Humanity Itself is Strong - Chapter 21
Chapter 21 – Crawling out of the ground
He slowly pulled the phone out of his pocket and began to make the call. Then he answered the phone immediately.
Click. <Did you take care of him?> Beyond the phone came a voice with a deep echo like a cave.
“Yes…… sir, we’re currently putting it in the fridge.”
“……Thank you.” Click. “Ee, that’s enough, right?” “Yeah.” Pfff! Jin-Seong elbowed the back of the head as he pulled the blade out of his collarbone. “Cough…….” Booom…! He fainted and fell to the floor. And Jin-Seong wore the slave ring on his hand as a reward for his achievements. ‘Now I have to get through them.’ Then Jin-Seong carried him on his back. Jin-Seong canceled the previous floor and pressed the B21 button. Jin-Seong already had the overall map of the underground facilities in his mind. Whoosh! The elevator passed through the vast cavity and went deeper down the ground. Then the elevator door opened. ‘It’s the 21st basement level.’ Srrr. The floor where the door was opened was now a closed storage floor. Jin-Seong’s ‘See-Through’ had already confirmed that there were no people on this floor. Then he took off his clothes and changed. “…It’s a little small.” The fit was a little tight, but it was wearable. Then he tied the living-dead man’s hands and feet with a string and put him in a large box. Crrrrk……. Then he put the box on a cart that had been left unattended in a corner. Next is the blacksmith’s. Jin-Seong pushed the cart and this time, he followed the passage and loaded himself onto the cargo elevator. * * * Currrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…! The place where Jin-Seong arrived was a blacksmith’s compartment that had huge furnaces. Jin-Seong looked at the blacksmith pushing carts and hammering everywhere. They look like human beings, but in reality, they were demons hiding their horns, teeth, and nails. They were distracted by the blazing flames and hammers. ‘Heavy weights don’t suit you demons.’ Jin-Seong shook his head as he saw the demons struggling. Originally, this place was not a workshop for these cursed demons. Dwarves were usually blacksmith’s. They are short but have flinching large arm muscles and long beards. At that time, this was not a place that forged ordinary metals. This was a special facility where Dwarves forged metal called ‘Oriharcon’. It was much lighter than steel and ten times stronger. This is what they called this place at that time. Dwarven High Forge. That was the real name of this place. “It’s funny they said that the chairman spent a lot of money to make this place.” So the chairman just. Took over the abandoned Dwarf workshop, which appeared with the Awakening Corridor, and turned it into a demons blacksmith’s shop. He just installed an elevator, repaired the workshop, and installed auxiliary facilities. The owners of this weapon spear fell deeper and deeper underground when the cataclysm occurred, and no trace of them was found ever since. They took the ‘Oriharcon’ weapons in the armory and the remaining ‘Oriharcon’ speckles in the workshop with them when they disappeared. So the demons did not know who made this place or what kind of weapons used to be made here. ‘And they don’t know about the weapon storage the Dwarves left behind either.’ Cyrriririririric… Jin-Seong pushed a cart with a large box and headed for the huge furnace at the center. The large furnace was bubbling with iron, where molten iron was discharged through four outlets, which were then processed and made into iron bars. Under the furnace, flames were popping up to heat the furnace. And the raging flames were incinerating tiny waste aside from heating the furnace. At that time, a living-dead who was putting trash in a brazier discovered Jin-Seong. “What are you? I’ve never seen you before.” “I’m new here.” Jin-Seong showed the ring he was wearing. The dead man with red eyes looked at the ring and nodded. This was because the living-dead could see an identification information window that popped up when they looked at other demons. “Huh? What, you’re under the power of the seventh demon? There are still subordinates that are alive?” He stopped putting garbage in a large incinerator and made a fuss. The slave’s ring, which Jin-Seong received as a reward for his achievement, had the function of falsifying identification information depending on the other party. “…I guess so.” The incinerator manager giggled at Jin-Seong’s calm response. “Haha, welcome. My master is on a different level than your weak demon master who died in the Great War! Last year……!” Suddenly he started bragging about how bad he was. Of course he didn’t want to hear that. “……I have something to burn.” Jin-Seong lifted the box from the cart and delivered it to the mutter who was muttering to himself. “Ooh, what’s this? Why is it so heavy?” “It’s nothing but rotten wood that we can’t use. You can burn it, right?” The incinerator officer giggled back. “Of course. It’ll be ash in seconds if thrown here, especially if it is just wood.” It was certainly extremely hot next to the incinerator. And this dead man threw the heavy box into the fire. Whoosh! Whoosh! In the fierce flames, the box quickly became black ash. At that moment, the dead man who was chatting with Jin-Seong tilted his head. “…… I think I heard a scream somewhere.” “I didn’t hear anything.” The dead man tilted his head and laughed at Jin-Seong’s response. “Well, I’ll see you at the midnight banquet anyway.” “Yeah.” Jin-Seong dragged the cart away from the fire. And he looked around the incinerator once. ‘I shouldn’t leave any traces behind.’ After abandoning the cart in a deserted place, Jin-Seong moved to the outskirts of a workshop lined with blacksmiths. Bang………………Bang……! Clack, clack, clack.…. Whoosh! Countless blacksmiths were busy hammering and cutting iron. Jin-Seong was able to reach a warehouse on the outskirts across a hot, fiery workshop. Jin-Seong quietly looked around, opened the warehouse door, and went in. Screeching……. Then, he could see that the floor and shelves of the warehouse were littered. It was a warehouse where the finished products awaiting final inspection were stored. ‘During the midnight banquet, survivors must be armed. I have to take enough weapons with me.’ The midnight banquet of the dead was not a happy occasion. The midnight banquet was a bloody and fleshy religious ceremony honoring the victims they had kidnapped so far. Arming survivors was an essential step, whether to survive or to deal with the numerous dead who attended the midnight banquet. Clink! Jin-Seong stopped in front of him and opened the locker. Then, the weapons, class E to D, were packed tightly in the locker. He took swords, spears, and axes and closed the lid. ‘That’ll be enough.’ Jin-Seong stood up from his seat and checked using ‘See-Through’ if anyone came into the warehouse. …… There was no one. Jin-Seong moved on to his next goal, pleased with the convenient sensing ability of ‘See-Through’. What he needed now is a sacred object to prevent the sacrificial attack. He needed to find the hidden peace of the monarch dungeon. * * * Jin-Seong took the elevator and went down constantly. Then it stopped slowly. Ring. -You have reached the lowest floor. Whoosh……. When the door opened, mold and unpleasant moisture in the basement flooded into the elevator. Jin-Seong took a look around. On the high ceiling, indoor lights connected to the ceiling were hanging at regular intervals. But it looked strange. The outer walls and corridors of the entire bottom floor were turned into mossy bricks. Only incandescent lamps chained to the ceiling remained traces of the original warehouse floor. “It must be this way.” Jin-Seong muttered, knocking on the door of the modern office, out of line with mossy bricks. What Jin-Seong was looking for here was nothing else. It was a hidden piece that became accessible as the dungeon progressed. However, there was a problem. Boom…… Boom…… Boom……… thump……. It was the giant guarding the dungeon. Jin-Seong leaned against the wall and held his breath as it approached. And for a moment. Boom! Boom! Boom……! The giant walking sound appeared under the shaky incandescent lamp. A giant that is 3 meters tall, and has a skinny body, arms, and legs. Jin-Seong thought as he saw the giant approaching from a close distance. ‘This giant can’t see. Instead, he’s sensitive to hearing, so he just finds and kills the enemy who makes noise.’ The giant, covered in black and wrinkled leather, was called a ‘Taker’. It was a giant that protected the dungeon and shared the power of the dungeon owner. The physical strength of the giant was ridiculously strong, and it had hard leather that cannot be scratched by a dagger. Jin-Seong thought. ‘It’s hard to deal with that giant until I can get those weapons. So I need to avoid a fight here.’ The only weapons Jin-Seong now had were low-quality swords, daggers, and lion claws that could not cause fatal injuries. Boom, boom, boom……. And then. The giant stopped walking and began to turn its head around as if it were looking for something.