Webcomic / Dungeon Reset

A webcomic illustrated by Studio ANT based on the Light Novel 던전 리셋 of the same name, Dungeon Reset follows the adventures of a Korean teenager who finds himself trapped in the first level a deadly video-game-esque dungeon filled with monsters, traps, magic, and a malevolent game master intent on killing him off.

Jeong Dawoon and 100 other average, modern-day folks were suddenly transported to a video game style "dungeon" by a cruel, rabbit-shaped Guide who orders them to play his game... or die. With each participant granted a super-powered Skill and a starting weapon, the unwitting players are forced to battle monsters, scavenge for supplies, and try to stay alive in an environment full of terrifying beasts and deadly traps. Their numbers quickly dwindle 'till only a handful are left. Even though Dawoon started the game with a tiny knife and a nearly useless Skill called "Purification," he manages to survive the hazards of Level 1 by sticking with a group led by the charismatic Ryu Seung-Woo. In fact, the amateur dungeoneers are within spitting distance of the Boss Fight when Dawoon falls victim to a hidden pit trap. His companions are forced to flee, leaving Dawoon behind to bleed out.

But as he lays dying, Dawoon's companions defeat the Level 1 Boss. All survivors of the dungeon gain rewards and move on to Level 2... but not Dawoon. Through some twist of fate Dawoon is granted the same boons as his teammates, but left behind in the dungeon while Seung-Woo's group progresses to the next stage. Even the snarky rabbit-shaped game master is confused, calling Dawoon a bug in the system — one he has no qualms about crushing. (Or leaving in a pit trap to starve to death.)

Now Dawoon has to figure out how to survive in the first level of a fatal video-game-esque world using only his wits, his "useless" Purification Skill, and the tools that can be found in a Level 1 dungeon.

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Dungeon Reset Contains Examples Of:

• The Ace:
  • Ryu Seung-woo becomes the leader of the survivors because he's good at everything. His swordsmanship is top-notch; his Skill is a flashy lightning-summoning ability; his planning and tactics keep the group alive; and his interpersonal abilities make him someone his fellow survivors look up to and are glad to follow. Dawoon in particular idolizes Ryu Seung-woo, hoping to become "a man like him" some day.
  • Dawoon ends up becoming this from the opposite direction, being a primary support-type Ace for the varying groups of survivors he encounters thanks to a combination of his (exhaustively leveled) skills, understanding of how the Dungeon operates from his lengthy time spent surviving in it, outside-the-box thinking and the various benefits he gains from being immune to certain penalties or restrictions as a "Glitch" in the system. Just as Seung-woo can be seen as the traditional heroic fighting Ace who commands others in a perilous situation, Dawoon is the one they all turn to to either come up with an audacious plan or unique exploit to survive their situation. Emphasising their shared status as this, they both gain access to the combat-type skill, "Energy of the One-Horned Boar", But whilst Seung-woo gained it through hunting and killing 100 boars by himself in the traditional manner, Dawoon gained it through luring the boars into the spike trap he was stuck in as a means of securing food, surprised when the dungeon counted that as him likewise killing them himself. In fact, when they both meet up once more, Dawoon's ability to work outside the Dungeon's restrictions and common sense to succeed means that Seung-woo winds up becoming The Lancer to him, being the one Dawoon designates to handle difficult combat situations he's incapable of facing whilst Dawoon works on a plan himself.
• Blood Knight: To survive the dungeons, monsters, and other rogue participants, Dawoon has no choice but to get strong. Many days of endlessly working away, building upon his skills, and being lonely, have transformed him from the weak man in hiding, into a full-fledged warrior.
• Commonality Connection: The first time when bitter enemies, Dawoon and the Game Master Rabbit, feel any comradery towards each other is when both lament they have no one else to talk to. Dawoon, because he's trapped in the spiked pit he was meant to die in. The Rabbit, because he's a god-like being whose games aren't designed to make friends. The other guides don't treat the Rabbit as an equal as he's on the bottom of their totem pole.
• Continue Your Mission, Dammit!: The Game Master is only permitted to murder one human from a batch of abducted people per game. This is done deliberately to motivate the players in abiding by the game's rules. This is why the Rabbit can't just off the annoyance that is Dawoon, when he discovers the man's still alive.
• Cooldown: The biggest disadvantage of the "Vigor of the Horned Boar" Skill is the long cooldown period. When first acquired, it gives the users a huge boost in physical ability for ten seconds that allows them to punch above their weight, but once it runs out it can't be used for over a minute. Thankfully, leveling up the Skill decreases the cooldown period while increase in power boost even further — something that Dawoon makes liberal use of by training and fighting with it active as often as possible.
• Demonic Possession: The Doppelganger King is later possessed by the very Dragon of Apocalypse trying to resurrect itself after its battle with Erthea. Whereas Erthea has altars, to the evil dragon, the whole dungeon is his altar and any human participants who die playing his cruel game are sacrifices to bring his body back. Alpha warns Dawoon not to allow the possessed-Doppelganger King to come into contact with the Book of Apocalypse, otherwise the evil dragon will return - meaning they (and the world) are all screwed.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: After much careful planning, and two arduous battles, Dawoon and his allies are finally able to defeat Serpa, the huge winged lion Game Master of Level 4, and later The Baboon trying to claim the spoils of Serpa's treasures. Both cannot believe this is happening to them, and correctly deduce that because Dawoon's a glitch, the dungeon system's treating him no differently from a guide, thus making him able to fight on equal terms with the animal gods.
• Didn't Think This Through: The Baboon of Level 2 forces the newly-demoted Rabbit to find and bring him the 'glitch' Dawoon, where he would kill them both for messing up the game. Obviously, there was no incentive for the depowered Rabbit, stripped of his godhood, to comply with such orders, and so he begrudgingly defects to Dawoon's shrine.
• Dishing Out Dirt: After getting the ability to create sandblocks, Dawoon levels up the Skill until he has the ability to move and mold sand, clay, earth, and stone with ease.
• Distinguishing Mark:
  • The first wolf to chase Dawoon back into the tunnels is marked with a scar over its eye.
  • The leader of the horde of rats has an "X" shaped scar on its face.
• Divine Conflict: After Dawoon uncovers the existence of the shrines, its revealed that eons ago, there was a Great Offscreen War between the dragon of death, and the dragon of life, Erthea. The latter lost, reduced to an unconscious skeletal form that is trying to revive itself. The dragon of death however, also suffered heavy losses. Both are trying to resurrect themselves. Erthea placed altars across the world to those worthy of bringing her back to life. The Dragon of the Apocalypse has taken over the game world - so much that the whole dungeon is his altar, and via his animal guides, is now using it to harvest human life energy. Dawoon was merely one of countless sacrifices brought to Erthea's hijacked game by the Rabbit, as an offering to the evil Beast of the Apocalypse.
• Divine Ranks: Status among the animal god-like guides is determined by the number of dungeons they manage. The top hat rabbit of the first stage has just one, whereas the fedora-wearing baboon has two and a name. At the very top of this celestial order is the dragon of death.
• Dragons Are Divine / Dragons Are Demonic: When Dawoon defeats the Dragon of Apocalypse possessing the Doppelganger King, he is surprised and dismayed to find everyone is still trapped in the dungeon, and not being sent home. Retrieving the Book of Apocalypse, the tome suddenly comes alive, revealing its the Soul Jar of the evil dragon, and curses him for interfering with his resurrection. Dawoon is confused how the monster's alive if he supposedly fought to the death with Erthea. The book angrily replies dragons are immortal, and never truly die, merely "sleep". The Rabbit scoffs that they should burn the book, to where the annoyed beast rebukes him saying such a feat is impossible.
• Dungeon Bypass: Unable to cross into Level 2 due to being a bug in the system, Dawoon has no choice but to wander out-of-bounds from the Rabbit's stage out past the death mountains to the shrine of Erthea. From here, he's able to build a stairway down the cliffs that eventually takes him down to Level 4, and finally reunite with Ryu Seung-Woo and his group.
• Durable Deathtrap: Averted. While exploring the Life Tower, Dawoon finds that most of the traps designed to guard the altar and deter vandals have rusted or fallen apart. Once Dawoon takes ownership of the temple, he installs traps of his own making that require far less maintenance.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: Averted for Dawoon, as he's the one that creates the towers as a way to navigate the dungeon's surroundings and to map the environment. Played With for the unknowing players, who are suspicious of the towers that suddenly appear in the middle of nowhere (especially after the Rabbit tells them to enter the tower).
• Formula with a Twist: It's Trapped in Another World meets Minecraft-esque sandbox survival.
• Game Master: The rabbit guide (or 'game assistant' as he refers to himself) is a god-like being who abducts and harvests humans from the real world, just to run his Death Course gauntlet game, without giving them any hope or promise they'll ever be allowed to go home again. In chapter 26 its revealed he's the guide/dungeon master of Level 1, the Baboon is in charge of Level 2.
• A Glitch in the Matrix: As Dawoon was supposed to die in one of the game's cruel traps, but survived thanks to Seung-Woo moving onto the next stage, his stats are all messed up. The Game Master Rabbit is confused, then horrified to find this glitch not only affects the dungeon, making certain changes permanent after every reset, but also means Dawoon can level grind for monster kill tallies more easily.
• God Is Good: Heavily implied Erthea, the dragon of life, created the original game world and its guides. It was a fairer, kinder place, designed to teach humans the value of friendship and teamwork to overcome adversity. All kinds of achievements can be unlocked if the player respects their comrades and nature. Only evil people were punished for not abiding by Erthea's rules. Since the dragon of death took over the game, and forced his "dungeon system" over it however, it's become a partitioned shell of itself that harvests humans as food for the evil god.
• God's Hands Are Tied: As much as the Rabbit guide of Level 1 would love to correct his "mistake" and crush Dawoon, he can't. He's only permitted to kill one human from every batch abducted from Earth as "his salary", the rest are offerings to the evil Dragon of Death. He already killed a man angry with him the game's making him late for his interview. This means he's stuck with Dawoon, and can only hope to lure him to his doom (or at least keep other struggling participants away from him).
• Good Colors, Evil Colors: When the apostle of life, Alpha, that serves Erthea speaks to Dawoon via the dungeon system, it's in a golden textbox. When the Big Bad Dragon of the Apocalypse speaks, it's in a sinister purple message prompt.
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal:
  • The rabbit-shaped "game guider" wears a tailed tuxedo jacket, bow tie, and a top hat. No pants. When he defects to become the manager of Dawoon's Historic Ruins, he adds a vest and an ascot to the ensemble while ditching the top hat.
  • The baboon-shaped manager of Level 2 wears a suit jacket and a fedora.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power:
  • Dawoon's "Skill" acquired at the start of the game is "Purification," the ability to clean dirty things. He can't use it to defend the group from monsters or detect traps, which puts him at the bottom of the pecking order. Subverted in that Dawoon's Skill was valuable in keeping players alive outside of combat, they just didn't appreciate his contributions until he was gone. "Purification" can make poisonous monster meat and dangerous mushrooms perfectly edible, clean wounds, and make any source of water safe to drink. Later on in the story, Dawoon uses his Skill to destroy the fields of poison gas that separate the game's levels and create rudimentary gas masks by imbuing the Skill into a simple face covering.
  • Dawoon's earth-shaping ability was also seen this way by both him and the Rabbit at first. With it turning out to be a Magikarp Power like most of the other proficiency-based skills (that he exploits like no tomorrow once he realizes this), it soon becomes his bread-and-butter in handling combat situations once it evolves into full-on earth manipulation.
  • Oh Changseok, the Elder/ founder of Gap Village, has a Skill called "Insight." At first the Skill was disappointing because it granted no benefits to combat or defense, but as Changseok leveled up his "Insight" he discovered it could show him the strengths and weaknesses of monsters, dungeons, and other players. Though the Skill became impressive, Changseok was ultimately too weak to face the final dungeon of Stage 4. His "Insight" revealed just how dangerous the dungeon truly was, and he fled as his companions took on the challenge.
• Heroic BSoD: As a glitch that's unable to cross from completed level to level, Dawoon often enters into depression, believing he may be unable to ever return home, as the game wouldn't recognize him, even if he beat it.
• Hobbes Was Right: The Dragon of the Apocalypse purposefully entraps humans in his cruel game with no hope of freedom, so as to drive the survivors further into insanity with every level. Eventually, they would start to kill other humans to survive, and when they've become accustomed to murder, their souls are so blood-stained, the appeased Dragon deems them worthy offerings.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: The Level 1 Game Master Rabbit is stripped of all his powers and status by the Baboon for allowing Dawoon to mess with the game's progress, thereby letting too many humans straight into Level 2. He's a hungry, weak, destitute shambles of his former god-self... until he finds Dawoon at Erthea the dragon of life's shrine. The man takes pity on him, but puts him into all kinds of degrading work, as atonement for his misdeeds in tormenting the humans he abducted.
• Humans Are Bastards: The rabbit guide, infuriated that Dawoon's surviving everything the stage can throw at him, torments the next batch of humans he abducts. He goads them into killing each other to survive and watches with sadistic glee when they do. They don't last long. Despite being reformed later thanks to Character Development and serving as Dawoon's underlying, The Rabbit cannot comprehend positive human emotions or large gatherings of people simply having fun.
• Improvised Golems: After finding out the key to defeat the golems (by stealing the cores inside them), Dawoon is able to not only create golems loyal to him, but also to shift their cores between a variety of bodies depending on whether he needs them for construction, close-range combat, ranged combat, defense, or travel. Thus far, he's created golem bodies resembling elephants, gorillas, centaurs, and ostriches out of nothing more than clay and golem cores.
• Inconsistent Coloring: Dawoon's eye color changes from panel to panel, often several times a chapter. No explanation is given.
• Jerkass Gods: The game guiders have god-like powers in the realm of the game, and they use those powers to torment the players they kidnap to run their dungeons.
• Level Grinding: Aside from his ingenuity in solving problems, this is Dawoon's greatest strength. The Dungeon is setup to be a cruel trap that resets itself too often for human players to acquire many Game-Breaker skills. As he's supposed to be dead, now a glitch in the system, his stats don't reset. Eventually, Dawoon becomes so insanely strong, the Dungeon itself is changing the layout and monster behaviour, trying to adapt against his unfixable errors.
• Limited Wardrobe: Justified — players are stuck with the clothes were wearing when they were transported to the dungeon.
• Logical Weakness: Creatures made from a certain substance will be just as susceptible to skills designed to manipulate them, making defeating them potentially much easier. Just ask the earth golem boss and the stone gargoyle guardian after Dawoon (who has made Dishing Out Dirt something of a specialty) was done with them.
• Make an Example of Them: The rabbit game guide swiftly decapitates the first human who stands up to him, as a way of showing the kidnapped players they've got no recourse to fight against him. This winds up biting him in the ass big-time later on. The Rabbit is allowed to do this only once per group, as a part of the rules designed to maximise the life force that can be gained from the sacrifices of every player. When Dawoon accidentally survived his near-fatal plunge into the spike pit, he still technically counted as a member of the group the Rabbit had used his authority on, meaning that even when he's aware of his survival and shenanigans in manipulating the dungeon to his advantage, the Rabbit cannot directly attack Dawoon and correct the 'glitch'. He's instead forced to pretend that Dawoon is Not Worth Killing given he's trapped in the spike pit at first, and when Dawoon deduces the truth, he's forced to hope that the various animals in stage one will kill him instead.
• Mook Maker: Through the Golem cores Dawoon is able to easily farm from the Stage 1 boss (because he has expert control over dirt, which the golem is made from), he's soon able to make an army's worth of various golems loyal to him.
• Mundane Made Awesome:
  • Dawoon's "Purification" Skill isn't useful in combat or as a defensive recourse. His dungeoneer companions initially look down on him as a burden, not realizing that Dawoon's Skill is the only thing making the plant and animal monsters they battle edible without expert butchering and cooking techniques; a source of unlimited potable water; and the simplest and safest way to disinfect wounds. With practice Dawoon is able to imbue his skill into other objects, even creating a gas mask that allows him to travel through the clouds of poisonous vapors that separate different areas of the map.
  • This is also Dawoon's survival strategy after he gets stranded at the bottom of a pit trap: by Stat Grinding seemingly useless non-combat Skills and utilizing them in creative ways, Dawoon is able to take on much tougher opponents by himself. After all, making a brick out of compressed sand isn't an impressive "skill" by itself — but dropping a thousand bricks out of his inventory on top of a wild animal that's trying to eat him? That's a useful trick!
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: As Dawoon's a glitch, he can explore out-of-bounds, but he cannot enter Level 2. Eventually with practice and hard work, his skillset becomes so absurdly strong, he's unrecognizable from the weak youth that was once part of Seung-Woo's group. This does not go unnoticed by the Game Master of Level 1, the Rabbit, who frets all the other guides will be angry with him for allowing this to happen.
• Not Quite Dead: What kicks off the plot and results in Dawoon's existence becoming 'glitched'. On the way to the boss room of stage 1, Dawoon fell into a deep pitfall trap with spikes at the bottom, getting impaled through his abdomen as he landed. Since the group was being chased through the area by a massive rolling boulder trap, his group couldn't stay behind to help him out, and so Dawoon was left behind to bleed out alone in the hole. However, he managed to endure the gradual blood loss until Seung-woo and the remaining survivors killed the final boss of stage one, granting all active stage 1 players the reward of full recovery, healing their fatigue, restoring any missing limbs they'd lost and healing all wounds. Though separated from the group, Dawoon nonetheless still received the reward as well and recovered from his fatal injuries, but couldn't alert anybody to his situation before his party was transported to stage 2 and he was left behind in the trap as it and the dungeon reset in preparation for the next round of players. This results in Dawoon becoming a proverbial 'bug' in the dungeon's mechanics due to it declaring him 'dead' despite his survival, able to interact with and use the environment to serve his needs, but immune to any status effects or limitations the dungeon tries to implement upon normal players as a means of controlling them.
• Pet the Dog: One day Dawoon hopes to be able to return home if he revives Erthea, the dragon of life, he appoints the former Game Master Rabbit as his successor, entrusting the shrine and everything to him should he escape (or die).
• Punch-Clock Villain: Ru'ghal, the bipedal wolf guide of Level 3, (later promoted to guide of Level 5 after Serpa and the Baboon are both soundly defeated) isn't so antagonistic towards human players as the other animal gods have been in the past. He's apathetic to their plights, but doesn't go out of his way to hunt after them or pursue Dawoon for being a bug (lost soul) in the program.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: The Game Master Rabbit's eyes light up evilly whenever a human being is in imminent danger of death. They can shine as Supernatural Gold Eyes whenever he's bestowing gifts/rewards on a party for clearing a stage, but these of course are a far rarer sight considering the difficulty of the game.
• RPG Mechanics 'Verse: All "Players" transported to the dungeon start with a superpower-like "Skill" and a basic weapon. They can improve their Skills by using them repeatedly. They have stats, like "Health" and "Satiety" that can be viewed in a Sudden Game Interface window. Players also gain access to a weightless extradimensional inventory where they can store any materials they gather, accessible through a pop-up window.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Starved of companionship, Dawoon later manages to tame and befriend an adorable bone-eating squirrel he names "Pokyuu". The two become inseparable.
• Skybox: Lampshaded by Dawoon who, as a glitch, can explore outside the bounds of the skybox.
• The Sociopath: Game Guiders seem to take pleasure in watching their players fail — because failure usually results in being torn to pieces by wild animals, crushed by bosses, or killed in any number of gruesome ways by the dungeon's traps.
• Stat Grinding: Stuck in a rocky, spike-lined pit with nothing better to do, Dawoon starts digging through the sandy soil at the bottom of the trap to tunnel his way out. And digging, and digging, and digging, and soon enough he finds out he's got a new Skill: Master of Sand Blocks Level 1. The dungeon appears to have scores of achievements and Skills for seemingly useless activities like digging through sand or building fountains. Dawoon practices these non-combat Skills obsessively until he can use them to protect himself.
• Sudden Game Interface: Players can view the details of their Skills and the contents of their inventory in little text bubbles/ windows that appear with a thought.
• Survival Sandbox: The "dungeon" is meant to be used as the backdrop to a sort of dungeon-crawler, with new parties dropped in to face the dangers every few weeks before they move on to the next stage. Dawoon turns it into a Survival Sandbox, utilizing the material he finds in the dungeon first to survive at the bottom of the pit trap, then to thrive.
• This Cannot Be!: Dawoon and the Rabbit cleverly infiltrate the Baboon's shrine to the dragon of death, distract him with arson, and steal away his altar.
• Through His Stomach: Although the malevolent Rabbit initially hates Dawoon for costing him his job as Game Master of Level 1, he loves his cooking so much they become Fire-Forged Friends. A guide's "salary" from the dragon of death they serve, is to kill one human per round, and their victim's life-force sustains them until the next round. After being demoted, the Rabbit cannot replenish himself, and only Dawoon's meals can restore his powers, and he doesn't ever want the man to go home again and leave him.
• Timed Mission: The participants are sorely mistaken if they think they can make bases to weather out the stage's hazards. There are punishments if a Level isn't completed on time. Level 1's penalty is an endless Swarm of Rats. Level 4's is Denied Food as Punishment. Level 5 is a World in the Sky, and all the floating islands will collapse if the dungeons aren't cleared.
• Too Dumb to Live: The glasses-wearing idiot in the first chapter who was demanding more food from Dawoon while calling him useless dead weight. The same guy who was providing respawning food from his inventory and had the power to detoxify and cook the poisoned meat the monsters had. Their whole group was trapped in a survival game, and he was essentially telling a crucial party member to go get himself killed off. Thankfully, Seung Woo was there to shut him up. By the next time the guy appears (albeit without the glasses), he seems to have realized along with everyone else just how important Dawoon was during an interlude where Sung brings up the food shortage their group has to deal with despite an abundance of boars.
• Underground Monkey: While exploring the frozen area in the Gap, Dawoon encounters an arctic version of the bone-nibbling squirrels. Pokkyuu quickly makes friends with these cousins.
• Verbal Tic Name: Dawoon names his squirrel pet "Pokkyuu", after the sound it makes.
• Wide-Open Sandbox: Unable to enter the second level, Dawoon wanders out into the void beyond the dungeon game, and notices something odd. The present Death Course he and the participants had to run, and was trapped in for so long, are smaller partitioned areas of a more vast ancient game world. This heavily implies, the Dragon of Death/Apocalypse has usurped the game away from Erthea, the Dragon of Life, after defeating him.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: To the Game Master Rabbit's horror, he finds Dawoon hasn't died, but has become A Glitch in the Matrix. Thereafter he doesn't call the player by their name anymore, but a "damned bastard error". Dawoon is not immortal however, and can still die, but uses every trick in the book to stay alive and thwart the Rabbit another day, much to the guide's chagrin.

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