Chapter 104: The Mountain of Madness

It was a mistake. A deeply arrogant mistake.

Less than a few hours later, the Gwangmyeong Guild lay completely exhausted at the foot of the mountain. The reason was simple: the mountains stretched on endlessly, and not a single living creature could be seen in the surroundings.

This wasn’t a figure of speech. There truly wasn’t a single life-form here besides the four of them.

More importantly, this place wasn’t a real natural environment, so the sun never set. Even though it felt like they had been hiking for hours, the mass of light presumed to be the sun still blazed as fiercely as it did at noon.

It hung directly above their heads, their shadows clinging tightly beneath their feet. In other words, there wasn’t even a shred of usable shade in this place.

If Lee Won-jae hadn’t been with them, the four might have collapsed from dehydration long ago and ended up stranded. They were barely hanging on, moistening their throats with the water he habitually carried just in case.

Their plan—to climb the mountain, encounter a monster, defeat it, and move on to the next dungeon—collapsed spectacularly.

“Ha, shouldn’t something show up so we can at least fight it?!”

Unable to hold back any longer, Chae Min-jung snapped. Her body, which had rolled around in the grass, was now filthy with dirt and leaves. The others looked much the same.

Sung Ji-woo’s buffs had already worn off, and since they seemed useless unless they actually encountered a monster, he hadn’t applied any more.

Instead, Chae Min-jung’s potions played a major role. Thanks to the potion that had boosted Lee Won-jae’s stamina to the extreme at the foot of the mountain, the four of them managed to reach the summit safely.

But that summit was only one among many ridges. From higher up, the vast scenery only came into clearer view, filling them with deeper despair.

Green trees spread endlessly across the land, yet Sung Ji-woo felt this place was no different from a desert.

“Honestly, shouldn’t there at least be one monster waiting at the top?”

Chae Min-jung thumped her chest in frustration, insisting that was how things were supposed to work.

“…Going back doesn’t seem possible,”

Sung Ji-woo said, shaking his head after retracing the path they had climbed. He had boldly declared their goal was to clear the gate, but right now, he desperately wanted to give up.

However, abandoning the gate meant finding their way back to the entrance. This wasn’t a tourist mountain with hiking trails—it was a wild mountain inside a dungeon. That meant the four of them had somehow reached the summit without a compass or a map.

There was no way they could retrace the exact same path.

“Let’s regroup here first, then move again,”

Son Ji-hwan said calmly as he sat atop a large rock and maintained his weapon. They already knew he had excellent stamina, but seeing him so composed was still astonishing.

While Chae Min-jung drank three potions, Lee Won-jae five, and Sung Ji-woo two, Son Ji-hwan only drank a single potion and kept going. Calling it “enduring” wasn’t even accurate—before the potion he had been running around, and afterward, he practically looked like he was flying.

Then, right in front of Lee Won-jae, who was barely surviving on potions, Son Ji-hwan casually claimed that he didn’t really need potions at all.

Looking at the panting guild members, he even said something downright cruel:
“Now that you all understand the need for training, how about we start coming to the training grounds together from next week?”

“Ha… I didn’t really want to do this, but… should we at least try this?”

After rummaging through the air for a long while, Chae Min-jung pulled out a bottle filled with a pitch-black liquid. It looked ominous at a glance.

“What is that?”

“It’s actually a monster attractant, but—”

“What? If you had something like that, you should’ve taken it out sooner!”

Remembering how they’d been desperately searching for monsters, Sung Ji-woo looked utterly wronged. But Chae Min-jung fidgeted with the bottle cap, clearly reluctant.

“The thing is… it attracts all sorts of stuff…”

“……”

“I made it to screw over other guilds, you know?”

“…What?”

Why would she ever need to screw over other guilds? As Sung Ji-woo made a troubled face, Chae Min-jung hurriedly started making excuses.

“No, I mean… after what happened with the vice guild leader last time… our reputation’s pretty bad, right? It felt like they might gang up on us at any moment. If that happened inside a dungeon, we’d be in real trouble. So just in case! For personal protection…!”

Son Ji-hwan, who had been staring intently at the potion, hopped down from the rock and strode over, snatching it from her hand.

When he narrowed his eyes to examine it, Chae Min-jung quietly averted her gaze.

“Isn’t this a prohibited drug?”

“……”

Chae Min-jung didn’t answer. Her silence was affirmation. The monster attractant she’d created had been officially banned from trade years ago because its impact was too unpredictable and dangerous.

“I had my suspicions, but you’re even more hardcore than I thought,”

Son Ji-hwan said, then quickly changed expressions and examined the potion with interest. After hesitating briefly, Chae Min-jung boldly twisted the cap open.

Pong.

A mysterious smoke rose from the potion.

Startled, Lee Won-jae shot to his feet, his hands trembling violently. He couldn’t even approach the potion, hopping around anxiously.

“Is—is it okay to just open it like that? Isn’t it dangerous? H-hey? Be careful!”

“It only works once it’s absorbed into the ground, so it’s fine,”

Son Ji-hwan replied calmly as he screwed the cap back on. When the ominous smoke stopped rising, Lee Won-jae finally relaxed a little.

“How many hours do you think it’s been?”

“At least four,” Sung Ji-woo answered.

Time flowed differently inside the gate, making watches useless. Son Ji-hwan nodded after hearing the estimate.

“I figured about four to five hours myself… We can’t stay like this forever. I wouldn’t mind combing through every mountain range here, but…”

As he trailed off, Sung Ji-woo and Chae Min-jung’s gazes naturally turned to Lee Won-jae. He bit his lip hard, looking distressed.

He couldn’t say anything, burdened by the thought that he was dragging the guild down.

“Let’s decide by majority vote. Do we pour it out, or not?”

Tension filled the air. Son Ji-hwan clearly wanted to finish this dungeon quickly, and Chae Min-jung felt the same.

That left Sung Ji-woo and Lee Won-jae. Lee Won-jae shook his head vigorously, clearly opposed.

Standing at the crossroads, Sung Ji-woo looked at his guildmates, then at the blazing light in the sky, then at the distant mountains—and made his decision.

“Better to try something than to dry up and die.”

The moment he heard that, Son Ji-hwan flung the cap aside and poured the potion onto the ground in a gush.

“I was honestly curious. Just how bad does it have to be to get banned?”

Chae Min-jung, as if prepared, scattered a yellow potion around them as well.

“What’s that one?”

“This keeps monsters from getting close. Lasts about ten minutes.”

She had at least made some preparations. Sung Ji-woo stayed alert, ready to deploy his shield if needed.

With a tearful face, Lee Won-jae forced himself to erect a water barrier.

And then—

Dududududu!

From far away came the thunderous sound of something charging at terrifying speed.

Piiiiiiing!

A siren-like shriek echoed, shaking the surroundings.

Chae Min-jung went pale.

“Wow. We’re screwed.”

A horde of monsters—who knew where they’d been hiding—came charging from the distant mountain range, kicking up enormous clouds of dust as they rushed toward the four.

Lee Won-jae asked, trembling and deathly pale,

“Th-those aren’t… wild boars, are they?”

Beyond the transparent water barrier, the shapes resembled mountain beasts. Their massive brown bodies did indeed look like boars at first glance.

Shielding her eyes, Chae Min-jung let out a horrified gasp.

“What the hell. Do wild boars usually look that aggressive? Some kind of fusion monster or what?”

As she said, the boar-like monsters were covered head to toe in massive spines, like giant porcupines.

“…Even a slight graze would probably be fatal,”

Sung Ji-woo muttered.

There were easily more than fifty of them. His mouth went dry. Son Ji-hwan spoke in a low voice.

“Mountain Madmen.”

“Huh?”

“They’re Mountain Madmen.”

“Mountain… what?”

“I saw them on the news once.”

At Son Ji-hwan’s words, Sung Ji-woo raised her voice.

“What are they? What do they do?”

“…Mountain Madmen shoot their spines.”

The four turned their gazes toward the Mountain Madmen, who had already reached the mountainside. Arm-length spines bristled menacingly from their backs.

Even more chilling was the fact that they were charging backward rather than head-on. No wonder their faces had been hard to see—they were attacking with their spine-covered tails thrust forward.

“They really live up to the name. They’re completely insane,”

Chae Min-jung said with a shudder.

The Mountain Madmen soon encircled the four, spines bared threateningly. Repelled by the monster-deterrent potion and the water barrier, they shrieked and postured, unable to advance further.

Piiiiii!

A shrill, whistle-like scream rang out, and the spines began shooting toward the barrier like arrows.

The water barrier could stop them—but it couldn’t deflect them.

As spines embedded themselves, the barrier rippled violently, obscuring their vision. They couldn’t tell where the attacks were coming from. Yet they couldn’t drop the only protection keeping them alive, either.

In short, they were completely trapped—unable to advance, unable to retreat. A dilemma.