by Elan Wang
Manager man stood up from his seat, super red in the face. He looked like he was just about ready to strangle someone. Eum Hyunjoon placated the angry man and had him take a seat before speaking carefully.
“That is true. I cannot disagree. But it is also true that his sleep magic was the most helpful during our raid. If it weren’t for him today, we wouldn’t have been able to clear over half of the dungeon today.”
“But it’s still hard for us to acknowledge him as number two. I would much prefer it if we named this man as number two for today.”
He pointed to me as he spoke.
“I don’t mind. Though the manager was a bit rough around the edges, he was quite helpful in today’s raid.”
I shook my hand as I responded to the indirect compliment. I did understand where Eum Hyunjoon was coming from, but mainly I wanted to support him.
As soon as I supported the manager as second, everyone else seemed to put away their reservations. The manager glanced my way for a second but whipped his head away when we locked eyes.
“Ok. Then is there anyone else who objects to this order?”
No one else answered. I was placed third, helmet man got fourth, and as predicted…glasses girl got last place. Since those who were most at risk or put themselves in danger to complete the raid were usually ranked higher, it was normal for there to be more short-range or close combat attackers at the top. The manager was the exception. But this was also normal because those who knew how to do sleep or confusion magic were considered very valuable in a level 1 dungeon. So there you have it.
After we finished the contribution split, my final pay came out to a total of 1,510 dollars. After taxes and stuff, it did go down a bit but compared to my porter days…this was easily several times more than what I used to earn. I went confirmed that it went into my account and we all headed to a small restaurant.
After we all had dinner and we all started to drink a bit, Eum Hyunjoon called me outside.
“You did well. This is your porter fee.”
He said to me as he pushed a thick envelope in my direction. I had been wondering when I would get this.
When I checked inside, I saw there was 500 dollars.
“…This is a bit much.”
“That means you were just that valuable.”
“Even still, 500 is…did you by any chance take from some of your contribution money to pay me this?”
Eum Hyunjoon had taken 30% of the contribution fee. That means he had taken about 6,000 for himself. There were some grumblings from everyone but no one said anything because they did acknowledge that he did a good job as the party head.
“Ho ho. You’re pretty sharp, aren’t you?”
“Well, I did think that you took a pretty big percentage for yourself. But I didn’t even suspect that you were doing it to pay me this much in porter fee.”
“I did it to cater to manager Kim’s pride. I knew he would say something when we were doing the contribution split. I wanted to avoid any unnecessary confrontation.”
“Is he someone you know?”
“Not personally, but I we needed a mage pretty quickly and I met him through an introduction. He’s someone who would create trouble if we don’t do things the way he likes it. I heard some rumors. But he was a last resort so we had to use him.”
“So that’s why you ranked him as number two.”
“You know this is all hush hush right?”
“Of course. Thank you. But what are we going to do about everyone else then?”
“I took care of them all. Don’t worry.”
Eum Hyunjoon laughed as he lightly patted my back. Manager Kim was wasted and bragging about his sleep skill the whole time and didn’t even know this was happening right under his nose. In that time, Eun Hyunjoon called everyone one by one and gave them a little more of the contribution fee.
Thanks to Eum Hyunjoon’s quick-thinking and consideration, the night ended on a light note. Everyone received more than they expected and general Kim was pretty happy at being ranked at number two. I was actually curious about how he would have reacted if he only knew that he was almost neck and neck with glasses girl for last place.
***
The day after the raid. As soon as I woke up, I headed on over to the neighborhood gym. This is somewhere I go everyday to train, but I was going there for a different reason today.
The gym was packed with housewives. Because it was in a residential neighborhood and had a swimming pool as well, it had somehow become a meeting place for married women. I greeted a trainer with my chin before making a beeline to the dumbbells.
I started off with a dumbbell weighing 30kb.
Light. He he. So light.
The extra strength was still active even after a full day had passed. I put the dumbbell back down and picked up the heaviest one at this gym – a 40kg dumbbell.
This was light too. I started doing some reps. I would usually have a difficult time with a weight this heavy but I breezed through 3 sets and still had energy to spare.
The trainer was watching me with arms crossed behind me. We were at least on a “hello” basis since I’ve been coming here for a few years. Though his arms were way bigger than mine, he was pretty much only able to do about 3 sets of 35 kg weights.
He stared at me for a bit longer before saying.
“Aren’t you trying to do too much?”
“I guess I’m in good condition today. Do you have anything a bit heavier?”
“You don’t want to get hurt.”
“Ha ha. You know what I do for a living.”
People who work out a lot are overly cautious about not getting injured. But porters are even more careful.
“Are you using drugs or something?”
“No, nothing like that.”
The trainer shrugged his shoulders and pointed to an iron bar. I guess he was telling me there wasn’t any heavier dumbbells so I should use weights instead.
I popped in 50kg weights on both sides. Including the weight of the bar, it was 110kg. I held it with both hands and raised it up. It was a bit hard but it was just heavy enough to exercise the muscles.
I didn’t plan on trying to get stronger right now so I just did a few more reps and lowered the bar. When I got up to leave, I saw another man come in and groan while trying to pick up the same bar. I couldn’t help but let out a small snicker.
I went through a few more machines to gauge my strength level before hitting the treadmill. I wanted to test my endurance this time.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
I put in 18km and started running. After running for an hour, I finally came to a point when it felt like I was about to die.
But even an hour was a record for me. I would usually only be able to do about 30 minutes normally. But even the sweat that had been pouring out like rain stopped at some point. It was usually dangerous to work out to this degree. Not only does it throw off your balance for the workout, but it could also cause some long term damages to your body.
Haa. haa. Haa. haa.
My breathing rung out loudly throughout the whole gym. Even those who usually kept attention to their own workout had begun sneaking glances at me every so often.
“Why is that guy working out so crazy today?”
“I dont know. Maybe he’s training to do a marathon…?”
I’m about to die. I had become fixated on the stop button for a while now. I wanted to press it so bad right this second.
But if I stop right now, I have to start from the beginning all over again. Hell no. Not doing it.
“Ahhhh!”
I let out a yell to hype myself up so I can keep doing this. The old ladies behind me gasped in surprise and began fanning themselves. This wasn’t really something I should be doing in the neighborhood gym but …whatever.
Shit. This was hard. I feel like I could pass out any second now. Then out of nowhere, I felt like my chest was expanding.
Paa!
&nbs
p; A feeling like a huge flow of oxygen running into my lungs overwhelmed me and running became easier. I hurriedly closed my left eye.
[0,3,850]
500 points had been deducted. My endurance had gone up.
“Hoo. Hoo.”
I slowly regained my breathing and ran faster. I was able to run for 30 more minutes.
***
“Are you going to run a triathalon?”
Ha.
I was sitting inside a convenience store sharing a cold drink with the trainer.
“No. I just wanted to check something.”
“I thought you said you were a porter…I thought things were tough in the job area for you guys these days.”
“Yeah. How did you know?”
“The news is always talking about it. That there were some weird happenings at the dungeons.”
“Ha. It seems it’s still a somewhat newsworthy topic even after a month has passed.”
“Well because there were so many casualties. And there are still a lot of families suing the government demanding reparations and payouts. You know that most of the victims were from rich families so they’re probably asking for a lot of money.”
I think I’d read something like that somewhere before too.
“Honestly it was the government that promoted leisure parties to begin with so…they can’t really say it wasn’t their fault.
“Well I heard that the government eventually put up a white flag and they’re now in negotiations.”
“How about the insurance agencies? Aren’t they in trouble too?”
“Yep. Basically all the stocks for the insurance companies with any raid related products have been plummeting. It’s just bad for everyone all around right now. I heard there were a bunch of companies that just went under. It’s really affecting the economy. And because we basically lost our main supply for rare ores, all the electronics have been coming from China and is getting difficult to procure.”
“You seem to know a lot.”
When I stared at him in surprise, he started laughing.
“I have a lot of interest in things like this. Being a hunter was also a dream of mine one time.”
“So that’s why you started exercising.”
“Yeah. But it was too high of a goal for me to reach. I never knew that hunter gear was that expensive.”
“Ha ha…that is true.”
Even now every elementary kid’s dream occupation is a hunter. That was how popular and well-paying it was. Famous hunters appear on tv quite often. And hunters with double slot skills were pretty much top celebrities.
But as they grow up and learn about how real life works, they end up giving up on their dreams.
If you want to clear a level 1 dungeon safely, you needed a level 2 skill and equipment. If you wanted to clear a level 2 dungeon safely, you needed a level 3 skill and equipment. This made it impossible to make your way up from the bottom because getting the level higher skill and equipment was nearly impossible without the money.
So the average person can only enter a dungeon with subpar skill or level. Which made any raid a very dangerous thing for most people. Case in point yesterday. If we didn’t have manager Kim’s sleep magic, even with Eum Hyunjoon’s tanking and my attack skills, we would not have been able to clear the dungeon.
Risking that kind of danger paid out a mere 20,000 dollars. It wasn’t a cheap amount but it wasn’t a lot either. Especially if you were potentially trading it for your life. You had to clear a dungeon in this manner a bunch of times to earn enough money to procure level 1 gear. If you were lucky enough you would still be alive to do the same thing to save enough for level 2 gear.
Do you understand now? No matter how hard you try, even if you tried all your life, passing level 3 for a normal person was a near impossibility.
“Then I think I’ll take my leave now.”
I finished whatever I needed to do at the gym. I knew where I would spend the rest of the points I had left. Now that I improved my strength and endurance, I needed to up my reflexes. I didn’t have any quality armor so I needed to be able to evade attacks.
This wasn’t something I could do by myself. I took out my phone and went through my contacts. No one. I had no one.
The only people I could call was either family or maybe my broker.
No. Wait. I did have one more person.
I hesitated a bit before I pressed the call button. I heard it ring a few times before it connected.
“What is it? After I didn’t hear a peep from you for over two weeks.”
Jung Sooah sounded mad. I guess it was to be expected after I ignored about forty of her messages and ten of her calls.
“I was busy with some things. Do you have time right now?”
“Aren’t you supposed to explain the reason for ignoring me first?”
“Do you want to know the reason or do you want to hear an apology?”
“Both.”
“I fell asleep for ten days after learning a new skill. I’m sorry.”
“Fine. What do you need?”
“I need someone to help me train. I only need about one or two hours.”
“Ok. How much are you paying?”
“100 dollars.”
It sounds expensive but if you wanted to use a licensed porter, this was a reasonable amount.
“Cool. Where should I meet you?”
“The same cafe from last time. I’ll be waiting.”
After I hung up, I headed over to the cafe. She appeared in some training clothes thirty minutes after. It was a slim fit…and I had to admit it looked pretty good.
We went to a park nearby. I spied a wall with a bullseye zone drawn on it. I passed her a ball filled with tennis balls.
“All you have to do is throw all these balls one by one at me until they’re all gone.”
“Am I aiming to hit you?”
“Throw it as hard and as fast as you can.”
“That won’t be hard.”
Smack!
She had thrown a tennis ball right in my face.
Did she want to die?
“…Not now. When I walk up to that wall.”
“Ohh. You’re not getting mad?”
“What good would it do to fight with you? Just do what I tell you to do.”
“Oppa, you know you’re no fun at all right?”
“I didn’t call you to entertain you. And don’t slip in that oppa word either. I don’t remember being so close with you.”
“Then should I call you Sangmin?”
“Call me sunbeh.”
“How about we meet in the middle. Sunbeh oppa. How about that?”
“Do what you want…”
***
Woosh!
A tennis ball flew right by my ear. When I moved my chin to evade it, a second ball appeared as if it were waiting for me to do just that.
Smack!
“Keuk.”
“Sunbehoppa. You kind of suck at this.”
“Did you play baseball or something?”
“I was told you I was training to become an athlete. Didn’t I?”
“You didn’t. What sport?”
“Shot put.”
“Ah that’s why you have wide shoulders.”
Smack.
Keuk. She threw a hard one at my waist. I didn’t even see it coming. It was way faster than any of the ones she had been throwing before.
“It’s one of my insecurities, you know.”
“Whatever. Keep throwing at that same speed.”
Slap.
I lightly smacked myself on my cheek and focused. I saw her shoulder move. If I can’t see the ball, I just needed to watch for small movements in her body.
Woosh!
I barely evaded it this time. Getting into the groove of it, she started throwing the balls in earnest now one after the other. Even if they were just damn tennisballs, that wench was throwing them with a great amount of power behind each one. It felt like a sh
ower of fists raining down on me.
Pop! Pop!
I avoided two balls in succession this time. I was getting used to their speed and could now almost follow them with my eyes. But this was only the beginning.
We did this for a while without speaking: her throwing and me dodging…or trying to. We didn’t rest to do anything but to collect the balls when the bag was emptied.
“Haa. Haa. Let’s rest a bit.”
“Just a little more.”
“I’m so tired.”
“I can’t let my sweat cool. Do you want to do drag this on for hours more when we can probably finish it in one.”
“Just one minute yeah? I haven’t used my shoulders in a while so they’re really feeling stiff right now.”
I couldn’t say anything to that but nod.
“But why are you doing this kind of training?”
“To raise my skill capacity.”
“Like this?”
“It’s a passive skill.”
“What is it?”
“Are you asking someone to tell you their skill?”
“Well who cares? It’s just me.”
“If you have the energy to say stupid things then let’s start throwing the ball again.”
“Chi. Fine. I’ll throw.”
She walked back to position, all the while muttering and threw the ball. I don’t know if it was because we rested, but the ball I had thought I gotten used to was once again a blur.
The ball popped on the wall behind me into a crowd of high school students entering the park.
Pop!
“Ka!”
Even though the ball had lost a lot of its power from hitting bouncing off the wall, the boy who got hit with it collapsed. I felt a bit amazed at myself for having been able to withstand getting hit by that type of ball over and over again.
“Shit! What the hell is this?”
A boy in a school uniform and bleached blonde boy yelled out as she looked our way. I guess I needed to at least apologize since it was our fault.
“I’m sorry. The ball seems to have bounced over here on accident.”
“You think I’m sorry cuts it? What are you going to do about this? Want me to call the police?”
“Hey! Who taught you to talk to an adult like that!”
Jung Sooah couldn’t keep quiet anymore and yelled out angrily. Why the hell was she yelling at them when she was the one who threw that fly ball?
