“Urgh.”
I stood up, patting my back, which seemed to grow more hunched with each passing day.
With a sigh, I looked around.
My vegetable patch, which I had gone to some trouble to make look respectable, sat there completely barren.
“…What on earth am I doing wrong?”
I had studied farming in every way I could think of to solve this problem.
I had even asked the natives of several dungeons how to grow crops.
And yet, after three whole years, not a single thing had managed to grow in my vegetable patch.
“Quest.”
I summoned the quest window responsible for this entire mess.
[Awakening Quest: Offer a Tribute]
Gather and submit the specified items.
Mana-Infused Fleeceflower Root: 0/1
Homemade Mana-Infused Fruit and Vegetable Juice: 0/1
An awakening quest was something like a holographic window that appeared only to Awakened, people capable of entering and leaving dungeons.
Every Awakened person received one, and the contents were different for each individual.
A new quest appeared as soon as the previous one was completed, but this was only my third.
My first two quests had also demanded tributes.
Unlike most Awakened, who received quests to hunt monsters, I had initially thought I had struck it lucky.
At least, that was what I had thought…
‘Even if my ability is Synthesis, how could they give me such a ridiculous quest…?’
Actually, let me correct that.
My awakened ability wasn’t simply Synthesis.
To be precise, it was ‘Liquid Synthesis.’
What use was there in combining liquids?
Quite a lot, actually.
For example, I could combine two potions with different effects into a single potion that provided both effects, though each would be slightly weaker.
If a monster was standing right in front of you, drinking one slightly less effective potion was much more efficient than pulling out and drinking two separate ones.
You might think that made my ability exceptionally valuable for an item crafter, but there was one rather important catch.
‘The cooldown is twenty-three hours and fifty minutes.
What am I supposed to do with an ability that lets me synthesize just one thing a day?’
It had originally been exactly twenty-four hours.
Clearing my first two awakening quests had shaved a grand total of ten minutes off the cooldown.
Yes, quests were indispensable for improving an Awakened person’s abilities.
And in a world where abilities were everything, that meant one simple thing: completing quests increased an Awakened person’s value.
“Haa…”
That was why I had no choice but to keep at it, even after three years without the slightest progress.
“Do you have any idea what I went through to become Awakened?”
Becoming Awakened was an incredible blessing, but if you couldn’t put your ability to good use, you were no different from an ordinary person.
Mine wasn’t even useful in combat.
Compared to the abilities of prominent Awakened who were actively clearing dungeons, mine simply wasn’t considered very important.
As a result, I hadn’t been able to join a single guild, and I couldn’t even go home.
Instead, I was stuck here doing this.
Slap!
“Phew.
Get a grip.”
Enough wallowing in self-pity.
I couldn’t afford to waste even that much time.
I couldn’t give up, not when my family had believed in me and waited for me all these past three years.
Even if there were no immediate results, I had to keep trying something, anything, however slim the chance of success.
“Hah.
Neither one is going to be easy.”
The quest required mana-infused fleeceflower root and homemade mana-infused fruit and vegetable juice.
I could gather the first item from a dungeon or buy it from somebody else.
It would cost a considerable amount, of course, but at least there was a guaranteed way to obtain it.
The second requirement was the problem.
Countless kinds of dungeons existed in the world, and the cycle of dungeons disappearing after being cleared and new ones appearing never ended.
Each dungeon had its own ecosystem.
There was nature, and there were living creatures.
Sometimes, fruits and edible plants that existed only inside dungeons could be found as well.
“I thought I could just get hold of some ingredients, squeeze out the juice, and synthesize them.
Turns out I was wrong.”
The wording ‘homemade’ was terribly vague.
After three years of trial and error, I had come to suspect that it would only count if I grew the mana-infused fruits or vegetables myself before making the juice.
That was why I, an Awakened, had ended up doing nothing but farming.
I was probably the only person in the entire world of Awakened in this situation.
After staring at the vegetable patch for a moment, I headed toward the dungeon entrance.
Incidentally, this place was a small, Grade 1 dungeon of the type known as an infinite dungeon, one of the rare dungeons that never closed.
It wasn’t mine, however, so I paid rent to use it every month.
“Farming isn’t going to produce results overnight.
I guess I’ll go look for some fleeceflower root.”
If I managed to solve the problem with the juice, I was prepared to buy the root.
Until then, I intended to search the dungeons myself.
Fortunately, Liquid Synthesis earned me around 100,000 won a day, just enough to scrape by with my living expenses and dungeon rent.
But I hadn’t become Awakened just to earn 100,000 won a day.
I needed to finish that quest as soon as possible.
As soon as I stepped outside, I searched for information on newly discovered dungeons.
I found several that seemed likely to contain fleeceflower root, but their entrance fees were so much higher than I had expected that my hands started trembling.
“Isn’t there anything decent going for a reasonable price?”
I stood there fiddling with my smartphone until I suddenly realized how quiet it was around me.
The small dungeon I rented was located on Mount Obong in Yangju, Gyeonggi Province.
Its entrance was a little cave halfway up the mountain, so there was nothing strange about the quiet.
Then why had I suddenly felt a chill run down my spine?
“Holy crap!
What’s that?”
When I turned around, I saw that the entrance to the dungeon I had just left was writhing.
I hurriedly backed away and watched to see what would happen.
The cave entrance squirmed for a little while, then grew still.
To be safe, I waited another ten minutes before cautiously looking around.
“A dungeon transformation?”
I had heard that, on very, very rare occasions, a dungeon that already existed could change.
Its grade or size might be altered, but I had also heard that transformed dungeons generally contained extraordinary rewards.
“It looks the same from the outside, though.”
There was one thing that didn’t match what I’d heard: the dungeon’s appearance hadn’t really changed.
Supposedly, a transformed dungeon’s entrance might become more elaborate or take on a different material, but the one before me hadn’t changed at all after that initial movement.
Well, perhaps the shape of the cave had shifted ever so slightly.
It was such a tiny difference that I wouldn’t be able to tell without comparing photographs.
I discreetly checked the potions I had on me.
There was the synthesized potion I had made for today’s quota, but all my unsold stock was still inside the dungeon.
“This is driving me crazy.”
That dungeon was practically my home.
I stayed there all the time except when I needed the internet, went out to buy food, or searched for fleeceflower root.
That had been possible because it was an infinite dungeon where all the monsters had already been eliminated.
Now that I had seen something resembling a dungeon transformation right before my eyes, I was beside myself with worry.
‘Wasn’t this originally a slime dungeon?’
Slimes were harmless creatures that barely deserved to be called monsters.
Perhaps I could just go inside.
Besides, I didn’t have any money to spare.
Hiring an Awakened to clear the dungeon would cost money, and enticing one over with the promise of a transformed dungeon and its rewards left a bad taste in my mouth.
‘And if I tell someone the dungeon transformed only for it to turn out that nothing happened, dealing with the aftermath would be a nightmare.’
In the end, I decided to enter alone.
The fact that everything I owned was inside, the possibility of a reward for the transformation, and the dungeon’s history as a mere small Grade 1 slime dungeon all filled me with reckless courage.
‘I’ve been stuck in place for three years.
Everyone else has been soaring ahead while I’ve been the only one falling behind.’
The odds of becoming Awakened were extremely low.
When I first awakened, it had even been newsworthy enough for the media to feature me.
Now, however, nobody remembered who I was.
The sudden increase in the number of Awakened over the years had played a part, but the biggest problem was undoubtedly my unimpressive ability and my complete lack of growth.
Did people have any idea what it felt like to think you had reached the peak of your life, only to sink all the way to the bottom instead?
“All or nothing.” I stepped toward the dungeon.
* * *
—Ding!
Awakening complete.
That was the sound I heard the instant I entered the dungeon.
Before I could even wonder what sort of nonsense it was, the familiar interior greeted me just as it always had.
“What the heck?”
Nothing had changed.
Oh, wait, there was one thing.
Squirm…
A slime was rolling around in my vegetable patch.
The perfectly ordinary, round, green slime kept rolling about, apparently unaware that I had even arrived.
“More importantly, what was that sound just now?”
I’d heard something say awakening was complete.
What kind of nonsense was that?
I was already Awakened…
“Don’t tell me, don’t tell me, don’t tell me, don’t tell me…”
Excitement surged through me.
What if I really had heard those words?
“S-st-status window!”
I had once read an online rumor that sounded like an urban legend.
Apparently, there was such a thing as double awakening, where an already Awakened person awakened a second time.
In other words, they would possess two awakened abilities.
“Hah…
Hah…!”
Breathing heavily, I closed my eyes.
I had summoned my status window, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at it.
At the same time, the hardships of the past three years flashed before my eyes like a revolving lantern, and hot tears spilled down my cheeks.
“Calm down, Lee Gyuseong!
Get a hold of yourself!”
An urban legend was just an urban legend.
I had never heard of an actual case of double awakening.
If someone had truly experienced it, surely they would have come forward to boast about it, wouldn’t they?
“Right.
I must’ve misheard it.
No, even if it was real, there’s no way something like double awakening could possibly…”
As I stood there muttering to myself like a lunatic with my eyes closed, something suddenly made the hem of my trousers feel warm and damp.
Thinking that perhaps I had gotten so worked up that I’d wet myself, I opened my eyes without realizing it.
Squirm?
A slime had somehow latched onto my trouser leg and was tilting its body as if to ask what I was staring at.
“What are yooooooou?!”
I had been about to address the slime when I saw the status window in front of me and let out a scream.
There, under the heading for awakened abilities, where there should have been only one entry, a second ability was clearly listed.
[Abilities]
Liquid Synthesis LV.1
Slime Lord LV.1
“Huh…
Haa…
Hah?”
Unable to believe my eyes, I pinched my cheeks several times, then gave the sticky slime at my feet a few loud slaps.
Smack!
Smack!
Squirm!
Ignoring the slime as it jiggled in protest, as though asking why I was hitting it, I stared at my status window again.
“But…
what exactly is Slime Lord?”
It was my second awakened ability, and of course I was deliriously surprised and delighted.
But there was something strange about the name.
The word ‘Lord’ sounded impressive, but unfortunately, the word in front of it was ‘Slime.’
I immediately opened the description of Slime Lord.
[Slime Lord]
All slimes obey the Lord’s commands.
You may produce one slime per day.
“What the…”
Thud.
All the joy I had been feeling instantly turned into despair and crashed over me.
“Ha…
Haha…
Hahahaha…”
A slime?
A sliiiiime?
What good would it do for a slime to obey my commands?
What was I supposed to use creatures whose combat power was practically zero for?!
It wasn’t even as though I could summon hundreds of them at once.
Just one a day?
Oooone a daaaay?!
“YOU DAMNED WORLD!!!”
It took only an instant for my tears of joy to become tears of rage.
Either way, the tears refused to stop flowing.
And as I stood there crying and screaming, a lone slime wriggled toward me, its body squelching as it moved.
Squirm?