Episode 2: If I Had One More Chance

Two of the hunters lie dead, and the rest are paralyzed until Chi-Yul tells everyone to hold still so the statue stays calm. Jinwoo, who reached for the unresponsive Joohee, credits instinct when asked how he foresaw the strike, then spots that Chi-Yul has lost an arm. As he helps stop the bleeding, the leader pegs the statue at A-rank or higher for killing instantly and reads off the carved laws: worship the deity, praise it, and prove your faith, with death for any who fail. Jinwoo connects the dots, the looming figure is the God they must obey.

A narrator pulls back to recount how gates first appeared and why the hunters who raid them count among the strongest in body and mind. Meanwhile, at school, Jinah sits in class beside Han Song-Yi, a friend who squeaks in ahead of the bell and asks what Jinwoo does. Downplaying him as a constantly injured E-rank, Jinah hears Song-Yi quietly boast she could make even an E-rank shine.

Back in the chamber, Joo Jae-Hwan, fresh off a guild contract and certain he has too much to lose, sprints for the door shouting that speed is his gift, only for a beam to erase him, his feet the lone remains. Recalling the first law, Jinwoo rises to bait the statue, watches its eyes glow then stop, and grasps that height past a threshold is what gets you burned. He has everyone kneel; the figure's smile twists cruel and, when people stand too early, it strides forward. A man claiming to know prayers recites them and is mashed underfoot, while a frozen survivor falls next. Park Beom-Shik dashes to a sword-wielding statue thinking the walls are safe and is split in two before Kim Sangshik's shout can save him. Jinwoo then deduces praise means hymns from the statues themselves, steering people toward those bearing instruments, a trumpet, a violin, a drum, with each pair dormant beside it. His own sluggishness nearly kills him until he crawls to a singing figure and revives the god's calm.

Reaching Jinwoo, Joohee sees his missing leg and heals him though her mana is nearly gone. A sacrificial altar rises at the center, which Jinwoo identifies; Chi-Yul lights its first flame to shoulder the dead, and with help Jinwoo kindles three more. Elsewhere Jinah sits with her unconscious mother and shares her exam results. The survivors gather as a ring of blue fire forms and the exit opens once six flames burn. Jinwoo realizes a watched statue freezes, like a childhood game, and that the flames are a countdown; even so two helpers bolt, and Sangshik departs in tears for his waiting family.

That left a trio, Chi-Yul, Joohee, and Jinwoo, holding the circle alone, until Joohee buckles, her magic spent and her legs dead. Jinwoo presses an essence stone into her hands, joking about the meal he still owes, before Chi-Yul knocks her out and carries her toward the door, sorry he cannot grant goodbyes. Left by himself, Jinwoo grabs Sangshik's dropped blade. The statues savage him, a spear impales and flings him onto the altar, and amid his own spreading blood he watches a sword descend. As one blue flame dies, the System surfaces in his mind, offering Player status and warning that refusal will halt his heart within 0.02 seconds. He accepts.

The party struggles to outlast the Statue of God and its three commandments within Cartenon Temple. Two newcomers arrive: Jinwoo's sister Sung Jinah and Han Song-Yi, her classmate friend who was glimpsed once before. The System's message boxes, recurring across the whole series, debut here, as do the opening theme LEveL, credited to Hiroyuki Sawano alongside TOMORROW X TOGETHER, and the ending request by krage. By the finish, the statue has cut the group down to its last members and cornered Jinwoo into the deal that turns him into a Player.

Named If I Had One More Chance, the installment covers Chapters 4 through 10 and sits in the D-Rank Dungeon Arc. The script came from Fuka Ishii with Yuya Horiuchi directing at A-1 Pictures; airings fell on January 13th, 2024 in Japan and January 27th, 2024 in English. Of the original thirteen Double Dungeon hunters, six walk away. Compared with the manhwa, the anime drags out Jinwoo's last stand into something far longer and more savage, where a lone strike ends him in the source, and it invents the classroom beat between Jinah and Song-Yi.