I Awakened as a Dark History - Chapter 2

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 2
Amid a calamity that made it hard to keep one’s sanity, there was one ridiculous thing.
“That Notebook… you really won’t let go of it.”
“I know, it’s funny…”
I was gasping for breath as I pushed through water that rose to my thighs.
There were no people visible around us anymore.
How many intersections had we encountered while fleeing this far?
The labyrinthine passages had cast us into somewhere unknown.
Even if Hunters arrived, would they be able to find us?
The question came to me belatedly.
“But what do we do if we’re all separated like this?”
Choi Arin seemed to have reached the same conclusion as me.
I wanted to cry like a child, but I was afraid a Monster Beast would find us if I did.
“I don’t know…”
My nose felt hot and flushed. The water was cold and growing colder, but my head burned.
It was probably the urge to cry welling up inside.
I forced down the hot lump in my throat and waded through the water.
“Hey, hey. Where are you going?”
“If we stay in the water like this, we’ll get Hypothermia. We need to find somewhere without water.”
Choi Arin opened her mouth in admiration and pressed close against my side.
We linked arms and leaned on each other’s body heat.
As we walked steadily forward, Choi Arin muttered as though just realizing something.
“Do you know what time it is? How long ago did we fall into this Dungeon?”
“I don’t know. Don’t you have your Mobile Phone?”
“I left it at home to charge. But electronic devices don’t work inside a Dungeon anyway, right?”
Still, I might be able to see the time. With that thought, I felt around in my pocket.
Despite how violently I’d been moving, my phone was miraculously still there.
I pulled it out and lit up the screen.
“Oh no.”
When I’d fallen, the impact against the ground had been severe—the screen was now covered in cracks.
“What time is it?”
“The time? I can’t see it… But the date isn’t today’s date.”
I tore my gaze from the blackened dead section and focused on the flickering numbers below.
“Month 29, Day 134.”
“Wow.”
“Year 16,578.”
“Seriously?”
The exclamation beside me was too absurd.
Though the phone’s numbers weren’t far behind in absurdity.
“My phone broke in a spectacularly groundbreaking way.”
I shoved the smartphone—now reduced to a blunt object—back into my pocket.
I’d bought it on a test-taker’s discount too.
As if escaping reality, other thoughts flooded my mind instead.
Then.
Screee. Click-click. Click-click.
Along with the high-pitched cry of a Monster Beast came a sound like grinding teeth.
The moment the sound echoed through the narrow passage, my spine went rigid with terror.
“Run, run!”
“Hurry. Hurry!”
We grabbed each other’s arms tightly and began to move in a panicked rush.
The water rising to our thighs hindered our movements, but we couldn’t stop.
An aquatic creature could move through water without making a sound.
There was no way to escape it except by being swift.
How far had we gone in a gait that resembled a three-legged race?
Probably not far. The water blocked our feet, and we were already exhausted.
We were practically walking, even if we called it running.
In the midst of it all, we made considerable noise in the water.
The Monster Beasts found us without difficulty.
Screee.
The cry grew closer.
The movement that flickered briefly above the surface and then vanished again felt like nothing but a bad omen.
That was when I spotted it—a path appeared before my eyes like a miracle.
“Choi Arin, there! There! Go that way! To the side!”
“What? Which path? Where?”
“On the right! There’s a path! Look up! Look higher!”
The path angling off to the right sat at a height the water couldn’t reach.
I had no idea where it led, but right now, escape from the water was all that mattered.
“You’re saying there’s a path?”
“God, yes! Here!”
“Wait, wait! Don’t push! I’ll fall!”
I shoved Choi Arin’s body upward by force.
Choi Arin’s hand finally reached the gaping opening above.
She turned to look at me, her face suddenly brightened.
Now? She’s looking at me now?!
“Move! Get inside, hurry!”
“Right, right!”
The opening above wasn’t easy to climb into.
After stumbling several times, Choi Arin barely managed to crawl up and through.
Meanwhile, the Monster Beast crept closer with each passing second.
“Grab my hand! I’ll pull you up! Hurry, hurry! Hurry!”
“Yeah!”
“Both hands, not just one! Drop the Notebook, give me both hands! Ugh!”
“No, no, no! Don’t slip! Hold tight!”
I hurled the Notebook into the passage and seized Choi Arin’s arm with all my strength.
Now the Monster Beast was close enough to see clearly.
It half-emerged from the water, launching itself toward us with a terrifying charge.
Crack. Crack.
The grinding of teeth filled the air as it lunged at me.
At that same instant, Choi Arin wrenched me hard into the passage.
Snap.
…….
…….
What was that sound?
Neither Choi Arin nor I understood what had happened.
But it was Choi Arin’s face that went ashen first.
“Kyaaaaah!”
Her scream echoed loudly through the narrow passage.
I turned my head to see what she saw.
The Monster Beast was chewing something.
The water had turned red.
Even as I registered this, I felt no pain.
Instead, I saw the Notebook far away, pages splayed open.
My mind and the situation refused to align, everything tangled together.
The last thought I had was this:
‘God, if that ends up as my only remains, I’m really screwed.’
Then darkness pulled me under.
In the darkness, an alien sound brushed against my ears.
Ding—
[This entity cannot currently undergo Awakening.]
[No compatible traits found to grant.]
[Scanning for traits.]
[Scanning for traits.]
[Scanning for traits.]
In the Dungeon, where even a Mobile Phone couldn’t ring, the notification sound continued relentlessly.
As sleep pulled me deeper, the alerts kept interrupting it.
[Compatible trait found.]
[Systemization of trait incomplete.]
[Awakening is impossible.]
[Impossible…]
[Impossible…]
[A trait will be temporarily granted.]
[The Awakening caused by temporary trait conferral may result in errors.]
[Proceeding with Temporary Awakening.]
* * *
Choi Arin blinked rapidly. Without doing so, she couldn’t see anything in front of her clearly.
Tears flooded her vision.
Some of it came from fear, but now it was born of something else—joy, pure and overwhelming.
Scrape. Scrape. Crunch.
Unlike the eerie sounds coming from below, her friend was slowly rising to her feet.
A soft luminescence emanated from her body, heralding something extraordinary.
It was a sight she’d glimpsed only in emergency broadcasts or footage from the earliest Dungeon emergences.
“C-Choeun? Ha Choeun? Are you… are you okay? Did you Awaken? Did you really Awaken?”
Her friend, whose lower body had vanished entirely, now stood with legs fully intact.
Her friend slowly raised her head.
“Ha Choeun?”
And she replied as if confused by the name.
Choi Arin could only stare at her friend in equal bewilderment.
[A trait has been temporarily granted.]
[Temporary Awakening has been completed.]
And at that same moment, brilliant pink petals cascaded from above her head, while jet-black thorns erupted from the ground beneath her feet.
The moment those two forces met at the center, flames coiled around them, and her friend’s form materialized anew.
“Choeun!”
In that instant, Choi Arin found herself struck by an impression wholly at odds with the situation.
‘…What in the world is this, some magical girl transformation?’
Her friend, now fully visible, was almost as absurd as that thought.
Crimson eyes, silver hair flowing like mercury, two pairs of dragonfly wings dark as pitch, and a pair of golden triangular ears sprouting from her head.
It was as if someone had stitched together every fantasy character ever imagined and created this patchwork form.
Screech. Crunch. Crunch.
The Monster Beast, still hungry, waited no longer and lunged toward her.
Its massive body leaped above the water’s surface, baring its jagged teeth.
But in that moment, a voice—cheerful and bright—rang out.
“Oh my.”
Choi Arin’s gaze snapped reflexively toward the sound.
And she watched as eyes that had been scarlet began to glow with a soft, rosy light.
“Come here, friends.”
With a warm smile on her face, the words she spoke caused vines to suddenly surge upward from all around.
Plants that had been invisible moments before wound themselves around the Monster Beast like rope.
The creature found itself bound tight by vegetation, thrashing uselessly against its restraints.
“You’re being naughty, aren’t you? We don’t attack other people. If you keep doing that, you’re going to get… a scolding.”
Watching this unfold, Choi Arin found herself entertaining an absolutely ridiculous, preposterous, and—if she was being honest—hilarious hypothesis.
But her bewildered mind, overwhelmed by shock, had already let the thought slip past her lips.
“Wait… Chloris?”
The friend who had seemed confused when called Ha Choeun spun to face her.
“You know who I am?”
“Oh wow.”
Choi Arin’s hands instinctively patted her pockets.
She wanted to capture this moment on video, preserve it, and then present it at her friend’s seventieth birthday party.
“Oh, that’s right! I left my Mobile Phone behind!”
Unfortunately, her Mobile Phone was currently sleeping beneath the rubble of the collapsed apartment building.
“Huh? What’s that?”
“Oh? No, it’s nothing really, you know?”
Choi Arin answered awkwardly, shaking her head.
Yet even as she did, her hand slowly reached down and picked up a Notebook that lay on the ground.
Her friend had made a tremendous fuss about her never looking at it, but right now, this object was essential.
Fairy:
Flora Anemone
Chloris
A fairy born in a flower garden.
Very pure and good-hearted. Having grown only in flower gardens, her nature is innocent.
Her actions are so adorable that other fairies cherish her dearly.
“Ah, I’m going insane.”
Choi Arin found herself confronting an impossibly difficult dilemma in that moment.
If you discovered your friend’s embarrassing past, how should you react?
1. Tease her.
2. Tease her relentlessly.
3. Tease her mercilessly.
4. Tease her until death.
5. Pretend ignorance for the sake of your friend’s honor.
There was one extraordinarily difficult correct answer.
Choi Arin hung her head low, her shoulders trembling. Then her strangely transformed friend approached her side.
“Oh dear, is something the matter? Are you hurt somewhere?”
The voice was far more delicate and gentle than usual, and her shoulders shook all the more violently.
She wanted nothing more than to burst out laughing right then.
But Choi Arin summoned both loyalty and survival instinct.
Loyalty might have been questionable, but survival instinct guided her to the unmistakable correct answer.
5. Pretend ignorance for the sake of your friend’s honor.
“S-sob, hee-hee, it’s just… so, so sad! Wah-hah-hah!”
Cry! Better to cry!
With that decision made, Choi Arin sobbed with desperate conviction.
“You’re sad? Why is that? Oh my, is there anything I can do to help?”
“P-please, hee-hee-hee, stop talking.”
Even in this situation, funny things were still funny, and her mind kept spinning.
‘Choeun, Choeun. What on earth did you write down? Girl Warrior? Strawberry Strawberry? Chocolate Chocolate? Mysterious Star? Wedding Sparkle?’
Unfortunately, her mind wasn’t spinning in any particularly meaningful direction. Instead, the sadness only deepened.
“I cannot help if you will not give me reason. Do you not wish to survive?”
The speech suddenly changed from the head of the bed.
The voice dropped lower and turned husky.
It was as though a different person were speaking.
Her friend could not have suddenly developed a split personality.
There was nothing like that written in this Notebook about Chloris’s ‘character settings.’
Choi Arin pressed down her sadness and flipped through the Notebook frantically.
Dark Elf: Black Chloris
Chloris, corrupted after betrayal by humans
“Oh my—hic!—could it be Chocolate Chocolate?”
Keep flipping while crying. While crying.
Demon Lord: Kithreus
Natural lower register and self-elevating speech patterns.
Choi Arin chose to believe in the possibility and opened her mouth.
“Um, by any chance… hee-hee-hic… are you Kithreus?”
As she lifted her head while sobbing, she caught sight of golden eyes.
Eyes like those of a wild beast discovered in the darkness of night.
The being with those eyes spoke.
“What nonsense is this name? Is my name truly so strange to your ears?”
What else could there possibly be?
Please…
Choi Arin fought back her bewilderment and sadness as she turned the page further.
At last, one more entity revealed itself.
Heavenly Fox
Choi Arin found herself growing unbearably sad and shut the Notebook.
The crooked, poorly drawn characters were so heartbreaking that she felt she might split her sides.
With her body pressed low to the floor, trembling, Ha Choeun (or rather, whoever this was not) crossed her arms.
“Do you wish me to abandon this?”
“N-no! Hee-hee-hee. It’s just… we’re in a Dungeon right now, and my parents, my family is in danger…”
She could no longer tell if she was crying or laughing.
Choi Arin hid her face behind the closed Notebook and barely managed to lift her head.
Whether fortunately or unfortunately, the other figure shifted her stance.
“I’m not eager to help those humans who betrayed me, but this time I shall assist you.”
“Oh-hic, oh-hic!”
Choi Arin burst into tears once more.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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