Chapter 3 — External Interference
Aken stood frozen for few a seconds, the glowing system notification hovered silently before his eyes.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Hidden Condition Detected]
[The Level 1 Curse is evolving.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The words pulsed faintly like a heartbeat. He blinked once, then the window vanished. "…Aken?"
Jae-Min's voice snapped him back to reality. The taller Player was staring at him with a confused expression, sword resting casually on his shoulder. "You spaced out again. Is everything good?"
Aken exhaled slowly and nodded. "Yeah. Just thought... I saw something."
It wasn't entirely a lie, something inside him had been stirring. Almost like stew in a pot getting ready to be served. Ever since the notification appeared, the cursed energy flowing through his body felt… different, restless. Like it was reacting to something nearby.
Jae-Min shrugged. "Probably just another goblin hiding somewhere. Let's keep moving."
They continued deeper into the dungeon, the rocky canyon stretched endlessly around them. Jagged cliffs towered above like the ribs of a dead titan. The red sky cast long shadows across the cracked ground. Usually, an F-Rank dungeon was chaotic. Goblins will attack in groups. Screeching, charging and even throwing rocks and rusty blades. But now… There was nothing, only silence.
Aken noticed it. His footsteps echoed slightly as they walked, they were too clear. His perception sharpened instinctively.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
STR: 15
AGL: 13
PER: 11
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Not extraordinary by Player standards, but enough to notice when something was wrong. He scanned the rocky terrain, still nothing. Jae-Min scratched the back of his head. "That's weird."
Aken glanced at him. "What do mean?"
"We should've run into at least ten goblins by now."
He was right, F-Rank dungeons were predictable. Weak monsters, constant encounters and simple boss fights. But they had been walking for nearly ten minutes without seeing a single creature, the silence pressed down around them. Aken felt a faint vibration ripple through the ground, he stopped walking. Jae-Min noticed instantly. "You also felt that?"
Aken slowly nodded. "Yeah."
Another tremor passed beneath their feet, then it stopped. Jae-Min forced a grin. "Probably just dungeon instability. Happens sometimes."
But his grip on his sword tightened, they continued forward anyways. A few minutes later, the canyon path curved sharply and opened into a massive stone chamber entrance.
The dungeon boss room. Jae-Min let out a small sigh. "Well… guess we made it."
But for some reason Aken didn't move, something about the entrance felt off. The stone door was enormous—easily three meters tall and carved directly into the canyon wall, F-Rank bosses usually guarded simple cave entrances. Not something like this.
Jae-Min stepped closer. "Whoa, come check this out…"
Aken followed his gaze.
Symbols covered the stone surface, strange glowing runes pulsed faintly across the door. They looked ancient and unfamiliar. Aken felt the cursed energy inside him stir violently, the runes glowed again. Once then twice. Almost like they were reacting to his presence.
Jae-Min frowned. "…Have you ever seen dungeon markings like this?"
Aken shook his head. "No, at list non I know of."
Most dungeons were raw environments, caves, forests and ruins, but this looked deliberate—constructed. The runes flickered again, Aken felt a faint chill run down his spine.
"Something doesn't feal right ," he said quietly.
Jae-Min glanced at him. "You think it's a trap?"
"Maybe, I'm not sure. I can't put my finger on it"
Jae-Min studied the door for another moment, then he shrugged. "Well then, only one way to find out."
He stepped forward and pushed. The massive stone door groaned as it slowly opened, dust falling from the ceiling. The moment the gap widened—
Two system windows exploded into existence, one in front of Aken and the other in front of Jae-Min.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[SYSTEM WARNING]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[External Interference Detected]
[Dungeon Stability Compromised]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jae-Min's eyes widened.
"What the—?"
Another message appeared instantly.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Emergency Condition Activated
Boss Mutation in Progress]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aken's heart skipped, that never happened in F-Rank dungeons. Jae-Min cursed under his breath. "That's not good."
The stone doors finished opening with a heavy boom, the boss chamber revealed itself. A massive circular arena stretched before them, stone pillars surrounded the outer edges. The floor was cracked and uneven like something had been digging through it, but the center of the chamber was empty. Way too empty.
Jae-Min stepped cautiously inside. "Alright… where's the boss?"
Aken followed slowly, the cursed energy inside him churned violently now. Something beneath the ground felt… alive.
Then—
The floor shook, hard. Almost like an earthquake. A deep rumble echoed through the chamber, cracks spread across the stone. Jae-Min immediately raised his sword. "Something's coming!"
The ground exploded, stone shattered outward as something massive erupted from beneath the arena floor. A towering creature clawed its way out of the earth. Nearly three meters tall, green skin stretched across bulging muscles, black veins pulsed beneath its flesh like living wires. Its eyes glowed a violent crimson, a jagged crown of bone protruded from its skull.
And in its hand it held a massive rusted cleaver. Jae-Min's voice dropped to a whisper. "…That's not a goblin boss."
The creature let out a monstrous roar that shook the chamber walls. Aken's system flashed.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Cursed Goblin Chieftain]
[Threat Level: Unknown]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The monster's gaze suddenly locked onto Aken, a pulse of dark energy rippled from its body. Aken felt the cursed energy inside him react instantly. Another system message appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Curse Resonance Detected]
[Foreign Cursed Energy Identified]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Then—
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Hidden Quest Generated]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aken's breath caught. Jae-Min shouted. "Move!"
The chieftain swung its massive cleaver downward, the blade slammed into the stone floor with a thunderous crash. Aken and Jae-Min leapt aside, stone shattered beneath the impact. Jae-Min dashed forward instantly, his sword flashed.
Clang.
The strike bounced off the monster's thick hide. "…Tch!"
The chieftain backhanded him across the arena. Jae-Min slammed into a pillar and dropped to one knee. "Damn…!"
Aken rushed toward him. "You okay?"
"Yeah," Jae-Min groaned, standing again. "But that thing's way stronger than an F-Rank boss."
The monster charged, The ground trembled with each step. Aken's instincts screamed, he moved first.
AGL: 13
His body blurred sideways just as the cleaver crashed down again. Jae-Min attacked from the flank, his sword slashed across the monster's arm. This time the blade cut slightly, black blood spilled from it. The chieftain roared, It swung in anger. Jae-Min ducked beneath the attack and countered.
Another cut, but the monster barely reacted.
"This isn't enough!" Jae-Min shouted.
Aken clenched his fists, the cursed energy inside him surged violently. Then his system window appeared again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[HIDDEN QUEST]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Survive the Mutated Boss.
Reward: ???
Condition: Defeat the Cursed Goblin Chieftain.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aken's heartbeat quickened. This was it, the curse, the evolution. Something inside him felt like it was about to break out of prison. The monster lunged again, Aken stepped forward instead of retreating.
Jae-Min shouted. "Aken!"
But Aken didn't stop, the cursed energy exploded through his body, dark power rushed through his veins. Another notification flashed.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[SKILL UNLOCKED]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Curse Regeneration]
[Passive Ability Activated]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aken gasped, warm energy spread across his muscles. His wounds from earlier training aches vanished instantly, his stamina surged.The system explained itself.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[HP Regeneration Active
Stamina Regeneration Active]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The cursed energy inside him stabilized. Jae-Min blinked. "…What the hell just happened?"
Aken clenched his fists slowly. "I think…" He stepped toward the monster. "…my curse just got stronger."
The chieftain roared and charged again, but this time Aken didn't feel fear, only focus. His stamina recovered faster than he could spend it. He darted forward, dodged beneath the monster's arm and drove his fist directly into its ribs. A burst of cursed energy exploded from the impact, the monster staggered back. Jae-Min's eyes widened. "You actually hurt it!"
Aken stepped back, his HP ticked upward slightly. His stamina returned almost in immediate effect. Curse Regeneration was working, slowly but constantly. The fight had changed, the chieftain moved. Jae-Min grinned fiercely. "Alright then." He raised his sword. "Let's kill this damn thing."
The two Players moved together, one with skill and one with an extraordinary curse.
END OF CHAPTER 3