Episode #007. C-Rank Dungeon (1)
First, when I thought about it from a historical perspective, the message floating before my eyes couldn’t possibly be a joke or anything like that.
So, giving me—who had just reached E-Rank—only one week to clear a C-Rank dungeon… saying they’d just kill me if I failed… it was all real….
“Fuck, how am I supposed to do this?”
It was an utterly absurd condition.
This was absolutely impossible.
There was no point even arguing about it.
“If it’s C-Rank, I feel like I’d get sliced apart the moment I entered.”
It was a problem on a completely different dimension from being able to deal with E-Rank Black Hunters back when I was F-Rank.
Without their unique ability, F-Rank was essentially at the level of an ordinary person. In Hunter terms, it was like a tutorial, so the period one remained in that state was extremely short to begin with.
The experience needed to rise from F-Rank to E-Rank was at most about twenty F-Rank dungeons’ worth.
Even an ordinary F-Rank Hunter didn’t take a week to reach E-Rank.
So, compared to E-Rank, while the gap in power became clear due to the rank difference, the absolute gap between them from the start wasn’t that large.
However, after entering E-Rank and becoming a proper Hunter, things were different.
Because the amount of experience required swelled exponentially as Rank increased, the very standard of power completely changed when moving from E to D, or D to C.
Especially C-Rank was the point where both Hunters and monsters began to surpass a certain singularity.
If an E-Rank body like mine was shoved in there, my neck would fall off before I even realized I was dying.
“I can’t even raise my Rank in a week.”
And even if I tried to raise my Rank to face it head-on, time was sorely lacking.
A standard E-Rank Hunter’s tightest possible daily schedule was running about six dungeons per day with a five-person party.
If one put in effort every single day without skipping even one, they generally became a D-Rank Hunter in about a year.
On the other hand, thanks to the curse I obtained this time, [Contempt], I could reliably clear about twelve per day alone just by running, so I could raise my Rank at least ten times faster.
But even then, it was over a month.
No matter how much I cut that down, I couldn’t make it a week.
“Getting carried… won’t work either.”
It wasn’t solo clear but just clear, so even if others did all the work and I merely added a spoon, it would count as a clear.
But to just ride the bus, I’d need to call at least five C-Rank Hunters, or B-Rank Hunters.
The problem was that from C-Rank onward, most were veterans deeply embedded in this industry.
Among them, it was extremely rare to find someone who didn’t know me, who had existed as Cheonhye’s greatest prospect for a full three years.
So, if word got around that I was suddenly recruiting people to conquer a C-Rank dungeon, it would immediately leak to Cheonhye, followed by an investigation.
Then my study and the abilities I currently possessed would all be exposed, and they’d surely wring out even my soul.
And for the sake of risk prevention, I’d quietly end up a corpse.
“Private agencies would be difficult too.”
For the same reason, it was hard to go through the underworld.
Cheonhye, whose master was the sole EX-Rank Hunter in the Republic of Korea—not government-affiliated, but the owner of a private guild—was essentially an organization existing above the nation.
Though they didn’t openly show it, those guys who rightfully handled even national public security based on absolute power had also extended their sinister reach into illegal matters.
This country’s underworld was practically all theirs, so it was obvious that even if I went that route, my information would flow into Cheonhye.
“Sneaking in to freeload… would be too dangerous.”
If I entered a dungeon mid-clear slightly late, other Hunters wouldn’t catch me, and anyway, since I was inside the dungeon, it would be recognized as a clear.
However, even at D-Rank, to prevent unauthorized intruders, it was common to install traps at the entrance that activated the moment one entered.
And those were enough to send even a Hunter of equivalent rank straight to the afterlife in one blow.
There was no doubt that if I, two ranks below, took that hit, it would be instant death.
Of course, depending on the case, there might be parties that didn’t set traps… but the probability of that above C-Rank was extremely low.
“Damn it….”
I felt like I’d thought of every possible method, but no proper solution was in sight.
Frankly, if it weren’t for Cheonhye, I could just hire other Hunters with the cash I had and get carried through it, but their existence had grabbed me by the ankle.
But I couldn’t just give up like this and wait for my death either.
“There’s no way….”
I racked my brain as hard as I could.
Let’s slowly recall what I can mobilize right now.
“2 billion won in cash, sorcery talismans, curses… ah.”
Then, one thing suddenly flashed through my mind.
My gaze turned toward the books lodged in the bookshelf.
“Can I take them out?”
Come to think of it, they were weapons that radiated curses simply by existing.
If I took all roughly twenty of them out, even ordinary monsters, not to mention bosses, would melt upon contact, so I could definitely break straight through up to D-Rank dungeons.
Then my Rank would rise much faster, and if I quickly reached D-Rank, combined with enhanced talismans and additional curses obtainable from the expanded study… if I wove everything together as much as possible, I might be able to brush up against C-Rank.
Theoretically, it was sufficient.
But sadly, that thought was immediately blocked.
Thud-!
As I tried to take out one book, the moment I passed a certain range from the bookshelf, my body was violently flung back toward the bookshelf.
[Forbidden books cannot be removed.]
“Ah, so I can’t.”
A plan that had seemed brilliant was crushed instantly.
I cleanly shook it off and reverted my thoughts back to just before.
Hmm… let’s first examine what I have.
“Cash… is hard to use.”
If I were just squandering it that would be one thing, but for Hunter-related matters, I couldn’t help but worry about Cheonhye.
At least in the domestic Hunter industry, the moment I made a big move openly, I’d be caught.
“Curses… are a bit ambiguous too.”
Both curses performed tremendously well, but there wasn’t much I could actually do with them.
[Contempt] could only be used against those E-Rank or lower, and within the current time limit, it was hard to see its proper effect.
Also, [Exhaustion] certainly seemed powerful enough to be usable in D-Rank dungeons, but because its range was barely over 2 meters, I couldn’t recklessly enter a D-Rank dungeon actually relying on it.
At D-Rank, it would definitely take more time to die, but for me, who hadn’t awakened a combat-type unique ability and was one rank lower, maintaining a proper distance among such groups and buying time would be considerably straining.
Of course, this would all be solved if my curse rank rose… but to do that, I’d have to kill people, and I couldn’t do that.
…For those reasons, money and curses didn’t seem to offer any real solutions.
So the only thing left was sorcery talismans….
“Talismans… ah. Right.”
In an instant, one hopeful fact flashed through my mind.
“This expanded too, right?”
As my Rank rose, more recipes that had been restricted should have opened up.
I immediately opened the [Sorcery Talisman] recipe.
[Tehimata-Style Sorcery Talisman]
-F-Rank Curse-Warding Talisman
-F-Rank Strength Talisman
-F-Rank Swiftness Talisman
…….
The introduction starting the same as before.
When I scrolled down, as expected, a list I hadn’t seen before began to appear.
-E-Rank Curse-Warding Talisman
-E-Rank Strength Talisman
-E-Rank Swiftness Talisman
…….
Talismans with just the rank changed from the original ones… over a hundred basic types.
And there were additional ones attached after that.
-Talisman of Concealment
-Special Essence Formation
-Special Sorcery Medium Formation
Ones without ranks attached, unlike the others.
I checked the information and recipe for the first visible one, [Talisman of Concealment].
[Talisman of Concealment]
While held, completely hides the user’s existence, limited to a stationary state.
-Special Essence * 10
-Special Sorcery Medium * 1
“Completely hides…?”
And the moment I saw it, I knew immediately.
“This could work?”
If I made this, I could get through this quest.
I could enter the dungeon first and wait, then when the others cleared it and left, I could leave then and receive clear credit.
I could avoid the traps that way too, so it was sufficiently possible.
“Sigh… but it’s a bit strange.”
For a moment, a sharp unease brushed across my mood.
It hadn’t even been a full day since I opened the study… but things I needed came out all too promptly, almost too conveniently.
Honestly, it was to the point of feeling strange.
“Well, good is good.”
But I didn’t bother thinking about it too complicatedly.
If you look at biographies of great people, successful lives always work out that way, right?
I guess my life is working out now too.
I shook off the momentary subtle déjà vu and turned my eyes back to the recipe.
But I couldn’t make the talisman right away.
“Special…?”
Special essence and special sorcery medium.
It required materials completely different from other talismans, ones I had never seen before.
“I think they were in the list earlier….”
I checked the bottom of the list again, at the things I hadn’t examined yet.
[Special Essence Formation]
Synthesizes ordinary essences to form special essence.
Higher grade material essences increase the formation probability.
-Essence * 10
[Special Sorcery Medium Formation]
Synthesizes ordinary sorcery media to form special sorcery medium.
Higher grade material sorcery media increase the formation probability.
-Sorcery Medium * 10
So they were made separately like this.
But reading closely, the contents were quite dizzying.
“…So I have to dump ten to get one?”
Seeing the word “synthesize,” that seemed to be the case.
In other words, to make a [Talisman of Concealment], I needed at least 100 essences and 10 sorcery media.
But that was literally the minimum; clearly, I’d have to run far more in practice.
-Higher grades increase formation probability.
If it was probability-based, they’d rip me off badly using the rank excuse again.
To check, I took out ten spare F-Rank essences from my bag and immediately ran special essence formation.
[Forming special essence.]
[Material essences: 10 F-Rank essences.]
[Formation probability adjusted to 10% according to material essence grade.]
[Special essence formation failed.]
The result was failure, as expected.
The clumps of blue light scattered into the air and disappeared in an instant.
But what caught my eye more than the failure was the mere 10% success probability.
At this rate, roughly calculated, it meant 1,000 essences and about 100 sorcery media….
It was an amount that would come out appropriately from running about 100 F-Rank dungeons.
“Since it’s one week….”
Considering the C-Rank dungeon clear time as well, my total allowed time was 6 days.
Based on F-Rank dungeons, I only needed to run exactly 17 per day.
I had [Contempt], optimized for running dungeons, but I couldn’t use it.
I had to extract essence, but if I kept [Contempt]’s effect active, everything would just disappear.
In other words, I had to very honestly run 17 F-Rank dungeons per day while picking up essences.
“Wow… fuck….”
The moment I realized that fact, I spat out a curse, and my legs moved toward the outside almost instinctively.
One week starting today.
I didn’t even have time to breathe.