The dungeon is in Korea, but as an esper with a pretty specialised power niche Haru is used to occasionally having to go international for these dungeons, and the fact that he already speaks Korean is definitely a bonus. The espers he's going to be working with are all in Quasar Guild, which is the largest one in Korea and which has just recently acquired a very powerful teleportation esper, one whose power can be stored in batteries Quasar also happened to already have in its possession, so they're covering the teleportation cost for Haru to get there.
"Well I'm Korean and you won't see me calling anyone by their last name if they don't make me," he says. "Anyway! Give me a rundown of your schtick?"
"If I don't want something to perceive me or touch me I get my way. I will not usually go around being invisible to you but I could if I wanted; my usual dungeon function is to go poke around their insides without them knowing I'm at it. This is cheapest in terms of sensory and psychic contact I want to avoid but I can at greater expense fly, if I really don't wanna have to touch the dungeon even on the floor. So for very reactive or psychic dungeons that will mess with people when it spots them I'm a good scout-slash-infiltrator. Also my extremely public backlash is that I get lonesome as fuck so if I heroically swoop in to save anybody they have to like pitch me on their favorite anime or something till I can go home to my partner and monstercat."
"—right! Distracted, Haru can tell me all about monstercat afterwards.
"Anyway, this dungeon is a leeeeeettle bit of a headache for approximately everyone because the sensors have been having one hell of a time with it. It's mazelike, and it has monsters, and the monsters seem chill, but they're actually really bashful and shy: if you look at them, or sense them, or whatever, they go from chill to unchill faster than you can say 'minotaur'. We've had a buncha sensors go in to try to look and as soon as they perceived a monster using whatever senses they're using the monster would immediately rush them. We've also tried other stealth espers and the monsters noticed them too! Which is why you're perfect, you can stealth and they won't see you looking!
"The dungeon's just as lonely as you, though, if substantially less ethical about it than you are, and it's kidnapped a bunch of people. Whom we can't find. Because of the monsters."
"Ha ha ha, yes, I try to keep my backlash levels well below the point at which I would start even fantasizing about kidnappings, I like my sanity. It doesn't break the tech with weird physics, just with monsters? So if I go in with a map doodad it'll behave?"
"Yep! Great minds think alike, it seems! My main idea for what you could do would be scout and map as much as you can, leaving relays behind that we can use to create a proper map of the place using the arcane sorceries we call 'maths'. Once you've got a good overview of the dungeon and have found the kidnapped civilians the three of us are going in. Woo-young, overview of your powers, please?"
"It's reference-based," he says. "I can do 'the person next to that other person' or 'the green box in that room' or things like that, and likewise for the destination. I don't do distances and directions directly."
"Huh, but it doesn't work in such a way that we can just get a list of everyone the dungeon took based on who's missing and have you grab them?"
"Not if I don't know where the reference is, myself. —or, yes, in theory, but the backlash cost grows really fast the less I know about where the target is. I'm—kind of new, I've only been at this a couple of months, so we haven't tested my power that extensively yet, but some preliminary testing's gotten me bedridden with a single teleport because of that. Uh, because my backlash is losing motor ability."
"No clue! Dungeon's new, though, so it won't be city-sized probably? And it's spent a lot of energy on making those monsters real bad and tough and it kidnaps people so best guess would be, hmm, handful of city blocks max? ...I guess that's a clue."
"Sounds like a clue to me. Doodads ready to go? Shall I head in nowish or is there more to cover?"
"Doodads ready! Should be in your inventory. Also there's a second kind of doodad if you happen to find a kidnap victim that'll make it easier for Woo-young to TP them. ...or so we hope. Field testing! Worst-case the map itself will still be good enough.
"So, if you've got no more questions, then godspeed and please don't die on us, we'll be poking our heads in every couple of minutes to check if you left us any messages or are in dire danger but the portal surroundings are very dangerous so we can't leave anyone inside too long."
"Here goes nothing." Inventory check. Are his shoes tied, he doesn't have dyspraxia anymore but old habits and anyone can trip on a shoelace. Comms are up and behaving.
In he goes.
It's sunny in the dungeon. The sky is blue, there is birdsong just out of sight, and ground is grassy and there are flowers and shrubs. He is in the center of a large circular room with stone walls about twice as tall as he is split by irregular gaps leading out into proper mazelike corridors going around in spirals.
And the monsters are, indeed, right there. They're made of the same stone the walls are, large minotaur-shaped golems patrolling the corridors, visible through the gaps in the walls at regular intervals. They move surprisingly quietly for animated statues that large, but as soon as Haru looks at any one of them he can feel the mounting pressure of his backlash.
He is going to have to show that guy so many fucking cat pictures. Maybe get Cricket on a video call. That's a terrible idea because Cricket hates everyone but maybe this time he'd get along with a new person??
He wants to get through here quickly and not become lost; he'll fly for a second to get on top of a wall so he can run and not have to try to left-hand-rule his way through the optional physics zone. Unfortunately, because of the optional physics zone, the wall Alice-in-Wonderlands out of his reach. He gives up and touches down again. Through the maze it will have to be.
The pressure of the minotaurs on him diminishes if he doesn't look at them, and is gone altogether if he renders himself completely incapable of perceiving them, such as by covering his eyes and ears well enough. Of course, that'd defeat the purpose, so he'll have to deal with minotaurs that really want to pick his brains re. whether he's looking at them.
It is, otherwise, a pretty unremarkable dungeon run for Haru, who is by now probably used to going into situations where he's walking through and past huge supernatural threats that completely ignore him like he doesn't exist or matter. The stone maze theme continues, with occasional environmental hazards like spiked pits and swinging pendulum blades and so on.
The first victim he finds is a young woman in ski clothes trapped behind iron bars at the end of a corridor, in a cell about four square metres in area, with nothing but grass in it. She's been here long enough that the fear got mostly replaced by boredom, and she's sitting on the grass playing on her phone when Haru sees her. There isn't a minotaur directly guarding it, but occasionally one does come into view; it seems to not care that she's seeing it, though.
The lady's allowed to see him. "Hey. Teleporter's gonna get you out of here in a minute," he says, in Korean if she looks local and in English if she's a white tourist.
She looks local, and she shrieks when he appears out of nowhere.
"O-oh," she says, heart hammering nearly through her ribcage. "Th-thank you, esper-nim," she says, standing up to bow to him. "A-are you Korean?" She doesn't think she recognises him, maybe he's an esper that doesn't usually make the news?
"Nah, just visiting." Experimental doodad, behold this lady. "This is supposed to tell the teleporter where you are so he can grab you. Do you want me to message ahead for anything?"
"I'll let the support folks know. Kim Jeongtae, Nam Dal-pyeong," typety typety. .........tactically speaking he should not stand around talking to this person till she's teleported out. That's minutes he could be spending mapping instead of indulging his backlash. Any messages or pings or anything on the system indicating how long they're going to take about it?