Evolution Theory of the Hunter

Click click click!

“Ha!”

I kicked at it hard while trying to suppress my disgust.

Its head lifted up to reveal its stomach – its weak point.

I pushed my longsword right in and a sticky liquid squirted out.

Ugh. All over my hands.

[+10]

Even the reward points sucked. So that means I would get enough level 3 reward points from killing 30 of these. In reality, they usually roam around in packs of around 30. I guess that meant about 30 of them in a group was the actual level 3 monster we were going up against.

“The monster’s shell is very hard and sturdy. If you can, try to flip it over…”

As soon as helmet guy swung with his sword, the roach’s shell split in half and spewed out more gunk.

“….wow…that sword is really nice…”

“Do you want it?”

“Just make sure you kill them all.”

He keeps saying this, and now I can’t tell if he’s being serious or joking around.

Shwing!

An arrow hit one of the Great Roaches and bounced right off. It was Han Joonseok.

“Don’t shoot arrows! They won’t do anything!”

“Shit. Ok then.”

His skill and equipment level were both level 1s. There was no way he could do anything to the Great Roach’s tough armor-like back.

I’m sure just watching isn’t easy but that was the only thing he could do to help at this point.

Helmet guy and I kept at it to keep all them from getting past us.

“Ah?”

I noticed one guy trying to make it past us by crawling on the ceiling. The top of the dungeon was about 3 meters above us. I hurriedly ran over.

And in that moment, one roach squeezed through below me.

Ah crap.

But I couldn’t do anything. If I ran back to try to get that one, it would create an opening for the rest of the roaches. I could hear the click click click of the crowd of roaches trying to make it past us both.

In the brief instant I had jumped to get the roach on the ceiling, I realized there weren’t the 20-30 some roaches I had initially guessed. It was more like over a hundred.

“One went through!”

“I saw!”

I yelled back at Cho Youngoo.

Compared to usual level 3 monsters, the Great Roach was not that strong. But it was too much for the rest of the party members to fight.

Would they be able to kill the one roach between the four of them?

“We got it!”

I heard Cho Youngoo yell out.

What?

“How?”

I yelled out as I kicked away a roach trying to bite into my leg.

“Unni grabbed it and flipped it over!”

“Ah. Don’t tell him like that. You’re ruining my plan of trying to act demure.”

“It looks like we can kill at least one or two!”

At Han Joonseok’s words, I let out a sigh of relief. Sooah. Good job.

Click click click click click!

The hoard of Great Roaches kept pushing. I probably killed at least 20 of them and helmet guys probably did the same. But there were still roaches as far as the eye could see – it felt as if their number didn’t go down a bit.

“Damn. Just how many of them are there?”

Helmet guy asked.

“They usually roam around in groups of 30. Considering it’s an irregular, I’d say we can safely assume there will be several hundred of them.”

“I’m sorry….I don’t think I can make it through all that…”

I couldn’t see his face, but his voice sounded very worn.

Since he was terminally ill, there was no way he’d be in peak condition. But if he dropped out now, then that would open the floodgates…and we’d be doomed. There was no way I could block an opening of several meters by myself.

But that didn’t mean I could force him to keep fighting either. If he was saying something like this in the middle of a fight, that meant he was at his wit’s end.

At that moment, I got a great idea.

“Mr. Cho Youngoo!”

“Yes!”

“Please switch off with Mr. Jong Sawon!”

“Ah! Ok!”

Cho Youngoo hurriedly ran up behind helmet guy. After swinging his sword several times, he switched positions with Cho Youngoo and handed off his sword so that he could rest for a bit while Cho Youngoo took up the slack.

Cho Youngoo was able to sustain just as much damage to the roaches with the rubicon sword.

“Don’t use up all of your energy in the beginning. We still have a lot left!”

“Ha ha! I’m sorry! I just go excited because I was getting bored just watching from the back!”

The Great Roaches were persistent, but Cho Youngoo and I were just as adamant in holding them back. The bloodysword started turning a yellowish tint. I guess after sucking up their goo, it was changing colors. It was kind of gross to look at, but I could tell it’s attack power did go up. It was now able to pierce through the Great Roach’s tough shell.

“Wheww.”

“If you’re having a hard time, we can switch off again.”

“We can switch off after I fight a little more.”

Shortly after, Cho Youngoo  handed the sword back to helmet guy. We continued this for twenty minutes.

“Whew. Whew.”

My arms were now starting to shake. I was almost at my limit too.

“Are you ok?”

Helmet guy asked me.

“I’m starting to lose strength in my arms, it seems.”

“Why don’t you switch off with Mr. Cho Youngoo too?”

Stab!

This time the Roach’s guts splattered into my face. An overwhelming stench filled my nose and I could taste bitterness in my mouth.

“You don’t have to worry about me.”

“But…”

“I just need to put in more effort…”

“What?”

I could hear the confusion in helmet guy’s voice.

Instead of answering, I just closed my left eye.

I had started out with 350 reward points, earned 3,500 before meeting the Great Roaches, and killed 72 of these bastards.

[0,17,4570]

I was fine. No need to worry.

Because the more I was pushed, the more I would improve.

The bodies of Great Roaches were now piled up enough to block the passageway. I didn’t really check, but I probably killed about 200 of them by myself.

And during that time, I increased my endurance two times – and was now at about 300%.

[0,19,30]

This was the result of 40 minutes of hell. I had increased my endurance one time, and just as I was about to pass out, I upped my endurance one more time and used up almost the rest of my reward points.

Though I was technically at 300% of my endurance, if I included Sooah’s buff…I was actually at 360% right now. If I were to enter a marathon right now, I would probably be able to easily win the gold.

No, I would probably win even against a horse.

“Haa. Haa.”

Cho Youngoo huffed and puffed as he fell to the ground on his back. Helmet guy also fell to the ground as he took off his helmet. The three of us were covered in sweat – it almost looked like we just came out of the shower.

“Ah…”

Han Joonseok suddenly let out a sigh. When everyone looked his way, he said.

“Party head. There’s a problem.”

“It’s fine as long as you don’t say another irregular showed up.”

“That’s not it…”

He pointed to his watch.

“Two hours have passed.”

“Ha….we’re screwed.”

“So…what happens if we go over our time?”

Glasses girl asked. It seemed she didn’t know because she didn’t have a lot of dungeon experience.

“We have to pay for the entrance fee for the next party that was not able to enter the dungeon at their appointed time on top of a penalty. It’ll come out to about 3 times the entrance fee – about 10,000 dollars.”

“Ahh…that sucks.”

Jung Sooah cringed.

“But it’s fine. We were able to come up on a lot of ores. So we’re not out by too much money. And on top of that…”

I pointed to the dead bodies of the Great Roaches that were leaking yellow fluid.

Yuck…I didn’t notice while we were fighting, but looking at it now made me queasy.

“Once they evaporate, I’m sure something will come out. Let’s just wait.”

After about 10 minutes, the bodies had fully evaporated and dropped ores in its place. I had hoped that at least one item would drop…but they were all ores.

But I wasn’t unhappy. No. It was better it turned out this way.

“SunbehOppa! This!”

Jung Sooah pointed to a silver colored ore that was sparkling on the ground.

It was the blisolnite I needed to create a level 2 equipment with the Item Fusion book.

“Don’t touch it.”

“Duh. I’m a certified porter too ok? I know.”

She let out a huff with her nose and pulled out a silver colored bag. It was a bag used to safely handle radioactive items.

“It’s another blisolnite!”

“There’s an ansilite too!”

“And another blisolnite! Three of them!”

We hit ore jackpot. Having killed level 3 monsters, especially a whole slew of them, it looked like we lucked out on rare ores. What uncanny timing.

In all we came up on 7 monazites, 6 bastnazites, 3 blisolnites, and 1 ansilnite.

“Hmmm…”

“Put the blisolnites and ansilnite into my backpack. We can’t sell those.”

“Ok.”

As we were packing up the ores, we heard a voice coming from somewhere.

“Shit. Did they all die or something you think?”

“If they died, the dungeon would have reset.”

“Our reservations got screwed up because of some stupid idiots…”

We all looked to where the voices were coming from.

A party of 6 people could be seen coming in – and they were not holding back on any of the cuss words.

Then they stopped midwalk.

“Huh?”