by Elan Wang
“Who is that person?”
“I don’t know myself, really. I had only been in his party just one time. But he was pretty good that time too.”
“It’s not just a matter of pretty good. If he can coordinate people like that every time, then I’m sure he would be able to climb to group 1 in no time.”
“Are you jealous?”
“If I said I wasn’t, I’d be lying.”
“Well, as long as we work hard, we should improve a lot too.”
“But it would take us a couple years to get to the next level I bet.”
“Who cares if it takes us some years. Just being able to stay a hunter is great in my book.”
At Cho Youngoo’s response, Han Joonseok laughed and nodded in agreement. Glasses girl, who had remained quiet this whole, spoke up.
“Now that I think about it, all of my arrows hit their marks this time.”
“Don’t forget that that’s because of me!”
Jung Sooah yelled out.
“Speaking of that, how far do you think your buffer’s reach is?”
Her skill was to bring up her comrades’ skills and increase their effectiveness. If it had actually raised all of our abilities (over 30 of us), then that would be a hell of a skill.
“Unfortunately it seems five would be my limit. Not including me.”
“Do you think the reach will increase with time?”
“I think that it is quite possible for me to be able to increase the buff amount. But I also think the more people I include in your reach, the less potent it will be.”
“That makes sense. So if you can raise everyone’s ability by “X” percent, then the more people you lend your skill to…the smaller the percentage you will be able to raise each individual’s ability.”
“So I guess I should only use my buffer on our teammates for now then.”
“What’s your proficiency at right now?”
“It’s 2 now. I think that every time I go into a dungeon and use it, it goes up one point.”
Buffer type skills get stronger with increase in proficiency…but I was waiting for something more special to show up since it was a level 0 skill.
“It’s an item!”
Someone hollered loudly. I got up from my seat and looked toward the sound of the voice. Even though it was a level 2 dungeon, item drops were still a rarity.
“It looks like Aegis’ shield.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a level 1 shield. It’s made out of leather so defense ability isn’t that great really.”
“Then it’s a dud?”
“No. It’s not terrible. That shield still has the ability to slow down an enemy. Last I checked, it was selling for about 200,000 dollars.”
“Then how much can each person get?”
“Since there’s about 31 of us, the price will depend on the distribution contribution but…I’d say about 6,000 per person at least.”
“What. Shit. Jaaackpot.”
“But there is one problem.”
“What is it?”
“Who the hell is going to buy level 1 equipment right now?”
“Ah…”
Right now, all the level 1 dungeons had disappeared. Of course this didn’t mean it was a totally useless thing, but you could expect that the demand for it would have reduced considerably. If there isn’t anyone willing to buy it, we would be lucky to sell it for even half its regular price.
Nonetheless, this was still a considerable success. Not only did we get through the rest of the dungeon with some ease, we had minimal injuries and even lucked out on an item.
I had also gotten to rack up some reward points. And you know what, we even had another item drop later on.
“What the hell? Again?!”
Jung Sooah yelled out excitedly. I was probably equally excited and shocked. In all my years of portering, I had never heard of two items dropping in one raid. Something was afoot. Yep.
An Aegis shield and a run of the mill longsword. Respectively they should have been priced at 200,000 and 100,000 dollars. Even Eum Hyunjoon who rarely shows any emotion had surprise etched on his face.
“Thanks to everyone’s efforts, we were able to see amazing results. The only unfortunate bit of news is that the value of level 1 items have dropped to almost half their normal price, so it will be hard for me to estimate just how much we can sell them for.”
“We’re fine as long as you pay us something!”
“HAHAHA!”
Everyone still had a relatively unconcerned look at Eum Hyunjoon’s words. There was no one among us who didn’t know the situation, and it seemed everyone was content with the results nonetheless. Above all, the most important thing was that no one had sustained any serious injury.
“Now we will announce the contribution rankings by teams.”
The rankings went as follows: Mercenary team #1 and our team #2. Who really cares how everyone else ranked right?
“Oh. We got 2nd place!”
“Of course we did. Do you know how hard I worked?”
Manager Kim said.
“If we’re ranking by teams, then how are individuals going to be paid out?”
“That will be done by the party or team head.”
I responded to Han Joonseok’s question. Everyone swallowed with anticipation in their faces. Except Manager Kim. His smile was so big that they were almost touching his ears. Though his job is to use his skill just one time and let everyone else do the dirty work, if we were to look at the results as a whole, it was only right to give him number two since he was only one of two magicians in the whole raid group.
“Fourth place…”
Glasses girl had her head down and was squirming.
“Don’t be too disappointed. Someday your ability will improve even more!”
“No, that’s that’s not it. It’s because this is the first time I wasn’t last place.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes. I’m sorry to Youngoo Oppa but I’m honestly a little happy. It’s all thanks to you, party head.”
The way she stared up at me, she reminded me of a small puppy, so I patted her head.
“You did well. Keep doing what you’re doing.”
“I will!”
“SunbehOppa. How about me?”
“You didn’t even do anything.”
“But I’m the team mascot. Hello?”
“You mean giant?”
Smack.
Hm. But it’s true.
Soon it was time to auction off the items. It was just formality because, as we expected, no one bought it. We were, however, able to sell it to the dungeon operating team for 200,000 for both items. It was more money than I had expected them to sell for. After this and that, our team was able to collect a total of 40,000 dollars.
“Holy-crap!”
Jung Sooah yelled out a big whoop as she saw the 4,000 dollars transferred into her account. I was able to collect 12,000 dollars – her money was more like pocket change compared to mine. To think that I could collect 12,000 dollars in one raid. You could say it was because we were lucky enough to come across two dropped items, but this was still a lot of money.
Everyone in all the other teams had ecstatic looks on their faces too. Manager Kim was all riled up saying he would make reservations at a top steakhouse and buy everyone dinner. Of course he would probably change his tune in about 10 minutes so I hurriedly made my own reservations at a porkbelly house.
Eum Hyunjoon walked to where I was standing.
“Thank you so much. We were able to complete the raid successfully without any major hiccups thanks to you.”
“It was thanks to you, I’m certain.”
“Honestly I didn’t walk over here to say empty compliments. I actually came here to ask a favor of you. Would you be available to join us on another raid?”
“When did you have in mind?”
“Within 3 days’ time.”
“So soon?�
�
If it were only a 5 person party, you could plan something as soon as the next day and move quickly. But judging from Eum Hyunjoon’s demeanor, it felt like he wanted to do another raid on a similar scale as the one from just today. To pull of something like this with so many people in just three days…that was almost preposterous.
“Yes. We might even move faster than that even.”
“I would need to ask my party members, but I’m sure they would all be up for it.”
“Great. And one more thing…”
Eum Hyunjoon said as he lowered his voice.
“Can you please keep today’s events a secret?”
“Why?”
In one round, two items had dropped. This could not be coincidence.
“I thought it might be because of the number of people.”
“Hm. You have a point. But if it’s something as simple as that, everyone will eventually realize it too.”
“So that’s why I want to reap the benefits as many times as possible before that happens. So I’ll trust that you’ll keep this on the down low.”
Eum Hyunjoon finished what he had to say and went to each party head one by one to make the same request. It seemed as if everyone agreed to it.
***
We again embarked on the Baeksapyoung dungeon with the mercenary guild every three days. In one month of doing this, we were able to come up with a total of 15 dropped items. On average, that was about 1.5 items for every time we did a raid. That was a lot of money in the course of a month.
We were able to deduce certiain things while doing our raids and taking stock of the different item drops.
Item drop was proportionate to the number of hunters entering a dungeon
The type of item dropped depends on the hunter’s equipment and skill level
The lower the hunter’s level compared to the dungeon’s level, the higher the probability of an item drop
There was no way this would remain a secret for long. We don’t know if someone leaked it or if other people figured it out on their own but the number of level 1 items put up on the hunter market went up like crazy.
Why are there so many level 1 items at the market all of a sudden?
And they’re all super cheap now too
Is this all stuff from level 1 hunters who can’t go to level 2 dungeons?
This is something I heard from someone but there have been a whole lot of level 1 item drops recently. There’s more new level 1 items on the market now than used items.
Do you think this has anything to do with the level 1 dungeons disappearing?
Why doesn’t any of it drop for my team? We went about 10 times but nada.
What the. Do you think the dungeons are favoring some people and not others?
Tsk tsk. There are still people who don’t know the secret to this?
Please share what you know.
Just wait. Let us milk it a bit more first.
After checking the forums a bit, I closed the window. Man. Whoever that is sucks. I mean, we were asked to keep it on the downlow and I guess he’s sort of doing that…but why the hell would he even hint at a possible tip like that? I’m sure whoever it is is also going on separate raids to milk it for all it was worth. Shameless. But good thing we went on all those raids first. It was a smart move.
Because soon, the special condition we had where parties in excess of 10 people had free admission…was not just limited to the mercenary guild any more. It was now available to the general public.
It wasn’t long before level 1 items were less than half their normal value. It didn’t look like it would go back up any time soon.
I closed my left eye and checked my stats.
[0,15,3350]
Over the last month, I had accumulated over 10,000 reward points. With that, I split it up to raise all of my abilities. I’m a well rounded boy don’t you know? That was why I only had about 3,000 left now. Strength, endurance, reflexes, focus, defense…I had raised all of them one time for a total of 7,500 reward points.
With this much, it would now be possible to take my party members into a level 2 dungeon all on my own now. I felt like if I took into account Jung Sooah’s buffer skill, I might even be able to kill a level 2 monster with my bare hands.
What was even better was that everyone on my team had a low level average so we would have higher chances for item drops.
Eum Hyunjoon seemed very disappointed that we chose to leave his team. But the level 1 items were quickly dropping in value by each passing day and now I was strong enough to clear a level 2 dungeon all on my own that there seemed little point in me sticking with that team any longer.
“I’m a bit sad that today will be your last day.”
“I wish you guys only the best of luck.”
Honestly I was a bit sad too. I felt like there was still a lot I could learn from Eum Hyunjoon.
The raids were now moving forward just as fast as they had been the last month. No, it was actually now moving even faster. I felt a bit worried and said.
“Party head. Aren’t the raids moving a bit too fast lately?”
“Is there a problem?”
“No. Not really a problem…just”
I couldn’t really tell him that if he cleared the raids too quickly that an irregular might appear. Because it wasn’t a 5 person party. Maybe I was making a big deal out of nothing. But I couldn’t stop from still feeling a bit iffy.
And soon my worries were affirmed.
“What is that…?”
“Was there a monster like that?”
“Party head?”
Everyone was staring at a humongous monster in the distance.
“Sun…sunbehOppa?”
Jung Sooah’s voice was rattling almost violently.
It was the monster that I had once slain long ago. The level 4 monster was standing in the distance.
“Everyone stand back.”
Eum Hyunjoon said quietly. The monster was at the base of a hill, wandering around about 200 meters away. It seemed as if it hadn’t noticed us just yet.
I couldn’t understand what he was up to. Just from looking at the monster, I knew it was impossible for our group to go up against it and win.
I went up to Eum Hyunjoon and whispered.
“That’s a level 4 monster.”
“I figured that much.”
“It would be too much to try to kill it with our party. I think it would be best to fall back for the time being.”
“That was what I had in mind too but…”
He had a sort of disappointed look on his face. There were no items dropped this round, and we weren’t able to collect many ores either. But we couldn’t really call it a loss since we were able to gain a lot from our little secret knowledge over the past month. When it came down to it, it was better to miss out on today’s earnings than to lose a life.
“The cons greatly outweigh the pros of going up against a beast like that.”
When I came right out and said it, Eum Hyunjoon finally nodded his head. He waved his arms to get everyone’s attention.
“We’ll call it a day and turn around early. It is unfortunate, but this is for your safety so I hope you all understand.”
“Why don’t we try and fight it?”
“Come on. That guy looks crazy strong. What are you saying?”
“But we did good up until today. And we have over 30 people here. Isn’t that something?”
“The party head has already made his decision. It’s better to follow what he says.”
“So you really want to drop out without anything to show for it?”
“What do you mean show for it? We milked this cow for all it was worth this past month! We could afford to lose out on one raid…”
“Don’t be ignorant. You need to milk every opportunity.”
And the comments went on and on in this manner. I wasn’t surprised the conversation went this way since all our raids had been so easy thus far. E
veryone was now full of confidence. Almost too full. I guess it’s not an easy thing to objectively assess your own skill when things get too easy.
Eum Hyunjoon interjected.
“It’s a level 4 monster. It is impossible to go up against something like that with us alone.”
“Level 4? Why is something like that here?”
“It’s an irregular.”
Everyone shut up. All the resistance seemed to disappear in an instant at that one word. The only thing that could be heard was the rustling of the weeds underfoot…nothing else.
That was when everyone started heading toward the exit of the dungeon one by one.
“Hmm…”
Something felt off. I started counting the people leaving the dungeon and the people still left. 30.
We were missing someone.
“Wait.”
“What’s wrong?”
Eum Hyunjoon asked.
“Someone is missing.”
“What? How can that..”
“There is only 30 of us. It seems someone left the group at one point.”
“There’s no way that we wouldn’t have known if he left during a fight.”
“They probably slipped out just recently.”
It most likely happened when everyone was worried over the irregular. We wouldn’t have noticed if they slipped back into the dungeon while we were preparing to leave.
“Who would..”
“That helmet guy…”
Glasses girl said. When I turned to look at her, she said with more conviction.
“That man with the motorcycle helmet isn’t here. I thought it was weird but I didn’t think it was my place to say…”
“That stupid…”
Eum Hyunjoon started cursing.
“Why? Do you remember something?”
“That man’s brother died in that last incident when the same looking monster had shown up in the city. They were both in the same party at the time, but he was the only one who made it out alive.”
“Surely he doesn’t mean to go face that beast alone? It’s not even the same monster.”
“That’s why I wasn’t really concerned…it was my mistake. I should have been prepared something like this would happen.”
“There’s no point in blaming yourself now. We need to hurry up and bring him back..”
