Ch 3

After an hour and a half, we finally reached Dandong. Although, the station our team has arrived at was strictly for SRA's army

use only, and was located at a significant distance from the major railroads and highways, loud voices, screams, and noises

of different origins were emanating from all the directions. Amid this chaos, thin and timid looking man, who would look more like straw without his oversized fur trench coat, was moving towards our direction. Even from afar a reek of alcohol and tobacco was so strong that a kid would be dancing and swearing in the drunken rage.

When he comes closer and opened his mouth even a stronger stench shrouded the entire team.

Ha Eun's eyes were all watery and she looked as she was on a verge of crying. She was desperately flapping her palms to use them as fans. But sadly it was all in vain. With such terrifying AOE, he could easily participate in SRA army raids.

He then extended his hand in wait for Fei Hong. Regardless of this unbearable smell, she kept her composure and didn't let him wait for long.

-'Hello I am colonel Liu Xingfu, I take you are a captain Fei Hong, I was ordered to guide you and your people to the newly formed tunnel. But, please excuse me for my frank words, no one mentioned that you are such a beauty'

With those words, colonel pulled her hand closer to his face with intentions to kiss it. Fei Hong hastily freed her hand and to avoid possible awkward moments tried to avert colonels' attention to a different topic.

-'Colonel why is it so noisy? Are locals trying to storm the SRA's LRT station?'

-'News about the tunnel spread pretty fast, and residents are trying to live city by all means possible. But rest assured regular army will hold down all the civilians from your precious LRT system.'

In the meantime, Sergei's and Sung Byung's groups were standing still as frequent drinking buddies of the battalion commander they were more or less immune to the incense exuded from the colonel.

As he was trying to explain the entire situation with the residents, colonel waved his hand and received a positive response from his subordinates.

-'Please this way, the transport was prepared, we will arrive at the sight quickly.'

In about ten minutes we have reached the city center, there was a hole of150 meters in radius and about 20-25 meters deep. Tons of debris and a huge pile of rubble accumulated from the collapsing buildings, cars, trees, and people. With just a wild guess tens of thousand lives were swept away when the tunnel opened. Fei Hong with her sensory trait managed to scan the entirety of the hole and located the tunnel entrance. She pointed out the direction and Sung Byung whose earth-fire and metal attributes' CL were both above 60. he was shifting reinforced concreate and slides of the earth with absolute ease.

-'Straight to work ha? ok then we will part ways here, though evacuation is in progress a necessary preparation has to be made if there will be a need to seal the entrance'

Seeing how careless Sung Byung was moving all the debris in his way, Ha Eun's face turned pale.

-'Wait there might be survivors down there, if you continue you will crush them to death, besides shouldn't, we first help army with the excavation of survivors.'

-'I have just scanned the entire area, there are no survivors. Regardless of survivors, our priority is to confirm the threat level of the dwellers in this tunnel. Do you understand?'

-'Ummm, Buuut. '

-'If this tunnel filled with high threat dwellers, we must seal entrance right away or even more, people might be killed. So we will proceed straight to the tunnel. That's an order!!'

_'.....'

Ha Eun didn't reply anything and just silently nodded in response.

Reaching the entrance of the tunnel there was a steep path something similar to the staircases, but under the weird angle, in the towers.  From this point on it was long descent to the depth of the hollow earth. The path was narrow about a meter wide and 2 meters in height, amazingly but those parameters were constant throughout the spiral corridor.

the descent was gradual and slow, but this way was ensuring our security.

In about 12 hours we reached the end of a tunnel. We were standing in front of the entrance to the underworld, for quite some time waiting for Fei Hong to finish scanning the area. In a few moments, she gave the signal and we went inside.

Air felt light and somewhat moist, utter darkness surrounded us without a source of light it was impossible even to see the silhouettes of those around us.

I couldn't use fire to light up space, since sometimes in those parts of underworld rare natural resources could be found and most of the time they were extremely flammable. To think about it, the only reason people do not seal the tunnels right away is to get a grip on those resources.

Light rods were turned on, illuminating all the surroundings, and

it was a sight to be seen, wide and spacious premises with some vegetation and whooping amount of huge chunks of crystal-like stones were reflecting the light from the rods. But our gazings were abruptly stopped by the screech that was coming from all the directions. Hundreds of rodent-like dwellers were filling the entirety of premises and then rushed toward us.

(I guess with those crystals around I can use the fire without a worry to ignite something flammable and blow all of us in an accident)

Against dwellers of such a low level, I could easily stand my grand even by myself regardless of their numbers. in a single moment flame circle was surrounding our group and then expanded burning all the rodents in its path.

-'Wow, that was fast! I have never seen such fast invocation'

-"Thank you, captain, I can rise the flame temperature up to 1000K so monsters of these level won't be a problem for me "-

-'Just in case, should I freeze their bodies?'

Sergei was quite a cautious person, in the past, his entire group was wiped by dwellers capable of self-healing. He was safe thanks to his trait of self-restoration, a most enviable trait to regenerate even from the smallest part of your body, but that wasn't the same for his groupmates.

-'No, I have a better idea I will poison their bodies, so they won't be a threat but at the same time  they will be useful if eaten by other dwellers'

Kim Kwang Nyun who is a water-fire adventer has access to poison and her trait is paralyzing gaze. Pretty unsettling powers, but it is very rare to see those adventers working in the field most of the time they occupy positions of interrogation officers.

Then we have spent some time exploring the premisses of this underworld and found quite a few small holes on the wall.

-'Ahh so they come from those tunnels, they are probably leading to the deeper parts of this underworld. Well anyway, they are just rodents so sealing the holes will do. Sung Byung I will leave this task to you.'

-'Yea yea, just give me a second'

All of the holes were sealed at once.

-'Well done, I guess we didn't have to be so nervous after all. it took less than a day to finish the mission what a relief. Well, lets rest for now. Gan Gang Su, Ja Wui Wang and Pi Hae Ja you three will be first on the watch. After three hours wake me up.'

About an hour into the first watch the three Ja had a conversation.

-'This Chinese girl is so my type, her delicate and at the same time sturdy figure and her beautiful serious face, I wanna see it twitch in pleasure and embarrassment, you guys are with me, right? '

Gan Gang Ja who couldn't hide his excitement and drooled in anticipation. was looking at the other with the hope of support.

-'But how are we supposed to explain it later?'

Pi Hae Ja as the most careful of three Ja voiced his worries.

-'It's not rare for some of the team members to die right? We can just say that there was one strong dweller present. And unfortunately, he killed our captain. This story will do.'

Ja Wui Wang who had the same desires as Gang Ja but not comfortable enough to suggest it, thought of an excuse long ago.

'Then we will do it this way....'

-'Captain Fei Hong, wake up'

Pi Hae Ja who was still uncertain about the whole deal was nervously talking to Fei Hong

-'Is it time already?'

-'No no, but it seems Gan Gang Ja found something, he wishes you to see that as well.'

-'Alriht, lead the way.'

When they have arrived at the spot Ja Wui Wang who was prepared to ambush Fei Hong used sound, originally it was planned to make her dizzy so they would easily overpower her, but he misused it and Fei Hong lost her conciseness instead.  

-'Hyuk-Il wake up, wake up!!'

-"What going on, Kwang Nyun is it my watch already?"

-'No, I think three Ja are planning to do something bad to Fei Hong. So come with me.'

-"What do you mean something bad?"

-'Don't play stupid, you know what'

-"Then should we wake others as well? "

-'There is no time just stand up and follow me.'

she grabbed my hand and pulled out of the sleeping bag

-'You retard, why did you do that?  wanna see her facial expressions, listen to hear screams and moans when I screw her, you can't even do one fucking job properly.'

Kwang Nyun and I were in some distance from the camp and loud arguing between males could be heard we have looked at each other and rushed towards the angry voices. in a minute or so in three guys widely arguing were in the field of view. But then I have noticed Fei Hong laying down unconscious.

-"What the fuck are you doing? are you out of your mind?"

-'Fuck, see what you did there Wui Wang, now we have to take care of this creeple as well as that bitch with him.'

that last part didn't play well with Kwang Nyun, she looked like she was ready to paralyze and poison them right this instant.

-'We haven't done anything to her yet, so let just try to forg.....'

as Pi Hae Ja tried to finish his sentence a loud sounds of a cannonball and tore tissue resonated in our ears. blood was pouring out of a huge hall in his chest. He couldn't utter a single word and dropped dead right away. We didn't have time to react as a second more metallic sound was heard and Ja Wui Wang lost both of his hands. Kwang Nyun pointed and screamed at Gan Gang Ja

-'You pick captain up and bring her to the camp, tell everyone to leave right away. This underworld has humanoid dwellers.'

Even without a second thought about his friend who had just lost both of his hands and was still alive Gan Gang Ja pick Fei Hong and run towards the camp. Meanwhile, Kwang Nyun and I dashed towards Ja Wui Wang who had a humanoid figure behind his back slowly approaching him.  

I have blazed that figure with all I had but it seems it was unhazed and so I continued to pour as much heat as possible to halt its movement.

With all these flames around it was now possible to see a clear image of those dwellers. It was slightly taller than 2 meters, with long black hair with pretty much human face with large black eyes without pupils. Crocodile like skin, think toeless feet and ankles pointing backwards. But then two more of those dwellers appeared behind the first one.Shrouded in fear I was ready to take Kwang Nyun and run away from them at any moment. But we can't just leave Ja Wui Wang who was shivering in pain. When I was on the edge of deserting our armless teammate, movements of those three were forcibly stopped by the Kwang Nyun.

-"Well done now we will have enough time to take Ja Wui Wang with us. I will carry....."

Then something similar to electric shock run through my body and I couldn't finish my sentence. My glimmer of hope was crushed by the anxiety of confusion. Kim Kwang Nyun face appeared before me with a disturbing smile.

-'You and this trash will stay here. Nothing person... Actually, it is only personal. How dare you be so close to Ha Eun, she is mine and mine alone. He he  he hahahhaha, don't worry I tell her you died protecting me.'

I couldn't move nor talk.

(Wait wait wait, undo the paralyze I please)

I was trying to speak but it was useless.

-'Well, Farewell Mr. Hyuik-Il'

With those words, Kwang Nyun rushed away.

(Wait don't leave me with those dwellers, WAAAAAAAAIT)

I was screaming it inside over and over again. In seconds a terrifying reality hits me, I was staring at those dwellers who were still paralyzed with me. Terror filled my entire body, a hopeless feeling similar to that of a mouse in a terrarium with a python that only can stare at the predator waiting to be eaten alive. What mouse felt when the python started to move, the same as I just stop breathing. One of those dwellers tore rest of defenseless Wui Wang's limbs and then cut him in half. The second was slowly approaching me, it seems that these bastards are enjoying my terrified state, it was ready to slice me in half but suddenly stopped. The third dweller who looked a bit shorter compared to those two and had a thinner body and red hair screamed something and dweller who was about to kill me grabbed my leg and dragged me with them.

(No NO NO NO, At least kill me fast PLEASE NO)

But i couldn't make a single noise