[??? Dungeon: Low risk]
[??? Dungeon: No risk]
[??? Dungeon: Very low risk]
[??? Dungeon: No risk]
An interface announcing the appearance of a dungeon flashed on the streets as people passed by casually. Around twenty of them had spawned in downtown Seoul, with a dozen times that number appearing on a national scale. Around the world, however, the cases were nearly uncountable. Numerous people had been chosen as player candidates to respond to the catastrophe happening around the world. But most of them, with no abilities at all, ended up dying before they could even clear the test dungeon.
Even with the new players’ clamor to receive basic instruction about the system, most veterans of the dungeons would opt to ignore them. It didn’t help that the difficulty of the test dungeon became much higher. Not even beginner players teeming with courage and confidence could beat their way through it with heroism alone.
“The whole world is full of dungeons!”
Jung Si-woo, who was already determined to level up, was filled with excitement over the thought of having a buffet of dungeons to choose from freely.
“Where should I go first?”
Jung Si-woo asked like a child excited to go to the playground.
“We should go to the easiest ones first because you still need to master your combat skills.”
“Alright, we’ll start with the easy ones, but we should also go to dungeons with normal difficulty, too, right?”
“Of course. But first, the easy ones.”
Jung Si-woo wanted a dungeon that could bring him the same thrill as the battle he had with the armored orc. But he knew that wasn’t a wise thing to do until he had acquired enough skills and level to beat opponents of that caliber safely. Another thing to consider was that there was no way to fully know what kind of opponents were waiting in a dungeon until he entered. Fortunately for them, a lot of dungeons around Jung Si-woo’s level appeared. Fighting high-level monsters in difficult dungeons could wait. Anyway, it was possible to train one’s skill, earn experience, and gather beads regardless of the dungeon’s difficulty.
[Ant Cave Area #231 Slime Sewage Treatment Plant]
[Clear time limit – 3:00:00]
Jung Si-woo chose an easy dungeon that was labeled “no risk,” thinking he would be able to meet a dead player candidate from the test dungeon. But he found no ghosts upon entering. Instead, he found a mysterious dark-green slime monster slithering on the floor.
“Is that slime what I think it is?”
“Yes, I met a couple of them, too, when I was still starting out as a player.”
Slimes were notorious for being weak monsters. They were a staple in almost all fantasy stories and games, where they were farmed for experience by players who just began their journey. The general perception was that they were too weak to pose any significant threat to anyone, but their real origins said otherwise. Historically, slimes had been described as having excellent physical attack immunity due to their soft body composition. Alone, they were easy to deal with, but when they appear in a horde, they had the potential to sweep everything away.
But since this one was alone, there wasn’t any real danger to Si-woo. The easy dungeon he was looking for proved to be way too easy for him.
“Just poke it, and it will probably pop.”
“Okay.”
Jung Si-woo did as she suggested, and the slime monster quickly burst into a pile of harmless goo. Normally, they had some form of resistance to physical attacks, but not even that was enough to offer any real defense against Jung Si-woo. Jung Si-woo felt like he was playing a simple game — and a very easy one at that.
[Glop!]
[Beep!]
[Quoong!]
Slimes weren’t very smart creatures. In fact, whether they possessed some form of intelligence was debatable. This was proven even more when hordes of them burst into the room, triggered by Jung Si-woo’s active skill “War Cry.” With all his opponents gathered in one place, Jung Si-woo activated “Battle Sprint,” a skill that wasn’t typically used offensively, but since his opponents were weak slimes, just running over them was enough to finish them.
Before this dungeon, Jung Si-woo would’ve never thought that he could kill anyone just by running over them using “Battle Sprint.” The “War Cry” and “Battle Sprint” combo proved to be exceptionally useful in this situation. Jung Si-woo considered relying on these two skills in future dungeons with the easy difficulty. It would save him a lot of time and mana if he could just run around the dungeon and crush his opponents under his heels.
“Uh, I see the boss room.”
Soo Ah-rin interrupted his reverie. After popping all the slimes in the dungeon in less than twenty minutes, Jung Si-woo and Soo Ah-rin finally reached the boss room. Soo Ah-rin, who was busy collecting the beads and dollars dropped by the fallen slimes, couldn’t help wondering if she was still playing the role of a supporter or if she was tolerating Jung Si-woo’s mischief. She sighed, not knowing the answer.
“Okay, let’s go clear it!”
Jung Si-woo exclaimed, beaming with vigor. Without waiting for Soo Ah-rin’s approval, Jung Si-woo swung open the doors and rushed inside. Inside, a gigantic slime slept. Its size meant that Jung Si-woo wouldn’t be able to dispose of it like how he dealt with the lesser slimes outside. Realizing the need for a different strategy, Jung Si-woo pulled out his trusty hammer from his inventory without even stopping for a breath, all while he kept running using his “Battle Sprint” skill. Jung Si-woo planned on using a different two-skill combo to deal with the boss.
He jumped in the air, using the momentum from “Battle Sprint” to increase his leap height. With hammer in hand, he was about to land what he thought was a decisive strike. Soo Ah-rin entered the room a few moments before Jung Si-woo’s attack hit. She watched Jung Si-woo’s perfect posture mid-air. The moment the hammer hit the slime’s body, a strange light radiated from the monster’s body.
[Quaahahahahahah!]
The gigantic slime’s body burst into countless slobs of goo. It was an instant death sentence for the sleeping boss.
“I failed.”
Jung Si-woo mumbled under his breath. He successfully beat the boss, but he failed at creating a new skill using his last attack. He planned to use “Battle Sprint” to generate a new attack skill that utilized one’s speed to increase one’s power, but all he managed to do was one of his regular powerful hammer swings. What Ah-rin said about managing one’s mana was more difficult than he thought.
“What’s that?”
“It’s nothing.”
[Dungeon Clear]
[Time cleared 0:17:05]
[Smile Kill 341, Big Slime 1]
[Special Achievement ‘Speed Runner’]
[Agility increased by 5]
Special achievements were rewards given to players who fulfilled special requirements when they cleared the dungeon. In Jung Si-woo’s case, he received a special achievement for clearing the dungeon quickly. What made this special achievement great was the stat boost it gave Jung Si-woo. After clearing the dungeon, his Agility increased by five. Normally, when a player leveled up by one, their agility stat would increase by two.
This was good news for Jung Si-woo, who thought he could only gain skills through other special achievements. He could already feel his body changing the moment his Agility rose. He felt lighter and quicker already.
“You look much stronger now.”.
“I do feel stronger.”
Jung Si-woo enjoyed the feeling of strength as he waited for the dungeon to announce his clear rank.
[Clear Rank-EX]
[Additional Reward, Big Slime Essence Fragment]
[Big Slime Essence Fragment]
[An item that contains the essence and power of a Big Slime. Ingesting the item will grant you similar powers to a Big Slime.]
[Experience calculation completed.]
There wasn’t much to expect from the easy dungeons. Because they were “no risk” dungeons, it was expected that their clear rewards wouldn’t be that great. But, since Jung Si-Woo achieved a clear rank EX, he got a pretty nice item drop in the form of the Big Slime Essence Fragment. Soo Ah-rin’s eyes widened upon seeing the essence fragment in Jung Si-woo’s hands. It wasn’t a totally overpowered or high-class item, but it wasn’t exactly something she expected to find in a dungeon of this level.
“I can’t believe you got an essence fragment in this kind of dungeon!”
Soo Ah-rin was unable to contain her excitement.
“Essence fragments contain the attributes and mana of the monster or boss they came from. These are things that aren’t normally found in low-level dungeons like this. Do you think there are other slime dungeons in downtown Seoul right now?”
Jung Si-woo stood silent for a moment, absorbing all the words Ah-rin just said. After a while, he nodded at her question. Rare rewards could only be received from the altar by offering beads of equal rarity, but that didn’t mean that low-level beads were automatically useless. Jung Si-woo saved up all of the beads he acquired in his resting place because even small things could pile up to form a huge mountain.
[??? Dungeon: Very low risk]
Within twenty minutes of entering and clearing another dungeon, a new one appeared somewhere on the map.
“This entire series of events kind of feels like the Earth’s way of preventing environmental pollution by reducing the population.”
Jung Si-woo wondered out-loud.
“It’s scary, isn’t it?”
It was very tragic to think that many ant cave dungeons originated from the test dungeons, but Jung Si-woo didn’t have the heart to mourn for the lost lives. If he wanted to become strong, he needed to challenge himself, to take risks. The appearance of more dungeons where he could collect items like essence fragments made him happy.
Jung Si-woo and Soo Ah-rin agreed that their primary objective, for now, was to collect as many Big Slime essence fragments as they could. Jung Si-woo eagerly entered another dungeon he found in a back alley.
[Ant Cave Area #237 Rat Paradise]
[Clear time limit: 4:00:00]
“Rat…”
Jung Si-woo’s was clearly disappointed. Meanwhile, Soo Ah-rin’s expression went pale. Jung Si-woo tilted his head in confusion, wondering what could upset someone as strong as Soo Ah-rin.
“One of the dungeons that all beginners avoid as much as possible is the rat dungeon. Even I avoided this, too, back then.”
“Why? What’s so scary about the rat dungeon?”
Soo Ah-rin’s expression turned grim as if she recalled a distant and horrifying memory.
“In most dungeons, the monsters are easily recognizable as monsters. Even if it’s a dog or a beast monster, it’s possible to recognize its threat level from just one glance.”
Soo Ah-rin paused, her expression turning darker.
“However, the rats in the rat dungeon all look like typical rats from the outside. Clueless players would dismiss them, thinking that the actual monster they had to fight was a giant beast that took the form of a rat. Before they know it, they are already being swarmed by a horde of rats.”
Soo Ah-rin paused to take a breath before she continued.
“This is a dungeon where your opponent doesn’t fight with skill or strategy, but one where your opponent relies on their sheer numbers to overwhelm players. Tens of thousands of rats will swarm against unsuspecting victims, eating away at their armor, weapons, and even their entire bodies.”
What Soo Ah-rin just explained was one of the most horrendous forms of death that one could encounter in a dungeon, but Jung Si-woo didn’t seem fazed at all.
“And what about the boss?”
“The boss room is worse. There, you’ll face hundreds of rats much larger than the ones in the dungeon.”
“How about their level? Are they lower than the other dungeon monsters?”
“Yes, they’re lower. But that doesn’t matter when they can attack in groups.”
A bright smile slowly curved in Jung Si-woo’s lips despite the grimness of Soo Ah-rin’s explanation.
“It won’t matter at all.”
