8 - 14

Chapter 8: Chapter 8

Jin-Woo was surprised by the weighty voice coming from the corner of the hospital room, and hurriedly turned his head to look.

"I apologise if we took you by surprise."

"Unfortunately, we are unable to wait any longer."

Two men kitted out in black business suits approached Jin-Woo's bed. The youth tilted his head and asked them.

"Who…. are you?"

He had never seen these two's faces before.

One of them with the close-cropped hair like a soldier and wearing a pair of sunglasses presented him with a business card.

"This is who we are."

Jin-Woo received the business card and read what was written on it.

'Woo Jin-Cheol, the section chief of the Monitoring Division, the Korean Hunter's Association?'

The Monitoring Division was the only department in the Hunter's Association with many strong Hunters in their payroll. Well, since this department was tasked with managing the country's Hunters so, quite obviously, they would employ many high-class Hunters to facilitate that purpose.

"What does the Monitoring Division want from me?"

Woo Jin-Cheol dragged a chair closer to the bed and sat down. The other man, who must've been his subordinate, stood behind him.

The unspoken pressure emanating from the two buff guys staring down in close vicinity was quite heavy. The story they conveyed was rather surprising, though.

"I was unconscious for four days?!"

"By any chance, do you remember what happened before you blacked out?"

"Yes, I do."

"Please tell us everything you can remember."

Jin-Woo told them everything truthfully, minus the strange hallucinatory words he heard before he lost his consciousness.

"And that's when you lost your consciousness… Is that all?"

"Yes. I open my eyes next, and I'm in a hospital."

Woo Jin-Cheol and his lackey exchanged meaningful glances. For some reason, they seemed to be troubled by Jin-Woo's lack of knowledge.

Actually, Jin-Woo was the one who wanted to find out what happened the most in this room.

"Just how did I get to this hospital? Did a large Guild participate and kill those d*mn things?"

"Well, actually…."

Woo Jin-Cheol awkwardly opened his mouth.

"By the time the agents of the Monitoring Division and the White Tiger Guild arrived at the scene after being briefed by the survivors…."

The White Tiger Guild was a super-massive Guild and also one of the top five in the country. The Association had recognised the danger, hence they requested the aid of such a huge Guild as the White Tiger Guild in the first place.

Just what did happen back there?

Jin-Woo nervously swallowed a dry spit.

"By the time….?"

"….Everything was 'gone'. The only thing to be found within that open space was you, Mister Seong Jin-Woo. There was not one trace of the god statue nor the stone statues."

"Come again?!"

Jin-Woo displayed a shocked, disbelieving face.

"It's hard for us to believe it as well. If there had been any inconsistencies in the testimonies of the survivors, or if we had failed to find the remains of the victims in the chamber, we might have suspected something fishy was going on."

Woo Jin-Cheol scratched his chin.

It'd been six years since he got ranked as an 'A' and started working for the Monitoring Division. He could confidently say that he had witnessed and experienced pretty much everything during his tenure. However, this kind of situation was a first even for him.

He had asked other Guilds as well as the Associations in other countries, but the end result was nothing worthy to speak about.

That was why…

"So, this is what we've been thinking…."

Woo Jin-Cheol carefully opened his mouth.

"There were powerful creatures in that chamber, without a doubt. But, they were taken care of by an unknown group, or an unknown person. Because, no otherworldly beings escaped from the Gate before it was closed, you see."

They had to consider all the possibilities. Even if the odds were low, they had to confirm them all. The head honchos of the Association deliberated, and then deliberated for some more, and finally came up with a theory.

Woo Jin-Cheol carefully studied Jin-Woo's reactions as he continued on.

"We… suspect that Hunter Seong Jin-Woo-nim might have gone through another Awakening."

Another Awakening!

Jin-Woo's eyes shot open wide.

Although extremely rare, there had been instances of a human who had awakened his or her abilities as a Hunter going through yet another Awakening.

Often referred to as 'Re-Awakening', those who undergo this process would normally become extremely powerful compared to before.

Originally, once a Hunter's rank was assigned at the beginning, it rarely changed. A Hunter's abilities were determined the moment one went through an Awakening, that was why.

However, it was a different story for those going through the Re-Awakening process.

Jumping past their own limitations to rise up from, say, rank C to A, or even from B to S, such things had happened before.

Woo Jin-Cheol nervously swallowed his saliva.

'Seong Jin-Woo…. If he went through a Re-Awakening and became a rank S, no, maybe even exceeding that, then it's possible for him to kill those monsters all by himself.'

The god statue was said to have melted rank C Hunters with nothing but its eyes, according to the survivors.

If one were able to kill such a creature even while unconscious, just how powerful one could possibly be?

To prepare for this unlikeliest possibility, Woo Jin-Cheol labelled this incident as 'top secret' and made sure everyone involved would keep their mouths shut.

This was also the reason why Seong Jin-Woo found himself in a hospital room all alone, as well as being looked after by some of the finest medical practitioners in the nation.

Woo Jin-Cheol's chest began beating real fast.

'Could Korea finally have a Hunter on the level of an international powerhouse….?'

There were less than ten people in the entire world that could truly be described as a global powerhouse. But, what if Korea were to possess a powerhouse that were said to rival a nuclear warhead in terms of pure firepower?

Of course, confirming the truth of the Re-Awakening wasn't difficult at all. Didn't the wise elders once say to make hay while the sun still shines?

Woo Jin-Cheol signalled to his lackey.

"Bring it here."

Then, the lackey went to the corner of the room and began rummaging through a briefcase placed there.

"That is…?"

Before Jin-Woo could finish his question, Woo Jin-Cheol explained first.

"It's the device to measure your magic energy."

He added that, although this device had been miniaturised, its efficiency or accuracy did not fall short of the actual full-size measuring device located in the Hunter's Association.

"All you have to do is to place your hand on this magic crystal over here."

On top of a circular plate, there was a fist-sized magic crystal embedded in the middle. Its colour was pitch-black, as if it was a black hole that wanted to suck him in!

It was one of the highest quality magic crystals that cost as much as a billion won, not to mention that could only be found in monsters ranked A or higher. (TL: Almost $900,000)

When Jin-Woo stared at the magic crystal without saying anything, Woo Jin-Cheol formed a dignified, serious expression and spoke up.

"This is a necessary step during our investigation, so please, cooperate with us."

Jin-Woo nodded his head.

If he indeed had undergone a Re-Awakening, then his life would do a 180 in an instant. And they were going to test it out for him for free, so who was he to refuse?

Jin-Woo placed his hand on top of the black crystal and soon enough, warm rays of light oozed out from it.

Cold sweat drops formed on the foreheads of Woo Jin-Cheol and his lackey.

*SFX for a beam of light dissipating*

Not too long after then, the light surrounding the crystal dissipated.

Woo Jin-Cheol hurriedly took off his sunglasses and confirmed the numbers.

Right away, a small earthquake rocked Woo Jin-Cheol's eyes.

"How can this be?!"

He rechecked the numbers, but it remained the same.

'How can….'

How could a person holding a Hunter licence possess the magic energy value of only 10?!

When considering the fact that the lowest average value for rank E – the bottom rank – was around 70 to 100, Seong Jin-Woo was no different from a regular person.

"Is it really a Re-Awakening? If it is, what could be my new rank now?"

Jin-Woo's hands were soaked in the sweat of anticipation.

Seeing the suspicious reactions of the two Monitoring Division agents, the result must've been somewhat beyond their expectations.

Meanwhile, Woo Jin-Cheol was comparing the existing data on Jin-Woo with the new measurement.

'His first measurement returned the value of 12. Four years later, it's 10. It has decreased by 2, but it is within the margin of error.'

In other words, the magic energy measuring device was working fine. Instead, it was Seong Jin-Woo's magic energy that happened to be just illogically, nonsensically low.

It was a miracle that he had survived until now.

Woo Jin-Cheol rapidly realised that being here was a waste of time, so he got up from his seat.

"Let's go."

"Yes, sir."

Woo Jin-Cheol and his lackey quickly packed up to leave.

"Uhm, excuse me. Can you tell me what is…."

Just as Jin-Woo was about to ask, Woo Jin-Cheol bowed his head slightly.

"Thank you for your cooperation. If you remember anything else, please give us a call anytime."

As if their rear ends were on fire, two men-in-black rapidly left the room as soon as they put away the device.

The hospital room that felt rather small suddenly became quiet and lonely.

"…"

Jin-Woo scratched the back of his neck.

'I guess that was a no, then.'

Well, if he thought about it, besides him feeling refreshed, there didn't seem to be any change to him at all. Even if he did go through a Re-Awakening, it'd still be difficult for him to kill all those statue b*stards, anyways.

'Maybe, you might have a chance against them if you were either the ultimate weapon, Hunter Choi Jong-In, or the rank SS Hunter Goh Gun-Hui.'

Of course, him speculating like this was meaningless, since he had never seen them in action before. There was always a thick veil of secrecy draped over the Hunters ranked S.

They were more like clouds in the sky to him, actually.

He thought up to here and inadvertently raised his head up. And that's when he saw 'it'.

'Huh?!'

He looked up without thinking, and then, saw 'words' floating in the air.

[You have several unread messages.]

***

"…..?"

He closed his eyes and opened them again.

[You have several unread messages.]

The words remained floating up there without a single change. He shook his head hard a few times and even rubbed his eyes, but they were still there.

Jin-Woo massaged his aching forehead and lowered his head.

'It hadn't been a long time since I started hearing weird things, but now, I'm even seeing them, too….'

Could something in his head really be broken?

There was a condition called PTSD, after all. People who experienced a huge accident or a traumatic event usually suffered from this condition.

It was only a few days ago since he witnessed the deaths of many of his comrades, not to mention he himself nearly died as well, so it would not be so strange to hear or see weird things as a possible side effect.

'However….'

However, there were a couple of things that prevented him from dismissing this out of hand.

Jin-Woo's sight lowered to his leg – the leg that got cut in half by the shield of the stone statue was now all fine and dandy.

The voice he heard out of the blue inside the underground temple hidden within the depths of the dual dungeon; his completely-cured (?) leg; and now, those words floating in front of his eyes.

Too many weird things were happening all at once.

'What if….?'

There was a chance that all these things were not isolated events but linked to one another. When his thoughts arrived here, his aching head felt just a bit clearer.

'Okay, fine.'

Jin-Woo slowly raised his head.

Once the confusion in his heart died down and he felt calmer, he became quite curious about the contents of those so-called unread messages. There might be answers to his questions found within those messages, after all.

In order to confirm the messages, he reached out towards the words.

And his hand simply went past them.

'It's not touch-operated?'

It seemed that he got way too used to how a smartphone worked. He couldn't think of any other way to access the messages other than tapping on the 'icon', though.

While he was deliberating on the means to access the messages, he recalled the memories from the moments before he blacked out.

"Right. That happened."

Back then, he could only get his intentions across to that unknown voice by 'talking' to it.

'Just like back then, I should either form the words in my head or speak it out loud.'

Thinking that this must be the case, Jin-Woo then began to mutter the potential combination of words one by one.

"Confirm."

"Messages."

"Confirm messages."

"Check messages."

"Reading."

"I want to read."

"I want to look."

"Hey, show me already, will ya?!"

It was then.

"…..Just what is it that you wish to see that bad?"

He felt a cold, probing stare coming from the side, so he turned his head to look. And, spotted his little sister in her school uniform looking at him from the gap of the half-open door.

"Uhm….."

Jin-Woo became speechless.

Her oppa, busy glaring at the ceiling while demanding someone to show something to him – he simply didn't know how to explain this one to her.

Chapter 9: Chapter 9

"Maybe, you hurt your head really bad?"

The younger sister stood at a distance away and asked Jin-Woo, prompting him to shake his head vigorously.

"No, that's not it."

Even though he denied it, Jin-Woo's younger sibling, Seong Jin-Ah's eyes remained suspicious.

"Are you really okay?"

"Yes, I'm telling you the truth."

Jin-Ah blankly swept her gaze all over Jin-Woo, before she came closer while her breathing became uneven, angry. And then, as soon as Jin-Woo assumed a defensive posture, she began punching him in all the unguarded parts.

"I told you to stop getting hurt!! You have any idea how worried I was?!"

"…..I'm sorry."

"Other people walk away fine, but how come it's only you who gets hurt all the time?!"

"….Sorry."

The strength behind Jin-Ah's punches gradually seeped away. She soon stopped, and as her head fell, began crying. Jin-Woo slowly patted the back of his sobbing sister.

His own nostrils stung quite a bit then.

'I was thinking of leaving behind this kid alone and dying, wasn't I….'

What a relief that he made it out alive.

When he looked back, there had been way too many brushes with death for comfort back then.

It was as if he had experienced one hell of a terrifying nightmare.

Jin-Woo's gaze shifted ever so slightly towards the words floating in the air.

[You have several unread messages.]

'It still feels like I haven't completely woken up from that nightmare just yet, doesn't it?'

There were so many things he couldn't understand.

But, so what?

The most important thing was that he came back alive, and he got to see his little sister again.

"Sniff."

Thankfully, his strong-willed sister stopped crying after a short while. Unfortunately for him, though, her nagging continued on for over one hour afterwards.

"Do you hear me? If you get hurt one more time, I'm going to give up on studying, find a job, and make sure you don't work as a Hunter ever again."

Jin-Ah's sharp glare didn't really suit her pretty face, but that was a biological trait she had shared with her older brother.

"Okay, okay. I hear you."

Jin-Woo nodded his head as if he'd given up.

Only after she was able to extract his assurance several times more did she display a hint of satisfaction, and stood up from the seat.

"You going somewhere?"

"Yeah. To school. I got permission to leave so I could check up on you. So I gotta go back."

Jin-Woo nodded his head.

"Right, the university entrance exams are next year."

She might never have received a private tutoring nor did she ever attend extra classes, but she always got ranked within the top ten in her school until now.

Jin-Ah dreamed of becoming a doctor.

Only until a few years ago, she just loved to waste time on video games and stuff like that, but then, after their mother fell ill, she swore to become a doctor and never stopped studying since.

Jin-Woo dearly wished to make her dream come true, no matter what.

Hang on a minute…. playing video games?

Suddenly, Jin-Woo's eyes gleamed a bit dangerously.

"Okay, I'm going now."

Just as Jin-Ah was leaving his room, Jin-Woo urgently called out to her.

"Hey, Jin-Ah?"

"Yeah?"

"When you are playing video games…."

Jin-Ah smirked softly.

"I don't play games anymore. The third year of high school is only a few days away, you know."

"I know, I know. There's something I want to ask you, though."

"Oh, really? Like? I didn't know Oppa played video games, though?"

Jin-Ah suddenly displayed an intense interest as a subject she was deeply intimate with once upon a time was brought up.

Jin-Woo sneaked a glance at the still-floating 'message' in the air and asked her.

"When there are unread messages in a game, what should I do access them?"

"You gotta open the mailbox first."

"I gotta 'open' the mailbox?"

Tti-ring!

As soon as Jin-Woo said the word 'open', a clear beep entered his head and the hidden messages revealed themselves.

[There are two unread messages.]

– Congratulations on becoming a [Player] (unread)

– [Daily Quest: Preparations to become strong] is now available. (unread)

Jin-Woo smiled brightly.

'Finally!'

Seeing her older brother's complexion suddenly brighten like that, Jin-Ah felt something was wrong and quickly asked him.

"What's up? What game is it? You need my help?"

Jin-Woo firmly shook his head.

"Nope, no need. I'll do it alone."

How would his younger sibling react if he told her what had been happening to him right now?

'I really don't want to be labelled as a loon by her.'

Jin-Woo swallowed back the things he wanted to say for the time being.

***

While pretending to see her out, Jin-Woo confirmed her getting on the elevator, and quickly returned to his room.

'I can't repeat the same mistake again.'

Click.

To prevent eyewitnesses intruding on him, he even locked the door. Finishing with his preparations, Jin-Woo sat on the bed and read the titles of the messages available to read.

– Congratulations on becoming a [Player] (unread)

– [Daily Quest: Preparations to become strong] is now available. (unread)

He thought that the first message sounded familiar, as if he heard it before from somewhere.

'Where have I heard it from? I know I have.'

So, the first message, then.

– Congratulations on becoming a [Player] (unread)

'Confirm.'

Tti-ring!

[This System will support the growth of the 'Player.']

[Failing to comply with the System's instructions will result in potential penalties.]

[Your rewards have been delivered.]

"Ahh."

He belatedly remembered this.

He heard those words just before he lost his consciousness.

'Back then, it was talking about a Player this and that, no?'

Of course, back then or even now, he still couldn't really understand what on earth was going here.

The 'System', 'growth', 'penalties', and finally, 'rewards'.

The words with unknown meanings fell on his lap one after the other.

'Just what will it help grow, and what will it reward me with?'

Seeing the words that could only be found in a video game appearing before his eyes without any prior explanations, only served to confound him even further.

He decided to worry about the confusing words later and calmly opened the next message.

– [Daily Quest: Preparations to become strong] is now available. (unread)

Gulp.

Jin-Woo unconsciously swallowed his saliva after reading that rather suggestive title. His heart began to beat faster in anticipation.

'Confirm.'

Tti-ring.

[Daily Quest: Preparations to become stronger]

Press-up, 100 times: Incomplete (0/100)

Sit-up, 100 times: Incomplete (0/100)

Squat, 100 times: Incomplete (0/100)

Running, 10 km: Incomplete (0/10)

※Warning: Incompletion of Daily Quests will result in appropriate levels of punishment.

Jin-Woo reflexively spat out a dumbfounded chuckle after confirming the contents of the message.

"Ha, haha….. Seriously, man."

Should this be the feelings of disappointment?

To think, what the grand-sounding Daily Quest, the one titled 'Preparations to become strong', was nothing more than a list of physical exercises to train his body….

Well, for sure, if he did as the quest said, then his body might get a bit tougher.

Was this what that growth and reward thing the System was talking about?

'Now that I think about it….'

He recalled reading a quote of 'a person with an inner problem should pay attention to the inner voice' from some book in the past.

'In other words, one would see what they wanted to see, eventually….'

Just how desperately did he want to become stronger that he ended up seeing this stupid hallucination?

Although it was funny, he also felt a bit lonely inside.

"If anyone could become stronger by doing these exercises, who would be willing to go through that much hardship, then…?"

Jin-Woo shook his head.

He suddenly thought that he was a fool for searching for answers to his many questions from a d*mn hallucination.

'Urgh. I don't care anymore.'

Jin-Woo lied down spread-eagled on the bed. He wordlessly stared at the ceiling.

"….."

He wasn't doing anything important, yet the time continued to tick by.

Just as he began to feel the weight of the stillness filling up his hospital room….

Jin-Woo abruptly raised his torso off the bed.

'But, what if….'

What if something could change?

As his thoughts were filled half with the uncertain expectation and the other half by unconvinced curiosity, he began wondering whether he should at least give 'it' a shot.

'Well, I've got nothing to lose, anyways.'

There would be no reason not to try it out, if he treated as a light workout to stretch his muscles or something, no?

He made up his mind.

'Fine. Let's try it.'

Jin-Woo climbed off the bed and stretched himself for a bit, before leaning against the corner of the bed and slowly performed the 'press-up'.

"One, two, three….."

The count started from 'one' and quickly climbed upwards.

"…..97, 98, 99, 100."

Since he started this thing, he decided to do all 100, but quite different from his expectation, nothing happened when he was finished.

….Other than his arms aching just a little, that was.

"Just what the hell am I doing…."

Jin-Woo smirked helplessly and stood straight up.

– Congratulations on becoming a [Player] (read)

– [Daily Quest: Preparations to become strong] is now available. (read)

The messages were now marked as 'read'.

There were no more words of 'unread messages' popping up in his view, and he also didn't feel like humouring this hallucination anymore, either

He had enough of this, in other words.

Jin-Woo closed the mailbox without regret.

"Yawn…."

Jin-Woo yawned out at length and climbed back up on the bed. He felt sleepy as if he had pushed himself too hard.

The sky outside the window was already dyed in the colours of the sunset.

'It's already this late, huh.'

The Monitoring Division agents said earlier that his hospital fees would be taken care of by the Association.

He figured that it wouldn't be too late to leave after receiving a thorough examination of his body and get the all-clear from the doctors first. Jin-Woo laid down comfortably while thinking as such.

'I'm sure these hallucinations and weird things I hear will eventually go away with time….'

His eyelids slowly closed shut. And Jin-Woo drifted away into a deep slumber.

Tick, tock.

Even when Jin-Woo was softly snoring to himself, the needles of the clock hanging by the wall continued to tick away.

The needles spun and spun around until they indicated 11:59:57 PM.

Tick, tock, tick.

58, 59, 60….

The needles stopped moving precisely as they touched 12:00:00.

Tti-ring.

[You've failed to complete the Daily Quest. You'll be transferred to the 'Penalty Zone' for a set period of time.]

***

RUMBLE!!!

Jin-Woo's eyes shot right open from the violent tremor that shook his entire body.

"An earthquake?!"

Jin-Woo sat right up and grabbed the edges of the bed. The shaking was so bad that he couldn't maintain his balance.

RUMBLE!!

The shaking got progressively worse as the seconds ticked by. It happened then.

*SFX for things turning into powder and falling to the floor*

One of the steel bars on the bed he held on for dear life suddenly broke. No, it didn't break per se, but simply 'disappeared'. Jin-Woo hurriedly looked at his palm. No steel bar there, just grains of sand.

'Sand?!'

*SFX for things turning into powder and falling to the floor*

The other steel bar also transformed into sand as well.

Meanwhile, the 'earthquake' became even more violent.

RUUUUMBLE!!!

"Uwaaahk!!"

In the end, Jin-Woo was thrown off from the bed. He bounced around all over the hospital room and screamed out. Even when that was happening, items within the room was turning into sand one at the time.

"Uwaaaahhhh!!"

….Plop.

Jin-Woo was flung away and got deposited rather unceremoniously.

He felt something soft against his fingertips. They happened to be ultra-fine grains of sand.

And the accursed earthquake had stopped.

"Ptooi! Ptooi!!"

Jin-Woo spat out the sand in his mouth and hurriedly raised his head up.

"….?!"

His eyes caught the sight on an endless plain of nothing but sand.

Jin-Woo frowned heavily and got up. All the sand that found its way inside his clothes poured out. He dusted the sand caked on his chest while taking a look around him.

Indeed, all he could see was sand. And more sand.

"A desert….?!"

This couldn't be real.

Until a few moments ago, he was sleeping on a bed inside a hospital located in the middle of Seoul. But now, as soon as he opened his eyes, he was in the middle of a massive desert?

Jin-Woo scooped up a handful of sand, and let it slip through his fingers. The fine grains fell straight down to the ground.

'There is not a single breeze here.'

It wasn't just the breeze, though – when he raised his head up to look, the sky didn't have a sun, a moon, or any stars for that matter.

It was an empty sky, as if it was filled up with black ink and nothing else.

However, for some reason, he had no trouble seeing at all.

"Just where is this place?"

Chapter 10: Chapter 10

It happened then.

Shururururu…..

Suddenly, the sandy ground next to him caved in and a deep pit formed there.

"Huh? Uh, uh!"

Jin-Woo desperately ran away so he could avoid getting sucked in down there. The sandy pit grew wider and wider, and eventually, Jin-Woo had to crawl on all fours just to pull himself out.

"Pant, pant, pant…."

He plopped down on his butt, panted heavily and stared at the bottom of the pit. Quite bizarrely, he could see that the sand at the bottom was 'boiling'.

Realising that just one misstep would have resulted in him falling in there sent shivers down his spine.

"Hang on a minute…."

Jin-Woo's eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"….It's not actually boiling, is it?"

When he took a closer look, he spotted 'something' pretty big wiggling down there.

Jin-Woo instinctively forced himself up. He was getting a really bad premonition right about now.

Sure enough, just as Jin-Woo took a step back, the sand within the pit suddenly exploded upwards.

Phushu-!!

The falling sand emitted the roar of a waterfall.

Jin-Woo's eyes went extra round in the meantime.

"An… an insect?"

The identity of the thing that exploded out from the sand was a giant centipede.

Kiiiieeehhhk!!

When fully revealed, the d*mn thing's head almost reached the height equaling that of a five-story building.

Jin-Woo anxiously swallowed his saliva.

'This is unreal….'

For sure, the b*stard was unrealistically huge. He had never heard of a centipede this big existing in the world before. But the size of the centipede wasn't the only thing that shocked Jin-Woo.

"Why is there a… name floating on top of that monster?"

Was he dreaming again?

Jin-Woo closed and opened his eyes again, yet nothing had changed. Even now, there were five red words floating on top of the monster's head.

….Just like a monster from a video game might have.

'The Poison-Fanged Giant Desert Centipede.'

Just like its horrendous and bizarre appearance, its name too was something he'd like to avoid at all cost. What drew his attention the most was the two letters "poison" and "fanged".

He spotted a pair of fangs as large as a child jutting out just below the b*stard's jaw. It didn't take a genius to figure out what might happen if he got stabbed by those fangs simply from its name alone.

Seeing those large fangs and its jaw constantly opening and closing, it was as if….

"It's busy licking its lips, right?"

It was then, the sound went off in his head again.

Tti-ring.

[Penalty Quest: Survival]

Goal: Please survive until the end of the time limit.

Time limit: 4 hours

Remaining time: 4 hours 0 minutes 0 seconds

'Are you kidding me….?'

However, as soon as the 'remaining time' changed to 3 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds, the centipede parted sand and rushed towards him as if it couldn't wait any longer.

*SFX for sand parting ways*

"Wha-what the hell?!"

Jin-Woo hurriedly spun around and ran for his life.

There was no time to deliberate on things.

If he wanted to live, then he had to run!

That was the only thought racing in his head.

However, even before he had taken several steps, another pillar of sand exploded upwards not too far from his position.

Boom!!

"Euh-ahhck?!"

Jin-Woo fell on his rear from the powerful shockwave. He rolled on the sandy ground before urgently getting back up. He swiped the sand off his face before his eyes shot open even wider.

This time, it wasn't just one or two of them.

Boom!!

Booooom!!

Before he had even noticed it, there were seven sand centipedes jutting out from the sand and they were all glaring at him.

Kiiieeechhk!!

Kiieeek!!

As the centipedes issued shrill cries, Jin-Woo's complexion changed for the worse. A lot worse.

"God d*mn it…."

***

Jin-Woo reappeared in the hospital room exactly four hours later.

Plop.

Jin-Woo keeled over on the floor and painfully wheezed out.

"Cough, cough!! Ptooi, ptooi!!"

His mouth felt full with this coarse, grainy taste. His eyes stung badly too, seemingly like sand particles got in there.

Jin-Woo whimpered and groaned for a long time, before powerlessly falling flat on his back. He didn't have any energy left to lift even a finger.

"Pant…. Pant…. Just…. What was that….?"

Jin-Woo continued to pant heavily when a new message appeared before him.

Tti-ring.

[You've completed the 'Penalty Quest.']

Jin-Woo's expression crumpled into something unsightly.

A 'Penalty Quest'?

Did he do something worthy of being punished?

Jin-Woo carefully retreaded his memories until he recalled the [Daily Quest] he abandoned mid-way yesterday.

'Could it be…?'

Now that he thought about it, it definitely said that if the quest was not completed, he'd be hit with a corresponding penalty.

"Pant, pant, that…. That was not a hallucination?!"

Indeed, it was not a hallucination nor was it a dream.

There was no need to pinch his cheeks to confirm whether this was a dream or reality.

When he was running around, the shortness of breath felt so suffocatingly harsh, and the pain he felt when he got grazed by the centipede's leg still felt fresh in his mind.

Everything happened for real.

He nearly died back there.

"This is way too much…. Pant… pant…."

The so-called penalty turned out to be him being throwing into a d*mn execution ground!

At the same time, another ominous premonition rushed into his mind. If this event was indeed caused by the 'Daily Quest' thing, then without a doubt, this would not be the last time.

Sure enough, he got to hear yet another mechanical beep going off in his head.

Tti-ring.

He flinched in surprise, but thankfully, it was not about another quest or anything like that.

[Rewards for completing the Penalty Quest is now available.]

[Would you like to confirm the rewards?] (Y/N)

'Rewards….?'

The word 'rewards' jumped right out. Too bad, the problem was, he currently didn't have any energy left whatsoever to confirm this and that.

His situation simply didn't allow that.

'Never mind giving me rewards or not…. Let me take a break first….'

His sights gradually blurred.

Soon, Jin-Woo fell into a deep slumber akin to a blackout.

***

"Oh my gosh?! What happened in here?"

Next morning.

A nurse entered Jin-Woo's room, only for her eyes to open up wide in surprise.

The patient was lying sprawled on the floor, while sand was everywhere as far as she could see. Not only that, the patient too was full of sand as well.

She threw the medical chart on the bed and urgently pressed the emergency buzzer.

"Please, someone get over here right away!"

Soon, the doctor in charge rushed into the room.

"What happened? What's the matter with Mister Seong Jin-Woo?"

"I don't know. Everything was fine until last night, yet this morning…."

"For now, let's relocate him back on the bed. One, two!"

Two people lifted Jin-Woo off the floor and placed him back on the bed. During the process, the back of Jin-Woo's hand got scratched by the edge of the medical chart left on the bed and his skin tore just a little, but no one noticed that.

"Let's take a look."

The doctor then carefully examined Jin-Woo's condition. However, he couldn't find anything wrong with the youth.

"What the heck…. Isn't he just in a deep sleep?"

The doctor spat out a sigh of relief.

The Hunter's Association had requested the hospital to pay a special attention to this particular patient. Understandably, the doctor was scared almost out of his wits while thinking that something bad had happened here.

"For now, let's let him be. Looks like he's in a really deep slumber at the moment."

The doctor in charge spoke to the nurse and was about to leave, but then, he took a look around the room and scratched the side of his head.

"By the way, this room… might need a thorough cleaning. Miss Yu-Rah, please take care of tidying this place up."

"Yes. I shall, doctor."

The doctor left the room and the nurse, Choi Yu-Rah, patted her chest down.

What a relief that it turned out to be nothing to worry about.

Sure, they might not be the patient or the relatives of one themselves, but you wouldn't find a doctor or a nurse who wished ill on those they were in charge of.

The Hunter's hospital especially saw many heavily-injured patients every day. At the bare minimum, she'd like to never see another one of patients she was looking after get worse under her care.

"Whew…"

She had calmed down a little now, and began worrying about where should she start tidying this room up, but then, her eyes spotted drops of blood on the floor.

"Oh my?"

The blood droplets were coming from the tip of patient's hand that fell outside the bed.

She got stunned by this and hurriedly searched for the wound on Jin-Woo's hand, before flipping it around.

"What's going on here….?"

There definitely was a trace of flowing blood, but she could not find a single wound. She wiped the blood clean, yet the expected wound was not there.

'Wait…. Could his injury heal in that short time?'

Yu-Rah's heart began beating faster as she cautiously studied Jin-Woo's complexion.

He was still submerged in a deep, deep sleep even now.

Part 7: Daily Quest

Tti-ring.

[Daily Quest is now available.]

Jin-Woo's eyes shot right open.

He quickly raised himself up and the first thing he did was to check the time. The needles of the clock just went past 16:30.

Meaning, there was the leeway of seven hours and thirty minutes before midnight.

'Good.'

Jin-Woo opened the mailbox.

Tti-ring.

[Daily Quest: Preparations to become strong]

Press-up, 100 times: Incomplete (0/100)

Sit-up, 100 times: Incomplete (0/100)

Squat, 100 times: Incomplete (0/100)

Running, 10 km: Incomplete (0/10)

※Warning: Incompletion of Daily Quests will result in appropriate levels of punishment.

"It's the same thing, again?!"

He groaned out almost reflexively.

No, perhaps this was for the better. Rather than a quest with impossible or hard-to-understand goals, this was far more preferable, instead.

Well, as long as he had enough time, he'd be able to complete this quest after all, although his body might suffer for a bit. Jin-Woo got down to the floor this time and began the press-up.

"One."

Obviously, he was not planning on being dragged to yet another suspicious place and get almost killed there.

"Two."

He got lucky the previous night and survived, but there was no guarantee that would happen tonight as well.

"Three."

He raised his head a little and confirmed the contents of the quest, and noticed that every time he performed a press-up, it was being recorded in real time as well.

Tti-ring.

[You've completed one press-up.]

[Press-up 100 times: Incomplete (7/100)]

Tti-ring.

[You've completed one press-up.]

[Press-up 100 times: Incomplete (8/100)]

He wanted to make sure, so he only went down half-way and got back up, but as expected, that didn't count. Now he finally realised why the so-called press-ups of yesterday didn't count. He had to perform the proper press-ups or it wouldn't be counted at all.

'Huh…. Gimme a break.'

Jin-Woo was dumbfounded, but didn't stop the exercise.

He still had 50 more press-ups to go.

After that, sit-ups, squats and running were waiting for him.

….And, three hours later.

Press-up, 100 times: Complete (100/100)

Sit-up, 100 times: Complete (100/100)

Squat, 100 times: Complete (100/100)

Running, 10 km: Incomplete (9/10)

"Pant, pant, pant, pant…"

Jin-Woo lapped the outer perimeter of the hospital once and arrived back in front of his room. He was currently bent over and panting out heavily. His heart felt like it might explode at any second, but he couldn't give up yet.

'I worked so crazy hard until now, so no way I would….'

He somehow managed to open the door and took a step forward.

When he did that….

Tti-ring.

[Total distance ran: 10 km.]

[You've completed Running, 10 km.]

It was finally over.

"Pant…. Pant…"

Jin-Woo fell down to his knees. His breath reeked of something sweet and bitter. His face and back were soaked in sweat.

"Pant…. Pant…."

As Jin-Woo tried to regulate his heavy, rough breathing while thick sweat drops continuously dripped down, a familiar message popped up in front of his eyes.

Tti-ring.

[You've completed 'Daily Quest: Preparations to become strong'.]

[Completion rewards have arrived.]

[Would you like to confirm?] (Y/N)

Jin-Woo momentarily thought about forgetting about everything and simply laying down in defeat, but quickly changed his mind. At least for now, he wanted to confirm what these reward things could actually be with his own eyes first.

"Confirm."

Tti-ring.

[The following rewards are available.]

Reward 1. Full recovery of the current physical condition

Reward 2. Three additional Stat points

Reward 3. One random box

[Would you like to collect them all?]

'Why are there so many of them?'

That was the first thought to enter his dazed mind after he took a gander at the contents of his rewards.

But, when he thought about it a little deeper, one of those rewards seemed rather useful right now, and there was also one that made him curious about what it could actually mean.

For now, he urgently needed the first reward available. He was on the brink of collapsing here.

Since there really was a penalty for failure, the odds of completion rewards being real were pretty d*mn high as well.

Well, trying wouldn't hurt anyways, right?

Seriously, this 'thing' wouldn't throw him back into the penalty zone again after it said it'd give him the rewards, now would it?

Chapter 11: Chapter 11

As soon as he muttered that out, a gentle blue aura enveloped him.

'Uh… isn't this sensation…. that?'

Right away, he recalled Yi Ju-Hui's face. When he was getting healed by her, he felt the sensation similar to what he was feeling right now.

If he were to put this feeling into words, then it'd be like a refreshing blast of air entering his lungs before leaving again – something like that?

Shu….

He felt the blue aura slowly dissipating. For some reason, he kinda felt a bit rueful.

Jin-Woo got up from the floor and lightly jumped up and down on the spot and stretched his body this way and that.

"How can this be?!"

His heart that felt like it might explode was beating calmly now, and his rough breathing had stabilised as well. He didn't even feel a speck of fatigue. His body that was on the brink of collapsing, felt refreshed as if he just got up from a night of good rest.

The effect, in other words, was top-notch.

'Isn't this really amazing?'

Jin-Woo's eyes now resembled circles. He wasn't sure whether this was some kind of magic or not, but this phenomenon could change him in the most astonishing way, without a doubt.

In that case, would those 'Stat points' be the same?

When Jin-Woo shifted his gaze around, he spotted a small box resting on top of the bed as well as his own Stat Window floating in the air.

'I guess that thing over there is the random box….'

The important thing was his Stat Window, though. This window displayed simple information about himself.

Name: Seong Jin-Woo

Level: 1

Class: None

Title: None

HP: 100

MP: 10

Tiredness: 0

[Stat]

Strength: 10

Stamina: 10

Agility: 10

Intelligence: 10

Perception: 10

(Available points to distribute: 3)

[Skills]

Passive skills:

– (Unknown) Lv. Max

– Tenacity Lv. 1

Active skills:

– Dash Lv. 1

The stat he saw was quite similar to a starting character from an online game he used to play many moons ago.

'Is this my current Stat value?'

His current level was 1. All of his stats were also at the bottom of the heap, too.

If he thought about the current reality of what he was like, the one where he was ranked as the weakest even among the rank E Hunters, then there was nothing to be surprised about there.

What he paid attention to was the 'Skills' column.

A passive skill called 'Tenacity' and an active one called 'Dash'.

For some reason, he felt rather familiar with them.

"Ah. I remember now. Yesterday…."

Yesterday, or to be more precise, back in the early dawn of this morning, he remembered hearing those words while being chased around by the centipedes in the penalty zone.

It happened probably after three hours of him constantly running for his dear life. He was suddenly greeted by a couple of new messages.

['Skill: Dash Lv. 1' has been learned.]

['Skill: Tenacity Lv. 1' has been learned.]

Back then, he was far too busy running to think about what they could mean, but it was a different story now. Jin-Woo confirmed the explanations available for the skills.

[Skill: Dash Lv. 1]

Active skill.

Mana required to activate: 5

The constant running fortified your legs. When this skill is activated, your movement speed will increase by 30%. During its activation, 1 Mana will be spent every minute.

[Skill: Tenacity Lv. 1]

Passive skill.

Mana required to activate: None.

You possess untiring tenacity. When your stamina drops below 30%, this skill will automatically activate and reduce all damage received by 50%.

'Did I learn 'Dash' and 'Tenacity' because I stubbornly ran around like there's no tomorrow?'

That seemed to be about right.

In other words, if he kept on repeating a certain action over and over again, and happen to meet the requirement conditions, he would be able to learn new skills.

"Holy cow!"

Wasn't this an incredible advantage?

The thing was, the skills individual Hunters used were acquired when they went through the Awakening process, or learnt through the items called 'Rune' Stones that dropped very rarely from monsters ranked A and above.

Understandably, the prices of these Rune Stones would start from the lowest of several hundred thousand Won to dozens of billion Wons at the top end.

At the last auction, the most expensive Rune Stone was sold for around ₩70,000,000,000. (TL: over $62 million)

Apparently, this Rune Stone contained a skill that could revert many injured people back to their original conditions in one go, and it was snapped up by an anonymous overseas rank S Healer who had reputedly emptied out his entire life savings.

Jin-Woo's heart began beating faster.

A skill that increased his movement speed, as well as another that decreased the amount of damage received.

Sure, they weren't as good as those skills that sold for billions of Won, but they were still amazing to him regardless. And he got to learn those for free, too!

His overall magic energy value was too low, so it'd be hard to use them properly, but still, it was better than not knowing them, wasn't it?

'Besides, the Tenacity skill doesn't even need Mana to activate, too…..'

It seemed that this Mana thing was his magic energy. If that was the case, then even though he didn't have a lot of magic energy, he'd be able to freely use the Tenacity skill. That alone was a huge gain.

"By the way… what could this 'unknown' thing be?"

[Skills]

Passive skills:

– (Unknown) Lv. Max

The 'Unknown' that occupied one whole slot of the passive skills column.

Since it was located in the passive column, that meant it activated automatically, but there was not one explanation or any information on it.

'Not even a single clue, huh.'

The amount of information he could learn was just too limited. Even if he burst his brain trying to figure it out, he knew there wouldn't be any answers. So, Jin-Woo shifted his gaze to elsewhere.

'Stat points, is it….?'

Three additional Stat points he got as a reward remained there, still to be distributed.

[Stat]

Strength: 10

Stamina: 10

Agility: 10

Intelligence: 10

Perception: 10

(Available points to distribute: 3)

'I'm sure this means I can increase any one of my Stats by three points, right?'

There were five categories in the list of Stats. Maybe because he was a mere level 1, the values of each stat were 'simple', to say the least. However, if he considered how reality operated, he couldn't take these stats lightly at all.

If his abilities changed for real with a moment's decision, then who in this world would be able to casually make such choices?

Jin-Woo's expression became serious.

'Strength is no doubt talking about my physical power….'

He could more or less figure out what 'Strength', 'Stamina' and 'Agility' could mean. After all, those were the kind of 'Stats' one would often encounter in video games.

The question was with the last two Stats, 'Intelligence' and 'Perception', then. And just like before, the unfriendly System didn't provide any answers whatsoever.

If he increased 'Intelligence' would he get actually smarter, for instance? And, if he increased 'Perception', then would he become more sensitive?

Whatever the case may have been, he felt that those two Stats didn't really seem all that useful to him right now.

He was a melee-type Hunter, to begin with. What he needed was power, speed, or even stamina.

'If you were to ask me to choose between the three, I'd inevitably go with Strength.'

If he got physically stronger, many things would become that much easier for him.

Also, he wanted to find out what kind of change would take place with his body once the Stat values had been increased. Since he thought that this change would be much more prominent with the increase in the Strength stat, he ended up investing all three points on it.

"All three points to the Strength stat."

Tti-ring.

[Stat]

Strength: 13

Stamina: 10

Agility: 10

Intelligence: 10

Perception: 10

(Available points to distribute: 0)

'Is that…. all?'

Indeed, it looked like it.

The only change he could tell was the Strength stat value floating in front of his eyes like hologram projection changing from 10 to 13. Unlike how it was in cartoons or movies, his body didn't feel like it was overflowing with uncontrollable power or anything like that.

"Did anything actually change or not?"

He decided to use his muscles to find out. Jin-Woo stood next to the bed and lifted it. He felt a bit of weight, but he was able to pick it up easier than he thought. However, he found it impossible to tell whether this was because of the bed being light, or his Strength having been improved.

'I should've lifted the bed first before spending the d*mn points….'

Since he had already spent all the points before confirming, it was hard to tell the difference between 'before' and 'after'.

'Only if I had some more points to spend….'

Jin-Woo licked his lips in regret only for a certain memory to jump out at him.

"The rewards from the Penalty Quest!"

Today wasn't the only time he got to 'complete' the Daily Quests. He might have nearly died, but he sure as hell did complete the Penalty Quest, and he remembered seeing the message about the rewards being available as well.

Jin-Woo hurriedly opened the mailbox.

[Rewards for completing the Penalty Quest is now available.]

[Would you like to confirm the rewards?] (Y/N)

"I knew it!"

Jin-Woo clenched his fists tightly.

Of course, it's a resounding "Yes!"

[The following rewards are available.]

Reward 1. Three additional Stat points

Reward 2. One random box

[Would you like to collect them all?]

Unlike the Daily Quest rewards, the option of the full status recovery was absent, but well, what he needed right now was the additional Stat points anyways.

He was momentarily worried about there being a huge difference in rewards since they were from a Penalty Quest and all, but he was relieved to find three points waiting for him.

Jin-Woo hummed joyously to himself.

"Add all three points to the Strength stat."

Tti-ring.

[Stat]

Strength: 16

Stamina: 10

Agility: 10

Intelligence: 10

Perception: 10

(Available points to distribute: 0)

His Strength jumped up from 13 to 16.

Jin-Woo stood next to the bed again and put some strength in his arms. And he was able to lift up the bed a lot easier than before. He could definitely tell the difference now.

"It's for real….!!"

His physical strength had really improved.

If he were to consider the change purely through the Stats alone, then the starting value of 10 had increased by 60% so how could he fail to notice the improvement?

Now feeling completely elated, he went around the room and began picking up not just the bed, but everything he could lay his hands on, and generally made a mess of things inside.

Only after the chief nurse passing by heard the commotion and scolded him did he stop his tomfoolery.

"….I'm very sorry."

As soon as the chief nurse left his room, Jin-Woo spat out a sigh of relief.

"Whew."

However, he couldn't calm down at all. His heart was beating like crazy.

Thud, thud. Thud, thud!

As a matter of fact, his chest actually hurt.

The Daily Quest that would continue to show up every day, and the Stat points as the reward!

As long as this unexplainable phenomenon didn't come to a sudden end, he'd be able to live a completely different life to the one he'd been leading until now.

This was an unbelievable opportunity for him.

Besides that, the Stat Window also showed his 'level'.

'Does this mean I can also increase my level, too?'

Eventually, though – Jin-Woo shook his head.

'Eiii, there's no way.'

Now that would be too good to be true. He wasn't hoping that far, anyway. The rewards from the quests alone were plenty enough for him.

He'd use the Stat points to increase his abilities. Every day he'd grow to be stronger – compared to yesterday, he'd be stronger today; compared to today, he'd be stronger tomorrow.

'Me, getting stronger? The rank E Hunter, and also, always mocked as the weakest weapon?'

He didn't even think about climbing up as far as the rank S or A. Even the notion of getting to rank C or D, like those Hunters he'd been working with, would surely be seen as a laughable one.

Indeed, they'd disparagingly point their fingers at him and guffaw their heads off.

Seong Jin-Woo was getting stronger? That Seong Jin-Woo, the one and only on this planet?

However, he didn't care if they laughed at him. No, he was already used to being the butt of many jokes. He was just happy that an opportunity had fallen on his lap, that was all.

Suddenly, a question mark floated over his head.

'Could this be the process of my Re-Awakening?'

Although extremely rare, the cases of bottom-tier Hunters climbing up to the top through Re-Awakening had happened before, for sure.

If so, then could those Hunters who got stronger through Re-Awakening experience a similar sort of situation as he was in?

'Let's find out.'

Feeling genuinely curious now, Jin-Woo settled down in front of a computer located at the corner of the hospital room.

Since he was staying in a VIP room provided free of charge by the Hunter's Association, this computer wasn't the only item of convenience found here.

Taptaptaptap….

Jin-Woo's fingers typed rapidly on the keyboard.

Searching, searching, and then, more searching…..

He visited countless websites.

He even entered those websites that one couldn't even get anywhere near without a Hunter's licence. He even resorted to paying for information and continued to rummage through every document and article he found.

However, rather than finding similar events as his, he couldn't even find a single mention of a precedence, either.

'It's different….'

His Re-Awakening was completely different from the normal ones, as it turned out.

Most other Hunters who underwent Re-Awakening process gained their new found strength through roughly the similar process as their first Awakening as a Hunter.

Not one of them had experienced hearing weird voices at the brink of death, nor did they get to increase their strength through Stat values and such.

Chapter 12: Chapter 12

'Still, I can't be certain, so….'

To be 100% sure, Seong Jin-Woo anonymously opened a thread on the internet forum exclusive to licenced Hunters.

[Title: Something weird has happened to me.]

[Description: I can suddenly see my Stats in numbers like in a video game, and I can even increase their values, too. Is there anyone who has experienced something similar to me?]

Below that OG post, comments figuratively exploded forth.

└Anon: LOL Why dontcha stop f*cking around, dude.

└Anon: Isn't he just a loon?

└Anon: Lost his d*mn mind.

└Anon: Maybe you've played too many games…..

└Anon: By any chance, are you a cartoonist?

└Anon: Go visit the nearest hospital, 'k?

└Anon: I'd like to hear the details first.

└Anon: Stop accepting all sorts of trash just because they hold the Hunter licence; this forum needs to go through a cleansing, seriously now… (TL: I removed all the pure-Korean internet slangs/emojis from the raw. Learned my lesson from my previous novel….)

Dozens of comments all with roughly the similar contents flooded in.

"Eh-whew…."

Jin-Woo spat out a groan.

He had spent a long time looking around but he had nothing to show for his troubles. He got called a loon in the forum and people disparaged him. He did all this, yet seeing that there was no information to gather….

"I guess that my case is really a unique one."

He was the only one under the heavens.

The most unique Hunter in the whole world!

He still needed some time to figure out how much of a help this strange phenomenon would provide, and just how far he could actually grow through it, but at least, he got a good feeling about this whole thing.

When he took a look outside, the night had deepened quite considerably.

"When did the time get so late….?"

Jin-Woo frowned deeply.

His eyes ached a bit after staring into a computer monitor for so long.

Jin-Woo massaged his forehead and stood up from the chair to loosen his body with a bout of light stretching. He moved his body this way and that for a while. He bent his body 90 degrees and that's when he discovered two small boxes lying forgotten on the floor.

"….Ah."

The 'random boxes'.

Two boxes wrapped in the monotone gift wrappers and topped off with a ribbon – exactly like the ones in video games.

'They must've fallen off from the bed when I was making a mess of the room earlier.'

He had completely forgotten about them after receiving those as his rewards. Jin-Woo picked up the closest box and opened its lid.

"….A band-aid?!"

He dumbfoundedly stared at the 'thing' that looked exactly like the regular band-aid for a while, only for the information about it to float up above in green letters.

[Item: Band-Aid]

A regular band-aid. Useful in patching up small wounds. Can be stored inside your Inventory.

"It IS a band-aid…."

He was hopeful that this thing might possess some kind of a special attribute like the treasures found within the dungeons, but he wasn't so lucky today.

'Of course, I haven't heard of someone finding band-aids inside a dungeon, to begin with….'

With his mind half in disappointment and the other half in anticipation, he opened the remaining box.

And he got himself a brand new ball-point pen.

He studied it from all sorts of angles and even clicked on the tip so the ball-point would come out, but it was still your average pen.

[Item: Ball-point pen]

An average ball-point pen. Can be stored inside your Inventory.

It was quite likely that, as its name implied, all sorts of random junk would come out from the random boxes.

"Hmm….."

Well, it wasn't as if he was left empty-handed anyway.

Sure, he didn't really have any needs for either the band-aid or the pen right now, but thanks to them, he got to learn about the existence of the thing called the 'Inventory'.

Also, seeing that the information on other objects found in the room did not show up, he figured that only the info on the items from the random box could be read.

"Inventory."

As soon as he called out for his Inventory, a graphical representation of a storage unit with dozens of slots appeared in the air.

As fitting the storage unit of a level 1 user, it was…. not as empty as he thought. He thought there would be nothing in there, but inside the first slot, he found a rather familiar object.

"Isn't that….?"

Jin-Woo took that out immediately.

Tti-ring.

[Item: Kim Sang-Sik's steel longsword]

Attack +10

It was precisely Mister Kim's sword that Jin-Woo picked up back in the underground temple. He assumed that it was left behind inside the Gate, though.

"Hey, nice to see you, too."

A smile formed on Jin-Woo's face.

He felt happy seeing this thing again, what with both of them having survived that hellish death trap. Besides, it was too wasteful to just be abandoned in a different dimension, wasn't it?

'Didn't Mister Kim ahjussi say he bought this for around ₩3,000,000?' (TL: over $2,600)

The weapons of Hunters outwardly looked rather plain, but the truth was anything but.

Monsters couldn't be damaged with weapons that did not carry the wielder's magic energy. So, weapons crafted especially for the purpose of dealing with those b*stards would always be quite pricey.

'Looks like I'll have to rely on this guy for a while.'

He had been fighting with his bare hands until now because he couldn't afford to buy a proper weapon.

Although it was a cheap sword, he was still rather grateful for it.

'You're mine now.'

If Mister Kim saw this sword in his hands in the future, he might start foaming at the mouth and angrily demand its return. Well, he was a selfish man who readily discarded the saviour of his life, so it was rather a good possibility.

However, both this sword and this 'opportunity' were given to him in return for sacrificing his life. So, he wasn't planning to give it back that easily.

Jin-Woo's eyes sharpened considerably.

He had learned two things about reality back in that temple.

Firstly, he needed to become far, far stronger.

He was weak and almost died several times as a result.

That wasn't all.

He knew what the results would be, yet he couldn't stop that choirboy Hunter from stepping forward, and also, he knew Mister Kim was in the wrong, but he could not help Mister Song at all.

Because he wanted to survive, he turned his gaze away even though he knew what was right. If he didn't want to be ashamed of himself again, then he simply had to become stronger.

And finally….

'There is no room for unnecessary kindness.'

What he got after his acts of kindness was the betrayal of his comrades.

Three of them abandoned him, who couldn't even move properly, and ran away. He desperately called out to them but none returned to help him.

None of them could remember just who had saved their lives only a few moments ago.

'….Give and take.'

He swore not to take on any unnecessary risk out of some unconditional act of kindness. The most important thing at the end of the day was his own life, after all.

Those were two important life lessons Jin-Woo got to engrave in his heart after experiencing a near-death event.

To become stronger than before, and to become more selfish than before.

"I can do this."

Jin-Woo was one of those types of people who would never forget what he had been taught.

***

Inside a certain 'pojangmacha'. (TL: the Korean-style covered street stall)

The nurse Choi Yu-Rah was busy chatting to a friend she hadn't seen in a long time as the night wore on.

"Ahh, I almost forgot."

Yu-Rah belatedly recalled that her friend was an employee of the Hunter's Association. The reason for her finding work in the Hunter's hospital was in no small part due to this friend.

"You know a lot about Hunters, right?"

"Well, more than most people, sure. What's up?"

"Is there a Hunter with an ability to heal their own wounds really quickly?"

"Aren't those Healer-type Hunters? One healing spell later, every wound goes bye-bye~!!"

"No, no, not like magic and stuff. I mean, like, unconsciously."

"Like, unconsciously?"

"For example, when the person has lost consciousness, or when… he's in the middle of sleep."

Yu-Rah's friend shook her head.

"Eii~. There's no way. That'd be something like regeneration, and that's an incredible ability, you know? That's a unique trait only the rarest of all top-tier monsters exceeding the ranks of 'A' possess."

���There's no human who possesses it, though?"

"Ng. I've never heard of a Hunter who has such an ability."

"R-really?"

Could she have made a mistake, then?

Yu-Rah slowly nodded her head.

It was at this point that her friend spoke again.

"But, then again… I don't know. Maybe it's possible if you're talking about S-ranked Hunters."

Hearing her friend's words, Yu-Rah raised her head.

"S ranks?"

"There are plenty of freakish monsters within the S-ranked Hunters, and also, not much is known about them, right? What were they saying? Right, the Hunter Baek Yun-Ho from the White Tiger Guild can apparently morph into a real monster."

However, Seong Jin-Woo was supposedly a Hunter ranked E.

The ranks of the Hunters were publicly viewable on the Association's website, so if anyone were interested, they could take a look. Yu-Rah became curious from the morning's incident and she searched for Seong Jin-Woo's information.

'His rank is too low for him to possess such a unique abi…. Ah!'

The Re-Awakening of a Hunter!

She then remembered hearing hushed whispers of 'Re-Awakening' coming from Jin-Woo's room when she was walking past it yesterday.

'Could it be that he had gone through a Re-Awakening?'

For most regular people, it was truly impossible to befriend an S-ranked Hunter, never mind encountering one. Not only were there too few of them, but they also happened to be crazy busy most of the time as well.

So, just what kind of a situation was this? Someone as amazing as that was a patient she was looking after. A guy who just entered the S rank having moved up from the lowly E.

'If there are only a few people who realise his true value, then….'

If she scored some points with him now, wouldn't it be more likely that she'd be awarded more opportunities later down the line?

A chance to become acquaintances with a rank S Hunter didn't happen every day, after all. They were an existence that people couldn���t easily meet even if they were prepared to shell out lots of money.

As her imagination took flight, a bright smile slowly bloomed on Yu-Rah's face.

"Oh my gosh?! You girl, did something nice happen? Why are you suddenly grinning like that out of the blue?"

"Oh, uh, it's nothing, you know. Nothing much."

Yu-Rah continued to shake her head, but the smile on her lips didn't want to go away that easily.

Part 8: Level up!

"Oh my goodness. Look at that guy's physique."

"Was that patient's body that good before?"

Two young female nurses walking in the corridor whispered to each other as soon as they spotted Seong Jin-Woo.

He pretended to have not heard them and quietly returned to his room.

It had been a week since he started taking on the Daily Quests. Several changes took place during this time. One of them happened to be the transformation of his body.

Jin-Woo stood before the mirror mounted on the hospital room's wall by the corner.

"Hmm. Hmm."

He checked out his entire body in front of this full-length mirror.

He got a bit embarrassed by doing something that a female university student would more likely end up doing, and only after clearing his throat twice was he able to stare straight at the mirror.

The thing was, though…. He had definitely changed.

His body was in the middle of a transformation.

'I've got muscles now.'

The most eye-catching change was the drastic increase of his muscles. The normal-looking flabby flesh was gradually disappearing, only to be replaced by hard muscles. Thanks to that, his shoulders had widened more and his overall frame had grown bigger as well.

'Even then, doesn't seem heavy and slow.'

Only the necessary amount of muscles in the necessary places. If he were to describe the overall impression his body gave off, then would it be kinda like 'looking swift and athletic'?

He was a guy and even he found this rather appealing, so it wasn't such a strange thing for young nurses to whisper about him.

'And it's all due to this guy over here.'

Jin-Woo summoned his Stat Window.

Tti-ring.

Name: Seong Jin-Woo

Level: 1

Class: None

Title: None

HP: 100

MP: 10

Tiredness: 0

[Stat]

Strength: 31

Stamina: 10

Agility: 10

Intelligence: 10

Perception: 10

(Available points to distribute: 0)

[Skills]

Passive skills:

– (Unknown) Lv. Max

– Tenacity Lv. 1

Active skills:

– Dash Lv. 1

His Strength stat had gone past 30 already.

Since he thought that it'd be hard to tell the kind of effects the increases in other Stats would bring, he ended up investing all the points he earned on the Strength Stat, which seemed to be the easiest way to feel the change taking place within.

Besides, Strength played a key role when fighting monsters, so that was like killing two birds with one stone.

'My body wouldn't have transformed by this much just because I exercised for a few days.'

In that case, there could be only one explanation.

With his Strength value continuously rising up, the muscles were changing their shapes in order to display the maximum amount of effect, too.

He couldn't think of any other reason besides that one.

He was inwardly worried about investing too many points to the Strength Stat, but after seeing his transformed body, he became rather happy and all the worries in his mind were forgotten for now.

'However, it is way too eye-catching, isn't it?'

The number of times he was mentioned by the nurses was constantly on the rise. It was quite likely that, since their job involved looking after human bodies, their levels of discernment could have been higher than most.

Jin-Woo possessed quite a keen sense of hearing, so whenever his name was mentioned in the vicinity, he took note of it.

'I guess it's time for me to leave this hospital, no?'

Chapter 13: Chapter 13

It was not good to be the centre of attention.

Not only would he feel uncomfortable being placed under the spotlight, but he also didn't want to let others know of this strange phenomenon.

Didn't the old saying go something like, scratching unnecessarily results in more flakes to clean up, or something like that?

He wanted to increase his Stat points as quietly as possible.

'And it shouldn't be a problem for me to leave the hospital now, too.'

Thankfully, tests had shown that he was normal and healthy. Meaning, he could leave at any time he wanted. No, hang on a minute, it kinda felt like that both the hospital and the Association wanted him to leave in the first place.

Well, it'd be a waste to spend that much money as hospital fee on a measly rank E like him.

One of the special privileges the S-ranked Hunters enjoyed was the government paying for all of their health-related expenses. Of course, that was a story happening in another cosmos as far as Jin-Woo was concerned.

So, he figured that it wouldn't be such a bad idea to leave this hospital right about now.

And there was something he wanted to confirm as well.

"Now, where did I put it….?"

Jin-Woo rummaged around his pockets and brought something out. It was a key gleaming in a golden hue. It featured such a simple design that it could be passed off as an accessory at a casual glance.

Jin-Woo observed the key for a long time before he secured it back inside his pocket.

***

While he was in the middle of being discharged, a certain young female nurse hurriedly ran to where he was.

"Pant, pant!! Mister Seong Jin-Woo, are you getting ready to be discharged today?"

"Pardon? Ah, yes, I am."

She was the nurse in charge of his care, Choi Yu-Rah.

Yu-Rah formed a rueful expression when she heard his affirmation.

Jin-Woo didn't know why, so he could only stand there looking rather confused. He wondered if he had made a mistake somewhere, but he couldn't think of anything.

Yu-Rah hesitated slightly, before pulling out a small memo pad.

"Will be okay if you give me your contact numbers?"

"My contact numbers?"

"Yes…. Only if you're okay with it."

Could there be some test results that needed to be sent at a later date or something? Jin-Woo didn't think too much about it and took the memo pad. However, all he got from her was just that, a memo pad and nothing else.

When Jin-Woo stared at her, her face reddened.

"W-what's the matter?"

"Uhm, well…. About a pen…."

"Ah? Ah, please wait."

She must've forgotten in her rush to get here; Yu-Rah became flustered and hurriedly turned around.

'Uh? Hang on a minute. A pen, is it….?'

He didn't have to think for long. Before anyone noticed it, he was already holding a pen. The moment he thought about the pen nestled quietly within his Inventory, it automatically appeared in his hand.

Once an item was placed within the Inventory, he could retrieve it freely with his thoughts alone.

What a convenient feature of the Inventory that was.

Confirming the pen in his hand, Jin-Woo called out to Yu-Rah.

"Wait. I looked and luckily enough, I had a pen on me."

"Oh, really? Whew, what a relief."

Yu-Rah placed a hand on her chest and sighed out in relief.

Jin-Woo smiled at that and he jotted down his phone number.

This happened all the time now – the items that came out of the random box always saw some sort of usage pretty soon after he got them.

When a raincoat came out, rain fell the next day. He got a cup the day before the hospital inexplicably ran out of paper cups. Of course, stuff like a band-aid with no clear uses sometimes popped out, but most of the time, they did come in handy.

"Here it is."

Yu-Rah received the memo pad back from Jin-Woo with an elated expression etched on her face.

She then bowed her head as well.

"Please take care of me from now on."

"Oh, uh, sure thing. Me too."

Yu-Rah spun around and hurriedly disappeared to somewhere. Jin-Woo looked at her departing back and tilted his head this way and that.

'By the way…. how does she expect me to take care of her?'

She was such a cute nurse, to begin with, yet she was even courteous as well. Jin-Woo thought as such and left the hospital with a refreshed, airy mind.

***

The first place he visited was the HQ of the Hunter's Association, located in the district of Guro in Seoul.

The smartphones used by the Hunters were designed with special components so, in order to get one, he had to apply for it at the Association.

The Association employee spoke while looking at the computer monitor.

"Looks like your phone will become available only after two weeks, Hunter-nim."

"Pardon me? Why so long?"

Jin-Woo's eyes opened up wider.

His old phone was smashed to bits when he was getting chased around by the god statue. However, he now had to wait for two weeks for a new phone to arrive?

"If you need a phone right away, we can loan you one on a temporary basis, but the fee for each usage is ₩50,000." (TL: Just over $44)

50,000 Won…. He wasn't even buying one, just renting it for a little while, yet it cost that much?

If he thought about his current financial status, that was way too big an expense.

'Well, it's not like someone will contact me, anyway.'

If the Association failed to get a hold of someone on his or her smartphone, they'd call the house, instead. So, there was no real reason for him to spend money and get himself a temp phone right now.

Jin-Woo shook his head.

"I'll just wait."

"I understand. As soon as your replacement phone arrives, we will send it straight to your residence."

"Thank you."

Jin-Woo got up to leave. His business was done here.

He had already completed the Daily Quest that never failed to show up every day, and the application for the new phone at the Association also ended faster than he expected.

Jin-Woo exited from the Association building and pulled the golden key out again.

'Is it now time to check this little guy out, then?

The information on the key floated up in green letters.

[Item: Dungeon Key]

Rarity: E (ED: also reflects the difficulty in acquiring the item)

Type: Key

A key that transfers you to an instant dungeon. Can be used at the 3rd exit of the Hapjeong subway station.

He found this key inside one of the random boxes he got as the Daily Quest rewards.

At first, he wondered why a key would come out from there, but once he saw the 'rarity' category, he immediately realised that this was no ordinary item.

This was one of the reasons prompting him to get discharged from the hospital as well.

'An entrance key to the instant dungeon, huh….'

Whether it was called 'instant' or not, a dungeon was a dungeon.

If it was about dungeons, then he had plenty of painful memories regarding those.

This one time, he participated in a raid ranked E and ended up getting wounded so badly that he had to stay in the hospital for over a week.

Back then, he was able to survive because of the comrades that went with him, but….

But, if he used this key to enter a dungeon, then it meant that he had to enter it all alone. He deliberated for a long time, before making up his mind.

'I'm sure there will be no problems as long as I just take a quick peek inside.'

If things looked bad, all he had to do was run away, after all.

He'd been running 10 kilometres every day for a while now, so he was pretty confident of running away, actually.

***

Annnd, it was his mistake for taking it too lightly.

Slam, slam!

"Is there…. a wall blocking me?"

He pounded on the invisible wall and shouted at the outside, but no one replied back. People continued to carry on with their own lives, that was all.

Sometimes, someone approached the Hapjeong station, but they simply vanished as soon as coming in contact with this invisible 'wall'. It was quite likely that the place he was in and the outside world were two separate dimensions.

Jin-Woo tried his hardest to force his way out of this place, which prompted a new alert message to pop up.

Tti-ring.

[You can not exit the dungeon. Please defeat the boss first or find the return crystal.]

It was the same message as before.

The key in his possession disappeared as soon as he set foot inside the 3rd exit of the subway station and, by the time Jin-Woo realised things had gone rather awry and hurriedly turned around to leave, it was already too late.

He was thinking of finding a hidden Gate or some kind of a doorway within the 3rd exit that would transport him to a dungeon, but his expectation was completely off the mark. And quite different from the regular dungeons, he couldn't even leave as he pleased, too.

"It's different from other dungeons…."

Jin-Woo spat out a long groan and looked behind him. What he could see now was the interior of the subway station that had transformed into a jungle.

Walls were thick with twisting vines, and rancid odour akin to rotting corpses assaulted his senses. Hell, he even heard the cries of what sounded like wild beasts from afar every now and then, too.

"….."

It wasn't that there was a hidden entrance somewhere near the entrance of the Hapjeong station, but the entire station had become a dungeon, instead.

Jin-Woo pulled the steel longsword out from his Inventory.

Tti-ring.

[Item: Kim Sang-Sik's steel longsword]

Attack +10

His back was blocked off, and he had no method of contacting outside, so the only option left was to go forward.

Jin-Woo nervously swallowed his saliva and slowly descended the steps. He held his breath and surveyed his surroundings, but he couldn't sense anything particular.

However, it was truly forbidden to underestimate the dangers in a dungeon.

Among the low-ranked monsters, there were quite a few that knew how to mask and hide their presence very well. No, maybe because they were so low ranked that they had no choice but to hide and wait to ambush their prey.

Past the toilets, he entered deeper and encountered the underground shopping centre.

Shops were worn down and in complete disarray, looking more like a ruin than anything else. Seeing the human-less ruined shells of the shops dimly illuminated by the flickering overhead lamps, something felt rather ominously creepy and sinister.

Flicker, flicker….

A few of the lamps continued to flicker as if their life was nearing the end.

Jin-Woo carefully stepped on the overgrown weeds jutting out from between the cracked floor tiles and continued on forward, but he picked up on a general aura of unease and scanned his surroundings.

"…."

Everything seemed so quiet and still, but he did sense a gaze of something.

And then, there was this smell, too.

A seriously rotten odour of an animal carcass with flies buzzing around was coming from somewhere. For Jin-Woo, who had frequently entered dungeons, this was a rather familiar smell.

'This smell…. An animal-type monster.'

However, he still couldn't find its whereabouts at all. Just like how a predator would stalk its a prey.

'Oh, so you want to remain hidden and wait for your chance, is that it?'

In that case, he should give it one.

Jin-Woo deliberately turned around and presented his back. And very slowly, retread the path he had taken until now. An animal would try pounce on the prey as soon as its back was shown. An animal-type monster would be no different.

And so, it happened when he took his third step.

Smash!!

The shop window of a clothing store behind him shattered into pieces and something jumped out. And this something, as soon as it landed on the ground, leapt towards Jin-Woo's exposed neck in one go.

"Roar!"

Jin-Woo had been getting ready for a sneak attack like this one, so almost immediately, he swung the sword in the direction of the sound.

It was a perfectly-executed instinctive counter!

Swish!

The sharp edge of the blade sliced open the creature's maw.

The monster spat out a pained cry as it flew away from Jin-Woo and crashed on the ground, rolling around in a heap.

*SFX for a dog-type whimpering, repeated*

It was a huge wolf with a reddish coat of fur.

The wolf with its maw sliced away wiggled around and threw a seizure-like fit as if it was under a great deal of pain. When he took a closer look, its name also appeared on top of its head, just like the centipedes from the penalty zone.

'Iron-Fanged Lycan.'

However, unlike before, its name was in white letters, not red.

'There is no time to waste here!'

This was the perfect opportunity while the monster could not move from its wound. Jin-Woo threw his body forward.

He ran hard and fast, and chopped down with his sword, separating the creature's head from its body.

"Rawr!"

Lycan spat out the final roar and stopped breathing afterwards.

[You've killed an Iron-Fanged Lycan.]

"Good!"

However, the joy of victory was temporary!

Two more Lycans jumped out from their hiding place from behind the shop's darkness.

'D*mn it, it was in a pack?'

Jin-Woo's eyes grew wider.

They bared their big fangs and closed the distance in an instant.

Jin-Woo's expression crumpled dismally.

He must've chopped down too hard from all the excitement, because the sword was lodged on the ground too deep and it stubbornly refused to come out.

'It's stuck somewhere.'

It was at this moment that one of the Lycans aimed for his face and leapt up.

"D*mn it!!"

Jin-Woo ducked low. The Lycan flew over his head and landed face-first on the ground after failing to stop in time.

Stab!!

When its fangs stabbed into the stone floor, cracks instantly formed on the hard surface.

'I guess it's not called Iron-Fanged for nothing, huh.'

Of course, he didn't have the leeway to stay there and admire this scene. One more monster was still running towards his front at the moment, too. His sword showed no signs of coming free from its earthly prison for the time being.

"Screw this!"

Jin-Woo had no choice but to give up on the sword for now and threw a hard punch at the Lycan closing in.

WHOOSH!!

Accompanied by a bone-chilling sound of wind parting ways, his fist flew straight forward.

POW!!

It took just one hit and the head of the Lycan simply exploded.

The corpse of the now-headless Lycan slammed into the ceiling above and then, powerlessly fell down to the ground.

Thud!

"….??"

Jin-Woo's eyes opened up very wide and he stared dumbfoundedly at his own fist.

What an unexpected destructive power that was.

Chapter 14: Chapter 14

The sole surviving Lycan, the one that flew over Jin-Woo's head just now, lowered its tail after seeing this scene and began taking faltering steps backwards.

"Huh….?"

Was this the result from him raising his Strength Stat?

The utterly stunned Seong Jin-Woo couldn't close his slack jaw as the headless Lycan's legs shook like a leaf, before its movement stopped for good.

That was when he heard the familiar mechanical beep going off again.

Tti-ring.

[You've killed an Iron-Fanged Lycan.]

[Level up!]

***

"My level rose up?"

To make sure that he didn't mishear that, Jin-Woo hurriedly accessed his Status Window.

Name: Seong Jin-Woo

Level: 2

Class: None

Title: None

HP: 205

MP: 22

Tiredness: 0

[Stat]

Strength: 32

Stamina: 11

Agility: 11

Intelligence: 11

Perception: 11

(Available points to distribute: 0)

[Skills]

Passive skills:

– (Unknown) Lv. Max

– Tenacity Lv. 1

Active skills:

– Dash Lv. 1

His level really did go up.

And when a level went up, a single point was added to all of his Stats.

As it turned out, it wasn't only the quest rewards that could impact the values of his Stats. It was also possible to improve his Stats through levelling up, too.

'To think, I can actually level up!'

He only carried a vague expectation, but it actually became reality. His heart began to beat faster and faster.

'On top of that, I get more additional points from levelling up.'

The Stat points he got from the quest rewards were 3. Meanwhile, he got 5 from levelling up once.

Although he didn't like the fact that he couldn't freely distribute those points the way he liked to, but still, his growth through levelling up was much greater.

Also, there was the thing about quests only being available once per day, but there was a good chance that levelling up wouldn't suffer from such restrictions.

'I only killed two, but my level rose up.'

This was the same as in video games. When his level was low, he could raise it up by a lot during a short space of time.

And currently, Jin-Woo was only a level 2. It was not an exaggeration to say that he was right at the bottom of the pile. However, he was not what one would call a normal low-level player, either. His Strength stat already exceeded 30.

If the Strength stat rose up by one point every time one levelled up, then the Stat value of Jin-Woo's Strength was equivalent to level 20 or higher.

What if a 'user' possessing level 20's worth of Strength stat hunted in the 'level 1' beginner's hunting area?

'In other words, explosive levelling up….'

As if to prove his guess, the destructive might behind that punch easily exceeded his own expectations.

'The Strength stat might have been multiplied by just over three times, but…. The difference in actual, physical strength was well beyond that.'

Jin-Woo's original Strength value was 10.

There was the difference of three times the value between the Strength stat of 10 and 30, but the difference between the actual forces produced was well beyond that.

'Could it be….?'

What if, as the Stat's value rose up, the weight was also added as well? If that was the case, then such a destructive power output could easily be explained away.

Besides that, his movement speed had increased as well.

If it was in the past, there was no way he'd be able to lightly evade the all-out attack of an animal, nor could his punch move fast enough to produce the sound of the air splitting apart.

"Right, the physical strength in my muscles has increased so, obviously my speed would have increased along the way, too."

Simply by raising his Strength stat higher, both his power and speed had gone up. The battle against the Lycans proved this.

So, what would happen if he increased his Agility, instead?

His curiosity was at its peak, but he didn't have any method to find out at the moment. If he wanted to satisfy his burning curiosity, then he simply had to increase his Stats, ASAP.

'Even still….'

He couldn't help but think that investing points he got as quest rewards in the Agility Stat kinda felt a bit wasteful. If he shored up his Strength Stat, both his power and speed would go up anyway, so what was the point of investing in the Agility Stat?

Since his thoughts were as such, there was only one way to go forward here.

'I gotta level up lots of times, really fast.'

Indeed, he'd raise the Agility Stat through levelling up. Every little cent saved would eventually net him a buck later down the line. If he increased the values one point at a time, he'd feel the difference sooner or later.

Jin-Woo pried loose the sword off the ground.

'In that case, shall I get started for real, then?'

There was one more monster he needed to kill, after all.

"By the way…. Where did it disappear to?"

The Lycan that was definitely somewhere nearby had gone with the wind before he had noticed it. Jin-Woo hurriedly scanned his surroundings, but he couldn't find a single trace of the creature.

Quite likely, it had turned tail and ran away while he was immersed in the Status Windows. Well, he should've known something was up when it lowered its tail and cautiously studied his 'mood'.

"Tsk."

Jin-Woo smacked his lips, realising that a bundle of experience points had just escaped from his grasp.

'Hang on, do these things give away things like magic crystals, too?'

The sudden thought popping up in his head stopped him in his tracks.

Monsters appearing within the Gates all possessed one, or sometimes, several, magic crystals in them. If one got lucky, a Rune stone might drop, too.

Magic crystals could be used for a variety of purposes and they alone exchanged hands for princely sums; no need to even mention the Rune stones, which could be used by Hunters to learn brand new skills.

It was not an exaggeration to say that the reasons why Hunters participated in raids was not just because of the promised payment from the related organisations, but also these magic crystals, as well.

Jin-Woo was also a Hunter.

He was successful in killing these monsters, so not being rewarded for his work kind of felt a bit like he was wronged somehow.

Feeling a little rueful, he sliced open the Lycan's stomach, but it turned out to be a waste of time. It seemed that these creatures were fundamentally different from the regular monsters.

The thing was, he had entered quite a few different dungeons in his career so far, but he had never seen these wolf-like monsters before.

Jin-Woo dusted his hands and was about to stand back up, but then….

"Mm?"

He spotted something glittering within the dead Lycan's mouth. So, he opened the creature's maws. One of the Lycan's fangs was emitting a beam of light. When Jin-Woo reached out, a new message popped up before him.

[You found the 'Item: The Canine of a Lycan'. Take it?]

"Sure thing."

[Item: The Canine of a Lycan]

Rarity: None

Type: Miscellaneous

A large and sharp canine of a Lycan. Can be stored in the Inventory or can be sold at the Store.

Jin-Woo got flustered a bit while staring at the canine tooth.

'There was a Store, too?!'

Where would you find a System less friendly than the one he was saddled with?!

To think, it was designed in such a way that the end user had to personally experience it with his own body before learning about any of its functions….

Hell, he wasn't given much of an explanation during the penalty quest and he almost died as a result back then.

Jin-Woo gnashed his teeth and tried to summon this 'Store' thing.

"Store."

He couldn't help but feel his anticipation build up, wondering if a shop with a signboard declaring 'Store' and manned by an NPC merchant, kinda like from video games, might really appear before him.

However, what appeared instead was a bunch of green letters floating in the air like hologram projections, just like when he accessed his mailbox.

And there were only two words there, too.

'Buy' and 'Sell'.

"...."

What a simple-tastic Store this was.

Jin-Woo selected 'Buy'.

He didn't have a single cent in his pockets, but he was still curious about the stuff available within the Store.

Unfortunately for him, the Store turned out to be one cold customer.

[Your level is too low to access the 'Buy' function.]

He was already familiar with the cold-shoulder treatment from the places that required him to pay up, so this was fine.

"Sure, sure."

Jin-Woo didn't think too much about it and shifted his gaze away to 'Sell'.

[Will you sell 'Item: The Canine of a Lycan'?]

"Yup."

With the clinging sounds of coins, his Inventory appeared next. Right at the bottom of the display, in the column saying 'Gold', he could see the number 20 appearing there. That space had been empty yesterday.

'20 Gold, eh,'

He couldn't really use that 'money' in real life, and he couldn't even use the Store properly yet, so he had no idea just how much this 20 Gold was actually worth.

'Oh well. A creature from the rank E dungeon wouldn't have given me any decent loot, to begin with.'

Even if there was a difference between the dungeons found beyond the Gates and this so-called instant dungeon, it would be the same difference at the end of the day.

Still, Jin-Woo wanted to make sure, so he was about to collect the canine from the other dead Lycan, but he ended up doing a facepalm, instead.

"Ah. I blew away its entire head, didn't I…."

Jin-Woo felt bitter as he turned around to go somewhere else.

20 Gold and its unknown worth were calling back to him, but he couldn't waste time searching for a single canine that could've flown to pretty much anywhere under this dim lighting.

However, as soon as he turned around, the feelings of bitterness dissipated in an instant.

"Growl!!"

"Grrr…."

"Growl!!"

"Grrr!!!"

Well now, the Lycan he thought had ran way actually came back with a bunch of its friends!

A wonderfully bright smile bloomed on Jin-Woo's face. Even at a casual glance, there must be over 20 of them here.

"Eureka!!"

Hang on a minute, was that the right word to use in this sort of situation?

Whatever.

It was definitely a word to express one's joy, anyway.

Jin-Woo tightly grasped the sword and spoke up.

"With the exception of your canines, I'm gonna massacre all of you."

When the chilling glare of a man who was obsessed about making money landed on the Lycans, they became intimidated and shuddered slightly.

It was at this point that Jin-Woo pounced on them without mercy.

***

[Level up!]

[Level up!]

[Level up!]

As he expected, his levels rose up quite quickly.

Simply from searching every nook and cranny of the first floor and killing all the Lycans he could find, Jin-Woo's level shot right up to 7.

He had jumped up five flights of stairs, in other words.

"Whimper….."

When he caught up and killed the very last monster running desperately away from him, a strange message popped up into his view.

Tti-ring.

[You have acquired the 'Title: Slaughterer of Wolves'.]

"A Title?"

[Title: Slaughterer of Wolves]

A Title given to a hunter skilled in hunting wolves. When facing animal-type monsters, all of your Stats will increase by 40%. (TL: the 'hunter' is a lower case here, because that's what's in the raw. The 'Hunters' until now had been written in English, actually.)

When he opened his Status Window to take a look, the 'Title' column indeed had been updated.

Name: Seong Jin-Woo

Level: 7

Class: None

Title: Slaughterer of Wolves

HP: 766

MP: 81

Tiredness: 3

[Stat]

Strength: 37

Stamina: 16

Agility: 16

Intelligence: 16

Perception: 16

(Available points to distribute: 0)

[Skills]

Passive skills:

– (Unknown) Lv. Max

– Tenacity Lv. 1

Active skills:

– Dash Lv. 1

A bonus boost to his stats when fighting against animal-type monsters….

Although the effect was a bit restricted, still, having his Stats increase by 40%, now that didn't sound too bad at all.

'There are plenty of animal-type monsters out there, so would this apply to them as well?' (TL: the author had been using the Hanja word for monsters to describe those found in the Gate's dungeons until now, but the creatures found in the instant dungeon are written in the English word, 'monster'. That's why we get this line.)

If that was the case, then he'd be able to easily kill monsters when participating in the future raids.

However, he still earned big time even when disregarding his new Title.

'34 wolf canines, two rusted daggers, a set of traveller's clothes, and one return crystal.'

While killing these wolves, he learned that he could sometimes find loot from their bellies. Of course, none of them was all that useful.

The rusted daggers possessed lower attack power bonus compared to the sword he'd been using until now, and the traveller's clothes were not something he could actually wear, but just some random japtem (ED: 'Vendor Trash', essentially.) that he could hawk off to the Store.

When he sold them all off, he earned just over a thousand Gold.

[Current Gold: 1,060]

'….Even then, I can't really celebrate, can I?'

Well, no matter how much he hoarded this Gold thing, he couldn't use them anyways. At least not for now.

The only thing remaining, besides the Gold, was the return crystal. When he was trying desperately to escape from the dungeon back then, the message said he'd need a return crystal if he wanted to leave. And now, if he wanted to, he could escape at any time.

He found himself on a crossroads.

In front, the stairs leading down to the second floor.

And in his hand, a single return crystal grasped tightly.

'Do I continue on, or do I back out….?'

If it was in the past, he'd not hesitate and choose the latter. That was how he managed to survive all those raids with his pathetic Stats. Everyone said that him surviving until now was a miracle, but well, he was trying to be smart about his choices, actually.

However, the story was different now.

He didn't want to retreat here.

He felt that, if he turned away to leave now, then he'd never be able to take another step forward in his life.

"I've retreated enough times already, right?"

Wouldn't it be okay for him to jump in headlong, at least once in his life?

Jin-Woo pocketed the return crystal. His steps climbing down the steps to the 2nd floor was light.