← I was summoned to another world and inherited an entire dungeon.The monitor's pale light illuminated Junho's face. 11:47 PM. Every time he glanced at the clock, a sigh escaped his lips.
'Deadline, deadline, deadline...'
His fingers tapped against the keyboard. There was no rhythm to it. He'd stop, start again, stop. It had been like this all day. Within the company, Junho had long ago earned the nickname 'overtime addict.' But it wasn't really an addiction. It was just... he couldn't leave. When quitting time came around, it always felt like there was something left to do, and he couldn't ignore that feeling. He'd lived like this for thirty-two years.
The office was empty. Even the cleaning service workers had left long ago. Only the fluorescent lights hung coldly overhead.
'This sentence... something's off?'
Junho reread the paragraph he'd written in his report. Nothing was wrong with it. But his fingers kept moving. He adjusted the bullet points. Changed the colors. Adjusted the font size. He kept fine-tuning details no one would ever see.
Time passed.
Midnight came and went.
The cursor on the screen blinked. Junho's eyes blinked along with it. They grew heavy. He'd slept only two hours yesterday. Three hours the day before. His body screamed at him. But Junho didn't listen.
'Just once more... just one more time...'
His fingers moved. But they weren't precise. He deleted the same section twice. Typed the same word three times.
Something was wrong.
His arm felt heavy. No, not his entire arm—it was more like something was settling down from his shoulders to his neck. And then...
His vision wavered.
'What?'
Junho pulled his eyes away from the monitor. The office seemed to be rotating slightly. Slowly. Very slowly. As if the world was spinning, not him.
'Am I tired?'
He pressed his temples with his fingers. They felt cold. His hands were cold. He'd known for some time that his hands were cold, but now it was worse. Like ice.
Junho tried to stand up from his chair.
He didn't move.
No, he moved, but his body didn't follow. His brain sent the signal, but his limbs didn't respond. It felt like his body wasn't his own. Or like he was slipping out of his body.
'What... what is this...'
No sound came from his throat. His lips moved. But his vocal cords didn't respond. Air passed through, but it didn't vibrate.
His vision wavered more. Now it wasn't rotation but a sinking sensation. Like slowly descending into deep water. The fluorescent lights before his eyes grew more distant. Blurred. Darkness crept in from the edges.
'This is... what is this?'
It was his last thought.
Before that thought could even finish, the world went black.
His body fell forward from the chair. Onto the monitor, the keyboard. His fingers pressed random keys. Letters and numbers and symbols scattered across the screen. Sentences no one would see. Words no one would read.
The office was still filled with fluorescent light.
And that was all.
---
When the world opened again, it was not an office.
When I opened my eyes, the first thing that came into view was darkness.
Gray darkness. Not black, but a faint light seeping through air thick with dust. Junho blinked several times. His focus wouldn't sharpen. His retinas were struggling to adapt.
A ceiling came into view.
No, not a ceiling—rock. Stone with a rough surface. Irregular layers of stone jutted out like finger-lengths. Between them, darker crevices. A cave. This was definitely a cave.
Junho tried to get up. Or rather, he tried to.
His body was heavy. As if submerged in water. When he lifted his arm, the weight felt so foreign he couldn't be sure it was his own. Slowly. Very slowly. His elbow touched some surface.
The ground.
Cold and wet.
Junho's mind sharpened at the sensation against his hand. Moisture. Very old moisture. Water that had seeped into stone, probably decades old. He rubbed it with his fingers. It wasn't slimy. Just cold and damp.
Slowly. Very slowly, he pushed himself up.
Darkness still surrounded him, but his eyes were beginning to adapt. The outline of the cave started to emerge. The ceiling was roughly at the height where his fingertips would reach if he stretched his arm straight up. Calculating by hand width, nearly three meters. No, that wasn't accurate. Distance perception crumbles in darkness. It could actually be closer or farther.
The walls?
Junho turned his head slowly. His neck was stiff. Like a patient waking after surgery. Every movement met resistance from his muscles. But there was no pain. That was stranger still. With such an awkward position, there should have been pain.
The walls were cave walls. Stone. A mix of gray and black. Traces of water flowing down from somewhere were visible. Black streaks. Very old traces.
Junho knelt and sat.
Where is this place?
The question echoed. But there was no answer. A question that only resonated in his mind.
At the office... what happened?
He searched his memory. A report. The deadline was tomorrow. Or was it yesterday? His sense of time was blurry. The blue light of the screen. Emails. A message from his team leader. "Junho, finish this by tomorrow morning."
And then what?
Fatigue. Extreme fatigue. It was hard to keep his eyes open. His fingers slipped across the keyboard. And then...
And then what?
Black. Deepening black. As if someone was slowly turning off the lights. And he lost consciousness.
After that?
There was no memory.
Junho slowly stood up. This time with the help of his arms. His fingers pressed against the cold, wet ground. After standing, he took a step forward.
His foot made a sound. On the soft, damp ground. It wasn't water. Soil. This was soil. Cave floor soil. Old and moisture-laden.
Junho slowly reached out his hand.
He needed to touch the wall. To regain his sense of direction. To understand the size of the cave.
His fingers brushed against cold, rough stone.
In that moment, something moved.
Junho's finger grazed something small, the size of a toe. Very quickly. Toward the ceiling. A bat? Or some other animal?
Junho quickly withdrew his hand.
His heart raced. For the first time, his body responded. A clear response. Alertness. A danger signal.
"W-who's there?"
His voice came out. This time his vocal cords worked. But his throat was parched. He had no memory of drinking water. How long had he been here?
His voice echoed through the cave. Acoustic effect. Echo. Like what he'd heard in parks or subway stations. But this was much deeper. As if he'd thrown a stone into a deep well.
There was no answer.
Junho stood quietly. He tried to steady his breathing. His body was still heavy. Like someone who had just woken from a paralyzed state. But he could move.
Slowly. Very slowly.
He decided to move along the wall. The first thing someone trapped in a cave should do. Basic survival principle. He didn't know where he'd learned it, but instinct was telling him.
One hand against the wall. The other hand forward.
One foot forward. Then the other.
One step. One step.
The cave gradually revealed itself. As his eyes adapted further. The darkness wasn't simple black, but had depth. A faint light was coming from somewhere. From above? From the side? Junho looked up.
It seemed to come from the ceiling. A very faint gray light. Like the sky at dawn. But this was indoors. Inside a cave. Then where was this light coming from?
Junho kept walking.
The cave was gradually widening. The walls were getting farther away. His fingers lost the wall. Junho moved his hand more broadly. Until he found the wall again.
And he found it.
The wall was in an unexpected direction. It meant the space he was walking through was curved. The cave was bent.
He kept walking.
Then he stopped.
There was something.
Ahead. In the darkness. What Junho's eyes detected was movement. Small movement. Something like white in color. No, transparent. A form that scattered light.
Junho held his breath.
"W-what is that?"
His voice came out. This time in a more cautious tone.
The form ahead drew closer.
Junho's eyes focused.
It was...
A living creature. But unlike any creature Junho had ever seen. A transparent, jelly-like body. Roughly the size of a finger. Light was refracting off its surface. Like the surface of water. It moved. Very slowly. In a blurry, indistinct manner.
Junho didn't move.
The creature didn't move either.
Two seconds. Three seconds. Five seconds.
It moved first. Toward Junho. Very slowly. At a non-threatening speed.
Junho's body tensed. But he didn't run. Where would he run to? This was a cave. An unknown space. Running could lead to greater danger.
It drew closer.
Junho slowly took a step back.
It stopped.
Again, a few seconds of silence. The creature was observing Junho. Just as Junho was observing it.
It made a sound.
Something like a sound wave. A vibration perceived visually. Junho felt it. Through the air. No, deeper. Through his bones.
And then it turned around.
Slowly. As if nothing had happened. It disappeared into the darkness.
Junho stood there for a long time.
His heart was beating fast. Now he was certain.
He was not dead.
But he was alive. That much was certain too.
And this place...
The fact that it was a cave was also certain.
He still didn't know where this was or how he got here.
Junho slowly began to move.
Deeper.
Into the darkness of the cave.