Reverse Dungeon

Ian and the elf finished filling in the slate on the trap floor.

Inside the chamber, dozens of doors lined the walls, but only one had remained shut until now. With a heavy groan, it finally swung open, revealing a staircase beyond.

“Whoa, we’re finally getting out!”

The elf cheered and hurried up to the next floor—only to come right back down moments later.

“This isn’t where we came in from.”

‘...?’

“That shouldn’t be possible.”

Normally, escaping a trap returned you to the exact place where you had fallen in. Outside the exit, there should’ve been the circular staircase connecting the underground level to the first floor.

Ian brushed past the elf and climbed the stairs himself.

The elf was right.

‘Why is there another trap?’

The distinction between ordinary floors and trap floors in the tower was simple. Normal floors had a single path. Trap floors had several. On a normal floor, all you had to do was defeat the mamool placed along the corridor to proceed upward. Traps were different—you had to wander through branching routes and find the correct path first.

And waiting before Ian now were five separate doors.

Another trap floor.

‘Did we fail to clear the previous one?’

No. That wasn’t it. Ian was certain they had completed the lower trap properly.

“What do we do now?”

The elf’s innocent question dredged up an old memory.

One day, while browsing the game’s official forums, Ian had noticed a comment beneath one of his strategy guides.

[Ian’s Strategy Tip — Desert Tower Trap Guide (Final Version)

Author: Jeong Yiwon

Comment:

I followed your guide and cleared the trap, but I still can’t leave the tower ㅠㅠ

┗ Author: That’s impossible.]

Confident in the accuracy of his guide, Ian had initially assumed the newbie simply misunderstood something. But after exchanging several replies, he discovered something shocking.

There existed a “trap that led into another trap”—something even Ian himself had failed to uncover despite spending over a month clearing every trap in the tower.

And it wasn’t tied to a hidden mechanism or special trigger. Among the tower’s countless traps, this was a random occurrence. Rare. Ridiculously unlucky.

Clearing it, however, granted the achievement:

“Trap Master!”

‘There was an achievement beyond Trap Expert?’

Ian had already completed every known trap in the tower and earned the “Trap Expert” achievement long ago.

But if there was a higher achievement beyond that, there was no way he could ignore it.

So he had saved in front of the trap and repeatedly cleared and reloaded the floor, over and over, checking whether the exit connected to another trap until he finally triggered the achievement.

That was why it had taken him over a month to finish conquering the tower.

‘Is this character blessed by luck or something?’

Ian genuinely couldn’t tell whether he had built a luck-focused character or whether this body was simply luck itself given form.

In reality, he’d never won a lottery, never pulled anything worthwhile in gacha games, but inside this game his fortune bordered on absurd.

“This is a shortcut,” Ian said, visibly excited.

To the elf, that explanation clarified absolutely nothing.

“A shortcut from one trap to another?”

“What kind of shortcut is that? If we clear this, we can head straight to the tower’s top floor.”

“What?! Why would something like that even exist?!”

The elf had long since stopped questioning how Ian knew these things. Instead, he seemed more astonished that such a sadistically designed tower would contain something so absurdly convenient.

‘Developers and their obsession with hidden content...’

Swallowing the sarcasm bubbling in his mind, Ian merely shrugged.

“Who knows?”

“Fair point. Let’s go!”

And yet the elf didn’t move.

Instead, he waited for Ian to take the lead, assuming he already knew the route.

Which, technically, he did.

Or rather, he knew how to find it.

Even Ian couldn’t memorize every single trap path he had encountered in the game.

But that wasn’t what truly bothered him.

Ian frowned slightly.

Could it be...?

“Do you think there’s a chance Keith is waiting outside the trap?”

“Oh. Since we got dragged in here, Sir Keith might be trying to find us?”

The elf’s answer carried an oddly misplaced faith in the Holy Knight’s sense of responsibility.

“He wouldn’t bother searching for you, but he might for me. Then again, he knows we’re not weak enough to die from falling into a trap. He’s fully aware of what we’re capable of.”

“Huh? That’s really how you see it?”

The elf looked baffled.

It wasn’t that he minded not being Keith’s first priority, but the idea of calmly abandoning companions inside a trap because they would “probably survive” still felt strange to him.

Ian, however, was already thinking several steps ahead.

“When we first came in here, I told you we’d probably come out where we fell in, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Which means Keith won’t expect us to emerge here. Our objective is to clear the tower and destroy the Life Vessel. He’ll assume we can handle ourselves and continue advancing upward.”

“Hmm... maybe?”

The elf suddenly found himself wondering whether Ian and Keith were actually much closer than they appeared.

Wouldn’t most people panic if close companions vanished into a trap?

Or perhaps he simply didn’t understand humans very well. Were they all this rational? This detached?

Even after living for over a thousand years, the high elf himself hadn’t reached such a state of emotional composure.

“We don’t know how quickly Keith can progress without a strategy guide.”

Ian rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

‘I leveled him properly. Improved his skills too.’

Objectively speaking, Keith shouldn’t struggle much on his own.

And yet the unease in Ian’s chest refused to fade.

Maybe he should have brought Keith along after all. Even if they’d fallen into the trap together, perhaps that would’ve been safer.

Why hadn’t he thought of that sooner?

No, traps weren’t exactly the kind of place you casually dragged other people into. Besides, Ian had assumed they’d get out quickly anyway.

Then why did this feel suspiciously like he was making excuses to himself?

‘Wait. Keith may technically be a playable character, but I’m still the player here. And if the elf can’t see the routes, Keith definitely can’t either.’

That was dangerous.

No matter how durable a Holy Knight was, no matter how absurd his recovery abilities were, fighting blind inside a trap was another matter entirely. There was a world of difference between reacting to enemies you could see charging from afar and dealing with attacks erupting at point-blank range without warning.

‘Damn it. This is seriously irritating.’

Frustrated, Ian raked a hand through his hair.

“This won’t work. We’re clearing this as fast as possible.”

“Huh?”

“We blitz through the shortcut. Once we reach the top floor, we’ll go back down and pick Keith up.”

“Uh... okay? Is this trap easy or something?”

What kind of ridiculous question was that?

“What did you just call this place?”

‘...?’

The elf tilted his head.

“A trap?”

“Exactly.”

“...?”

Ian stared at him in disbelief.

“Since when are traps supposed to be easy?”

“Oh... right.”

“If traps were easier than normal floors, nobody would call them traps.”

Honestly, Ian couldn’t understand how this elf had survived this long while being so clueless. It didn’t matter if he’d lived for centuries—he must’ve spent all that time hiding in some remote mountain cave.

The elf nodded thoughtfully after hearing the explanation.

“That’s true. But... are we actually stronger than Sir Keith?”

Where had that nonsense suddenly come from?

“Can you beat Keith?”

“Of course not! I meant you.”

“Why would I fight him?”

“Wow... so my very first customer is trying to save someone stronger than both of us by clearing traps harder than the actual tower?”

‘Newbies...’

Ian clicked his tongue.

Raw stats and high-tier gear alone didn’t determine who was strongest. This game demanded skill and knowledge just as much as numbers.

Keith’s stats might surpass Ian’s, but Ian was still the true top player of the game.

And helping clueless beginners was practically a veteran player’s sacred duty. Watching newbies stumble around was content in itself.

Not that Keith was actually a newbie.

Or even a player.

Still.

“Did you stop me just to say something stupid? If you’ve got time to waste, tell your spirit to break down that wall.”

“That was a serious discussion about our survival! You’re way too harsh. Do you treat Sir Keith like this too?”

“Do you think you and Keith are on the same level?”

“Ugh.”

Ding!

[Dorian(?) thinks you’re a Tyrant!]

Why was this elf increasing his Tyrant /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ reputation when he wasn’t even Ian’s subordinate?

Though, to be fair, it hardly mattered anymore. Ian’s Tyrant reputation had already hit maximum long ago.

‘...Actually, does it matter?’

Was this really okay?

‘Why won’t this thing disappear?’

In the game, shaking off the Tyrant reputation had been easy enough. So why was it still stubbornly clinging to him in reality?

Crash!

Still grumbling under his breath, the elf commanded his spirit to pulverize the stone wall into dust. Ian calmly swept the shattered debris into his inventory.

“That’s enough. We’ve got plenty.”

‘Good.’

Then Ian grabbed the elf’s hand.

“...?!”