-AAAAAHHH!  

With a piercing scream,  

a massive worm erupted from the sand.  

“Open fire!”  

Bang!  

Alongside Corporal Seo Su-hyeok’s shout, the marksmen began their shooting at the enemy.  

Although visibility was a problem due to darkness, a hole was punched through the body of a monster that was trying to jump out of the sand and attack our troops.  

However, this was just the beginning of the first monster.  

“They’re coming!”  

“The vanguard squad is guarding the rear! Mages, marksmen, keep firing!”  

Monster-like creatures with thick exoskeletons, resembling black insects, continued to emerge from the sand.  

In response, the ranged specialists on our side unleashed a hail of fire.  

The continuous sound of gunfire and explosions.  

‘Damn, how many of them are there?’  

It was like a swarm of locusts descending on prey.  

The monsters, filling the entire field of vision, charged like a wave.  

But,  

‘This should be manageable.’  

It resembled the late stages of a defensive game.  

While the number of invading enemies was staggering, our firepower was more than capable of dealing with them.  

Ssshhhhh…!  

As this war of attrition continued, the monsters seemed to realize that they couldn’t break through our barrage and stopped their assault.  

“Phew.”  

“Is it over?”  

“They could still come back.”  

The monsters, while numerous, were not particularly strong individually.  

The mages and marksmen were disappointed, having missed out on potential experience points.  

The monsters began retreating deeper into the dungeon.  

“We can’t let them escape. Let’s chase them down!”  

“What?”  

Seeing the monsters fleeing, Private Gwang-il shouted.  

Seemingly intent on pursuing and finishing them off, rather than letting them go peacefully.  

The enthusiastic Corporal Gwang-il rushed towards the monsters.  

But,  

“Huh? Huh?”  

“W-wait?”  

He dashed off the ground and stood on the sand, but something seemed off.  

Instead of charging at the monsters confidently, he was floundering awkwardly.  

“Damn it, don’t stop me…!”  

 Thrashing about without seeming to know what he was doing,  

and then, his body started sinking into the sand.  

‘What the hell!’  

The more he struggled, the faster he sank.  

And since he was lost in his frenzy, he did not realize what was happening.  

“Gwang-il! Don’t move!”  

“Se… Sergeant… Ugh.”  

At the sound of my voice, he stopped moving, but his body was already half buried in the sand.  

“Urgh…”  

The buried Corporal Gwang-il began groaning in pain.  

Given his exceptional physical abilities, even he was moaning in agony.  

“Bring a rope!”  

“Ju- just a moment, sir!”  

A soldier quickly tossed a rope to Gwang-il, and we all pulled together to hoist him out.  

“Phew, phew.”  

“Gwang-il, are you alright?”  

“I’m… fine.”  

He said, somewhat calmed down.  

“I thought it would be like quicksand. No matter how hard I tried, there was nothing to grab onto or stand on, and I just couldn’t get out…”  

“You were in pain.”  

“The more I moved, the deeper I sank into the sand, and the more the sand pressed against my body. It was like a living monster… Honestly, it was too much to bear.”  

Gwang-il’s physical abilities were practically superhuman.  

But no matter how strong he was without anything to hold onto, he was helpless in the crumbling sand.  

I glanced over at the sand.  

The nature of this phenomenon was clear.  

“It’s a quicksand.”  

An antlion pit in the desert.   

This desert was trying to swallow us whole.  

“Normally, quicksand isn’t this deep, right? Moreover, there’s perfectly good land right in front of us.”  

“This must not be some ordinary quicksand then.”  

Dungeons are spaces that monsters have terraformed to suit their own environments.  

It would not be strange if this entire desert was made of quicksand.  

“I sense some strange magic.”  

Sergeant Lee Minjae, the mage squad’s leader, looked at the desert and said,  

“There’s a faint magical energy spread throughout the sand. It must be what’s turning the sand into a trap.”  

The monsters bursting out from inside are manageable.  

If we deploy our firepower, we can probably mow them down before they even approach.  

“But like this…”  

“We won’t be able to advance inside, will we?”  

We tried to escape through the dungeon entrance just in case.  

But,  

[Once you enter a dungeon, you cannot escape until the objective is cleared]  

The formerly shadowy blackout curtain had turned into a physical barrier.  

Looks like mid-mission abandonment is impossible.  

We should have noticed when the monsters seemed strangely weak.  

Taejun’s divination seemed to indicate this dungeon has a pretty high difficulty level.  

Yet the monsters were pathetically weak.  

It wasn’t the monsters who raised the dungeon’s difficulty.  

It was the environment itself trying to create obstacles for us.  

“Let’s think of a way.”  

The squad leaders gathered and put their heads together.  

“What if we ask the engineers outside to bring equipment that can cross the desert?”  

“We don’t know how deep it is, so will they have enough materials?”  

“Lee Sang-ah, you work with the engineers, right? Any idea, if we have enough materials?”  

“Well… I don’t think we have that much.”  

Ah.  

“If we use mages to spray water and then cast freezing magic on it, we might be able to make a path.”  

“It’s realistic, but if the mages’ magic power runs out midway…”  

“We’d all die together.”  

Regrettably, Lee Min-jae’s opinion was also rejected.  

Several other opinions were raised, but none of them seemed like a perfect solution.  

While briefly listening to their discussion, I quietly got up and moved to a corner.  

As I half-listened to the squad leaders debating and exchanging opinions,  

I carefully observed the inside of the sand.  

‘Found it.’  

I was able to find what I was looking for.  

I picked up the rope that I had just used to save Gwang-il and tied a knife to it.  

And then,  

Swish!  

I threw the knife at my target in the sand.   

The knife stuck into something.   

Then I pulled the rope back.  

It revealed an insect-like creature with a hard shell, resembling a mix of a fish and a cockroach, with jagged teeth like saw blades inside its mouth.  

[Ingredient Identification (Enhanced)]  

[Black Sand Worm Larva]  

It didn’t look appetizing at all. But…  

…it all depends on how you cook it.