Evolution Theory of the Hunter

There were a lot of people gathered in front of the Northern Mountain dungeon. The crowd was a mix of people ready to climb the mountain and hunters about to enter the dungeon. Carrying the heavy armor and equipment on top of the huge backpack just to get to a bus stop was no easy feat.

“Do I need to buy a car…”

I began to think of the van that we had taken to the Baeksapyoung dungeons.

Maybe I should have just called Cho Youngoo to pick me up.

“SunbehOppa!”

I could hear Jung Sooah’s loud voice yelling for me. She caught up to me in almost one leap and bowed to try and catcher her breath.

“How can the party head be the last one to get here?”

“Sorry. There was a bit of traffic on the way. But didn’t I still get here earlier than the appointed time?”

“I guess. But did you know that manager Kim was the first one to get here today?”

“Well, it’s because I told him to get here by 4.”

“Ha? So then he was actually 30 minutes late?”

“Yah. But I guess now he’ll start catching on that I’ve been purposely giving him an earlier time than everyone else.”

“You think so?”

“If not, then that’s better for me. Let’s hurry on up. If we’re late, that means the time we get to spend in the dungeon will be that much shorter.”

Northern Mountain dungeon, even though it was a level 2, was known to be a relatively easy dungeon to clear. But we still needed to keep our guard up. If our time in the dungeons is reduced to 2 hours, that means we will be forced to clear the dungeon faster…resulting in a higher probability of an irregular appearing.

Even though there were 7 of us, since 2 of us in the group were porters, we just needed to pay a smaller extra fee for admissions instead of a full hunter’s price.

The inside of the dungeon was deathly quiet. The cave’s walls were a red color and, unlike limestone caves, were completely dry. Since the dungeon ran in a straight path, there was no way for someone to get lost. After a simple briefing with the team, we went ahead to start our hunt.

Because monsters don’t usually appear in the passageways, there was no reason for us to be nervous just yet.

After walking for about 5 minutes, we came to the first room. Taking into consideration the new reduced raid time, in order for us to clear the entire dungeon, we had to clear each of the 7 rooms in less than 3 minutes. There were 5 small orks. Looks like a pretty large count for the first batch.

Manager Kim did his sleep spell first. As a golden beam began to glow, two orks fell into slumber. After hustling from one raid to the other while working with the mercenary team for a month, it looked like he made some improvements.

“Mr. Cho Youngoo! You think you can handle it?”

“I’ll try!”

“Mr.. Cho Youngoo! To the right! Mr. Jong Sawon! To the left!”

“Roger!”

Piping!

An arrow flew into the air.

Each of us took on an ork from the three running toward us in a straight line. Since there was no reason for us to drag on the time, we tried to finish them off as soon as possible.

After I parried my opponent’s attack twice in a row, it began to try and use brute force. Orks were known to try and use strength as their main focus when attacking. But, including Sooah’s buff, my strength was at about 240%.

Can I beat it?

“Wow!”

There’s a reason why orks were known for their strength. No matter how much strength I put into it, I couldn’t overpower it.

But fighting wasn’t always about strength or power.

I suddenly relaxed to catch it off guard and moved to its side. My surprising move had pushed the or off balance for a quick moment.

I couldn’t let this opportunity pass by.

I stabbed my bloodysword into its carotiod artery and sliced across.

[+200]

After confirming that I got my reward points, I went over to where Cho Youngoo was fighting his own ork.

Cho Youngoo was just barely holding on. It had probably been only about 30 seconds since we started our fight. But having been able to stay in the fight for this long was worthy of praise.

“Haa!”

I yelled out as I ran toward Cho Youngoo’s foe. Though it had an arrow stuck in its shoulder and leg, my yell must have surprised it because it threw its hand ax in my direction.

I barely dodged the flying weapon and stabbed out with my own longsword.

The blade passed right into the ork’s body. My level 1 longsword was able to pierce the hide of a level 2 monster.

The ork started coughing up blood as it held onto its bleeding side and stepped back.

Shwing! Shwing!

Another two arrows flew and burrowed themselves into the ork’s body. Though they weren’t fatal attacks, they were enough to cause damage. The ork’s defense was definitely lower than most other level 2 monsters.

I swung my longsword in the ork’s direction and ran right at it.

My longsword pieced nearly halfway into the monster. My armor did sustain some damage, but this was nothing. Then Cho Youngoo took his own sword and stabbed it into the now immobile ork.

Though the ork flopped about from the impact of the stab, it didn’t sustain a big wound this time. It looks like even though his sword was the same level as mine, the level of damage also depends on the person making it.

I guess I needed to start getting ready for the finale.

I grabbed the hilt of my sword and shoved it all the way through this time, and the ork fell to the ground. When Cho Youngoo tried to follow my example and go in for the kill, I held him back.

“Wait a second.”

“What?…Why…”

“I still have something I need to use it for.”

I looked back at the helmet guy. The ork he had been fighting against was also collapsed on the ground with wounds all over. A level 3 weapon is a level 3 for good reason, it seems.

The rubicon sword. Compared to other swords, it had a relatively narrow and long blade. Just a glance at the item made you feel like it would be easy to break in half, but of course this was not true. It had a special option of increasing the wielder’s reflex by 50%. All you had to do was use the sword.

“Mr. Jong Sawon. Can you please let me borrow the sword for a quick moment?”

“You mean right now?”

“Yes.”

Helmet guy nodded his head and handed over his weapon.

The ork began to squirm violently on the ground as it gurgled out. It knew what was coming. The weird sounds coming from its mouth are said to be the ork’s language. But no one ever really took the time to study it, so there wasn’t anyone who could understand it.

I grabbed the hilt of the rubicon sword and walked slowly to the ork.

As soon as I swung, the monster’s body cut cleanly in half. The long blade made it easy to cut all the way through.

After cutting through the remaining 2 sleeping orks as well, I returned the sword. As we waited for the monsters to evaporate, I pulled out my Item Fusion book.

Would I be right?

Flip.

“It’s really there, huh?”

Jung Sooah had snuck up behind me at some point and asked. Just as she pointed out, there was now a small drawing of the rubicon sword in the book.

It required a level 2 sword and a level 1 agility sword.

When I calculated the cost of the materials required, it came out to about 400,000 dollars. I could come up with that kind of money if I just created a bloodysword and sold it two times.

I just needed to gather the required ores now.

From the 5 orks we had killed, 3 ores dropped to the ground. Two of them were monazites and one was a bastnazite.

“Boo.”

“There’s still a bunch of monsters left.”

“Party head.”

Han Joonseok said as he walked up to me. He was someone that I now knew not to say any unnecessary words. If he said something, that meant it would be pretty important.

“What is it?”

“Is there really a need for us to waste time like this…waiting for the monsters to evaporate? If we don’t need to rest, wouldn’t it make sense for us to kill the monsters and keep going?”

“That…is true.”

I nodded my head.

The most time consuming thing in a raid was waiting for the monsters to evaporate. If there were 7 rooms in all, 70 minutes would have been spent just waiting for the items to drop. What if we just kept going and collected the drops as we came back out? Why didn’t I think of this?