Chapter 1
December of my final year of high school, after the college entrance exam results were out, had finally arrived—the season for digging through bookshelves and throwing everything away.
“It’s so heavy…”
The box packed full of books made me stagger with every step.
The rubbish collection area was right in front of me, yet it felt miles away.
As I slowly dragged myself forward, someone ran over and took the box from me.
“You carried this all the way here yourself? I told you to wait.”
“But it’ll be tiring if you’re the only one carrying everything, Dad.”
Dad effortlessly carried the box over to the rubbish area.
With his work gloves on, he pulled out the books and quickly tied them together with string.
“Any more books upstairs?”
“This is almost the last of them. Mum said she’s only bringing the notebooks.”
I crouched beside Dad and started taking the books out of the box.
“Huh? Hey! Ha Cho-eun!”
This wasn’t just my own annual book purge. A friend who lived in the same apartment complex waved at me from afar.
I tossed the empty box aside and waved back.
“Oh, what? Choi Ah-rin, you’re throwing away your books too?”
“Yeah, I’m getting rid of everything. I even found my middle school textbooks.”
“You too? Same here! I’ve got loads of notebooks as well. I filled two whole shopping bags.”
“Seriously? I hardly ever used notebooks, so I don’t have many. But did you find any that were actually filled up?”
“Nope. Not a single one.”
While we giggled, Mum came downstairs carrying a shopping bag.
I hurried over and took it from her.
Ah-rin awkwardly bowed to my mum.
“Hello.”
“Oh, Ah-rin! Long time no see. You’re throwing away your books too?”
“Yes.”
Meanwhile, I had already started taking handfuls of notebooks out of the shopping bag.
The rubbish truck wouldn’t collect them unless they were tied together with string.
And then, thanks to my careless hands…
…something terrible finally saw the light of day.
“Whoa! Isn’t that landscape notebook basically an ancient relic?”
“I bought it when I entered middle school. Somehow I still had it. It’s almost brand new.”
Among all those nostalgic notebook covers…
It appeared.
“…Huh?”
A pitch-black notebook.
Across the cover, thick white correction fluid had been scribbled in huge letters that immediately caught our eyes.
‘DO NOT READ.’
‘My Personal Notebook.’
‘For My Eyes Only.’
‘Seriously, DON’T OPEN IT!!! XXX’
Those ominous warnings turned an ordinary notebook into something genuinely terrifying.
The moment I saw it, I should have backed away.
But instead…
Like the first victim in a foreign horror movie, I gathered completely unnecessary courage.
“What notebook was this again?”
“Open it. It might be something worth keeping.”
Ah-rin crouched beside me.
And just like that…
The cursed notebook was opened.
“AAAAAH!”
The black notebook used a mental attack.
It was devastating.
I screamed and instantly hugged the notebook to my chest.
“AAAH! AAH!! AAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH!”
I suddenly collapsed onto the ground screaming, drawing everyone’s attention.
“Mum, look. A prairie dog.”
“Shh. Don’t say that. She’s a student who just took the entrance exam.”
Fortunately, people showed endless understanding towards students throwing away books at this time of year.
Surrounded by that sympathy, I glared at Ah-rin.
Depending on how this went, I was fully prepared to turn my best friend into the tragic heroine of a morning soap opera.
I had already resolved to erase this memory forever.
“Did you see it?”
“Hm?”
“Did you see it?”
I grabbed Ah-rin by the shoulders and shook her.
“I SAID, DID YOU SEE IT?!”
With an ominous grin, Ah-rin slowly gave me a lifeless thumbs-up.
“Yep, Chloris!”
Back in elementary and middle school, there had been a bunch of comics that everyone was obsessed with.
And I…
I had become far, far too obsessed with them.
So obsessed that I imagined myself living in those worlds.
The fairy character I had created back then…
Hearing my friend casually say her name out loud was absolutely horrifying.
I slowly steeled myself.
“Come here. Lower your head.”
I looked around for the biggest rock I could find.
Sadly, the neatly maintained rubbish area didn’t have a single decent rock.
Instead…
Someone had thrown away a frying pan.
“Hold still. Let’s just erase that one memory.”
“Eek! Chloris is bullying me! This is school violence, Chloris! Aren’t you supposed to be the kind fairy of the flower garden?”
“You lunatic! Stop it!”
I charged after the screaming Ah-rin as she ran away laughing.
Watching our ridiculous antics, both our parents simply shook their heads.
This clearly wasn’t the first time, and neither seemed interested in stopping us.
The pitiful stamina of high school seniors didn’t last long.
Neither of us even managed to leave the rubbish area before collapsing, grabbing onto each other and panting.
“Seriously… don’t tell anyone.”
“Honestly, I didn’t really see much. Just the name and the drawing.”
At least that was a relief.
Only one thing had been exposed—and even then, it was just the name and an illustration.
Even so… it was still unbelievably embarrassing.
Ah-rin was still smiling mischievously.
Dragging her behind me, I returned to the pile of books.
If it were up to me, I’d burn that cursed notebook to ashes and scatter them into the sea.
Unfortunately, reality wasn’t so convenient.
“I’m hiding it between the other notebooks before throwing it away. Don’t touch it. Seriously.”
I had just finished warning Ah-rin, who clearly wanted another look.
Thud—
The ground trembled once.
Rumble…
Then the entire apartment complex shook for several long seconds.
An uneasy feeling swept through us.
Earthquake.
Fire.
Sinkhole.
Countless disasters flashed through our minds.
But in the end, everyone arrived at the same conclusion.
A dungeon.
A natural disaster that had suddenly appeared over ten years ago, causing—and continuing to cause—countless deaths and immense destruction.
“Evacuate! Everyone, hurry!”
Dad was the first to recover and urgently waved everyone away.
But…
It was already too late.
ROOOOAR!
The deafening sound of a gigantic vortex filled the air.
Wind.
Noise.
The sound of people being sucked in.
“M-Mum! Dad!”
“AAAAAH!”
Then…
Darkness.
Splash…
Splash…
My face felt cold.
“Ugh…”
Groaning softly, I reached up to wipe my cheek.
Instead, icy water covered my hand.
The freezing cold snapped my eyes open.
The first thing I saw was an all-too-familiar face.
“You’re awake! Ha Cho-eun! Hey! Are you okay?!”
“Y-Yeah…”
I barely answered as I sat up.
Ah-rin let out a relieved sigh and immediately moved closer.
“Wh-Where are we?”
We were inside a vast cavern.
At least, it looked like one.
Yet it didn’t resemble a normal cave.
Above us stretched an enormous underwater world.
It felt as though we were standing inside a gigantic underwater dome.
There was no glass.
Yet somehow, the water above couldn’t flood the cavern, as if an invisible barrier was holding it back.
Countless tunnels extended from the cavern, all untouched by the surrounding water.
It was a completely incomprehensible sight.
“I don’t know. It must be a dungeon.”
Ah-rin sniffled as she answered, clearly holding back tears.
Looking around, I saw countless other people.
It seemed every resident still inside the apartment complex had been swallowed together.
Children cried.
Adults desperately tried to organise everyone, only making the chaos worse.
“What about our parents?”
“They’re over there.”
Among those trying to calm everyone down were both our parents.
Whether it was fortunate or unfortunate that they were here too, I honestly couldn’t tell.
“They said it’ll probably be okay… but nobody really knows what’s happening. There aren’t any Hunters here.”
Talking about it only made Ah-rin tear up again.
I also felt my heart sink.
Without thinking, I hugged the notebook against my chest.
Then I realised something.
“…Seriously? Why did this notebook come with me? Is it cursed?”
It wasn’t even a stuffed toy.
Why had it followed me here?
For a moment, all my fear vanished.
Only complete disbelief at the notebook remained.
Ah-rin stared at me in exasperation.
“Hey… is the notebook really what’s important right now?”
“Yes.”
Unfortunately…
To me, it really was.
“If I leave it inside the dungeon, nobody will ever see it again. Maybe I should just throw it away.”
“…Then some Hunter will probably think it’s an item, pick it up, and it’ll end up on national television.”
[Breaking News]
A mysterious notebook has been discovered inside a dungeon. It contains descriptions of various creatures, including a fairy named Chloris. The Hunter Association believes it may contain valuable records regarding magical beasts…
Absolutely not.
I’m taking this notebook out of the dungeon with me and burning it the second I get home.
I hugged it tightly.
I never imagined there’d come a day when a notebook would become the most precious thing in my life.
Thankfully, talking about the notebook seemed to calm Ah-rin a little.
She rubbed the tears from her eyes.
“They teach us how to evacuate during dungeon waves… but nobody ever says you might actually get dragged inside one.”
“Exactly. I’ve heard about houses collapsing or fires breaking out when dungeons appear…”
But hearing about people being sucked into one?
Never.
For a ridiculous moment, I even wondered if a dungeon had formed underground like a sinkhole and swallowed us whole.
“Do you think Hunters will come soon?”
“H-Hey… don’t cry. If you lose your strength, you won’t be able to run.”
I wrapped an arm around Ah-rin’s shoulders and gently patted her.
I pretended to stay calm for her sake.
In truth…
I wasn’t doing much better.
If she started crying, I felt like I’d cry too.
So I desperately tried to comfort her.
“Mum. Mum.”
A little boy nearby—the same one who had called me a prairie dog earlier—tugged at his mother’s sleeve and pointed upward.
Without thinking, I looked up too.
The beautiful underwater world still spread above us.
But now…
Fish I hadn’t seen before were swimming there.
“Look. An eel.”
About the size of a dolphin.
One by one, the fish gathered above the dome, silently staring down at us.
But the boy wasn’t pointing at them.
Beyond the fish…
A massive shadow slowly approached.
A long, snake-like figure.
It did resemble an eel.
But anyone could tell it wasn’t one.
In the blink of an eye, it reached the dome…
And slammed its enormous body down.
BOOOOM!!
The entire cavern shook violently.
“AAAAAH!”
“R-Run! Run!!”
People screamed in panic and scattered in every direction.
Every dark tunnel instantly became an escape route.
We were no different.
Pale with fear, we instinctively searched for our parents.
“Mum! Dad!”
“Dad!”
We tried to push through the crowd.
But there were simply too many people.
Instead of getting closer…
We were forced farther away.
“Cho-eun! Honey! Cho-eun!”
I heard Mum calling my name through the screams.
Before I could even wave—
BOOM!!
Another violent impact.
Then…
CRAAASH!
Something even worse followed.
The enormous magical beast shattered the invisible barrier separating the cavern from the surrounding sea.
Water exploded down from above like a bomb.
“Gah! Cough!”
Ah-rin and I were swept away all the way to the far end of the cavern.
Our parents were nowhere to be seen anymore.
SKREEEE!
Crunch.
“Help me!”
“No!”
“Run! Hurry! Get inside!”
“M-My child!”
Countless voices blended together into meaningless noise.
The water rapidly rose to my chin.
Yet beyond the broken barrier…
Only that thing stood out clearly.
It looked like a serpent.
But it had a flowing mane.
Three massive claws relentlessly tore at the dome.
Each time it struck…
More and more magical beasts poured inside.
Ah-rin grabbed my arm and forced me to my feet.
“W-We have to run into one of the tunnels! Hurry!”
I had no idea where she found the strength.
She practically hauled me upright before I could think.
SKREEEE!
Crack. Crack. Crack.
SCREEEEE!
Dodging the endless stream of fish-like monsters, we stumbled into one of the dark passages.
The chaos behind us felt unreal.
No…
I desperately wished it was only a dream.
