The Old Man Is So Good at Acting Like a Loser chapter 5

＜ 3. Enter the Dungeon (1) ＞

“Oh, no, how the heck…”

Marco was speechless at the mysterious thing that suddenly happened.

There was nothing behind the door, but the door clearly led to another space. He had seen the priests participating in the war perform mysterious miracles, but it was the first time he had seen such strange magic.

“Mr. Marco… come over quickly! Ugh, soon the door will… close.”

Marco, stunned, heard Andrea’s urging and stumbled through the door. As soon as Marco crossed the threshold, the dungeon door closed by itself.

“It looks like the road you came here wasn’t smooth.”

Arfan spoke in a subtle tone that seemed to be either mocking or encouraging. He got up from his stone chair and approached Andrea on the iron cage.

As Arpan hit the floor with an iron bar, a round circle with a six-pointed star appeared under Andrea. Complicated runes were engraved between them, and soon a dazzling green light soared up and enveloped Andrea.

Andrea felt her senses return. What I felt at first was an unbearable pain, but it soon disappeared like melting snow, leaving only the comfort that made my whole body drowsy.

“Okay, now you should be able to move. Wake up.”

Andrea stood up as Arpan said. Although he was still weak, the injuries and pain had completely disappeared.

‘If Arpan wasn’t in the waiting room, he would have died as soon as he arrived.’

Andrea secretly stroked her chest.

“Thank you, Arpan.”

Arpan’s gaze made him stand out for a moment. At that moment, Jung-hyeon realized his mistake. In this world, Andrea arrived at the Infinite Dungeon for the first time. There was no way he knew Arpan’s name.

However, Arpan replied naturally as if nothing had happened.

“You’re welcome. I just did my job.”

Arpan is the first NPC you encounter when you start ‘Dungeon of Infinity’. Its role is to guide the tutorial and give a blessing when embarking on a journey. It was an NPC with a lot of rice cakes because of its know-it-all attitude and mighty power.

There was once a rumor in the community that Arpan made this dungeon and that it appeared as the final boss. Along with the argument that the condition for seeing the ending is to catch Arpan.

However, Jung-hyeon directly proved that those words were not true.

‘Because I’ve killed Arpan.’

Perhaps because of that, whenever I saw Arpan, I felt a sense of guilt. Even when I was dying, I never thought I would be able to face it in real life like this.

Arpan opened his arms wide when he saw Andrea stand up. When he opened his mouth, a low-pitched voice filled the room.

“Welcome to the Infinite Dungeon. In this dungeon, everything people desire lies dormant. The power to topple a mountain with the snap of a finger? Enough goods to buy out an entire empire? The knowledge to realize the reason of all things? Whatever you wish for is right here in this dungeon.”

I finally realized that I had entered the world of ‘Dungeon of Infinity’. Andrea smiled bitterly as she listened to the introduction that left out important details.

‘I’m not saying that it’s full of traps and slaughter-crazed monsters that you have to cut off your finger to escape.’

Whether or not he knew what the sarcasm meant, Arfan still didn’t stop making theatrical gestures. But for some reason, Arpan’s mouth was ridiculed.

“On top of that, even the opportunity to cross into another world.”

When Andrea heard those words, her mind jumped.

‘Hey boy, I know something about what brought me here.”

“Wait a minute, you…”

“It’s late, but let me introduce myself. My name is Arfan, and I am the guide who leads the chosen challengers to the Infinite Dungeon.”

“No, wait a minute…”

“I will not take any questions. As I said, the answers to all the questions are also in that deep dungeon.”

Arpan sternly stopped talking. Andrea glared at Arpan for a moment, but stopped. Right now, Andrea didn’t have the power to force an answer from Arpan.

‘Right now.’

“In the Infinite Dungeon, Andrea will explore with cards with mysterious powers. Special equipment, magic, summons… All kinds of things that are useful for exploration are made of cards. Depending on Andrea-sama’s discretion, the number of cards you have may increase or decrease.”

In Arpan’s hand was a square leather pouch that looked like a holster. When he opened the pocket, the cards in it were drawn out of their own accord and floated into the air.

“We call this pocket that can hold cards a deck. From now on, all the cards that Andrea has collected will go into this deck. With the exception of a few special cards, most cards can be returned to the deck once used and used again. This is a basic deck prepared for Andrea.”

As Arpan waved his hand, the cards floating in the air returned to the deck. Andrea took the deck and examined the composition of the cards just in case. However, the result was, as expected.

‘[Basic] Strike (1 cost): The next physical attack you deal deals 3 more damage.’

‘[Basic] Defense (1 cost): Get 3 defense.’

10 strikes, 10 defenses. Andrea’s trashy deck composition remained the same.

In order to draw key cards quickly in the second half, the fewer basic cards like garbage, the better. This was one of the reasons Andrea was overwhelmingly worse than other characters starting with 10 basic cards.

Seeing Andrea’s expression distorted, Arpan added.

“Don’t be too upset if the base card doesn’t look good. If it’s Andrea-sama, you’ll be able to get a good card later enough.”

“Can’t you explain the grade of the card?”

“If you want. The rank of the card increases in the order of Basic – Normal – Rare – Unique.”

“Isn’t that what grades are all about?”

Arpan opened his mouth and gave an eerie smile. As if waiting for that question.

“Of course there are opportunities to get higher tier cards. If you add ‘trials’ to your journey.”

“The ordeal ends at level 25, right? Then apply everything and make it 25 steps.”

There wasn’t even an inch of hesitation. Arpan opened his eyes wide as if he was dumbfounded. Then, soon, the paanda burst into laughter.

“As expected, you are a very funny person. Here is a list of trials. Read it all and sign the last part. . . . I don’t know if you can really handle it.”

Arpan handed over a red-glowing scroll and a quill. When the scroll was opened, a detailed list of ordeals was revealed along with a picture of a skull.

[Trial Stage 1: Damage from normal monsters becomes stronger.]

[Trial Stage 2: Damage dealt by elite monsters becomes stronger.]

[Trial Stage 3: The damage from the boss monster becomes stronger.]

······

[Trial stage 25: At the start, maximum mana is reduced to 1.]

‘Trial’ is a kind of hardcore mode for users who are tired of normal mode. Each addition makes an otherwise difficult game several times more difficult.

Increasing the difficulty isn’t necessarily a bad thing. As Arpan said, you can get a higher grade card, give more experience points, and get special rewards that cannot be obtained without trials.

But most of all, the reason why I can’t help but set the ordeal to level 25 is…

‘If you don’t set the trial to level 25, the moment you reach the 100th floor, the character dies for unknown reasons and the game ends. In order to see the end of the dungeon, I have no choice but to set the ordeal to level 25.’

It’s because there is a limit to the floors that can be reached depending on the trials.

You can reach up to the 50th floor up to the 14th ordeal. You can reach the 100th floor up to the 24th stage of trials. It wasn’t until the 25th stage of the ordeal that the floor that could be reached disappeared.

Therefore, one of the conditions for the true ending was the 25th level of the ordeal, which was a story that led to the orthodoxy among ‘Dungeon of Infinity’ users.

Arfan looked at Andrea with a smirk.

“But wouldn’t it be good to think again? I will give you one last chance.”

Andrea glared at Arpan. That tone of provocation, as if to try it if you want to. I shouldn’t have been swayed by those words. Arpan must have just wanted to make fun of himself.

“No, there is no turning back.”

Andrea immediately signed the scroll. And then, no matter what hardships he went through, he made up his mind that he would come to the end of the dungeon and see the faces of the guys who put him here.

“I hope you have no regrets about that choice.”

Arpan took the scroll while leaving a meaningful message. Then, he continued his duty of guiding the dungeon.

“If you look closely at your deck, you will find status cards with blue borders in addition to the basic cards. If you want to objectively see how much Andrea-sama’s current ability is, you can look at the number written on that status card.”

Following Arpan’s instructions, Andrea pulled out a status card from the deck. Actually, I didn’t even have to look at this. Jeong-hyeon was already memorizing Andrea’s basic starting stats.

[Name: Andrea]

[Class: None]

[Level: 1]

[Max Mana: 1]

[Strength: 1]

[mana: 2]

[Resistance: 1]

[Luck: 2]

[quirk: none]

Again, poor abilities. However, Andrea looked at her status card and realized something was wrong. Everything else was the same as the game, but only one thing was different.

“Hey, Arpan. Why is stamina not on the status card?”

Arpan tilted his head as if he were asking all sorts of strange questions.

“Why do you need something like that when you can feel how much it hurts and how much it hurts?”

Come to think of it, it was. In games, you need stamina to know how much damage you’ve taken, but in real life, you don’t need that at all.

That was important information. The ‘Dungeon of Infinity’ that became a reality is not completely identical to the game. Andrea kept this in mind.

‘Then, it means that I have to suffer and get hurt myself in the events where I lose my stamina.’

Andrea was already sighing at the thought of the rough roll ahead.

“Damn, what the hell is this? Why am I the only one who doesn’t know what’s going on? Where are you and who are you? A demon from Hell?”

At that time, Marco, who had been standing silently behind him, opened his mouth. It was only then that Andrea realized that she had completely turned her attention to Marco. Arpan’s gaze turned to Marco.

“There must have been an uninvited guest.”

“I must go find my daughter! Get me out of here right now.”

“Once you enter here, you cannot go out again until you see the end of the dungeon, foolish mortal. Why did you follow the chosen one?”

Arfan’s voice changed to a voice that overlapped as if several people were talking. Hearing the loud and overbearing voice, Marco was terrified. He barely protested in an unfair voice.

“I-I just came over because this person told me to come over!”

“…Is that statement true, Miss Andrea?”

“I couldn’t help it because it was an uninhabited island outside. I would have died if I left.”

Even if the process was a bit like that, if Marco hadn’t been there anyway, Andrea would have died on the galley. Asking them to go to the Infinite Dungeon was their own kind of consideration.

However, it was the same with Andrea who did not know what would happen when the unchosen entered the Infinite Dungeon.

“Can’t we just give this guy an extra deck? I will take you as a companion.”

“You cannot give a deck to a mortal who is not chosen by the dungeon. There is only one way left.”

Arpan pointed at the wall beside him with his chin. There was an incinerator burning with white flames.

“Run into that incinerator, mortal. I will burn all of you clean, leaving only your soul.”

It was an incinerator used when deleting a character.

Marco’s complexion turned pale. Marco, who had taken a step backwards, soon became terrified and started running backwards. He returned to the entrance he had come in and hurriedly opened the door.

What appeared behind the door was not an uninhabited island, but a wall made of blue bricks.

despair and helplessness. Marco knelt on the floor and stared at the wall in dismay. Arpan stroked the cage and slowly took one step closer to Marco.

Andrea pondered. Do we really have no choice but to burn Marco in the incinerator? Discomfort aside, it didn’t help Andrea in the slightest.

The condition of the character Andrea is the worst. If I could use it, I had to use every possible method to turn the situation even slightly to my advantage.

All rooms available. The moment he thought of that word, a plan passed through Andrea’s mind. It was an absurd solution even I thought of myself, so I didn’t know if this would work or not.

Still, there was nothing to lose by trying. Andrea urgently summoned Arpan.

“Wait a minute, Arfan. I have a suggestion.”

＜ 3. Enter the Dungeon (1) ＞ End