A day had passed since I was exiled from the other world of Eldorad.
I’d had a bit of trouble filling in the two-year gap during which I hadn’t been on Earth.
“Well now, young man. You went to that, what was it. Eld, or whatever they call it, didn’t you?”
Earlier, when I’d briefly left the house to go to the convenience store.
I ran into the lady who lived next door.
Since it had been two years since she’d last seen me, she was the one who showed interest first.
The continent of Eldorad.
The fact that only a small number of Hunters were chosen and summoned to the continent of Eldorad was an extremely famous story. It wasn’t strange for a non-Awakened person like the lady next door to say something like that.
However, I couldn’t readily say that I had been there.
Being summoned to Eldorad was undoubtedly an honorable thing. More than that, you could gain power there, so who wouldn’t want to go?
The reality was that it was a brutally low random probability.
The fact that I’d broken through those brutal odds and gone to Eldorad was certainly lucky and something to be proud of.
‘But I can’t say I went there and came back.’
The reason was obvious.
Because I had returned after gaining absolutely nothing in two years. Even though I had stayed with the White Order.
‘If I’d at least brought back a holy sword, maybe it’d be different.’
By holy sword, I didn’t mean some truly precious sacred relic, but a mass-produced holy sword.
The standard-issue holy swords used by the paladins of the White Order.
They weren’t particularly important swords to the Order. But from Earth’s perspective, the Order’s standard-issue holy swords were practically high-grade artifacts.
The problem was that even if they were nothing special from the Order’s point of view, they didn’t readily hand them over to outsiders.
Of course, there were exceptions.
A few years ago, one of my academy classmates had returned after receiving a standard-issue holy sword from the Order.
Naturally, he had rendered various services to the Order and received the sword as compensation. There was no other reason.
It went without saying that the classmate who received the sword was now making a name for himself as an A-rank Hunter.
And it also went without saying that I, being a force completely useless to the Order, had returned empty-handed.
Above all, the reason I was hiding the fact that I had gone to Eldorad was because it was directly tied to my safety.
Hunters who returned to Earth were hounded from all sides for recruitment.
Just look at the standard-issue holy sword.
A sword supplied to anyone who became a paladin of the Order was a famous blade on Earth.
Even an insignificant item on the continent of Eldorad might be no different from an artifact from our perspective.
And was that all? Abilities like skills learned there were opportunities that couldn’t be found on Earth.
So would people really leave returned Hunters alone? The government, for starters, conducted magic power tests on Hunters whose whereabouts had been unclear.
[Hunter Lee Ganghyeon, upon receiving this message, please visit your nearest Awakened Center and undergo a magic power test. The test is mandatory, and failure to comply will result in severe legal punishment…….]
That was the kind of message they sent.
Once you received that text, you officially couldn’t enter dungeons until you took the magic power test.
Of course, even if I said I’d gone there, once the test was conducted, the reaction would be something like, “Wow, this bastard went all the way to Eldorad and just wasted his time.” That was how pathetic my situation was.
But would that really be the only reaction?
Maybe something else would come up.
Something like, ‘Could that guy have brought back something good and be hiding it?’
And if I got caught by some madman who wanted to confirm that rumor, it probably wouldn’t end with simple torture.
That was why I was hiding the fact that I had gone to Eldorad from the start.
Because that was safer.
In any case, there were plenty of Hunters in the world whose whereabouts were unclear because they were in closed-door training or for some other reason.
There was no need for me to rush either.
‘Let’s rest a few more days.’
And then I’d slowly start looking for porter work again.
Of course, it wouldn’t be easy.
I had no status window and no skills, so I was powerless.
Even among porters, not all porters were the same.
At the very least, if you had a status window, you could learn skills, and even a tiny Inventory skill would change how you were treated as a porter.
“I want a status window too….”
Muttering weakly, I launched the game I had downloaded yesterday.
It was my own way of escaping reality, if only for a moment.
Before going to Eldorad, I had played various games.
When I came back yesterday and checked, the two-year gap was much larger than I had expected.
With all sorts of content added and updates made, even returning players found it difficult to keep up.
To close the gap, I would need to spend a lot of money and put in a lot of effort.
I just deleted them without regret.
I would be busy from now on, so I couldn’t afford to spend that much time.
And the game I downloaded yesterday. [Eldorad]
This was fairly refreshing.
I had some complaints about a few elements, but as far as I knew, it was the first game set in another world.
On top of that, you operated a dungeon and set monsters as your lieutenants.
“By the way, what exactly is the goal of this game?”
Unlike games these days with long tutorials, it was far too unfriendly.
I couldn’t even get a sense of what I was supposed to aim for.
Was it literally just telling me to raise a dungeon and wreak havoc?
If I’d known this would happen, I shouldn’t have skipped the story at the start.
I stopped worrying about what had already passed and looked at my dungeon on the screen.
- Lieutenant ‘Celia Ishahar’ is managing the dungeon.
When I looked at the screen, the one I’d set as my lieutenant was moving around busily here and there.
Mm. She’s working hard.
That’s right, considering how much money I invested in you, you’d better work hard.
If the dungeon suddenly gets breached, I’ll be quite disappointed.
I looked at the gold I had obtained while spending cash yesterday.
It said exactly 100,000 gold.
“What can I do with this?”
Did it hear my muttering?
A new window suddenly popped up on the screen.
- Would you like to expand the dungeon? Gold is required for expansion.
Dungeon expansion?
It was true that the dungeon was too small right now.
The dungeon’s name was “Nest of the Evil God,” but because it was small, it looked shabby and unfitting.
‘Let’s expand it first.’
When you think of a dungeon, you naturally think of monsters and traps guarding it. But if it was small, what was the point no matter how many troops there were?
If troops were clumped together in a small space and the enemies used splash attacks, there was nothing more fatal than that.
And for now, my lieutenant Celia should be able to defend it alone.
- The dungeon has been expanded. 10,000 gold has been deducted.
- The dungeon has been expanded. 10,000 gold has been deducted.
I used all 100,000 gold on expansion.
Seeing the dungeon enlarged from the expansion made me feel rather proud.
The small cave had somehow turned into a long, wide cave stretching underground.
Even if intruders came, it would take a lot of time for them to reach the end of the dungeon.
From now on, I could slowly place monsters and traps along the passageways.
Of course, since there shouldn’t be any intruders right now due to the dungeon concealment effect, that could be put on hold.
The effects of expanding the dungeon weren’t limited to that.
- The [Altar] system has been activated due to dungeon expansion.
- The lieutenant can offer sacrifices to the dungeon’s master.
- The master can absorb a portion of the sacrifice’s abilities.
“Oh, so this is how you get stronger.”
I roughly understood what kind of system it was.
Of course, to use this Altar system, there had to be intruders in the dungeon.
“Or can’t I just send her outside?”
Since the question occurred to me, I tried to send Celia, whom I had set as my lieutenant, outside the dungeon.
- This function has not yet been opened.
It was a function I couldn’t use yet.
It was a shame, but I had learned a little about how I should play the game from now on.
Anyway, should I move on to the next thing?
“All right, now it’s dress-up time.”
I had changed the 3-star monster I had set as my lieutenant yesterday into a 6-star one.
And then, wasn’t there a gift sitting in my mailbox?
- First 6-star achievement reward!
- Gift clothes to your lieutenant and raise their affection!
- Costume Selection Ticket (S) x1
After loyalty came affection?
As expected, there were more than one or two things to pay attention to.
At least the reward was generous.
It was an S-rank costume.
At this level, wouldn’t affection go up quickly too?
After receiving it directly from the mailbox, I tapped the Costume Selection Ticket.
- You have used the Costume Selection Ticket.
At the same time, all sorts of clothes filled the screen.
From a bear-shaped mascot head to pajamas, dresses, and other ordinary clothes, there was even a variety of highly revealing outfits.
‘Why is this S-rank?’
The stats weren’t shown, only the appearance.
But it wasn’t as if the appearance was particularly unique either.
If that was the case, there was no need to think too hard.
I immediately chose the maid outfit.
For an image of a lieutenant managing a dungeon, a maid outfit was the obvious choice.
I absolutely didn’t choose it because I liked it; I chose it because it fit the image.
It was a simple but excellent choice.
Maid Outfit (S) - Reduces damage received from holy attacks by 90%.
“Oh.”
When I clicked on the maid outfit I received, the stats were amazing too.
It really was S-rank.
I immediately tapped Celia, my lieutenant, and clicked [Gift].
- You have gifted Maid Outfit (S) to ‘Celia Ishahar.’
- ‘Celia Ishahar’s affection has reached 100.
- ‘Celia Ishahar’ has declared that from now on, any act of insulting her master is an act of looking down on her as well, and that she and her master are one.
The response was fast.
Sure enough.
Her affection also instantly hit the maximum.
“From now on, you’ll wear that outfit while managing the dungeon.”
Celia looked truly good in the maid outfit.
* * *
Celia cleaned and managed every corner of the dungeon in order to carry out the commands of her master, Lord Lee Ganghyeon.
Fortunately, she had memories of managing a dungeon from when she had once been the disciple of the Succubus Queen.
Based on those memories, Celia worked hard so as not to become a burden to her master.
Her master was the noble being she served, and he was a god.
He had easily rescued her from the heavily guarded White Order, even though she had been underground.
If someone like that was not great, then who could be?
Around the time she was thinking that.
The dungeon suddenly trembled.
“What is this…?”
Her surprise lasted only a moment.
The size of the dungeon was increasing rapidly.
She was dumbfounded.
To think he could increase the size of a dungeon without any effort at all.
She had never heard of or seen such an ability.
If increasing the size of a dungeon were that easy in the first place, dungeon masters wouldn’t fight one another over ownership issues.
How much labor and time did it take to expand a dungeon? The funds required were no joke either.
And yet her master had expanded the dungeon to this extent with nothing but his ability.
“As expected, are you a supreme being?”
Celia’s surprise did not end there.
A single outfit suddenly appeared before her.
It was a maid outfit.
‘…….’
It was not a simple maid outfit.
She felt some kind of tremendous power from it.
‘Where did he obtain such clothing?’
As expected, her master was an incredible person, and Celia vowed that she would do her utmost with all her strength for the rest of her life.
* * *
“Priest, it is dangerous. Would it not be better to return? Did the Order not fall into an uproar yesterday because one of the sealing stones disappeared?”
A mountain range in the Kingdom of Seil. Two men were climbing a mountain path.
One man wore priestly robes, while the other was dressed in ordinary clothes and had a standard-issue holy sword at his waist.
A priest and a paladin.
In truth, they were an apprentice priest and a paladin.
The paladin stood above the apprentice priest, but the paladin spoke respectfully to the man who was an apprentice priest and lowered his stance.
The reason was that he was no ordinary person.
The apprentice priest’s name was Yuel.
His ability was the “Eye of Insight.”
It was an ability that saw through everything, and it was also the reason Yuel had drawn the Order’s attention.
Some said this.
The one who would lead the Order in the future was Yuel.
Because he could see through everything, it was easy to eliminate the heretics designated by the Order.
To the Order, Yuel’s existence was nothing short of a blessing.
That was why he was soon to be formally ordained as a priest.
“Don’t worry. What was released from the sealing stone was a succubus, wasn’t it? A 3-star one at that.”
The meaning of his words was simple.
There was no need to make a fuss over a mere 3-star.
A 3-star monster was effectively nothing.
He even wondered why such a monster had been sealed in the Order’s underground in the first place.
It would be another matter if it were 5-star.
To begin with, a 5-star existence was not something one could encounter while walking down the road.
A 5-star monster was truly calamity-class.
If such a being moved, even cities would be on high alert and keep watch.
Even if, by an extremely slim chance, he encountered a 5-star monster, Yuel had a decisive trump card.
Because Yuel was an important asset, the Order had provided him with a high-grade artifact.
It was none other than a sacred relic of the Order.
Knowing that fact, the paladin also nodded.
There was currently no one who could threaten them.
If they merely showed their Order identification, even nobles would bow their stiff necks.
If there was one problem, it would be beings even higher than 5-star.
But such monsters were truly rare.
Rare enough that one might or might not see one in a lifetime.
Of course, there were records of a 7-star appearing several hundred years ago.
It was said to have nearly swallowed the continent, but now it was only a story of the past.
In reality, even that story was now no different from legend, so they did not even take it into consideration.
How long had they climbed the mountain?
Yuel’s footsteps stopped.
“What is it, Priest?”
“There is a cave.”
A cave?
The paladin tilted his head.
The place Yuel pointed to with his hand had nothing but vines.
However, Yuel’s ability, [Eye of Insight], indicated that there was a hidden cave beyond the vines.
[Nest of the Evil God]
“Nest of the Evil God, huh….”
If there was one fortunate thing, it was that he could not feel the aura of a dungeon.
“Sir Knight, it seems there are heretics here after all.”
Yuel’s expression turned cold.