The mini-boss lunged.
Its mouth opened impossibly wide, baring a whirlpool of needle-like teeth. Water magic surged around it in swirling rings of cursed pressure.
Madam Gong shouted, "Scatter!"
Minsik screamed, slipped on algae, and face-planted.
Jinho… froze.
The only weapon he had equipped was the unremovable frying pan from his first dungeon. It still glowed faintly purple around the edges. Somehow, it had stats. Somehow, he couldn't unequip it.
[Frying Pan of Questionable Origin]
Type: ???
Durability: 404 (Not Found)
Bound to: Kang Jinho
Effect: ???
Status: Corrupted. Do Not Touch.
Which, of course, he touched.
The serpent struck, jaws snapping shut like a guillotine.
Jinho did the only thing his panicked body could do.
He raised the frying pan.
It clanged against the beast's skull with an echoing metallic donk and then everything glitched.
[Critical Error: Unintended collision detected.]
[System recalibrating physics...]
[Boss AI has stopped responding.]
[...Rebooting.]
[BUGGED STRIKE — DAMAGE: ∞ (Overflow)]
[Drowned Witch's Warden has been defeated.]
The monster spasmed once, froze mid-animation, and then exploded into glittering pixelated fragments like someone hit "delete" on a boss sprite.
A pause. Then loot rained down: shimmering pearls, cursed kelp, and a single elegant dagger labeled:
[Sea Witch's Fang – B-Rank Dagger (Spirit-Aligned)]
Madam Gong stared at Jinho like he'd grown antlers.
"…Did you just kill a B-Rank boss with a frying pan?"
"I think the pan did most of the work."
"Are you cheating?"
"I don't even know how to cheat."
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Flashback: His First Dungeon
The first time Jinho ever entered a dungeon, he hadn't even realized it was happening.
One second, he was grabbing snacks. The next, he was being chased through a glitchy void by a boss labeled: [DATA CORRUPTED] while his shoes melted and the dungeon walls blinked in and out of existence.
He survived by hiding inside a broken wall geometry until the timer ran out. The boss couldn't reach him, the system glitched, and the dungeon forcibly ejected him.
When he woke up, he had a new title:
[You have been marked by the Glitch Layer.]
[Skill Gained: Anomalous Presence – Passive]
Effect: World does not know what to do with you. Neither does the system.
Since then, nothing had worked the way it was supposed to.
🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹
Back in the Present
As they exited the dungeon portal, loot bags in hand, a sleek black car pulled up beside the van. The doors hissed open.
Out stepped a woman in a fitted combat jacket, sunglasses, and a sharp blue-and-white uniform. Her badge gleamed with a tiger emblem.
>Tiger Gate Guild – Operations Executive: Yoo Mirae
Rumor said she was an A-Rank awakened. Rumor also said she once beat a C-Rank boss unconscious with a heel.
"Which one of you is Kang Jinho?"
Everyone pointed at him.
She approached. "You glitched a boss again?"
"I didn't mean to."
"Good. We're recruiting."
Jinho blinked. "Wait. Really?"
"We like chaos. You're chaos with a pulse. That's a niche market."
She handed him a sleek black-and-silver envelope stamped with the Tiger Gate seal.
Inside: a temporary guild card, an orientation date, and a warning.
> "DO NOT ENTER D-RANK+ DUNGEONS ALONE AGAIN. SERIOUSLY."
Jinho looked up, bewildered. "Am I getting scouted… because I'm broken?"
Mirae smirked. "No, Jinho. You're getting scouted because broken works."
🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹
[New Skill Unlocked!]
[Passive Skill Acquired: Dungeon Lag]
Glitchwalker Ability – Passive
Effect: Reality struggles to calculate your position. +20% chance to dodge anything accidentally.
Side Effect: Sometimes you move twice. Sometimes you forget you moved at all.
As Yoo Mirae walked off and the van pulled away, Jinho stood under the neon city lights, holding a pan, a dagger, and a loot bag full of seaweed worth 1.2 million won.
His phone buzzed. A new quest notification.
[Daily Quest: Survive One More Day]
Jinho muttered, "Better than minimum wage."
And so began the official dungeon life of Kang Jinho: Bugged, Broke, and Now… Employed.