Evolution Theory of the Hunter

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.”

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.”