by Elan Wang
The wolf quickly got up from where it was layinig and stared at me. I could see an almost madness in its red eyes. Its grey fur was almost standing straight up.
Since I wasn’t here to talk to a monster, I’ll stop my observation of it here.
“Hey you! Eat this!”
I yelled out and threw my pepper bomb at it.
As soon as it was in the air, the wolf immediately bit at it ouf of reflex.
The bomb exploded in its mouth. I could see peppery smoke coming out of its mouth and nose. Seeing as how it was almost tripping over its own legs, I could call that phase a success.
A moment later, after getting a hold of itself, it stepped out of the smoke. When I saw that it was in pounce position, I turned around and started running like hell.
It was fast. It caught up right behind me in mere moments. But I wasn’t slow either. In this terrain, the monster’s speed and my speed were almost the same. I would make it to the area I had crisscrossed the chains at. When I looked back, I saw that it was only about 10 meters behind me now.
I threw my body through the 1 meter hole. Luckily, I didn’t get hung up and passed through safely without a hiccup.
But the wolf, which was twice my size, didn’t have the same luck. It got snagged in the cobweb of chains and could not untangle it self. Only its head was able to pass through the hole…and it’s shoulder was stuck. It started putting all its weight into trying to get unstuck.
Though I did tie it up as tightly as I could, you never know what could happen if the monster kept shaking around like it was doing. I pulled out my bloodysword from my hip and slowly approached it.
The dungeon boss bared its fangs and tried to bite at me. A barking dog isn’t to be feared. Ah. Was that not it? Oh well.
Stab.
“GRAAAWR!”
The wolf’s cry could be heard ringing throughout the entire dungeon. You don’t supposes everyone’ll come running here after hearing that noise…do you? Because that would ruin everything…
The wolf could do nothing to stop the bloodsword from slurping up its blood. It kept baring its sharp fangs at me in anger and obvious duress, but the chain was even stronger than I had hoped. I wonder how many people knew there was such a simple and easy way to take care of a monster like this. I sure know I didn’t until now.
Stab Stab!
Seeing the wolf trying to bite into the restraining chains, I took my new sword out and poked him a couple sides into his middle. Though I was sure now that he wasn’t strong enough to break free of his bonds, I wanted to make sure he didn’t snap them with his teeth. Better safe than sorry because the cave wolves are known for their tremendous biting strength…good not to underestimate that.
When I kept stabbing at him with Park Jungbeh…oh excuse me…MY sword, the wolf now tried to move backwards out of the hole, instead of through it. But there would be nowhere for it to go but to the mouth of the cave. I kept glancing at my watch, waiting for the time to run out.
I recall that last time, it had taken about 2 minutes for my sword to drink up almost every last drop. Since I couldn’t be sure, I decided it would be best to wait 5 minutes.
Beep.
The timer I had set for 5 minutes went off. I went through the chain and walked to the front and saw a collapsed mound that was the wolf. I pulled out a pepper bomb from my pocket and threw it at the heap.
Even as the pepper smoke plumed into the air, I remained alert. Since it was a mixture of red pepper and black pepper, no matter how hard it tried to play dead, it would not be able to handle it. I think. Once I confirmed the wolf remained ever motionless, I held out my longsword and carefully padded forth.
“Ahem!”
I purposely cleared my throat loudly, but the wolf remained still. I kept my distance as far away from the monster as I could and reached over to try and poke at its eye with my sword.
“Grawr!”
The wolf jumped towards me, jaws wide, as if it was waiting for just this moment. But I had been expecting it this whole time so I kept my cool. I plunged my sword right into its open mouth.
The wolf dropped to its side, throwing up black blood and shivering as it lay on the ground. That should do it. If it got up again this time, I would bet my life it wasn’t a wolf but a damn zombie.
[+1000]
Finally. Those sweet green digits appeared above the monster’s head. The same amount as last time. With this, I should have over 4,000 reward points in all. Now I knew what people meant when they said they felt full even without having eaten a thing. I felt content.
I pulled out my bloodysword from the dead wolf’s side. There was barely any blood seeping out of the wound, as expected, and there was now a black tint to the sword. Just how much blood did it drink for it to be so dark? Jeez.
I placed the bloodysword back on my hip and, before the monster could evaporate, I wiped off the longsword onto its fur. I needed to take care of this so I could sell it later. Unless it was broken or something, there was rarely any case where an item’s value would depreciate, so I could expect 100,000 for this.
As the wolf kept evaporating into dust..then into air..I walked over to the chains and started to collect them back into my backpack. I didn’t think of recycling it again but I didn’t want to leave it behind for Park Jungbeh and his crew to see and learn my now new trick. Of course those idiots wouldn’t figure out what I used it for. But just in case.
After cleaning up, I went back to the wolf.
The wolf had dropped an item.
“What is this?”
I picked up the thing that dropped to the floor and examined it. It looked to be a roll of A4 sized papers tied with a string. I pulled on the string and unrolled the papers to check it out. Luckily, this time, I was able to read it.
‘Escape’
Ok. If I were to take the literal meaning of it, then maybe it was a way to escape this dungeon. I would guess that if I were to face a monster that was too ferocious, ripping up this paper would transport me to safety.
“Ha…I scored another jackpot didn’t I?”
It wasn’t a weapon or a skillbook but, since I have a bad habit of always meeting irregulars, this would seem to be something that would be very useful. If you looked at it in one way, it might even be more valuable than a high level equipment. And since there were 5 pieces of paper, that meant I could use it a total of 5 times.
Wait. No.
Now that I think about it, I would probably have to take into account each party member. As if I could escape by myself and ditch my party if an irregular shows up.
I couldn’t do that even if it meant my life. So I guess it was the same as having just a one time use. And on top of that, if Jung Sooah ever decided to join us then we would be one escape paper shy.
That kind of sucks, but it’s still a great haul. If anything, what made it even more valuable was the fact that this has never before appeared at the hunter’s market. First the level 0 skillbook and now this…something was up.
The raids that had been happening without any change these past 50 years were now going through a lot in a short time. But I don’t mind at all. For a person who’s all the way at the bottom like me, things can only go up from here.
***
As soon as I left the dungeon, my eyes met with an all too familiar silhouette. When she saw my face, she made a great big sigh.
It was Jung Sooah.
“You’re alive.”
“Didn’t I personally take you to the bus and send you off?”
“I turned back around. I was worried.”
“Why.”
“I, I came too.”
Glasses girl peeked out her head from behind Jung Sooah. I lightly raised my brows and said.
“You are definitely big for a girl.”
“What, what are you saying? I’m a girl because I’m big!”
Jung Sooah yelled out as her face turned a red hue. I was talking about her size. Why is she talking about her boob
s?
“I meant you’re big boned.”
“…”
“I meant you were big because I didn’t even notice Bae Yeongyoung hiding behind you.”
“…”
“Do you think I’m the type of guy who would look at a girl’s breasts the moment I step out of a dungeon?”
“Hm…so mean. Really.”
I should stop picking on her now.
Glasses girl said with a slightly red face too.
“Party head. But where did you get that armor?”
“It was a gift. It seemed there was someone very generous in that party.”
At my words, Jung Sooah began to poke at the armor before saying.
“Wait. Isn’t this Park Jungbeh’s?”
“Yep.”
“You’re saying that bastard gave this to you? As a present?”
“Some things happened. Anyway, let’s go home. I’d rather not stick around and bump into them.”
“Wa…wait.”
“Talk while we walk. While we walk.”
I left the dungeon with Jung Sooah and glasses girl in tow. As we left the Baekoonsa dungeon, I saw Han Joonseok and Cho Youngoo waiting on stand by.
Jeez. Them too?
Han Joonseok came forward first and said.
“I felt like you were trapped into a crappy situation so I came back because I was worried. I thought I could maybe be at least a little help if something happened.”
“I made him come. Joonseok wanted to just leave but I forced him to come back with me.”
“Didn’t I tell you not to say anything stupid?”
“It seems I put an unnecessary burden on everyone.”
I couldn’t get why these people I’ve only met two times cared at all about my well being. Could this be the friendship skill at work? Or is it that they’re masochists and liked being in danger? I usually like to err on the side of caution and think of the worst case scenario. Maybe they thought I would keep them on board to breeze through dungeon clearings if they were nice to me. Who knows. But I decided to take their kindness at face value this time.
Now that we were all together again, we decided to go get something to eat as a group. It was a relief that manager Kim wasn’t here. If he were, then we would probably all be forced to drink like hell again.
“Ha ha ha! You guys weren’t thinking of drinking without me now were you?!”
Manager Kim appeared. Out of nowhere.
“Who the hell called manager Kim?”
There was no way this man came all on his own. Glasses girl raised her hand with a small smile.
“Um..I thought since we were all here…it would be nice to include everyone.”
And so we were off to drink like no tomorrow. Again. Thanks a lot manager Kim.
The next day, after waking up with a mean hangover, I got out a piece of paper to write down my skill level, proficiency, and reward points.
[0,5,5150]
Strength 50.
Endurance 50.
Reflexes 50.
Total Capacity 100.
After 50 percent, it was reasonable to think the next level up would put me at 100 percent. It wasn’t the multiplication of leveling up that I had initially thought but I could live with this. I was determined to get each and every ability to its total capacity. I figured it the best idea to just focus on raising just one physical ability. It would probably help me more if I improved in all areas evenly.
I was able to work on my strength and endurance at the neighborhood gym. As soon as I raised them both to 100 percent, I saw that 2,000 reward points had been deducted.
Now I had 3,150 points left. I again worked on my strength. This time 1,500 points were deducted in trade for a 150% increase in strength. Simply, this meant I could carry a 500kg backpack without breaking a sweat. With this kind of strength, I could probably bend rebar and crush concrete with my fists.
1,650 left. I decided I would use the rest towards increasing my reflexes.
I called Jung Sooah and headed to the park. I waited 30 minutes until she finally appeared.
The relflex exercise was the same as what we did the last time. Jung Sooah threw the balls and I dodged them. It was simple, but produced the necessary results.
“What are you going to do about Park Jungbeh?”
She asked while throwing the balls.
“What do you what am I going to do?”
“I’m sure he’ll come after you to get his armor back!”
“He should be thanking his lucky stars he made it out alive.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Hey. Focus on throwing thosse balls.”
I grabbed the ball flying toward me in one hand and said as I stretched out my hips. But it seemed she couldn’t stop from worrying.
“…Is it because of me?”
“What?”
“If you’re being like this because of me then you don’t have to. Because if I think that you might get hurt because of me…”
I threw the ball at her.
“Euk! What the hell?”
“Wake up. Why would you think I’d put myself in danger for you? If you don’t fix that bad habit of thinking that everything revolves around you, you’ll end up getting scammed by someone someday real soon.”
“So, so that’s not it?”
“And I did all of that for a good reason. And it’s not like I’m going to run into any real problems anyway.”
“What?”
“I got this in trade for saving his life. I even recorded him on top of having a couple witnesses so he can’t do anything to me legally.”
I just received what was rightly owed to me. Since I did what I needed to do, there was no reason for Park Jungbeh to come after me, really. If he ignores that and tries to forcefully take back the armor and sword, I’ll just cross that bridge when I get to it. No, I actually wish he would. Because then I would have good reason to give him a well deserved whooping.
“Well, if you say so. Then I’ll be throwing again. But seriously.”
The ball she threw bounced off the wall with a nice sound. Yep. That’s the speed I’m looking for.
***
As we finished reflex training, Jung Sooah looked as if she would pass out from exhaustion. This was to be expected because the pitcher uses way more energy than someone who just has to evade the ball. On top of that, I already had my endurance at 100 percent. In any case, my reflexes were finally at 100.
At this point, even without any equipment, I should be good enough why my new physical ability to easily kill level 1 monsters. Instead of cutting into their hides, I could just snap their necks or simply hit them to cause the necessary damage to go in for the fatal kill.
If I had just two level 2 equipment on top of this, I should be able to clear a level 2 dungeon just fine. But I decided I would stick with my current party – at least for the time being. It wasn’t because I had any sentimental feelings for them or anything, it was for the reward points. The weaker the party, the more chances I would have to make the kills myself and collect the points.
Not only would I be able to get about 2,000 points for every dungeon we clear, if an irregular appears then I’ll be able to try out my new upgrades. I’m sure if I had to face a wolf boss head on without any tricks, I’d be able to do it easily with the help of my team. And if we ever get into a pickle, we had the escape scroll. Everyone else can use it while I run away.
[0,9,650]
Alright. 650. I thought about what might be good to use this on, when I got an idea.
“Hey. Hit me.”
“What? Where?”
“Anywhere. Minus. The crotch area.”
“…what are you thinking?”
“Just do what I tell you to do. Come on.”
“I can’t just hit you with my hand…”
She shook the hand holding a ball.
“Why don’t I hit you with this?”
“Ah. Yeah sure. That could work.�
�
“Here I go.”
“Okay!”
Smack!
She threw the ball right into my face. Hard.
“Are you alright?”
“I’m fine. Keep doing it.”
Smack!
“Euk.”
This time it hit my chin. Why the hell is she aiming for my face.
“Stop throwing it at just my face and throw it in other places too.”
“Whatever.”
Well, I don’t have anyone else I can ask to do this for me. We kept training just like this as people passing by stared at us with strange looks. I guess I must have looked a bit crazy standing there and letting myself get hit.
Smack!
And in the next instant, the balls weren’t hitting as hard. I yelled out.
“Why are you throwing so softly?”
“What. What. I’m not! I’m throwing super hard.”
“Really? Wait a second.”
“I closed my left eye and checked my stats.
[0,10,150]
500 points had been deducted.
“Yes!!!”
“I did it because you told me to but what the hell were we doing?”
“You can’t tell? Defense. I figured maybe I’ll get stronger if I kept getting hit.”
“Are you kidding me…you can do something like that too?”
“I guess so. But it feels like it didn’t upgrade as much as any of the other skills. “
Of course the pain did lessen. But humans have a weaker constitution than other living beings to start out with. Just because I increased my defense by 50%, I highly doubt that would be enough for me to have a strong enough body to not need any armor.
I realized I needed to invest much more reward points into defense so that I can be as strong as if I were wearing at least a level 1 armor.
This would take some time.
“Let’s call it a day.”
“Ha. You need to pay up alot for today. It feels like my arm’s just about to fall out of its socket.”
“Be quiet. 100 is plenty for just working 2 hours.”
“Chet. Scrooge.”
“Let’s start picking up the balls.”
Now that I was out of all my reward points, I needed to think of how to go on another raid. Since no one was hurt, we could technically go as early as tomorrow. And since we were bumped out of our reservation early, it should be fairly easy to get a spot. I guess I just need to contact everyone and see if they were up to it.