Chapter 23
#23. Underground Dungeon (4)
“Ungh...!”
Shluck! With a piece of clothing clenched between my teeth, I pulled the arrow from my thigh.
A searing pain followed, as though I had been subjected to the sizzling fire torture used by Joseon-era interrogators.
If the arrow had merely been lodged in my flesh, I could have carefully pulled it out, but things were different if the arrowhead had pierced all the way through.
I had to snap the shaft in half, then pull it out, letting the arrowhead pass all the way through.
Because of that, I even felt my consciousness growing hazier by the moment.
“...Is it poison?”
The wound was gradually beginning to throb, and I wondered if that was simply what happened when an arrow pierced flesh, but something felt off.
In any case, if I left the wound untreated like this, I might be forced to choose between poisoning, excessive bleeding, and tetanus.
With no other choice, I opened the app and entered the shop.
I could only desperately hope that it was selling something useful.
[The shop's inventory has been reset]
[Lesser Antidote: 200 Coins]
[Sweet Apple: 250 Coins]
[Imperial Army's Mana Sword: 400 Coins]
[A Book of Culture for a Glamorous Lady: 540 Coins]
[Advanced Random Scroll: 600 Coins]
·
·
·
Fortunately, the shop had reset and an antidote had appeared.
I had no idea when it had reset, but it was still fucking great news.
‘Come to think of it, Lesser Health Potions and Mana Potions each cost 600 Coins, but this is only 200. Isn't it too cheap?’
My surprise lasted only a moment. After reading the item description, I could understand the pricing.
[Lesser Antidote]
[Grade: Normal]
[Alleviates mild symptoms of poisoning]
It did not even completely cure mild poisoning; it was merely a half-baked potion that alleviated it.
Seen that way, even 200 Coins seemed expensive.
I sighed, but since I was the one in a bind, I had no choice but to buy it.
[You have purchased a Lesser Antidote]
I gulped down the antidote and checked my remaining balance.
I had 400 Coins left.
The two Kobold Warriors I had just dealt with had not been first defeats, so I thought I would receive no separate rewards, but surprisingly, I got 50 Coins for each of them.
‘Still, that's nowhere near enough.’
There was only so much I could earn by hunting monsters. A first defeat for a D+ rank monster paid 100 Coins, while a repeat defeat paid 50.
Of course, if the day soon came when I could kill D+ rank monsters as easily as swatting ants, the Coins they paid would be a fantastic deal.
But there was no guarantee that the value of 50 or 100 Coins would remain the same when that day came.
“As expected, the settlement I received after my matching with Iris ended paid the most.”
Setting aside the Starter Pack as a special case, the matching had paid out 300 Coins in a little over half a day.
I would probably receive even more Coins when I returned after this matching ended.
Once I thought about it that way, the answer came quickly.
When this matching ended, I would try a new one.
Coins were not the only reason, either. Just as I had become a mage in this world, I might be able to obtain knowledge or items in another world that would aid my growth.
“It's decided.”
After sitting and thinking it over, the poison seemed to have subsided considerably.
My body was still heavy, but my mana had recovered to some extent, so it was time to resume exploring the dungeon.
“Let's fill up exactly 1,000 Coins, no more and no less.”
Eight hours remained.
My goal was to collect 1,000 Coins from first-defeat and repeat-defeat rewards and return within that time.
With a juicy settlement reward and a new matching afterward, I had settled on a rough plan for the time being.
***
The dungeon was still vast, and there were enough monsters and traps to make me sick of them.
[You have defeated the Skeleton Warrior]
[First Defeat Reward: 100 Coins]
[You have defeated the Skeleton Warrior]
[Repeat Defeat Reward: 50 Coins]
[You have defeated the Skeleton Archer.]
[First Defeat Reward: 100 Coins]
There were even times when three skeletons appeared at once.
[You have defeated the Death Ghoul]
[First Defeat Reward: 100 Coins]
I even had to fight a giant ghoul whose sheer size put it at C rank.
[You have defeated the Tentaclipper]
[First Defeat Reward: 100 Coins]
A bizarre creature with multiple tentacles, straight out of an adult game, appeared as well, and Weakness Insight proved useful then.
It briefly gave me a hard time because it quickly regenerated no matter where I attacked, but thanks to Weakness Insight, I was able to find the core in its solar plexus.
[You have defeated the Devil Snake]
[First Defeat Reward: 100 Coins]
When a snake the size of a mid-sized sedan and over ten meters long appeared, I think I could do nothing but laugh.
[You have defeated the Blade Wolf]
[First Defeat Reward: 100 Coins]
If I had to sum up this son of a bitch in one word, it was fucking awful.
As befitted a wolf, it was faster than the Kobold Warrior, and its steel claws were even stronger than the Poison Spider's forelegs, so I used at least two and a half times as much mana on barriers as I had against the others.
Fortunately, it had the weakness of extremely low magic resistance, so I pretended to make a mistake and fired a Thunderbolt into its mouth, turning it into an electric roast.
Apparently, dog meat is usually made into stew, but this one was literally an electric roast.
If I sold it from a food truck, certain organizations would probably foam at the mouth.
[You have defeated the Kobold Warrior]
[Repeat Defeat Reward: 50 Coins]
[You have defeated the Poison Spiderx2]
[Repeat Defeat Reward: 100 Coins]
[You have defeated the Skeleton Warrior]
[Repeat Defeat Reward: 50 Coins]
Monsters I had already defeated also appeared from time to time, aiming for my neck.
I pushed forward as my barrier shattered dozens of times, burning monsters with fire and blowing them apart with lightning.
At this point, I could no longer tell whether the blood caked all over my body was mine or the monsters'.
“Haa...”
I was gasping for breath, and with my Heart nearly empty, I was on the verge of collapsing from mana exhaustion.
After drinking the antidote, I fought by minimizing each spell's mana consumption as much as possible so I could waste as little time as possible.
In particular, to reduce the mana consumed by barriers, I actively put the modified barrier I had learned while fighting the two Kobold Warriors to use and continued my battles.
Thanks to that, I was able to drastically reduce my mana consumption by meditating less, but the mental fatigue kept piling up. Creating a barrier of precisely the minimum size only at the point of impact and using it to block attacks was an insane feat that no mage—a back-line class—would ever imagine attempting.
If I had made even the slightest mistake calculating the impact point, a sword or arrow would have been lodged in my body. Even now, I could not believe I had done something like that while in my right mind. Why had I even tried it?
Still, perhaps because I gradually adapted to it, I was eventually able to block attacks with almost no errors.
Although my entire body was covered in slashes and I had lost half of one ear, this was still a decent result. If I went to a church later and made a donation, they should be able to fix injuries this minor.
I had even learned to use Dual Casting, casting two spells at once, so these injuries had come at a bargain price.
“I finally have enough.”
[Remaining Coins: 1,250 Coins]
With this, I could afford even the most expensive item in the shop.
Of course, the items currently for sale were nothing special, so I would have to wait for the next reset, but it was still a good thing.
On top of that, I had collected the magic stones from the bodies of the fifteen monsters I had killed so far. Since they were magic stones from D+ rank monsters, they should sell for a decent price, right?
That is, if I ignored how filthy and shitty the extraction process had been.
[Remaining Matching Time: 01:15:49]
There was truly little time left, so I was glad I had reached my target before then.
“Should I say goodbye to Iris before I go back?”
It was not an easy decision to make.
But in the end, I leaned toward not saying goodbye.
I had only a little over an hour to get from here to Iris, and that would be cutting it close.
There was no guarantee that monsters would not appear on the way back, either.
Besides, once I returned to Earth, time in this world would stop, so there was no need to force a goodbye.
“Should I look for the door to the second floor during the time I have left?”
I could gather some Coins along the way, too.
Even though I had reached my target, the more Coins I had, the better.
Besides, if a fight became truly impossible, I could just end the matching.
Having made that decision, I first meditated for thirty minutes to deal with my depleted mana. I absorbed and refined the mana that eagerly rushed toward me the moment I allowed it to, storing it in my Heart.
As I felt my mana gradually replenish, I took out and ate the last chicken-breast salad.
‘I bought this to give to Iris, too, but I haven't been able to give her anything besides medicine.’
I put that regret behind me and decided to set out.
Considering how much time remained, I could not afford to dawdle.
The familiar corridors continued to stretch ahead of me.
The only difference was that the forks that had appeared so frequently were strangely absent.
Thanks to that, mapping became much easier, but the sudden change gave me an odd feeling.
On top of that, neither monsters nor traps appeared.
Of course, only thirty minutes had passed, so the absence of monsters was understandable. The lack of traps, too... well, I could chalk that up to good luck.
The strange feeling left me uneasy, but only fifteen minutes remained now.
There was no longer enough time to think or explore.
Had I been too greedy to hope to find the door to the second floor on my very first expedition?
Just as I decided that I had no choice but to end the matching here...
Fwoosh!
“?!”
Something was flying rapidly toward me from beyond the darkness in the distance.
It was incomparably faster than the arrows fired by the Kobold Warrior I had fought earlier.
I realized a full-body barrier would not activate in time, so I calculated the point of impact and spread a modified barrier over that spot.
KWAANG!!!
“Kgh?!!”
I had poured half my remaining mana into the barrier in case something like this happened.
Even so, the barrier shattered the moment it blocked the attack.
Fortunately, the attack's trajectory had been off, so I was not injured, but the impact was so tremendous that my body was sent flying several meters backward.
I barely managed to support myself and stand.
A spear was embedded in the floor in front of me.
“To have this much power with a thrown spear from over fifty meters away...”
I had a bad feeling about this.
The oppressive mana drawing closer made my survival instinct scream at me to end the matching immediately.
I remembered what the World Tree had told me before I entered this place.
[There is a guardian protecting the door to the next floor, so be careful.]
“...The warning was one thing, but that...”
What emerged from the darkness was a Lizardman with scales covering its entire body and a muscular build far sturdier than the Kobold Warrior's.
It was a Lizard Warrior, known as an elite among the C-rank Lizardmen.
It was an opponent on an entirely different level from the Kobold Warrior.
Unlike the Kobold Warrior, which merely filled a gap on the front line, that thing was the strongest warrior of its tribe, recognized as such by the tribal Lizardmen.
It was also famous for having intelligence vastly superior to that of a kobold.
‘So it threw one spear because it had two of them?’
The creature exuded a terrifying pressure as it pulled the spear from its back and assumed a stance. I could not find even the slightest opening.
Weakness Insight sometimes revealed an opponent's openings, but I could see nothing this time.
It was not some stupid monster relying solely on its physical abilities, but a genuine warrior.
Grrr...
That was a C+ at the very least.
I might somehow manage to kill something up to C-, but that thing was truly out of the question.
“Still, just knowing you're the guardian makes this trip worthwhile.”
I gave the creature, which was releasing boundless hostility and killing intent toward me with a low growl, the middle finger.
“Wait there. I'll be back soon.”
[Do you wish to end the matching?]
[Y/N]
[Y]