Levelling Up In An Exclusive Dungeon

Chapter 31

Arriving in front of the station, Lucia made a surprised expression after witnessing the large procession of people.

In the place where she lived, it was rare for this many people to come and go.

“Did a war break out somewhere?”

“No.”

“Then is it market day or something? Why are there so many people?”

“It’s like this every day here.”

Lucia made a surprised expression.

It seemed like she couldn’t believe that it was a scene she would see every day, not just for a day or two.

“Just how many humans are there in this world?”

“It’ll be roughly over 7.7 billion, I think.”

When Kang Jin-hyuk spoke about the information he had seen on the internet sometime ago, Lucia opened her mouth and gasped in shock.

“Wha, what? Do the humans here have fertility that surpasses even Orcs?”

“Orcs? That’s harsh.”

Although some people are sometimes called that way, it’s not like they really have fertility that surpasses Orcs.

Since it was simply a derogatory remark about appearance, Kang Jin-hyuk showed a somewhat uncomfortable look.

“Since there are that many humans, there’s not a single Elf.”

With a shocked face, Lucia started to understand something on her own.

It seemed that she thought that different races like Elves were pushed back by the overwhelming number of humans and perished.

Although it was completely different from the history Kang Jin-hyuk knew, it seemed like there was no need to correct her by explaining it in detail.

Right now, figuring out his skill was the priority, not studying history.

“Let’s see…….”

Kang Jin-hyuk observed the passing people while activating his skill.

And he quickly wrote down the observed numbers in the notebook he took out from his pocket.

“52, 81, 33, 92…….”

While Kang Jin-hyuk was recording the Karma values with a serious face, Lucia looked around, turning her head here and there.

The sights she had missed while roughly looking around when they came out to catch the new type of monster captured her attention.

“It’s still so bright here even though the sun is setting.”

The appearance of the streets, brilliantly lit up by lights, was a sight Lucia had never seen before.

Even during festivals at the royal palace in the world she lived in, they didn’t have such bright lighting.

Usually, only a few streetlights were installed in large cities.

In villages away from the city, if you wanted to go out at night, you had to personally bring a lantern.

“But if it’s this bright, wouldn’t it be noticeable to monsters?”

Lucia suddenly became worried about the safety of this city.

In the place where she lived, the reason why lighting wasn’t developed was partly due to the difference in technology, but the biggest reason was the presence or absence of monsters.

Monsters, which were mainly active at night, had a habit of being attracted to light.

If you brightly lit up a village with weak security, it was obvious that it would be subjected to a concentrated attack by monsters, so even lighting a bonfire had to be done carefully unless it was a significant event.

“Looking at this guy, it seems like the humans called Hunters here aren’t that strong.”

Lucia recalled the fact that the Hunters were struggling against the new type of monster, which she had easily defeated with a single arrow.

“How have humans who aren’t even that strong been holding out against monsters?”

Lucia’s reasoning, which started without any information, was a suitable pastime to kill time while Kang Jin-hyuk was recording values.

However, the delusion that started as a way to pass time had to be ended when she didn’t want to.

Since someone kept talking next to her, Lucia reluctantly turned her head.

The person who had approached her side at some point was a handsome man with a slender build, whose brown-dyed hair was impressive.

Although he looked attractive based on appearance alone, Lucia didn’t like his sly smile.

In the place where she lived, nine out of ten people who approached with this kind of expression had ulterior motives.

“#$%%@#.”

The man diligently opened his mouth and said something, but Lucia couldn’t understand his language.

‘I guess this person doesn’t have a translation item.’

When she met Kang Jin-hyuk, they talked naturally from the beginning, so she had forgotten that they spoke different languages.

Only after Lucia cast a translation spell did the man’s words start to be heard properly.

“So, are you interested in modeling work?”

Although the translation was successful, Lucia still couldn’t understand what the man was saying.

“Modeling?”

As Lucia tilted her head and muttered, the man believed that she was interested and made a bright expression.

“Yes. We have a vacancy on our side right now.”

Lucia didn’t know what ‘modeling’ meant, but she could easily guess the man’s intentions for approaching her.

She easily figured out the reason.

‘Let’s see.’

Just in case, when Lucia amplified her five senses with Aura, she felt gazes directed towards her from the surroundings.

Among them, there were also many people with a heterogeneous feeling, a bit different from ordinary people.

‘Are they colleagues? Or just passersby?’

Hesitating because she couldn’t decide how to react with just this information, a familiar back blocked her view.

“What’s your business?”

The brown-haired man seemed quite flustered after seeing Kang Jin-hyuk suddenly appear.

It seemed like he hadn’t expected her to have a companion.

The man, who was rolling his eyes from side to side, hid his expression with a smile again.

“I’m sorry. Was that your boyfriend?”

“No, that’s not it.”

“Then are you friends?”

“Ah, yes……. You could say that.”

Seeing Kang Jin-hyuk’s immediate answer and the man’s brightening expression, Lucia sighed inwardly.

‘This idiot.’

If he had spoken firmly, the other person might have given up and backed down.

Because of his awkward reaction, the man didn’t miss the opportunity and asked them to talk at a nearby cafe.

“How about your friend joining us as well?”

The man’s attitude was blatantly revealing that Lucia was his target.

But this kind of clumsy approach, which only a third-rate person would use, wouldn’t work.

It was her first time meeting the brown-haired man, and it would have been easy to decline by saying she had another appointment here.

Since she had the justification, it was simple to avoid the situation.

However, contrary to Lucia’s thoughts, Kang Jin-hyuk accepted the man’s offer.

“Actually, I was just looking for a place to kill some time…… Ouch!”

Unable to stand watching Kang Jin-hyuk readily agree, Lucia mercilessly stomped on his foot.

The man, seemingly unaware of her action, was startled when Kang Jin-hyuk suddenly screamed.

“Is something wrong?”

“Ah, it’s nothing, so don’t worry about it.”

Kang Jin-hyuk bit his lip and endured the pain he felt in his foot.

When the man led the way, saying he would find a place to sit and talk,

Lucia delivered an additional blow to Kang Jin-hyuk’s side from behind him.

“Ugh!”

Kang Jin-hyuk covered his mouth with his hand, worried that the man might turn around.

“What are you doing, agreeing to follow him like that, you idiot?”

“I have a plan.”

“What kind of plan could you have come up with with that lacking brain of yours?”

“Your words are really harsh. Just listen to me first.”

Kang Jin-hyuk whispered carefully so that the man leading the way wouldn’t hear.

“That person’s value was abnormally high.”

“What was?”

“What else could it be? The Karma value.”

“How high was it?”

“300.”

Lucia stopped herself from throwing another punch after hearing that.

“So you intentionally agreed to follow him?”

“It would be a shame to miss such a rare opportunity.”

As a result of Kang Jin-hyuk observing many people at the station, he rarely saw anyone exceeding 100, let alone 300.

If he missed this opportunity, he didn’t know when he would be able to meet someone with such a high value again.

Understanding the situation, Lucia suppressed her irritation and scratched her head in annoyance.

“There’s no other choice……. I don’t like that guy, but I’ll have to play along for a bit.”

“Tell me right away if he does anything suspicious.”

What kind of behavior would a human with a value significantly higher than ordinary people show?

Curious, Lucia closely observed the actions of the man leading the way.

He seemed to be looking for a place to talk as he looked around here and there, but there was a sense of discomfort somewhere.

Lucia quickly figured out the source of that discomfort and whispered to Kang Jin-hyuk.

“That man is pretending to look around, but his steps are heading straight towards the building over there.”

“So his destination was decided from the beginning.”

“It’s like an obvious trap, so we should be careful.”

When the man who was leading the way turned around, Lucia and Kang Jin-hyuk stopped whispering and quickly distanced themselves from each other.

Unaware that he was being suspected, the man smiled nonchalantly and pointed at a sign in front of them.

“That place seems good.”

The place the man chose as their destination was a ‘bar’ with a closed-off atmosphere that would be hard to find if you didn’t look closely.

The fact that he chose this place when there were plenty of cafes around was like openly declaring his intentions.

But Lucia and Kang Jin-hyuk pretended to be fooled and followed behind the man.

“Please take a seat first, and I’ll go place the order.”

When the man asked what they wanted to drink, Kang Jin-hyuk ordered a non-alcoholic cocktail on behalf of Lucia.

Seeing that she was fine even after eating a lot of chocolate, it seemed like nothing major would happen if an Elf drank caffeine, but…

Just in case, he thought it would be better to go with the safest option.

After taking their order, the man seated them at a table and walked away.

While the man went to place the order, Kang Jin-hyuk and Lucia shared their opinions on how to act going forward.

“First of all, it seems certain that I’m the target of that guy, right?”

“It’s obvious to anyone.”

“I wonder if being a womanizer also affects Karma values?”

“Well, I don’t think so.”

While Kang Jin-hyuk was checking people’s values on the street, he witnessed many men’s gazes being stolen by Lucia.

Lucia’s appearance was too outstanding to simply be considered a womanizer’s approach.

Any man with normal aesthetic sense would have wanted to talk to her.

Thinking from that perspective, recommending a modeling job was a perfectly natural thing to do.

If Kang Jin-hyuk hadn’t been able to check Karma with his Hidden Skill, he wouldn’t have been suspicious at all.

“Then is he secretly plotting something?”

“That’s highly likely. But his approach is too old-fashioned.”

Lucia agreed with Kang Jin-hyuk’s words and nodded.

Even to her, who didn’t know the customs of this place, the man’s approach was cringeworthy.

“The possibility of him just being an idiot…… is unlikely, right?”

“Considering he passed by cafes nearby and deliberately came here, he must have something in mind.”

“What’s a cafe?”

“Hmm…… A place where you drink beverages and have casual conversations?”

“Then it’s no different from here.”

“The difference is that they don’t sell alcohol.”

Lucia tilted her head with a puzzled expression after hearing that answer.

“What kind of conversation would you have without alcohol?”

A truly sincere conversation flows smoothly only with the help of alcohol.

That was the law Lucia had discovered after a long time of being an adventurer.

“I think it’s even more suspicious that a guy trying to pick up a woman would take her to a place without alcohol.”

As expected, due to living in different worlds, Kang Jin-hyuk’s perception and Lucia’s thoughts were similar yet different.

That difference was quite an interesting topic, but Kang Jin-hyuk didn’t think it was the time for a casual chat.

“Anyway, let’s see how things unfold for now.”

Currently, they had nothing but suspicion.

To make an accurate judgment, they needed to gather more information.

“Huh?”

When the door opened with a jingle and a few men entered the bar, Lucia reacted.

Her long ears, visible only to Kang Jin-hyuk, moved up and down repeatedly like antennae.

“What’s wrong?”

Lucia stared at the men who entered the cafe without answering Kang Jin-hyuk’s question.

Her gaze, which became increasingly fierce as time passed, indicated that something unusual was happening.

“Those guys who just came in. They’re definitely the ones who were watching me on the street earlier.”

“What do you mean?”

“Those guys were near the man who talked to me.”

The place Lucia discreetly pointed to, so as not to be noticed by the other party, was where a group of bulky men were seated at the bar.

Their sturdy build and fierce appearance couldn’t be hidden even by their suits.

No matter how you looked at it, these guys seemed more suited for a barbecue restaurant or a pub than this cocktail bar.

“It can’t be a coincidence.”

“Definitely not.”

Lucia could be sure from her long experience.

The fact that those men and the man who approached her were in cahoots.

“This will be more troublesome than I expected.”

Kang Jin-hyuk slightly opened his inventory so he could take out his baseball bat at any moment.