Chapter 127
[Title: Proof of My Hunt]
(Image of a hunter holding up a magical beast's spider leg)
Is this how I'm supposed to post proof?
I heard this place was a gold mine, so I came, but there are fewer of them than I expected.
[Upvotes 12] [Downvotes 0]
- Head Mod*) Check your account; the payment's been made.
ㄴ Author) Oh wow, you really paid me. Thanks.
- Yeah, the magical beasts in the dungeon are running out.
- The bandwagon came fucking late lol.
- Hunters from not only the surrounding area but other regions too have flocked here and stripped the dungeon bare, fuck.
The double-EXP event was incredibly powerful.
The one the gallery doctor caught was a mutant magical beast, the arachne—not an ordinary one.
There were plenty of magical beasts left in the dungeon, but the hunters swarmed in and wiped them out.
“I didn't expect it to work this well.”
It took a week.
It took only a week to completely strip that enormous dungeon bare.
There were so many applicants that even after we imposed an entry limit, the waiting list still shot past two digits.
[Announcement: Arachne Dungeon Waiting List]
Author: Head Mod*
This is a waiting-list post for night-vision goggle rentals.
Write your number in the comments and wait.
Rental period – 10 hours
Waiting-list position – 52 people
[Upvotes 3121] [Downvotes 62]
- Fuck, why is the line so damn long?
- I'm in front of the dungeon right now, and the line is fucking long lol.
- But is this actually profitable?
ㄴ Yeah, just sleep while you wait and pretend you're getting paid to rest.
ㄴ You think double hourly pay is nothing?
Even with those restrictions, there were more volunteers than we could handle.
By around this point, finding a magical beast had become as rare as finding treasure.
- Magical beasts ← upvote if you can't see one lol
- Fuck, I came way too late.
- What's the point of double rewards if there aren't any magical beasts? I almost wish a wave would erupt.
It had gotten to the point where gallerybros were even wishing for a wave to erupt.
“There's no way it will.”
But it wasn't as if waves erupted that easily.
There were conditions for a wave to occur.
The appearance and neglect of a mutant magical beast.
Whether magical beasts were present near the rift.
And whether a very long time had passed since the rift itself was formed, among other things.
“But the arachne is dead.”
The dungeon's magical beasts? They'd been hit by the double-EXP event.
There was no way a wave would erupt.
[Title: Idiot]
(Image of the dungeon's lower levels completely cleared out)
[Upvotes 34] [Downvotes 0]
- (Elf emote, for real)
- You held out for a whole week before coming? lol
- If you ever find something worth investing in, please let me know.
ㄴ Is losing all your money your hobby?
ㄴ I'm going to invest in the opposite direction.
ㄴ Oh.
ㄴ Author) Fuck.
[Title: Breaking News) Victory]
(Image of someone roasting marshmallows near the rift)
(Image of hunters gathering around to buy them)
I've been selling marshmallows like crazy for a whole week lol
I think I made 5,000 dango just from the price difference lolol
So my victory is being the one who survived, right?
[Upvotes 1202] [Downvotes 3121]
- No, fuck, 5,000????
- Wow, seriously, how much did you rake in?
- The hunters do the work, and the money...
- So this is how guys like this make money.
That left only hunters posting from the lower level, now a barren wasteland.
“I guess it's about time to end the event.”
It was just as I was about to post the event-ending announcement.
- Huh? The rift doesn't look right.
- Why is its color changing?
- ??? Wait, uh
- Uh, fuck, wait a second, Head Mod, this is urgent—hurry!
“Hmm?”
The gallery's newest posts looked ominous.
Every title was frantic.
I clicked on one of them to figure out what was going on, and—
[Title: Head Mod, Get Over Here, Something Big Happened]
(Image of the rift turning red)
(Image of magical beasts about to burst out)
Fuck, is a wave about to erupt all of a sudden?
Do we have to stop it? Or should we run?
“Huh? Why?”
The wave was about to erupt at a completely unexpected time.
*
The conditions for a wave to activate were simple.
There had to be magical beasts nearby.
A single mutant magical beast could be enough to trigger one, while ordinary magical beasts became more dangerous the more numerous they were.
“But why did it erupt?”
Yet there were no magical beasts near the rift inside the dungeon.
Just as I was wondering about that, I realized.
Strictly speaking, it wasn't true that there were none.
“Don't tell me the dungeon counts as a magical beast too?”
The dungeon's internal structure changed frequently.
Come to think of it, that was strange.
How could a structure change its shape all by itself?
But.
If the dungeon itself was a living creature, it wasn't impossible.
- Head Mod, fuck, what do we do!!!!!
- Do we stop it? Don't? Stop it?
- (Hunter clutching his head emote)
They'd joked about how nice it would be if a wave erupted.
The hunters who had come to make money had said as much.
Ah, lol. But I really didn't think it would happen.
The hunters panicked at the sudden wave.
Of course, I found it just as absurd.
“We have to stop the dungeon itself?”
The enormous dungeon itself, as a living organism, was causing a wave.
Unless we killed the dungeon itself, stopping the wave would be impossible.
[Announcement: It's Me]
Author: Head Mod*
(Image of the arachne dungeon)
It looks like the dungeon itself is a living organism.
We can't stop the wave anyway.
So just run, everyone.
[Upvotes 4112] [Downvotes 5]
- Sigh, so this is a run-away ending?
- But there's nothing we can do about it lol.
- Honestly, if a dungeon this huge is itself a living creature, what can we do?
ㄴ For real, even Head Mod couldn't do anything about this one.
- Even Head Mod can't solve this?
ㄴ Fuck, are we seriously screwed?
ㄴ The Rift Emperor is seriously fucking underhanded.
So I posted an announcement for the time being.
The dungeon's structure kept changing.
Stopping the wave inside it put us at a disadvantage.
When I left an announcement telling them to run, the gallerybros reacted with some surprise.
[Title: Honestly, upvote if you were surprised lol]
Author: Is Head Mod a God
I honestly thought you'd pull some outlandish magic out of nowhere and stop the wave, am I right?
It was genuinely surprising to hear Head Mod tell us to run for the first time.
[Upvotes 12] [Downvotes 0]
- For real.
- I ran immediately after seeing Head Mod's announcement telling us to run.
- Isn't this a seriously serious problem?
[Title: So Do We Respond from the Surface?]
(Image of hunters escaping out through the rift)
But there aren't only one or two exits from the dungeon, are there?
How are we supposed to block them when we don't know where they'll come out?
This is fucking hopeless lol;
[Upvotes 102] [Downvotes 2]
- Can't we just abandon the dungeon and get out?
ㄴ Could Ellad end up being eaten by magical beasts?
ㄴ (Elf emote beating something frantically)
Until now, no matter what incident occurred, the gallerybros hadn't been particularly worried.
They'd solved everything easily with things purchased from the Shop.
Rather than telling them to run, I'd usually give them something and solve the problem.
“Was telling them to run really that shocking?”
Maybe that's why?
After the announcement was uploaded, the gallery fell into a state of half-panic.
The first dungeon wave in history couldn't even be stopped by Head Mod. It was a Second Great War-level crisis, and so on.
The place was turning into a mess of all kinds of conspiracy theories, surprise tactical-nuke GIFs, and pessimism.
Excellentdoc: Mr. Head Mod, I've evacuated everyone. But I have a question.
Just then, the gallery doctor, who had successfully fled to a certain area with the hunters, contacted me.
Head Mod*: Yeah, what's up?
Excellentdoc: Is this incident very dangerous? Head Mod's order to run is surprising.
Excellentdoc: The announcement brought joy and fear to many gallery assholes.
Head Mod*: Oh, that?
Excellentdoc sent me a GIF of the tense hunters and asked me about it.
Even the gallery doctor seemed surprised by the unusual reaction.
I was about to explain it to him, but stopped.
“Wouldn't it be faster to show him directly?”
Head Mod*: Where are you guys now?
Excellentdoc: We've moved to a nearby hill. This place is safe.
Head Mod*: Yeah, good job...
“So they've all evacuated safely, then?”
I glanced at the clock.
It was almost exactly the hour.
Head Mod*: Look toward the dungeon in 3 minutes.
Excellentdoc: Three? Do you mean three minutes? Or three hours?
Head Mod*: 2
Head Mod*: 1
Excellentdoc: omg
Excellentdoc: Is something big coming?
0.
The moment the time finally arrived and the gallery doctor looked toward the dungeon.
Something was cutting through the air from the sky, heading straight for the dungeon.
- Huh? What's that?
- What's flying toward the dungeon?
- Oh, fuck.
People in the gallery had just begun mentioning the gigantic flying object.
Soon, that something pierced through the ground and plunged straight down into the depths of the dungeon.
- KABOOM!
Soon, accompanied by an immense roar, the ground.
No, every level of the dungeon.
Even the surrounding forest began to be swallowed by black flames.
- Aaagh, fuck, what the hell is this!!!!
- What the fuck, what kind of phenomenon is this????
- Hahaha, it's the end of the world! The whole world is burning!!!
The sky, which had been perfectly clear, was instantly stained with black smoke like hell.
“I wasn't going to use this...”
[GBU-28] - 140,000p
A bunker buster developed by the United States.
The gigantic dungeon began collapsing all at once.
The verdant forest was transformed into hell in an instant.
The dungeon itself is the problem?
Then die.
I used the bunker buster I'd only been thinking about.
*
Inside the dining hall of a lonely ruined castle.
Bloodsucker-to-the-End, Erzsébet, was extremely excited.
The gallery was currently in an uproar over the dungeon, but that was none of her concern today.
“...At last.”
Because it was Wednesday.
It was also the day she received a small donation of blood from Head Mod.
She dropped about three drops of blood into her cola.
Of course, every now and then, an impulse to drink the blood straight would wash over her, but...
“I-I have to endure it.”
She had no choice if she wanted to make it through an entire week.
She was just about to put the cola to her lips, her heart pounding with excitement, when—
“...?”
Erzsébet's brightly excited expression suddenly turned cold.
It didn't taste like it usually did.
The moment she put a single drop of undiluted blood in her mouth, she knew for certain.
“...The smell of a succubus.”
Head Mod's blood carried a scent overflowing with desire, one she had never sensed in it before.
Erzsébet left the dining hall with a thoroughly deflated expression and began walking somewhere.