Seoul,
Present Day
Kang Jinho sat in the corner of the Tiger Gate Guild's training lobby, wearing a loaner tracksuit two sizes too big and sipping vending machine coffee that tasted suspiciously like melted batteries.
A blinking screen above the receptionist desk announced:
🔔 [Dungeon Dispatch: Now Assigning F-Rank Hunters!] 🔔
Jinho raised his hand lazily. "That's me."
The other F-Rank hunters, a girl with healing gloves, a guy wearing three knives taped to a mop handle, and someone still in his courier uniform glanced at him like he was radioactive. Fair.
He had survived a glitched dungeon with no party, no gear, and no idea what he was doing.
And his class?
??? / Possibly Illegal
Even the system window seemed confused.
🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹
"Name?" the dispatcher asked, without looking up.
"Kang Jinho. F-Rank. Recently certified. Possibly broken."
The man squinted at his screen, frowned, then typed something.
"Right. You're the Glitchwalker. You're going in with Squad 11 to clear a C-Rank Static Dungeon in Gyeonggi-do."
"C-Rank?" Jinho blinked. "Isn't that two whole ranks above mine?"
"You'll be in the back. Healing team dropped out. It's just mop guy and you now."
"I'm not a healer."
"Exactly. That's why you're going in."
Jinho didn't follow, and he didn't ask. At this point, questioning the logic of hunter assignments was like arguing with a cat: loud, useless, and likely to get you scratched.
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The Dispatch Bus,
10 Minutes Later
Squad 11 was not what Jinho expected.
First, there were only three of them.
Second, their "squad leader" was a woman in her 40s named Madam Gong, who introduced herself by shouting, "If you throw up in my van, I throw you in the dungeon first!"
Third, the C-Rank dungeon was apparently located inside an abandoned water park.
Because, of course it was.
"This dungeon's got a water-aspect domain," Gong said as she handed Jinho a cheap plastic poncho. "Probably minor spirits. Maybe cursed koi fish."
"Should we be worried about drowning?"
"Only if you're bad at not dying."
Solid advice.
As they reached the dungeon portal rippling like heat above a broken wave pool, Jinho's system window flashed again:
[You are entering: BLUE DOMAIN – C-Rank Static Dungeon]
[Dungeon Name: "Blue Caverns of the Drowned Witch"]
[Warning: Your rank is significantly below this threshold.]
Jinho waved the message away like a mosquito. "Story of my life."
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Inside the Dungeon
The air shifted the moment they crossed over.
What was once humid summer air became cold, wet, and echoing. Stone tunnels stretched downward, slick with algae and glowing with eerie blue light.
"Stick close. Kill fast. Don't talk to the water," Madam Gong warned.
Jinho blinked. "What do you mean—?"
Just then, the water in a nearby pool whispered his name.
"Jinhooooo... you forgot to pay your phone billlllll…"
He flinched. "Oh gods. It knows my debts."
They moved fast.
Mop Guy, whose real name was apparently Minsik flailed his taped-up weapon at ghost eels.
Madam Gong blasted aquatic shades with electric runes.
Jinho… tried not to get possessed.
The system kept trying to scan his class and failing.
[Skill: Glitchwalker activated.]
[Effect: Unstable. Calculating… Error.]
[You are not supposed to exist.]
"Gee, thanks," he muttered.
Then something big moved in the dark.
The water swirled. The lights dimmed.
A giant serpentine shape rose from the pool, skeletal jaws wide and dripping spectral kelp.
[Mini-Boss Appeared: Drowned Witch's Warden]
[B-Rank Spirit Beast]
"Oh come on," Jinho said. "This is not in the pamphlet."
To be continued...