S-Classes That I Raised to Devour - Chapter 92

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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 92. Chae Mujin, Dead? (2)
Arc Management wasn’t the type to sit idle with folded hands, waiting for miracles.
The company mobilized every available resource—personnel, connections, and capital—and began scraping together information about “Deep Dive” with frantic desperation.
But before the real work could begin, Han Seok-jin, the accounting team leader, voiced his concerns in a grave voice.
“At this point, with the CEO’s whereabouts unknown, if we start digging into Deep Dive, we’ll essentially be publicly admitting that the CEO fell into that hell.”
Kang Yu-ri, the external relations director with a finely tuned sense of public sentiment, nodded in agreement.
“Obviously, it would be a catastrophic blow to the company’s stock price. Our firm grew on a mystique brand, and frankly, we’re essentially a one-man operation under CEO Chae. To be honest, without him, I have no reason to stay here either.”
Though her words sounded pessimistic on the surface, Kang Yu-ri clapped her hands briskly and continued.
“Which is exactly why we need to stake everything on finding Chae Mujin. The CEO falling into Deep Dive and returning alive by his own strength? What could be a more perfect narrative, a better story?”
“What if he doesn’t make it out alive?”
“Either way, the company goes under. The only difference is whether we stay quiet and collapse, or we fight and collapse.”
“When you put it that way, you’re right.”
“Alright then, everyone go gather information on Deep Dive. I’ll shoot a video right away.”
Even if information gathering wasn’t their specialty, these people were experts who’d reached the summit in this harsh world.
Connected to high-ranking Hunters, political and business elite, even the press—if they plucked all the strings of their vast web, even the smallest clue would catch.
And so, after pulling an all-nighter, the first morning arrived.
The atmosphere in Arc Management’s conference room resembled a funeral parlor.
No one had obtained any meaningful information about Deep Dive.
To be precise, there was not a single piece of valuable information. What poured in was only a garbage heap of unverifiable rumors.
Thud!
Kim Min-woo, the information director, slammed a thick stack of documents onto the floor and exploded in frustration.
“We reviewed this all night without sleeping, and there’s nothing—not a single thing—worth salvaging! It’s all third-rate fiction garbage—’maybe,’ ‘supposedly,’ ‘I heard somewhere’!”
Yun Hae-sol, the HR team leader who’d reviewed the documents alongside him, rubbed her bloodshot eyes vigorously.
“I guess putting ‘speculative tips welcome’ in the notice was a mistake. All we got were trolls.”
“Even speculation needs some minimum source or basis! Who asked you to bring in fantasy novels scribbled from someone’s basement!”
Even Kang Yu-ri, commanding a combined thirteen million subscribers, grimaced.
Despite mobilizing her subscriber network across the domestic and global markets and posting a reward, she’d salvaged not a single line of nutritious fact.
“I’ve searched the entire world, and I never imagined data on Deep Dive would be this completely absent…….”
The implications of that fact were clear and terrifying.
Deep Dive was such a hellish, unknowable death trap that not a single person who escaped with sound mind had left behind any information—everyone in the room was forced to confront this cruel reality.
“Looking for a needle in a desert.”
At Han Seok-jin’s bitter sigh, all of them silently nodded and bit their lips.
* * *
Bastard Guild Hideout.
For once, the guild’s core operatives had gathered in one place.
Guild Master Choi Bun-gae, Song Baek of the Gold Karma Practice, Im Su-jeong the Spatiotemporal Sniper, and Anti-Assassin Brian.
“Mujin fell into Deep Dive?!”
Song Baek, who’d been bench-pressing, hurled the barbell down with a harsh clang.
“If you’re joking, you’re dead, Brian.”
“Look at me. Do I look like I’m in the mood to joke?”
“This is absurd. Did Chae Mujin hire you as a spectator? What were you doing back then!”
The enraged Song Baek seized Brian by the collar and lifted him up.
“Enough.”
Choi Bun-gae, who’d been reading, quietly closed his book and stood.
“Questions later. Brian, you’re certain that CEO Chae entered Deep Dive?”
“Yeah. I didn’t see it directly, but circumstantially it’s one hundred percent.”
“…I see.”
“Guild Master. You’re a man of broad knowledge. Is there any way to pull CEO Chae out of Deep Dive? Or just tell me the way. I’ll go in.”
“…You seem to have grown fond of him in the span of a day.”
“Yeah. Both in ability and character, he impressed me quite a bit.”
Choi Bun-gae nodded, but then his mouth clamped shut firmly.
Im Su-jeong, growing impatient, spoke flatly.
“You’re not sleeping, are you?”
“I was thinking.”
“About how to rescue him?”
“No. How to make you all give up cleanly.”
“What! Choi Bun-gae! What kind of nonsense is that!”
Song Baek’s eyes rolled back as he grabbed a 50-kilogram dumbbell and hurled it without hesitation.
But as Choi Bun-gae flicked his finger, the heavy metal mass scattered into a handful of ash with a brilliant flash of light in midair.
“Song Baek, Brian. I understand your feelings. But there is no method in this world to save Chae Mujin.”
“If you don’t know, shut your mouth! Why spew curses like some jinx! Just go in there, grab him by the collar, and drag him out!”
“Let me explain it so even a muscle-head like you understands. A normal Dungeon Gate has fixed coordinate values. The entrance and exit are clearly connected. But Deep Dive is different.”
Choi Bun-gae’s gaze turned cold and sharp.
“It’s not an entrance to a defined Dungeon. The internal coordinates of Deep Dive shift madly in Planck Time units. Even if you jumped into the same pit trying to rescue CEO Chae, the probability of falling into the same world as him is essentially zero.”
“Guild Master. Then what about the ones who fell into Deep Dive and came back alive?”
To Brian’s desperate objection, Choi Bun-gae shook his head coldly.
“They didn’t find an exit and escape. They were swept up by some unknown variable and spat back out. Even they can’t explain how they returned to reality.”
“…Is there truly no solution? None at all?”
“I myself delved into Deep Dive in the past. And I realized one single fact, after which I permanently abandoned the research. That place is like Schrödinger’s Cat. Death and life coexist there.”
“Whether it’s Schrödinger or Heimerdinger, I don’t understand what you’re saying. Basically, it’s impossible, right?”
Song Baek erupted in anger, but Brian’s expression crumbled into despair.
He had come to understand it perfectly—the cruel truth that no one in this world could save someone swallowed by the abyss of Deep Dive.
* * *
Upon hearing from Lee Minji, Cheon I-hwa immediately sought out her father, Cheon Mu-jong.
The Hunter Association Chairman happened to be dining with her mentor, Dae Han Je-il-geom.
“I-hwa. Since you were coming, I had your usual prepared.”
The two were eating sushi—premium cuts crafted by a Japanese artisan, appetizing beyond description.
Sushi was Cheon I-hwa’s favorite Japanese food, but now she didn’t even spare it a glance.
“How do I rescue someone who’s fallen into Deep Dive?”
“Hehe, Deep Dive?”
Cheon Mu-jong cleansed his palate with pickled ginger and shook his head with leisurely composure.
“If someone’s entered Deep Dive, they’re already dead. No need to worry.”
“Would you say the same if I had fallen into Deep Dive?”
“Yes.”
“……!”
“My heart would tear apart and I’d weep blood. But the fact that you were dead wouldn’t change.”
Cheon I-hwa turned her gaze to her mentor, Dae Han Je-il-geom, clinging to some last hope.
But she too only sipped her strong liquor in silence—her way of fully agreeing with Cheon Mu-jong, offering no answer beyond that cruel truth.
Clink.
Cheon I-hwa’s heart began pounding wildly.
This was entirely unexpected.
Not anyone else—the Hunter Association Chairman and Dae Han Je-il-geom themselves. These absolute beings had declared it impossible with such cold, utter finality.
Meanwhile, Cheon Mu-jong was equally surprised. It was strange enough that his daughter had come suddenly asking about Deep Dive, but to see her fall into such utter despair right before his eyes?
“I-hwa. It seems you didn’t come asking about Deep Dive out of curiosity. Who fell into Deep Dive?”
“…Yes.”
“Could it be Chae Mujin?”
Cheon I-hwa silently nodded. The Association Chairman sighed briefly, and Dae Han Je-il-geom drained the last of her drink in one gulp before speaking.
“I knew he was mad, but I never imagined he’d actually enter Deep Dive.”
“Is there truly no way? No means at all?”
“I-hwa. You don’t need to pity Chae Mujin. He entered Deep Dive of his own volition.”
“What? What do you mean by…….”
“Deep Dive only accepts those who genuinely wish to enter. If you don’t want to go in, nothing happens at all.”
“……?!”
This was something Cheon I-hwa didn’t know—something most Hunters were unaware of.
Cheon Mu-jong added weight to her words.
“That’s correct. Chae Mujin chose to take his own life. He wasn’t murdered. So we have no reason to save him, no reason to pity him.”
Cheon Mu-jong’s voice carried not a hint of hesitation.
Yet, for his daughter’s sake, he spoke coldly and cut off the matter—though he too silently set down the chopsticks he’d been holding. His appetite had vanished, rendered meaningless by the finest sushi before him.
It wasn’t guilt at being unable to save Chae Mujin, or shallow pity.
‘Perhaps it’s time I retired. To misjudge a person so completely.’
The Chae Mujin that Cheon Mu-jong had assessed was absolutely not someone who would take his own life.
Yet he had committed suicide—in the most grotesque form possible, through Deep Dive.
It was unbelievable, but it was reality.
How much expectation and investment he had poured into him mattered little. What truly stung was that his own judgment had been utterly wrong.
‘I thought that fellow Chae Mujin was someone I could entrust my daughter to.’
It wasn’t merely refraining from objection—he’d been inwardly, actively approving. Such foolish judgment filled him with self-disgust.
Eventually, even suspicion took root.
‘Could that cunning bastard truly have fallen into Deep Dive?’
But soon he dismissed the suspicion.
It came from his daughter, Cheon I-hwa, of all people.
No matter how much affection she harbored for that man, he hadn’t raised her to be so weak as to blur the line between public and personal.
So Chae Mujin’s entry into Deep Dive was a fact.
Yet no amount of turning it over in his mind eased the sense of wrongness.
‘He’s not the type to commit suicide, yet he did. Surely not, but…….’
An absurd hypothesis suddenly flashed through his mind.
‘What if he had confidence he could survive Deep Dive?’
The reason for entering didn’t matter. What mattered was whether he could escape Deep Dive alive.
‘No, this doesn’t seem right. I’m wasting imagination on Chae Mujin simply because I find him regrettable.’
Chae Mujin’s true value lay in his absurdly powerful Buff and its duration. It had no causal connection to escaping an out-of-spec hell like Deep Dive.
The thought stopped there. Cheon Mu-jong completely discarded the connection to him from his mind.
“I-hwa. Chae Mujin is dead. Stop thinking of him now.”
Those words were also a cold verdict he passed on himself.
And so, the peaks of this nation all acknowledged it. Chae Mujin could never return alive.
Cheon I-hwa too understood that throwing a tantrum wouldn’t resolve anything. When even she gave up on him, resigning herself to his loss…….
Chae Mujin, far from dead, was sleeping soundly in a bed made from angel feathers.

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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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