The Academy Geniuses I Raised and Dressed

The Magitech Vault was one of the more unique dungeons.

It flew through the sky.

That didn’t mean you had to ride a plane or rocket to reach it—its entrance portal was on the ground like any other.

“Seeing it like this… it’s really something.”

Standing in front of Gwanghwamun, I muttered as I looked around.

New buildings were going up everywhere, and Gwanghwamun itself was covered in scaffolding and tarps.

Most likely, Gyeongbokgung Palace was undergoing restoration too.

According to Latessai’s lore, the Gwanghwamun and Jongno areas had been utterly destroyed during the Human-Demon War by an S-rank monster’s rampage.

After that, gates transformed into dungeons and portals, monster attacks ceased, and humanity began rebuilding civilization using resources from the Demon Realm and new technological developments.

The rapidly recovering heart of Seoul had become a symbol of that restoration.

Yet right in the center where the Gwanghwamun Plaza used to be, now stood a dungeon and a platform-shaped portal—also a stark reminder of the scars left behind. I remembered reading that exact line of text in the game.

The actual plaza was now a cleared-out lot blocked off with barricades, with security checkpoints scattered around.

I walked up to one of the checkpoints and handed over the permit I received from the school.

The permit listed only my affiliation, name, and destination. No photo.

“First-year, Gwangcheon Academy. Nam Yein, right?”

The Hunter, clad in metal armor, scanned the code on my permit with a tablet. He looked at the screen and asked.

There was no photo there either. Looked like they were just verifying the permit's authenticity.

“Yes,” I replied.

“All right. Go ahead.”

They’re more lax about this than I thought.

In the game, this kind of procedure didn’t even exist.

You'd just create a squad or accept a quest, and boom—you’d be inside the dungeon.

I passed through the checkpoint and headed toward the portal, shaped like a platform.

All around, I saw adult Hunters moving about.

The Magitech Vault was a public-access dungeon, meaning multiple people could share the same space.

One of the key differences between private and public dungeons—aside from peculiar cases like the Catacombs—was whether monsters and resources would respawn.

In private dungeons, once resources or monsters were gone, they were gone for good.

But in public dungeons, monsters and resources regenerated over time.

Their respawn locations were random, so players in public dungeons had to keep moving around.

There was also another unique feature—no matter how long you stayed inside a public dungeon, almost no time would pass in the outside world.

Basically, it’s the “Room of Spirit and Time” for grinding and farming, without interfering with school schedules.

I stepped onto the large, round platform that looked like a portal generator from a sci-fi movie.

A glow enveloped the area, and in an instant, the scenery around me changed.

“Whoa…”

I couldn’t help but let out a gasp.

Inside the dungeon, the interior hull was made of dark metal plating. Pipes lined the walls in dense clusters.

There were doors and mechanical devices scattered along the hallway, many of them strange and unfamiliar.

Most striking of all—they were huge, as if built for giants.

The doors, the width and height of the hallways, the machines—everything was massive, at least three times the size of what a normal person would use.

I stepped away from the portal and walked down the corridor.

Through the large glass windows set into the walls, I could see the sky.

But it was clearly not Earth’s sky—its colors said it all.

The sky was green.

The clouds were red.

And far below, a gray ocean spread out endlessly.

It looked like something a child had messily colored in a picture book—or some deliberately grotesque surrealist painting.

Just then, I heard footsteps behind me.

I turned and saw a group of adult Hunters moving together.

The hallway was more than wide enough to accommodate everyone, but I instinctively stepped closer to the wall and activated my drone.

It floated up behind my head and began recording.

The Hunters quickly passed by and disappeared around a corner.

They were probably in a hurry to reach the deeper levels.

Left alone in the silent corridor, I let out a sigh.

Right now, I wasn’t the protagonist. I was inhabiting Nam Yein, a character doomed to disappear in the prologue.

Even wearing armor and carrying a shield, a single mistake or dispute could easily get me killed.

Especially in a public-access dungeon, where the environment was practically built for crime—murder, theft, intimidation.

If someone died, it could just be blamed on monsters. The place was huge and closed off enough that it was easy to avoid others entirely.

Sure, a pro Hunter had no reason to mug a Hunter trainee—it was more profitable to just go deeper and farm high-tier monster materials.

Still, maybe I was overreacting a bit.

I looked around.

Once again, I was the only one in the corridor.

Where should I go to meet her…

I thought back to the Imoogi and the Dragon side scenario.

In the game, the event would trigger eventually as you wandered and fought monsters. There weren’t any specific conditions I can remember, so… I guess I’ll just start by hunting monsters.

I walked up to one of the doors spaced evenly along the corridor.

The large metal door opened automatically.

Inside was a wide room, with human-sized metal golems and turrets embedded with red-lens eyes.

True to the sci-fi aesthetic, the monsters were mechanical too.

Fortunately, unlike the dungeon’s massive scale, the monsters weren’t that big.

I immediately threw a Spike Bomb and raised my shield.

With a loud explosion, shrapnel flew in all directions.

Lowering my shield, I saw the monsters, riddled with holes, collapsed on the floor.

The recommended level for Magitech Vault’s first floor was between 3 and 8. Even the weakest Spike Bombs were more than enough to wipe them out.

Mechanical monsters were weak to elemental damage, especially lightning—but since I had the drone recording, I stuck to using Spike Bombs only.

After the mechanical corpses vanished, I picked up the dropped items—materials including magic stones.

One especially caught my eye—yellow gemstones.

[Inferior Thunder Crystal]

A gemstone containing faint electric mana. Touching it makes your hair stand on end.

I rubbed my hair while holding it—it was a bit staticky.

So these poor monster chumps drop materials that expose their own weaknesses when they die. How pitiful.

After collecting the loot, I returned to the corridor and entered another room.

There, just like before, mechanical monsters greeted me—and met the same explosive end.

I cleared nine rooms in total, slaying over sixty monsters.

And then, I found myself standing still in the middle of one of the rooms.

“…She’s not here?”

All this time wandering through rooms and corridors, I hadn’t even run into another person, let alone my target.

A creeping anxiety took hold.

Is it because I’m Nam Yein and not the protagonist? But Cheongwang’s crew still picked a fight with me just like in the side scenario. If she ended up in a different dungeon…

All my effort would’ve been for nothing.

As I moved toward another room, trying to keep my frustration in check—

BOOM!!

A loud mechanical explosion rang out from somewhere.

That sound—!

I bolted toward the source.

“…doing here…?”

“…surprise…bared fangs…”

Voices came from a room at the very end of the corridor—far from anywhere people normally went.

Normally, I wouldn’t have been able to hear anything from that distance.

But apparently, Hunters had enhanced senses too.

I treaded lightly, making sure my footsteps were silent, and crept toward the end of the corridor.

“Answer me. I asked what the hell you think you’re doing.”

Once again wearing that out-of-place black dress, Chen Meiling stood with a frosty gaze fixed ahead.

At the receiving end of her glare was Cheongwang’s crew—armed with a crossbow.

“We just wanted to have a word with you, Miss.”

Cheongwang spoke politely.

“If it’s just a conversation, why did you have to destroy my drone?”

Lying beside Meiling was a drone with an arrow lodged in it.

The arrow had pierced through its lens—proof that the shot had come from behind.

“It would be troublesome if Gwangcheon found out we were in this dungeon. We didn’t use a squad certificate—we borrowed someone else’s end-of-month assignment permit instead. There’s also a discreet request we’d like to make of you, Miss Meiling.”

“A request?”

One of Meiling’s eyebrows arched.

“We’ve been expelled from Gwangcheon. But if you were to speak favorably to Lord Kai on our behalf… maybe we’d have a chance to return. After all, Lord Kai holds you in high regard.”

For a moment, Meiling’s expression turned stiff—then, suddenly, she burst into laughter.

“Pfft!”

Her unexpected outburst left Jaesik and Wolff wide-eyed. Even Cheongwang stared at her, caught off guard.

After chuckling softly for a bit, Meiling cut her laughter short and spoke with icy calm.

“Don’t talk nonsense.”

The cold look had returned to her face.

“You were expelled because you couldn’t even deal with trash from Class B.”

A muscle twitched on Cheongwang’s temple.

“Even if you came back, you’d just get kicked out again for incompetence. Why should I go out of my way for that?”

“…We could always reveal the truth about Lord Kai’s relationship with Gwangcheon to the public.”

He tried to keep his emotions tightly controlled.

“Go ahead, then.”

A sneer played at Meiling’s lips.

“I wonder who would believe your so-called ‘truth’—and who would be willing to spread it. No, wait. You’ll probably get caught by the Hunters hired by Forward Guild before you get the chance.”

Her relaxed tone sent a wave of unease over Jaesik and Wolff.

“Of course, no news outlet would believe what we say outright.”

Cheongwang continued.

“But what if we weren’t the ones to expose it?”

“What?”

“If you were the one to come forward, Miss Meiling, then even the media would have no choice but to treat it as a major scoop. Especially PBC, with its close ties to Crystal.”

“Ha!”

Meiling let out a dry laugh.

“So that’s why you brought crossbows?”

Her eyes flicked down to their hands.

“You catch on quick.”

Cheongwang smirked and raised his crossbow at her.

Wolff and Jaesik followed suit.

“It would be best if you didn’t resist. Even if you activate your Black Realm, it won’t stop arrows already loosed from crossbows. And we all know your stamina aptitude is only a C.”

“Is that so? Then go ahead and shoot.”

With that, Meiling activated her Black Realm.

A flicker of panic crossed Jaesik and Wolff’s faces.

They hadn’t expected her to use her ability so decisively, even under threat of death.

But Cheongwang just grinned.

“Stupid bitch.”

He pulled the trigger.

The arrow pierced Meiling’s right arm—and the rapidly spreading black space vanished instantly.

“Argh!!”

Meiling screamed in pain.

“Perfect. That face. I’ve been dying to see it.”

Cheongwang stared at her twisted expression with genuine satisfaction.

“You were probably born with everything—power, money, privilege—achieving whatever you wanted without lifting a finger. That’s why even now, in a moment like this, you feel no real sense of danger. Incredible, really. To think someone so different from us is still considered human.”

He fired again.

This time, the arrow pierced Meiling’s left arm.

“Aaagh!!”

Another scream tore from her throat.

Blood soaked into her black dress and dripped to the floor.

“Cheongwang! Stop it! If she dies—”

“Shut up. I’ll decide that.”

Wolff tried to intervene, but Cheongwang didn’t even turn his head. He loaded another arrow into his crossbow.

Then he aimed it at Meiling’s head as she sat slumped on the ground.

“I never thought you’d actually listen to us. I came here to kill you. Just seeing your face makes me sick.”

“What?”

“What the hell are you saying? If you kill her, we can’t use her as leverage!”

Wolff and Jaesik shouted in disbelief, but Cheongwang ignored them and rested his finger on the trigger.

“The first time I met your father, I wondered—has this man ever experienced the pain of lacking something? Of needing something so desperately and knowing he can never have it? I think I’m about to find out.”

“Hey! Jin Cheongwang! Have you lost your damn mind?! Enough already!”

Wolff lunged forward and grabbed Cheongwang’s shoulder.

At that moment, Meiling—who had kept her head down the whole time—looked up at him.

“No.”

Cheongwang’s face froze.

There was a mocking smirk on Meiling’s pale face.

“You don’t understand a damn thing, idiot.”

Her scorn lit a fire in Cheongwang’s eyes. He began to pull the trigger—

Whirrr— 

The door slid open.

All three turned toward the sound, then quickly looked down.

A small black orb rolled across the floor toward them.

Boom!!

“Waugh!!”

“What the hell?!”

Jaesik yelled in alarm while Wolff waved his free arm wildly.

Thick black smoke billowed out, completely obscuring their vision.

Cheongwang turned toward where Meiling had been and fired blindly into the haze.

Clang!!

The sound was nothing like the thunk of a bolt piercing flesh or bone.

It had hit something hard.

Something capable of blocking a crossbow bolt.

Immediately afterward, the clatter of multiple metal objects echoed through the darkness.

A sense of dread crept into Cheongwang’s chest.

Something brushed past his toes.

A small orb bristling with spikes.

Yesterday’s incident flashed through his mind.

“Everyone down!!”

Cheongwang shouted as he threw himself flat against the floor.

BOOM!!

BOOM-BOOM!!

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!!!

A rapid series of explosions erupted, sending a thousand tiny spikes flying in every direction.

When the blasts finally stopped, Cheongwang raised his head.

The black smoke was dispersing, and his vision began to clear.

“…Goddamn it!!”

He cursed loudly.

Chen Meiling was gone.

(End of Chapter)