Dungeon Defense- Magically Upgrade

by Elan Wang

  This could be the best chance I had at attacking and killing it. Jackpot.

  I approached it cautiously.

  “Stay still…”

  “Grrrr…”

  It’s fangs were longer than the length of my palm. Its bloodshot eyes kept watching my every move. It was dangerous for me to get too close to its head. Unlike the monster that had been hit by the truck and couldn’t move properly, this one still had enegry to spare.

  I needed to move in on it’s side.

  Stab!

  “GRAAAA!”

  When I entered its hide with my bloodysword, it tried to jump up on top of me.

  “Keu!”

  I let go of my sword and hopped back. I had no time to think. The only thing I could see was its red eyes and sharp gleaming fangs.

  When I thought I had evaded it, I saw stars. I had hit my back on something hard and I couldn’t see from the pain of it. I must have hit back into a boulder.

  I hurriedly put my hand in my pocket, pulled out another pepper bomb, and threw it.

  As smoke wafted out, I covered my mouth and nose and got up to run away.

  The floor began to shake. The wolf must have pounced on the ground I was sitting just moments before. It could probably hear everything so I needed to be careful not to make too much noise.

  I held my breath while I waited for the air to clear enough for me to see again.

  1 minute? No. If I can just wait 30 more seconds, I would be able to run away.

  Bump. Bump. Bump.

  The sound of my heartbeat was too loud. I wanted to run this instant. But I needed to be practical and not just follow my emotions.

  The boss now had two holes pierced in its side. The wound from the stalactite and the stab from my bloodysword.

  Would it just faint with enough time?

  There’s no way. Monsters had ridiculous recovery speeds. If I wanted to kill it, now would be my best chance. But the weapon that could pull that off was stuck in that monster’s hide.

  Should I just go at him barefisted. It can’t see anything, after all. Ha. That would be suicide. Even if I got lucky and found my bloodysword, it would probably shred me to pieces before I could even pull it out.

  Only thing was to run as soon as I could see. It sucks that I have to leave the bloodysword behind but not enough to risk my neck.

  I could hear it whining. I can’t blame it. I’m not breathing and even my nose and neck is itching like hell.

  The vision that had blurred from the physical shock of hitting the boulder was starting to come back. I still couldn’t see because of the smoke but that was fine.

  I carefully started moving. If it were outside, the smoke would have dissipated quickly but the cave have almost zero ventilation. It wasn’t flowing out anywhere.

  I finally took in a deep breath. The pepper filled smoke clogged my neck, but it was nothing compared to the sweet oxygen filling my lungs.

  The wolf heard me sucking in my breath and realized where I was, but it was only after I had already gotten a running start. It was chasing very close behind.

  The blood that had been flowing from its wounds had already clotted.

  ***

  Running for my life, it wasn’t long before I came to the crossroads.

  Slam! Slam!

  The wolf was running straight at me, all the while bumping into the walls of the cave due to the curvy trail. Concerned about the closing gap between us, my legs tangled up on themselves.

  Right before I tripped and fell, I pushed up off the ground with my hands and regained my balance. Shit. It closed the distance even more in that time. At this rate, it would catch up to me before I could make it out of the dungeon.

  “Huk. Huk!”

  Everything was getting dizzy. I guess I didn’t quite heal from hitting against the rock. And now I was almost out of breath. Maybe it was because I was so anxious but I was exhausted after running around the tunnel trail just one time. If I didn’t have my endurance level up, I would have collapsed long ago.

  I was now about 100 meters away from the dungeon entrance. This was where it was now uphill. Would I make it?

  It would be 50/50.

  I should be…

  Woosh!

  “Kr!”

  An arrow plunged itself into the wolf’s forehead.

  “Over this way!”

  It was Jung Sooah’s voice. When I turned my head, I could see glasses girl and Han Joonseok aiming their bows this way from the top of the hill.

  I sped up and ran as fast as I could to where they were. They let two more arrows fly and both hit their marks. Well, if they missed such a huge wolf that was right in front of them, they didn’t have the right to call themselves archers.

  They hit it…but it was definitely not even close to enough to kill it. Annoyed now, it reached the top of the hill in one monstrous leap. As if she were waiting for this, Sooah threw her pepper bomb.

  “What…”

  “Over here!”

  Sooah grabbed my hand and pulled. We all ran to the dungeon’s exit.

  “Mr. Cho Youngoo!”

  “Yes!”

  The warrior unsheathed his sword. What are they trying to do?

  I quickly scanned the area around me. The pepper smoke was streaming into the cave and there was a boulder in front of Cho Youngoo. And the boulder was tied to the ceiling by a rope. I looked up at the ceiling. At that instant, the wolf burst through the smoke.

  “Now!”

  The boulder that was hanging by a rope fell onto the wolf’s back.

  The wolf was pinned to ground. Overwhelmed by the shock of the weight, the wolf wasn’t able to focus.

  “We did it!”

  Everyone began to cheer. Jung Sooah yelled out.

  “Now run for it!”

  “Ok!”

  I said it already, but a monster’s recovery ability is crazy. It might seem like it was a fatal attack but it would probably heal in a manner of minutes if not seconds.

  Everyone knew this.

  “Wait.”

  I stopped.

  “SunbehOppa?”

  “Party head!”

  “I can kill it.”

  “What?…but…”

  “I know. It won’t die from the boulder. It’s just in shock. But…”

  I shut up and started walking to the monster. It shuddered a bit but didn’t move any more than that.

  If it had been fine, I would have been dead by now.

  I went to the wolf’s side, grabbed my sword by the handle, and twisted.

  The wound widened and the sword began to soak it the blood. But there wasn’t much blood – just as I thought.

  “Bye.”

  I pulled out my sword and slammed it back in – but this time into the wolf’s neck.

  The wolf’s eyes rolled back for a second before closing again.

  [+1000]

  1000 reward points.

  Damn.

  “Did it die?”

  Han Joonseok asked. When I nodded, he dropped his bow and collapsed to the ground. Everyone else followed suit.

  “Haa…to think we really killed it…how did that happen? Why wasn’t it able to use its strength anymore?”

  When Jung Sooah asked, I pointed to my bloodysword and said.

  “It seems the sword had sucked up all of its blood.”

  “What?”

  “It had two huge wounds. But weirdly, it was barely bleeding.”

  “So? How did that tell you anything?”

  “Well, it was actually when it got hit by the arrow.”

  “Oh…you’re right. When it was hit with the arrow, it didn’t even bleed.”

  Glasses girl said. She was the one who had shot the first arrow.

  “Right. That was why I figured it was almost done when it didn’t get up again. No matter how strong the monster, if it loses all its blood…”

  Everyone nodded their heads.

  That was how I won and ended with the bloo
dysword, rare ores, and reward points.

  “But where is manager Kim?”

  “Oh. He went out to call for help.”

  “Nah, he just ran away. Bastard.”

  “Yeah? Well, it’s not like he would have been any help if he stayed anyway…”

  It still sucked. Having a mage on such a low level team probably wouldn’t happen again.

  “Who said I ran away!”

  That was when we saw manager Kim walking toward us from behind a boulder. He had been hidden so well that no one had noticed he was still there.

  “Wow…amazing. Were you there this whole time?”

  At Jung Sooah’s words, manager Kim started yelling out.

  “Do you really think I would ditch a fellow teammate and run away?”

  “Yes.”

  Everyone answered at the same time.

  The wolf was now starting to evaporate. He slowly disappeared into ashes, and as those ashes turned to dust I thought to myself.

  Irregular.

  In the month and a half since the incident of irregulars had happened all over the world, this was the second irregular I went up against. I don’t know how many more people might have been met with the incident again this time, but I knew it was going to be a big problem. The biggest problem though was that now we knew it wasn’t an isolated incident.

  Is this job really ok?

  “Is anyone hurt?”

  “No. We’re all fine. How about you, SunbehOppa?”

  “I hit my back and head a little hard but I think I’m ok now.”

  “You sure you don’t have to go to the hospital?”

  Glasses girl walked up next to me and checked my head. Luckily I don’t think I suffered a concussion, but there was a huge bump on the back of my head.

  “Something like this will get better with just a couple days of rest. I don’t need to go to a hospital.”

  “But still…”

  I did have health insurance but I can only use it for big injuries. I pay about 2,000 a month so that I can have access to treatment no matter how much the bill is.

  Since we now know that the irregular incident wasn’t a one time thing, keeping up the payments on my insurance would be necessary.

  “It looks like it’s almost done.”

  Han Jookseok said as he watched the rest of the dust crumble away. Only the wolf’s head was left and then soon, that too was gone.

  Drop.

  A skillbook had dropped to the ground.

  Again?

  “What!?”

  Jung Sooah jumped up and grabbed the book before handing it to me.

  “Take it.”

  “Uh…do you need to be so loud?”

  “You never know. There might be someone who might steal it and run.”

  She whispered into my ear. True. There are a lot of cases of people taking skillbooks and running. But the way she was acting now was basically announcing to everyone on the team that she didn’t trust them. If it were me, I could never do something like that.

  Was she doing this to take the hate in my stead?

  Everyone started crowding around me. Manager Kim pushed Jung Sooah and poked out his chin.

  “What is it? What is it? What kind of skill? If it’s a pro level skill then wouldn’t it be worth like a couple million dollars?”

  “Let’s check first.”

  Gulp.

  I could hear someone swallowing. When I looked up, I saw Cho Youngoo staring at me with fire in his eyes. Looks like he’s someone who can’t hide his emotions very well.

  “Hur..hurry.”

  “Don’t expect too much. It could be a low level one too.”

  I said this, but it was true that I was expecting alot too. If it was over level 3, the price of it would be more than a million. Though we would do a contribution split, each person would still get more than 100k each.

  Flip.

  I opened to the first page.

  Everyone collapsed to the ground.

  “Friendship…? Wait. And it’s only a level 0? Is there even such a thing?”

  Sooah said with a sigh in her voice.

  Everyone’s expression was full of disappointment.

  Except me.

  ***

  It was the second level 0 skillbook. The skill name was ‘friendship’.

  Slam.

  I closed the skillbook and got up.

  I should probably start the official procedure.

  “Level 0 skillbook. It is ‘friendship’. Is there anyone who would like to buy this skillbook?”

  “Who would buy something like that? Unless they’re stupid.”

  Manager Kim said with a sigh. His face looked like the face of someone who lost something very precious.

  “Three of you have a skill already so you won’t be needing this…Bae Yeonkyoung?”

  “Ah. I don’t need it either. I’m an archer. I would want a skill relevant to my ability though.”

  “Hm…then I guess we should just sell this..we might get about 3000 dollars for it.”

  “That’s it?”

  Jung Sooah asked.

  “I had put up a level 0 skillbook a while back. BUt no one wanted to buy it. The only offers I got were around that price.”

  “Nah. Really?”

  “I’ll ask one more time. Anyone willing to buy it for 3000 dollars?”

  Everyone started looking around at each other. As expected. There was no one who wanted a dumb sounding skill…and a level 0 one at that…for 3000 dollars.

  Sooah kicked at the ground. Then she raised her hand.

  “I’ll buy it.”

  “You?”

  Glasses girl asked with surprise.

  “It’s good for a porter to have a skill. It would probably help to decrease my chance of dying. I don’t know what this is, but seeing as it’s a level 0…looks like it would suit a porter just fine.”

  “I guess…”

  Glasses girl started to nod as Sooah explained her thought process. Everything related to killing monsters started at level 1. Skill, Item, Dungeon. So it made sense that everyone believed a level 0 would have nothing to do with a hunter.

  The contribution ranking came out as: me, Cho Youngoo, Han Joonseok, Bae Yeonkyoung, then manager Kim. Of course manager Kim raised a fuss.

  “Why am I fifth! I should at least be second! No…even third!”

  “I’m a person too.”

  At my words, manager Kim shut up. While everyone else had come together to save my life after I risked it to let them escape, he was the only one who hid. There was no way I would rank him any higher just because he didn’t run away.

  “I…I told you to run away!”

  “That’s true. But it’s also true that you didn’t help when we were trying to kill the monster.”

  “Shit! That’s not fair! If it wasn’t for me, do you think we would have cleared the dungeon?”

  “No we wouldn’t have.”

  “Then you shouldn’t be ranking in this way!”

  “But if anyone else had not been there, I would have died today.”

  I said this as I looked to all the party members.

  Cho Youngoo, Han Joonseok, Bae Yeonkyoung, Jung Sooah.

  They had all gone up against a boss class monster just to save my life.

  I knew that it was the right thing to do to make sure they were rewarded for it.

  “Keu…”

  Manager Kim put his head down after trying to say something..but changing his mind.”

  “I will make sure you get more than enough contribution pay. Do you have anything to add?”

  “Ye..yes.”

  “What is it?”

  “Will you call me again next time?”

  Manager Kim asked. I nodded my head and Jung Sooah said.

  “Manager Kim. It looks like you do have a conscience.”

  “What you brat? Do you think I don’t have any pride at all?”

  There was no one who responded to that.


  ***

  When I opened my eyes, I saw the familiar ceiling. I went to my fridge and got a glass of water to drink.

  Gulp. Gulp.

  “You’re awake?”

  “Cough. Cough.”

  I heard Jung Sooah’s voice behind me. I tried to remember what happened…ahh. After the hunt, we all went to a small restaurant to get dinner. The last thing I recalled was getting drunk, and Jung Sooah taking me into a cab.

  This was all because manager Kim was drinking so hard that I ended up joining in. That old man.

  “Aren’t you going home?”

  “I was tired so I just went to bed. Why? I can’t do that?”

  “You should ask first before just doing something like that on your own.”

  “Haha.”

  “Don’t laugh. I just might get used to you.”

  Jung Sooah got up and washed her face to wake up. Then she padded on over to the kitchen to start making some ramen.

  “Two?”

  “Three.”

  “Coming up.”

  I helped set the table, and we ate the ramen quietly. When I finally realized that we were doing everything so naturally with any awkwardness, it was already too late.

  “But why were you asked us to buy that?”

  “Because it’s worth it.”

  “You’re going to give me back my money right?”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Chi. Really. You think 300 just grows on trees?”

  “You’re rich though. Remember the 50,000 you got from me?”

  “I’ll be using it as my dowry. Should I just sell this damn thing?”

  “Why? It’ll be such a waste. Learn it.”

  “What? Me? Why? I won’t need it though.”

  I wonder what kind of skill ‘friendship’ will prove to be?

  “Learn it anyway. It’s better than not having a skill at all.”

  “Then you really bought this for me to learn?”

  “You’ll probably thank me later.”

  Jung Sooah was lost in deep thought. This was a skillbook worth a couple thousand dollars. She was wrestling the idea of whether she should sell it or learn it.

  “I’ll learn it.”

  “So you’ve decided?”

  “Yeah. I’m sure there must be a reason why you want me to learn it…so I’ll do it.”

  “Well, the skill that I learned is a level 0 too.”

  “Oh…didn’t you say that you put it up on the market?”

  “It didn’t sell.”

  “Then your physical ability must because of that skill..”