by Elan Wang
I was waiting in front of a restaurant in Kyongkido. If you walk about 2km then you can reach Baekoonsa. The dungeon we were raiding was there. General parties had a different vibe from the Rich Kids’ party that I was used to. They generally had low level armor and skills…and they weren’t really too amazing at hunting.
As people started arriving one by one, I gave them each my business card. I made some business cards especially for today. It simply said, “Porter & Hunter Jeon Sangmin” across it. I wouldn’t be working with the rich kid’s leisure parties anymore so I didn’t need to have that silly pretty boy moniker writing on it.
“I heard about you from broker Song. I’m Eum Hyunjoon. I am the party leader.”
A guy in his mid-twenties opened his mouth after reading the card. He had short hair with a long scar or his cheek – honestly, that type of scar is so common that it didn’t really make much of an impression on me.
“Yes. We’ll trust in you.”
Half of the people here were probably people who have never been on a raid before. Most of the decent skilled parties all know each other and already have arranged raids together. I knew before even coming here what kind of party I would be stuck with.
Of the 10 people in my party, 3 were short range attackers, 5 were long range attackers, and the rest were cover measures. What I mean by cover measures are people who can use confusion magic like Mr. Jung was able to do. One person could do slip and the other one could use stunning. Both skills required a long time to activate so they could only use it once on a hunt. But you can’t take that for granted because the one time you do use it could be the difference between a successful hunt and a failure. That is why there is always at least one of these in a party.
Everyone finally arrived so we began heading toward the dungeon.
“Hm. So does that mean you are a hunter with porter experience?”
The mid-forties looking man asked. I don’t know if it was because of his fat face, but he had a permanent grumpy look.
“My name is Jeon Sangmin. And you are…?”
“Ah. I should at least introduce myself first.”
He then passed me his business card between his index and middle finger. When I checked it, I saw that he was the manager of the W company. The W company was one of Korea’s leading businesses. When he saw the shocked look on my face, he started laughing before giving me a different business card.
“Ah. I am so sorry. That was an old card I used to use. Ha ha.”
He patted my shoulder, still laughing. He was acting as if I was his underling right now. Well whatever. It’s not like I’ve never felt this before.
As I started thinking back, I thought I could remember having been in the same party as him once or twice before. He probably retired recently and started living this life as a hunter because he had nothing else better to do. If he had experience in raids and was a director at a big company like that, then there was a good chance that he was a decent hunter. And in these instances, their skill levels were usually high too. He could definitely be useful.
I expected him to be at least at Mr. Jung’s level. We’ll see.
Clap!
“Now. You all probably already know the basic rules. Distribution of the haul will be according to everyone’s contribution. And I will be the judge on that. We will also be paying Mr. Jeon Sangmin a separate additional fee of 100 dollars for acting as our group’s porter. If an item is dropped sometime during the raid, we will auction or sell it at the hunter market and share the earnings.”
As he said, determining each individual’s contribution was completely at the party head’s, Mr. Eum Hyunjoon’s, discretion.
Of course if there is a ridiculous ruling of contributions, then everyone would complain so it is normal for there to be some kind of input from the entire party as to how it should be divided.
“Um…what happens if an irregular appears?”
A girl hunter with short hair raised her hand. She wore glasses and was an archer but her bow was a level 1 standard weapon. It was a no-name brand generic bow so I didn’t think we could depend on it too much.
An irregular was a term for a monster that appears outside of its normal dungeon level – like if a level 2 or level 3 monster appears at a level 1 dungeon. Another instance of an irregular is when a boss appears in a dungeon that does not normally have a boss.
“Then…I guess you’d have to run for your life or die. Don’t worry too much. After that day, there wasn’t another incident for over a month.”
The glasses girl nodded her head at Eum Hyunjoon’s words. But I could see she was still scared. I pegged her as a beginner by habit. I’m not always right, but doing this and being cautious could be the difference between life and death.
***
Baekoonsa dungeon was far from civilization. And since the last irregular incident, the lack of hunters had led to a 30% discount off the usual admission price. It ended up being an almost 2,000 dollar discount so really…it was great for us.
Tap.
As soon as I stepped into the dungeon, I looked around to get a grasp of the place. The monsters may change after every reset, but the actual dungeon always remains the same. In the last 6 years’ worth of data that I had stored on dungeons I, of course, had the deets on this Baekoonsa one. The mental map of the place was in my head.
If you walked just 30 meters inside from the entrance, it went a bit downhill. And if you went a bit further down, you would come at a crossroads and meet your first monster. There would usually be about 3-4 monsters there but it shouldn’t be too much of a problem for our 10 person party.
Well…I thought it would be easy but a problem I didn’t expect arose.
“Ahemm.,..why isn’t this working.”
The W Company manager kept moving his hand around in the air while clearing his throat uncomfortably. What the hell. This is the man who didn’t even have any items on him but came here with his one sleep skill. And he already messed up on activating it twice already. Everytime he messed up, it took at least 5 minutes to try again so basically we were standing around like idiots for 10 minutes.
Then finally Eum Hyunjoon said.
“What is your skill mastery?”
“69%. Level 2 sleep.”
The manager responded with a slightly reddened face.
“If you’re at that level then shouldn’t a level 1 monster be easy for you to hold?”
“Yes, yes…so. This is all just bad luck really. Next time I’ll do it right so don’t worry.”
For every skill, it is measured by the level and proficiency. Proficiency starts at 0 percent and the higher the percentage, the higher the success rate of that skill. Well, proficiency usually dictates just the success rate, but there are some skills that come with an added bonus feature too. These are called layer skills and are expensive. Very expensive.
The problem was that you could never know someone else’s skill capacity except your own. Of course there is a separate skill that allows you to be able to gauge another person’s skill. But it’s rare to find a person willing to use up their one and only skill slot for this type of skill.
But then there are some raid teams who specially keep a spot on their group for a person with such a skill. Corporate raid teams, or pro raiding teams, usually do this.
“Alright.”
Eum Hyunjoon said unconvincingly. Finally on his third damn try, it worked. 5 small cave wolves. These were level 1 monsters that were pretty common in dungeons but they were huge – about 1 meter in height. Their usual attack method was biting. They usually roam around in packs of 5 as they were now so if there was no one to do a cover then they would be hard to deal with.
Of the five wolves, 3 fell asleep and 2 shook their heads struggling to stay awake. The higher the skill, the higher the success rate and these 2 obviously were successful in resisting it. He had said he was a level 2 sleep, but it was now obvious he was lying.
“I’ll attack first.”
<
br /> Eum Hyunjoon held a shield in one hand and a mace in the other. Due to its versatility, tanker type hunters preferred blunt instruments to swords.
“Wahhhh!”
Eum Hyunjoon yelled out as he raced toward the monsters. He was doing this to get the attention of the wolves still awake. He raised the shield in front of him and had the mace raised high above his head. And I counted to ten quietly before running after him. At the same time, Eum Hyunjoon yelled out.
“Short range attack! Let’s move in!”
Bam!
Eum Hyunjoon smacked away the wolf running toward him with his shield and swung his mace toward the second wolf. In the time it took him to attack the two monsters, I pulled out my bloodysword to finish them off. Another hunter who had a motorcycle fullface helmet on, a longsword, and a bizarre outfit on had caught up next to Eum Hyunoon. It seemed their movements had been planned ahead of time.
When I tried to kill the wolf from behind, I saw glasses girl pull her bow from far away.
I knew she would do this. Doesn’t she know what a short range move is?
Ping!
Pat!
The arrow hit the ground right in front of my foot and kicked up dust everywhere. Luckily I noticed her and moved or else it would have hit me right in the leg. I glared at her and shook my hand. It was a sign for her to stop what she was doing. If there were a bunch of us in one spot like this in a fight, it was common sense to abstain from long range attacks unless the weapon had the option of not hurting humans.
There is no way she didn’t know something as simple as that. She was probably anxious and did it without thinking it through.
The two wolves were growling at Eum Hyunjoon and helmet guy. Luckily they were both wearing neck protectors so they wouldn’t die that easily. I headed toward them quietly and carefully.
Though they didn’t turn to look at or acknowledge me, I was sure they knew where I was from my footsteps sand smell. I don’t have any stealth skills so there was no way I would be able to get to them without them noticing. But there was a good reason why I was still doing this even after knowing all of that.
“Haah!”
“Taah!”
As soon as I gave the signal, Eum Hyunjoon and helmet guy made aggressive noises and movements. Both wolves backed up in surprise in opposite directions, and I was standing right where one of them moved to.
There was no way it could avoid me at that point. I stabbed at it with my bloodysword before it could retreat away from me.
Stab!
The wolf seemed to twist in the air before it opened its jaw toward me right when I tried to stab it. The cave wolf’s sharp teeth caught the light from the torches and seemed to shine ominously.
I hurriedly drew back the sword and swiped it to the side.
Drops of blood spattered in the air as I felt a resistance, much like swiping at the bark of a tree bark, on the end of my fingertips.
“Not yet!”
I yelled out as I turned my head to where the wolf had landed. Its large jaws were aiming right for my neck as it ran in my direction. I rolled my shoulders as I readied my sword again.
Jab!
This time I got it for sure. I confirmed that the sword’s tip had hit the wolf right on its jaw and pushed it in with all my strength.
Shhhhing!
Seconds after as it soaked up the wolf’s blood, the blade of the bloodysword turned a bright red color. The downed wolf was trying to move its head even still so I aimed one more time.
“Pull out!”
I suddenly heard Eum Hyunjoon yelling out. I stopped mid-jab and I saw a bunch of arrows shooting in that direction.
Whip whipp whip!
Three bows hit their mark. One landed in front of my foot and the last bow hit the ceiling. I don’t know who that was, but the asshole needs to learn how to shoot an arrow all the way back from the basics.
“It hit!”
Someone yelled out. The wolf that had been hit by the three arrows fell down in a bloody heap. The second wolf had its head smashed in by Eum Hyunjoon’s mace and died shortly after. The only ones left were the three wolves that were still asleep.
As Eum Hyunjoon readied his mace to kill the rest, I raised my hand up and said.
“Party head. Let me do it.”
Though Eum Hyunjoon’s weapon was indeed strong, it would not be enough to kill a cave wolf in one hit. But the bloodysword I had in my hand was getting stronger with the blood it had soaked up earlier. It could easily kill the level 1 monster with one swing.
When I raised up the sword, red with blood, he glanced at it briefly before nodding his head. I walked up to the nearest wolf and stabbed into its neck.
Whing!
Ar!
I pushed back at the monster trying to move away and twisted my sword. I heard a squishing sound as blood started gushing out in torrents.
Soon after, I could feel the life disappearing at the tip of my fingers.
[+100]
A green number appeared above the head of the now dead wolf before it winked out again. What the hell? I went to the second wolf and sliced its neck too. The same number appeared and disappeared again. And it happened a third time after I killed the third wolf.
What appeared after killing all five wolves were 2 monazites and 1 coltan. When you refined a coltan, it became tantalum – something used to make a smartphone battery. This was the reason for the expensive new phones. And this was exactly why I keep my old 2G phone. Why do I need something that was double the cost of what I have now?
“Ms. Bae Yeongyoung. Did you not hear my instructions?”
Eum Hyunjoon walked towards glasses girl and asked. Honestly, it could have been a fatal mistake. If I hadn’t been aware of my surroundings and noticed her, I could have ended up wounded or dead before the real hunt had even begun.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not a problem if you aren’t skilled or have expertise. There is always someone like that in any party. This is why even if you cannot join in the hunt or kill, we still give everyone a share of the earnings. So please abstain from overstepping what you are able to do. And you shouldn’t be apologizing to me but to that gentleman.”
As Eum Hyunjoon pointed to me, glasses girl walked up to me and bowed. She really did look terribly sorry.
“Um…I’m really sorry. I was so anxious I forgot his instructions. I thought that I needed to help in some way and made a terrible error in judgment.”
“Anyone can make a mistake. Let’s just forget about it.”
Glasses girl opened her eyes wide and said.
“Uh…you’re not mad?”
“Just try to do better from now on.”
“I…guess…”
“If you don’t have anything else to say, you can stand back up. You don’t have to keep bowing.”
Since she was bowed to me, I could see that she was at least a D cup inside her armor. Wow. And she has glasses too. This could quite possibly be the worst combinations for an archer.
If I were completely honest, I wasn’t really that mad. I had already anticipated something like this to happen and it resulted in nothing bad anyway. On top of that, it’s not like getting mad is going to improve her skill in any way so what was the point? There was no reason for me to overreact over someone else’s mistake.
Eum Hyunjoon stared at me strangely.
I don’t like getting that kind of look from a guy. Bleh.
“Then should be continue?”
Anyway, what was the meaning of those numbers?
I recalled the green digits as I packed the ores into the backpack and continued on our raid with the party. It was obvious it had something to do with the effort skill. I’m not an idiot. That’s not what I meant. What I was wondering was what those numbers signified.
Ok let’s think this through. When we killed the first wolf, a number didn’t show up. Same thing with the second one. The number only started appearing after killing the third w
olf. The only difference was that I had personally killed the third, fourth, and fifth wolf. Maybe I earned something for killing a monster.
Hm. That’s awesome. But what’s the reward? What can I do with that number?
If you want to know your own skill level and proficiency, it’s a fairly easy thing to find out. You close your right eye and try to use your skill. If you do that, two numbers will appear where it was dark moments before: Your Level, and Your Proficiency. If you have a passive skill, all you have to do is just close your right eye. Because a passive skill is always active.
But my case was different. In the past few days, I haven’t been able to see any number at all. This time I said, ‘what the hell’ and tried closing my left eye. [0,1,300] appeared. Ha. That would probably be [Level, Proficiency, Reward] In that order.
“Hmmm…”
This was so weird. All this time I had to close my left eye?
“Um…hello?”
Glasses girl tapped my shoulder. When I didn’t answer, she shook me a bit.
“Wi…wink…you were winking.”
“I was trying to find out my skill level.”
“Ah. That was what I figured.”
“Yes.”
“It’s true.”
“Well I didn’t say it wasn’t”
“Right.”
Glasses girl kept answering me with this nonsense before she fell forward suddenly. What’s with tripping over your own foot?
We paused for a bit to let her get back up before we continued on. There were traps that would appear at times, so we had to move cautiously. Detection skills were always useful to have but there is rarely anyone who would learn a skill that didn’t help particularly in a fight. I kept looking around with my eyes while my mind continued to race in thought.
How am I supposed to use those reward points? Was it like money? Can I use this to raise my skill or strength? Or….could they just be meaningless numbers to make me feel good about myself?
Well. I guess at this point anything could be possible.
Squeeze.