The Magical Hunter Girl Decorates the Dungeon! - Chapter 90

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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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The Magic Hunter Girl Decorates a Dungeon! Episode 90
“I tracked down the civil servant who first mobilized to the dungeon. And I found out what happened to the people who entered before.”
At the mouth of the Gloomy Forest. They were trapped inside enormous eggs.
Since there were more than just one or two eggs, it seemed people had been swept up from the surrounding area as well.
Ji-hyeok tried to break the egg at the very front first.
“But the eggshell was quite thick. At first, I held back my strength because I was worried people might get hurt, but eventually I had to strike it with all my power.”
From the egg he barely managed to crack emerged a woman in a convenience store uniform. She was the store owner who had gone missing early on.
The woman was conscious, but she seemed barely able to move a single finger, so Ji-hyeok reached into the egg to pull her out.
“That’s when animals came at me from nowhere. First there were spiders, then some raccoon and a pigeon…….”
At the mention of spiders, Lee Ji flinched and asked.
“Did you defeat them all?”
“I was trying to. But the moment I swung my weapon at the animals, the person inside the egg screamed at me not to hit them.”
“What? Which… which animal?”
“I’m not sure. The problem is, people trapped in other eggs started pounding on their shells and shouting all at once, almost simultaneously. It sounded like they were saying ‘Don’t.'”
Imagining such a chilling scene, Lee Ji rubbed her own arms.
Ji-hyeok sighed.
“Not knowing what else to do, I just threw back the animals attacking me and retreated, and the attacks stopped. The people in the eggs went quiet too.”
“…….”
“So I need to ask that Doctor what on earth is happening here.”
All eyes turned toward the Dinosaur Doctor, caught by the bear.
The Doctor chuckled.
“Those animals that attacked you are all hatchlings born from the dungeon. They’re failures, lacking in care. But humans tend to develop affection even for failures…… It seems the creatures, who were like children to those people, couldn’t bear to see you attack them.”
“What? Then you’re not saying the animals that came at me…….”
“They were all hatchlings of the people trapped in the eggs. A parent-child relationship, you might say?”
Ji-hyeok’s hands trembled slightly. Lee Ji asked instead.
“Then why did those hatchlings attack you?”
“Because that fool tried to break the egg where the parents were trapped. The egg is the most comfortable place in the world to those creatures, so anyone trying to disturb the parents’ rest naturally looked like a villain to them.”
“……I suppose so.”
Lee Ji asked in a trembling voice.
“How did the people end up trapped in the eggs?”
They certainly hadn’t entered of their own volition.
Of course, everyone who had experienced this dungeon was already anticipating the answer.
The Dinosaur Doctor sneered and spoke.
“They are those who kept failing to produce good hatchlings and grew weary. I put them in the eggs to let them be born anew.”
“Born anew?”
“The energy I absorbed from them will be used to run this dungeon, so in a sense they’re being reborn! Kahahaha…… gack!”
Geum-hee choked the Dinosaur Doctor’s neck with her thick forearms.
The Doctor went silent, and an awkward silence fell over them.
There was no clear leader to take charge of the situation.
Geum-hee was a novice Hunter and busy holding the Dinosaur Doctor, while Si-heon was desperately committed to his rabbit act.
The two children looked at Ji-hyeok. Ji-hyeok desperately searched his blank mind for the manual. What should he do first in a situation like this? He’d definitely been trained for something like this.
Then Si-heon coughed.
“C-cough! C-cough!”
“Right! Hey. Where’s the core?”
The Dinosaur Doctor let out a mocking laugh.
“Do you really think I’d tell you?”
“If you don’t tell us, the bear grandma behind you will finish you!”
“……I don’t know what you’re talking about, but either way, I’m dead. And don’t think you can threaten something that has already experienced extinction.”
“Extinction?”
“Dinosaurs went extinct, didn’t they? In quite a spectacular explosion.”
“Ah…….”
Ji-hyeok belatedly recalled the fifth mass extinction from history.
The event when a large number of dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid impact.
The Doctor smiled bitterly.
“Perhaps it was divine caprice. I was given a new life, and I tried to revive our world in this dungeon. But if ‘Hatching,’ the dungeon clear condition, is stopped…….”
As if on cue, a message appeared.
Dungeon strategy reversal confirmed!
Warning!
Dungeon Instability rising!
A Dungeon Break approaches.
All the Hunters’ expressions darkened, and the Dinosaur Doctor’s face twisted into a grotesque smile. He spoke to Ji-hyeok.
“Want to hear some good news? You’ll all be extinct before the Dungeon Break happens.”
“What?”
“If Hatching stops, this dungeon will execute the dinosaur mass extinction as history dictates. It was the Ruler’s contract.”
“What are you talking about!”
The Doctor didn’t explain further. Lee Ji looked for answers from Si-heon, the oldest among them.
But Si-heon didn’t know the answer either.
“A contract? But you’re a dungeon monster…… meow. Why are you talking like you’ve been conditionally assigned the dungeon or something? Who’s this Ruler?”
“You humans really know nothing. You just mindlessly tear the dungeon apart, don’t you? Kill monsters, harvest Magic Stones, and that’s it!”
“…….”
“Sigh…… It’s pointless to explain anyway.”
Just then, Geum-hee, who was on the ground applying a joint lock to the Doctor, opened her mouth wide and shouted.
“Everyone, look at the sky!”
“Huh? ……What?”
Everyone looked out through the small window of the Cabin.
It was late afternoon now. The sun was slowly sinking toward the west.
But what was that glowing red circle high in the sky?
Ji-hyeok let out a gasp.
“Could it be…….”
“Ahahaha! Extinction approaches! Krek, bear! Even if you torment me, there’s no answer! Ack, hieek……!”
Geum-hee twisted the Dinosaur Doctor’s body with all her strength, but it was no use. He continued to mock the people even as he passed out.
Geum-hee sighed and stood up.
“He forced himself to laugh while choking and ran out of oxygen. How are we supposed to wake him up now?”
“Even if we did, there’d be no answer. Either way we’re doomed, and he has no reason to tell us the core’s location, meow.”
“Hey, young Hunter. Is there no way?”
Ji-hyeok pulled out a Core Detector with one last glimmer of hope. But the needle merely trembled faintly.
“There was no response from the detector when I was walking around the area earlier. Why not?”
“If the core is in a very deep place, you get that kind of reaction, meow.”
Ji-hyeok’s eyes lit up at Si-heon’s casual remark.
“You must have a lot of dungeon experience!”
“……It’s because I’m Lee Ji’s magic friend, so I know, meow!”
“…….”
So that’s the ongoing gimmick.
Ji-hyeok swallowed the urge to ask why Si-heon was even dressed like that. Besides, there was no time for questions.
Everyone stared anxiously at Si-heon, the experienced Hunter.
Si-heon gave serious thought to a way to respond.
‘I and Han Ji-hyeok will need to release all our Magical Power toward the asteroid. It’ll be weaker than a real asteroid. ……If we’re stronger, there’s no help for it.’
But if he said something like that, he’d just hear back that such a crude solution wasn’t even a solution. Mostly from Geum-hee.
‘And in this case. When force collides with force, there’s no way to protect others from the resulting shockwave.’
Jun-seo, being a normal person, would definitely die.
Si-heon was biting his lower lip when—
Lee Ji pulled the Rainbow Butterfly Pendant from her bag.
“Could we do something with this?”
“Against an asteroid, I don’t think it would work, meow.”
Even if it did work, wouldn’t everyone except Lee Ji die anyway?
“……Just in case, Lee Ji, you keep the pendant, meow. Jun-seo, you stick close behind Lee Ji.”
Jun-seo flinched and protested.
“Why should I hide in the back! I’ll protect you from the front!”
“Youth drama gets filmed ten years from now, meow! Geum-hee bear, grab Jun-seo and stick with him behind Lee Ji, meow!”
“Got it!”
“Han Ji-hyeok, come here, meow. We’ll go out together and block the asteroid, meow.”
Ji-hyeok approached Si-heon’s side with a tense expression. But there seemed to be a hint of excitement in his voice as well.
“Can we really block it?”
“It’s possible, meow.”
“Really?”
“By the time you find out it’s impossible, you’ll be dead anyway, meow.”
“……Understood.”
There was no other way.
After Ji-hyeok and Si-heon left the Cabin.
Lee Ji only then became aware of the Pegasus and puppy looking at her with anxious eyes.
“Squeak…….”
‘What do I do? I can’t protect them too!’
But that’s not all the problem.
What about the civil servant who kept the zebra? What about the people trapped in the eggs?
‘Is there really… no way?’
And right then.
A familiar voice of Ji-hyeok burst out from outside the Cabin.
“Ah……? You’ve come!”
“You said you’d sweep it all up alone in five minutes—what are you doing? And what’s with that rabbit?”
“My apologies! That’s—”
“Just give me the short version. I’ll figure it out myself.”
The owner of the new voice approaching the Cabin was—
Clearly S-rank Hunter Hae-cho of the Association.

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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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