall could hear.

“Attention, everyone!”

[Eeeek!?]

[Suddenly, space was widening, and now a man!]

[I know that person! I saw him before the Retire!]

Was this the difference between the new generation and the old generation? Unlike previous ghosts who were surprised to see Jung Si-woo just because he was a human being, at this point that two months had passed since Jung Si-woo officially began to be active, quite a number of the ghosts saw through his identity!

[He indeed wasn’t an ordinary player.]

[We, too, roughly know where this…]

[But I don’t know!]

The ghosts were noisy. Jung Si-woo restrained himself a little, thinking about the ghosts that would be confused with this and that, but soon his patience’s limit arrived.

“All of you shut up.”

Eventually, he silenced the ghosts as he spread the Dragon Dignity all around. Although newly realized in the process, the Dragon Dignity had the technical characteristics of being more powerful because of the dragon’s senses. The process of organizing the internal energy and shooting it outside had become as natural as water flowing!

[S-sorry.]

[Scary…]

Perhaps it was a little too effective. As the dungeon became as quiet as a library in an instant, Jung Si-woo gave a small but false cough and quickly explained about this space and its purpose.

“So if you want to ask me something, ask me quickly, and if you don’t, just behave yourself.”

“The explanation is too short!?”

“And, although this is possible after I’ve cleared all the dungeons-”

Jung Si-woo ignored Soo Ah-rin’s provocation and delivered the key points in a serious voice.

“It’s not that bad to hand over your skills to me to leave a trace of your existence here. But if you want to continue to exist even if you recognize that you all are beings born after player’s death, then it would be a good idea to entrust yourselves to me.”

[That’s…]

[It means you’re going to enslave us!]

Ghosts murmured here and there again. However, Jung Si-woo didn’t hold them back this time. It was not a matter of coercion, so he decided to leave it to their own will.

“Then everyone should think carefully and decide. Let’s step away now.”

“Oppa, what about the quest?”

“We don’t have to necessarily receive those anymore since we’re able to do business with them directly.”

Moreover, it was hard work to get quests from tens of thousands of ghosts individually. He turned around, fed up. He could clear this extremely wide dungeon and then talk to them again. But the second room of the dungeon was too far away.

“Jeez, this void is disgustingly wide.”

“He keeps on pressuring the ghosts.”

“In a whim, I’d- ugh.”

So far, he hadn’t been able to ride a bike in the dungeon, but things were different here. Jung Si-woo took out his phantom bike and sat down. Soo Ah-rin was still in his arms, but Yong Se-ha returned to his original form and spread his wings.

“Thanks to you, Hyung-nim, I can now hold on for quite a while as at least my Mana absorption technique improved, so I’ll stay like this from now on..”

“It’s a good choice.”

Somehow Soo Ah-rin, not Jung Si-woo, was satisfied. But her bright expression crumpled right after Caina, laden with armor, sat in the back seat of the bike.

“What is this girl doing.”

[Excuse me until I get hold of the Phantom Steed, Master.]

“…Y-yeah.”

She couldn’t believe a Death Knight would sit on the back seat of the bike. Although it’s a Phantom Bike…where could a Phantom Steed be found? Was it the nether world? Jung Si-woo started the engine, blankly thinking about such things. The armor worn by Caina clashed with Jung Si-woo’s armor and made a clinking noise.

[It’s a bike!]

[Wow, that’s super big. But aren’t modern civilization’s objects supposed to be unavailable for use in the dungeon?]

[You fool, that runs on Mana.]

[Wow!]

Ghosts who didn’t think much about their existence crept up and watched the group, chatting away. They must have forgotten that they were scared by the Dignity that Jung Si-woo showed. He sighed and pulled the throttle. The bike went off with a furious roar.

“I’ll head in first, hyung-nim!”

“Okay!”

If he started off at full spurt, they wouldn’t be able to clear the dungeon at all. In front of Jung Si-woo, moderately maintaining a speed of about 100kph and breaking through the first expanse, Yong Se-ha led the way as he spread out butterfly wings with Skeleton Lance in his hand, bravely charging toward the second expanse that faintly revealed itself!

“Kak!”

And he bounced off faster than light.

“Ah, it’s so annoying.”

Jung Si-woo, who was thinking of rushing along the path Yong Se-ha had penetrated, quickly reduced his bike’s speed and skillfully caught Yong Se-ha. Soo Ah-rin smashed Yong Se-ha’s armor, took out a projectile that looked like a fruit stuck in his abdomen, treated him, and warned Jung Si-woo.

“This is a long-range attack. I think he was hit before he could even respond.”

“Well, what I thought him this time was focused on the melee battle.”

“I’m ashamed of myself…”

He dropped him off and pulled the handle again. The bike spewed a brilliant spark and rushed into the second expanse! As soon as they entered, the attack flew in from an unidentified trajectory. Still, Jung Si-woo swung his hammer and dodged it.

The small, hard projectile was injected with Jung Si-woo’s Mana at the moment of the blow and flew away in the same direction as it flew in. Jung Si-woo was tracking the Mana since his opponent had imbued it as he threw it. After learning the dragon’s senses, such tricks had become possible.

[Kak!]

The expanse was so wide that it wasn’t until about three seconds later that the sound of something exploding in the distance rang out. He felt a certain touch. It must be dead.

“Is there one sniper?”

“There is a possibility that he hid because he was so scared of you, Oppa.”

[That’s ridiculous power, Master. To kill a sniper by hitting it to fly in the same direction as it came from…]

“Can’t you do it, too?”

[Such long-distance isn’t possible.]

Jung Si-woo, who confirmed that no additional bullets were flying in, stopped the bike for now. There was a small, finished world that resembled if the residential area was expanded approximately tenfold.

“It’s like a very, very big jungle.”

“No, there’s also something else mixed in it. Look, that risen deformed rock, and there is an ice lake right next to it.”

Three hundred seventy-five thousand three hundred and seven dungeons were combined into one. It would be even more bizarre if they could define the environment of the dungeon as one. So what happened to the monsters in there? Could it be that they came together with Mana at the center of them to create a new monster? He couldn’t hide his expectations.

“I think there would be no monsters blatantly revealing themselves.”

“That would mean that there are no weak monsters. As it translates to that, they hid because they recognized your strength, hyung-nim…”

“No.”

[G-aaaaargh!]

Jung Si-woo held up the hammer, denying their words head-on. In the movement that he struck down very naturally, the tree standing next to them, which they weren’t aware of when it had approached, made a terrible noise. The rest of the companions, except Caina, looked blankly at Jung Si-woo, who struck the weakly falling tree with that one blow and completing the dollar and bead looting.

“I mean…”

“Tree?”

[I don’t know what happened during the dungeon integration process, but it seems that the monster’s body and tree have combined.]

Caina commented calmly. Jung Si-woo nodded and explained further.

“It seems like this is what all weak individuals turned out to be like in the integration process. Of course, there could be strong monsters that took such a form on purpose.”

“This place, it could be even more bizarre than we thought…”

That much was expected from the time when the name of the dungeon was Monstrous Garden. There was nothing reliable here. Perhaps it was trees, not monsters, that fired fruits at Yong Se-ha and Jung Si-woo.

“Okay, then let’s get started.”

“I was wondering why you weren’t saying that.”

The second cavity boasted a huge width just by itself. There were multiple environments in it alone that collided and mixed. Perhaps the environment itself had turned into a monster. What Jung Si-woo brought out in front of it were two giant sledgehammers.

“I’m going to smash everything I encounter, so Se-ha and Caina follow after me and clean it up.”

[Do you mean to destroy this colossal place, Master…?]

Caina looks at Jung Si-woo with an expression that seemed to say: My master can’t be so ignorant. He ignored her gaze.

“I’ll lend you the Phantom Bike. Do you know how to drive a bike?”

[If it’s a vehicle, I can control anything. That’s the power of my skill.]

Although she didn’t like her years as a Death Knight, she didn’t seem to deny them. Caina climbed up to the Phantom Bike quite calmly. On the other hand, Yong Se-ha held Lance and shield with a worried expression next to her.

“Then, for now…show yourselves, all of you!”

The ghost troops that were completely healed after a week were all released. He commanded them to do only one thing: to drive in the monsters within the range of the hammer he swung!

[Copy!]

[We’ll catch them right away!]

It was truly a spectacular scene. As the ghost legions moved busily in unison, the still objects that seemed to compose the world suddenly moved away from them! But as already stated, most of the individuals who failed to maintain their form as monsters were weak. They were unable to resist the attacks of numerous ghosts rushing in and were placed in front of Jung Si-woo’s hammer.

“Alright, this is the true battle!”

“No, it’s not!”

Jung Si-woo struck hard the front with two hammers extended simultaneously. Some of them tried to escape the ghosts somehow, but his weapon was too big to avoid now! Dozens of meters in all directions were wiped out when the two giant hammers moved.

[Screech!]

[R-run away.]

“You all must have been very baffled by the sudden change in the environment as well. I feel sorry.”

He raised the hammer again, nodding with a serious look. Then he struck his weapon again toward the rocks, trees, flowers, and clouds thrown away by ghosts everywhere. Everything was crushed into powder.

“So I’ll finish it as soon as possible so it wouldn’t hurt.”

This is what it would look like if there were a destroyer of worlds. Soo Ah-rin sighed as always, watching Jung Si-woo clear the dungeon of a different scale.

A week later, the party finally entered the fourth cavern of the dungeon.