Episode 9. Beyond F-Rank
“Huh, what’s going on with this?”
Hunter Association Observation Room.
Observation room employee Yu Jae-yeop opened his eyes wide in surprise at the sudden rampage phenomenon.
“What’s going on?”
“L-look at this!”
Han Seung-jin looked at where Yu Jae-yeop was pointing and let out a low sigh.
“Sigh… A dungeon rampage? Why are so many incidents happening these days!”
A dungeon rampage phenomenon known to occur in 5-star dungeons had now appeared in a 2-star dungeon.
They had just finished wrapping up the simultaneous dungeon emergence incidents from not long ago—just yesterday, in fact—so this strange phenomenon happening again inevitably gave him a headache.
“S-Senior, what should we do?”
“First, pull up the list of hunters who entered the dungeon.”
The dungeon rampage phenomenon was known to transform a dungeon into one of a higher level.
If the hunters who had entered now possessed enough skill to clear a 3-star dungeon without difficulty, it might not be a major threat.
“Here it is.”
Han Seung-jin looked at the list that had been pulled up in no time.
He couldn’t help but mutter a curse under his breath.
“Two C-ranks and an F-rank?! Ha… We’ll have to collect the corpses first….”
“Senior, then what should we do?”
“Nonhyeon was Baekho’s territory, right? Contact Baekho first. Tell them to dispatch guild members quickly.”
Watching his junior make the call to Baekho Guild, Han Seung-jin couldn’t help but sigh.
‘Why are there so many incidents happening lately?’
***
“Wh-what is this…!”
The spine-chilling huge aura he felt inside lasted only a moment.
Sin Dae urgently swung his sword at the red tentacles that suddenly shot out.
Glancing to the side, he found I Do-hun being dragged inside, flustered as tentacles bound him in several places.
“Th-this!”
He urgently swung his greatsword, but because his wrist was bound, he couldn’t swing it properly, and the tentacles wouldn’t cut.
Fear began to rise on I Do-hun’s face as he was gradually pulled into the room.
“Do-hun!”
Sin Dae rushed over to try to cut the tentacles, but more tentacles kept lunging at him.
Even after cutting away more than ten tentacles, they showed no sign of decreasing, forcing Sin Dae to harden his expression.
‘Just how many are there….’
“S-Sin Dae oppa!”
Sin Dae had been focusing on urgently cutting the tentacles before his eyes.
At Jo Hye-yun’s voice, he hurriedly looked to the side and discovered a massive mouth lunging at him.
‘What on earth is this….’
Sin Dae dodged the massive mouth.
Watching the mouth smack its lips as if disappointed before slowly disappearing back into the room was a spine-chilling situation.
However, completely mismatched with such an atmosphere, his saliva began to pool even more.
‘You like something like that?’
Having gained composure after dodging the mouth, Sin Dae rushed to I Do-hun and cut the tentacles, allowing him to rise with an expression of someone who had come back from the dead.
“Th-thank you, Sin Dae.”
The gratitude was short-lived.
Sin Dae and his party sensed something gradually crawling out of the boss room.
A gigantic red slime revealed itself as it slowly emerged from the room.
What differentiated it from other slimes was its hundreds of tentacles, each seemingly over 3 meters long, and its massive mouth.
“Ah…..”
Jo Hye-yun let out a despairing sigh at the appearance of the gigantic red slime.
Sin Dae gripped the longsword in his hand and looked at the red slime smacking its lips.
‘I wonder if it tastes good….’
Unlike the others feeling terror, his first thought was curiosity about what it would taste like.
He could only think this was because of his Gluttony skill.
“L-let’s run….”
“That’ll be impossible, won’t it?”
I Do-hun spoke with difficulty, but Sin Dae shook his head after seeing the hundreds of tentacles.
Perhaps because his appetite—one of human desires—was stimulated, Sin Dae felt no fear.
‘If it’s a slime, this should work, right?’
Sin Dae took out the [Grilled Burning Sapling] he had cooked in advance using his skill from inside his clothes.
As a sweetness and bitterness like that of grilled deodeok root spread through his mouth, flames began to flicker on his longsword.
“S-Sin Dae, fire on your sword?”
“Do-hun, please block a few attacks. Hye-yun, focus all your heals on Do-hun.”
Looking at the expressions of I Do-hun and Jo Hye-yun as they nodded, Sin Dae raised his flickering longsword and charged quickly.
Hundreds of tentacles rained down toward Sin Dae.
He evaded them as if performing a feat of acrobatics.
It would have been impossible without agility surpassing 100.
‘More… just a bit more….’
The slime shrieked when its hundreds of tentacles failed to touch Sin Dae.
Moreover, when I Do-hun and Jo Hye-yun in front began to divert its attention and annoy it, Sin Dae saw the creature’s flustered appearance.
“It has to be here!”
The location of the core of the slimes he had butchered up until now.
No matter how much bigger it had grown, it couldn’t deceive Sin Dae’s trained eye.
Sin Dae gripped his longsword tightly and stabbed at the part where the core was located.
Hearing the slime scream in agony, he knew he had stabbed the exact right spot.
‘It still won’t die?’
Sin Dae smirked at the monster that didn’t die after several stabs, unlike other slimes.
Dodging the flying tentacles, he took out the apprentice knife from inside his clothes.
“Let’s see who dies…”
Holding the longsword in one hand and the apprentice knife in the other, Sin Dae ignored the tentacles rushing at his body and continued stabbing at the core area.
‘It’s more endurable than I thought…’
Thanks to his stamina stat exceeding 100 and the increased recovery from eating [Blue Slime] meat, he could endure.
Sin Dae could feel from the weakening strength of the flying tentacles that the red slime was weakening under his continued attacks.
While several rough knife strikes continued.
A welcome message appeared before his eyes.
[Your level has increased.]
[Your level has increased.]
The fact that his levels had risen by two at once conveyed the success of the hunt.
Perhaps because the tension had broken, Sin Dae slumped down where he stood, and a snicker escaped him.
‘I caught a 3-star monster…’
Last time he could only endure the monster; this time, although it was a party hunt, he had succeeded in killing it.
It was thanks to his higher stats than back then and the meat of the [Burning Sapling] and [Blue Slime], but succeeding in the hunt was still succeeding.
“Haha… I hunted a 3-star monster….”
The highest monster an F-rank could catch even after growing as much as possible was 2-star.
Hunting a 3-star monster meant that Sin Dae was no longer F-rank.
‘And… this guy…’
Catching his breath, Sin Dae had already recovered his stamina.
He looked at the collapsed red slime exuding red mucus before his eyes and barely held back a laugh that felt like it would burst out.
“I’ll eat well, you bastard.”
Tossing aside the broken longsword at some point, Sin Dae began butchering the red slime with his apprentice knife.
***
[Stamina has increased by 26.]
[You have consumed the meat desired by Gluttony 3 times.]
[All stats increase by 3.]
‘It doesn’t surprise me anymore…’
Sin Dae smirked at the situation where his stamina had increased by 26 and all his stats by 3.
I Do-hun and Jo Hye-yun approached him and looked at Sin Dae as if surprised.
‘N-not a single wound?’
‘He didn’t receive a single heal, so how?’
I Do-hun, who had been receiving heals constantly, had also recovered from minor wounds by now as he approached Sin Dae.
They couldn’t help but show astonished expressions upon seeing Sin Dae without a single wound.
“Is everyone alright?”
“Y-yes….. are you okay, Sin Dae?”
Knowing that Sin Dae had been the one continuously landing successful attacks, I Do-hun asked cautiously, and Sin Dae smirked and nodded.
“I’m fine, thanks. Anyway, shall we clean this up and get out of here?”
I Do-hun and Jo Hye-yun looked at where Sin Dae was pointing.
Seeing the equipment left there, their eyes widened.
‘E-equipment items!?’
A longsword and a shield lay on the floor.
The two couldn’t help but widen their eyes at the fact that equipment items—which rarely came out of dungeons—had appeared.
“J-jackpot…. These are equipment items, right?”
“I think the rewards were bigger because it’s a rampaged dungeon.”
Sin Dae casually picked up the longsword.
Though it was rusted, he could feel an aura incomparable to the longsword he had used until now.
‘This is pretty good…’
Sin Dae thought that if he repaired and used it, he wouldn’t have to worry about equipment for a while.
I Do-hun, watching Sin Dae from the side, grinned.
“I think it’d be best if you took this equipment, Sin Dae.”
“Ah… sigh… I suppose that’s the way it should be?”
“Me?”
Jo Hye-yun sighed regretfully. However, she also seemed to think that Sin Dae should have it, and soon shook her head, dismissing her thoughts.
“We wouldn’t have gotten this equipment if it weren’t for Sin Dae anyway, so what….”
I Do-hun said, shrugging his shoulders.
“If that’s the case… well, it can’t be helped….”
Though his words trailed off, the corners of Sin Dae’s mouth rose to his ears.
He wanted to hurry to an appraisal center to get the equipment identified.
***
The party, having even packed the red slime’s magic stone, exited the dungeon and widened their eyes in surprise at the crowd gathered around them.
“Huh?! Weren’t you dead?”
The man who looked at them in surprise was Yu Tae-hun, leader of Baekho Guild’s Raid Team 2, whom Sin Dae recognized from having seen him on the news a few times.
‘Th-the Baekho Guild?’
It was clear that Baekho Guild had rushed over due to the sudden dungeon rampage.
More than this fact, Sin Dae felt a strange hope that Ga-yeon might also be here since the guild she was in had arrived.
“What about the boss monster? No, no, first of all, congratulations on escaping.”
Yu Tae-hun looked down at them with a smirk.
He thought that if the hunters before him had succeeded in escaping, the monster’s rank wouldn’t be that high.
“Well…..”
“If you have something to say.”
“We hunted it?”
“What?”
“Th… the monster….”
At I Do-hun’s words, Yu Tae-hun’s eyes widened in shock.