An F-Rank Dungeon.
In keeping with its assigned rank, it was a dungeon of the lowest difficulty.
That was because its mission was extremely simple compared to higher-rank dungeons, where the number of monsters and clear conditions increased.
However, even among F-Rank Dungeons, there were a few very rare dungeons that were regarded as highly difficult.
One of them was F-0132, the dungeon commonly known as the ‘Kingdom of the Sticky Queen.’
Fundamentally, the missions in F-Rank Dungeons consisted of a single stage.
The ‘Kingdom of the Sticky Queen’ was the same. Its structure was one in which monster waves poured out endlessly until the boss was defeated.
If it were another dungeon, Hunters could simply use high-firepower skills to quickly eliminate the regular mobs and deal damage to the boss.
The problem lay in the characteristics of the monster known as the Wasp.
Befitting its name as an orange, sticky kingdom, the dungeon created by the Wasps was an enormous maze with a complicated structure.
On top of that, even though it was F-Rank, swarms of Wasps with vicious offensive power were waiting inside.
Could they not simply ignore the regular mobs and find the boss first?
It would be possible…… if they could ignore the attacks of the Wasps, which inflicted status effects with every shot.
Because the Kingdom of the Sticky Queen had such a reputation,
Japan’s Hunter community, which held the dungeon’s overwhelming first-place record and best time, took great pride in this dungeon.
[Dungeon F-0132/Kingdom of the Sticky Queen has been cleared.]
[With 100% contribution, first place is awarded to Hunter ‘I Am Meteor’.]
[As the first-place reward, a 10% Movement Speed buff is applied to the affiliated country (Korea).]
That was why this situation was even more unexpected.
The System Window that had suddenly appeared had shattered their pride…….
“Is…… Is what I am seeing right now real?”
“It appears so.”
The news that Korea had cleared the Kingdom of the Sticky Queen.
Upon seeing it, Kujo Shigeo, who belonged to Japan’s Hunter Bureau, was flustered.
The other staff members who had been summoned were just as flustered.
It was a situation none of them had expected.
For this record, Japan had discovered a promising speed-type Hunter whose skill was evaluated as near-S-rank.
Over the course of several years, they had uncovered the dungeon’s special rules through the records of countless Hunters.
After applying buffs worth hundreds of billions,
they had finally managed to create the first-place record of nine minutes.
The result of pouring in such extreme effort had passed over to Korea in an instant.
At the sudden theft of their record, Japan’s Hunter Bureau went on emergency alert.
“What have we determined so far?”
“They say one of our Hunters was deployed into the same dungeon.”
“Let us hear from him immediately.”
“Yes. Hey! Bring him in!”
Japan’s team was swift and systematic.
As soon as a staff member gave the signal, the door opened, and a dazed-looking Hunter entered the conference room.
He was not a Hunter who had particularly drawn attention within the Hunter Bureau.
It was only natural that the people in this room did not know him, but Kujo pretended familiarity with the Hunter whose name he did not even know and questioned him about the situation.
“So, it was you. What on earth happened inside the dungeon?”
“Well……”
Whatever he had seen, the Hunter could not readily open his mouth and hesitated.
The sight of him breaking out in a cold sweat and swallowing dryly heightened everyone’s tension.
Then, for an instant, the Hunter came back to his senses.
“It was clearly a warning from the dungeon! I saw it. That incredible shock wave…… the massive explosion…… and!!”
“!!!”
“A mushroom cloud that covered the sky!! Eeeeek!!”
“What? Are you saying a Hunter who awakened an atomic bomb has appeared?”
The Hunter’s testimony was, quite literally, filled with madness.
When Kujo asked again to confirm, the people of the Hunter Bureau began murmuring among themselves.
It was a commotion born from fear.
They had not experienced it firsthand, but history was engraved into their genes.
The two blows they had suffered at the end of fearlessly challenging the world.
“Japan must not challenge dungeons…… Japan must not challenge dungeons…….”
That was the end of the testimony.
The Hunter must have received an enormous shock, because he only repeated the same words with a vacant expression.
Everyone was swept up in an atmosphere of fear. Everyone except Kujo Shigeo…….
As the team leader, Kujo could not behave like them.
Nothing had yet been confirmed for certain.
“Whew…… Take him out.”
After letting out a sigh and cooling his head, Kujo organized the situation.
The skills known so far had been closer to supernatural phenomena. They could not be integrated with science.
But an atomic bomb? The more he thought about it, the more parts of it failed to make sense.
Kujo wanted more definite information.
“Ah, the record! What about the dungeon record?”
“I…… I will display it immediately.”
【F-0132/Kingdom of the Sticky Queen】 Cleared
『Boss (Wasp Queen) Subjugated (1/1)』
-Contribution Rate 100% ‘I Am Meteor’
『Time Taken: 00:00:02:10』
-Shortest Record Updated ‘I Am Meteor’
The system record appeared on the large screen.
After confirming the record, not a single staff member could speak.
They merely leaned closer, then farther away, doubting their own eyesight.
And even Kujo, who had cooled his head, was the same.
“……Is this a bug?”
The previous second-place record was eleven minutes.
Japan had shaved off only two minutes through meticulous investment.
Considering that it was the result of spending hundreds of billions of won, that much had been more than satisfactory.
But this terrifying fellow called Meteor had shortened it to 2.1 seconds.
“What do you all think?”
“Should we only clear Defense Battles? We have to stop Dungeon Breaks, after all…….”
“Do you think something like an atomic bomb makes any sense!”
“Eeeeek!”
When that word, a symbol of fear in this country, came up again, everyone was horrified.
But even in this situation, Kujo had to search for a method.
The Kingdom of the Sticky Queen was the representative dungeon proving that Japan was a Hunter powerhouse.
It was Japan’s pride itself.
No matter what it took, first place had to belong to Japan.
“Find a way to return first place to Japan!”
“Yes! Understood.”
“Ah. Before that…… let us control this first.”
Displayed on the screen were headlines from the media and the internet.
[Japan’s Pride Collapses!]
[Japan’s Lost Dungeon: What Was the Hunter Bureau Doing?]
[Japan’s Hunter Community Begins Falling Behind Korea]
[Where Did the 30 Billion Yen Poured into Souta Go?]
The Japanese media was, quite literally, boiling over.
Whatever they did, they would have to quiet this down first.
***
[You have achieved first place in the Kingdom of the Sticky Queen dungeon.]
‘Huh?’
It was over again? He had not even seen it properly.
Before he could finish saying the word to use the skill, the dungeon ended first.
Then, the System Window displayed a message asking him to choose a trait for his skill.
[Meteor (EX), please select a Level 3 trait.]
Add Trait: Precision
Increase diameter by 10 cm
Increase speed by 5 km/s
What was he supposed to choose?
This time, too, it had been so brief that he had not had time to notice anything.
It felt as if nothing had changed much.
‘Hmm…… Did size not have much effect?’
The choices he had been given previously were changes in size, speed, and material.
In truth, among these, the destructive power increased by changes to speed and material would have been twofold at most.
And as a result of choosing the 10 cm diameter increase, the destructive power had increased more than eightfold.
However, Seonghyeon had no way of knowing that.
If he tried to see it directly, it ended in an instant. If he tried to ask Chat Gemini, he lost his humanity.
At that moment, there was only one piece of context Seonghyeon had grasped.
‘Meteor is so strong that I cannot even see it…….’
And he chose an option.
[The Precision trait has been added to Meteor (EX).]
『Meteor (EX)』
Level: 3
Details: ……
Skill Mechanism:
…….
Material – Iron Meteorite
Diameter – 20 cm
Speed – 10 km/s
Trait – Precision (New!): Concentrates Meteor’s impact on the target to maximize attack power. Shock waves and earthquakes caused by Meteor do not occur.
……
Seonghyeon wanted to see the Meteor skill properly, no matter what.
Of course, it would probably still be incredibly fast……. With that, Seonghyeon returned to his room.
***
Now that he had returned after finishing the F-Rank Dungeon, Seonghyeon was lost in deep thought.
Should he register as a Hunter, or should he remain an unregistered Hunter?
Since he had taken first place even in an F-Rank Dungeon, the community was heated like a furnace.
[Meteor Lord is winning Ranked Matches back-to-back too. Incredible.]
[They say the Japanese Hunter Bureau is furious right now. Do you know why?]
[Ah, Meteor Lord, my light, my darkness, my life……]
‘This is seriously overwhelming. I am really not that kind of person.’
Now that there were so many mentions of him, if he stepped forward and registered, it seemed as though attention would pour down on him.
For some reason, that made him rather reluctant.
After all, even celebrities were said to develop panic disorders and depression because of the flood of attention.
But becoming an unregistered Hunter?
Even if a Hunter who was not registered with the Association did not cause any incidents, they were basically treated as a ‘Villain.’
A Villain was, in other words, a social evil. As a citizen who wanted to live normally, that option did not appeal to him either.
Trading loot would not be easy, either.
‘……Ah?’
As he thought about this and that, his Inventory suddenly came to mind.
There had been System explanations saying something had entered his Inventory every time a dungeon ended, so he should have earned a fair amount of loot.
Since he had entered the F-Rank Dungeon immediately, he had not had time to open the Inventory.
【Inventory】
Low-Grade Magic Stones 1,387
Honed Goblin Dagger 1
Wasp Wax 5
From what he knew, the Inventory’s storage capacity was fairly generous, but seeing it directly, it felt packed full.
There were 1,387 Low-Grade Magic Stones.
Were they ten thousand won each?
If he calculated it, that meant roughly thirteen million won in profit…….
‘?!’
Seonghyeon barely managed to stop his eyes from rolling back in his head.
A single day, no, half a day, had brought him thirteen million won in profit.
He had heard that Hunters made a lot of money, but he had only assumed it as someone else’s business.
Seeing the number of Magic Stones directly, however, made it feel like something on an entirely different level from what he had imagined.
‘At this point, this is not merely earning a lot, is it?!’
A daily wage of ten million won. An annual salary he could not even estimate. Seeing that, his mind was made up.
He had already gone into dungeons twice.
Any problems that arose after registering as a Hunter could be dealt with when the time came.
After finishing his decision, he left the house.
He headed toward the Hunter Association.
‘How does the Association verify Awakening?’
A chilling thought suddenly crossed his mind.
Awakened people were not numerous, and they were not outwardly easy to identify.
That must be why they could walk through an ordinary neighborhood or down an ordinary street without trouble.
If people knew someone was Awakened, they might crowd around out of curiosity, or run away out of fear…….
He did not know which one it would be, but he was certain there would be an uproar.
Then what could distinguish an Awakened person?
Unless someone was a Villain, there was no reason to use a skill in the middle of the city.
There was no way to distinguish one externally, either. Surely that would be the same for the Association staff…….
‘Surely…… they will not make me use my skill, will they?’
Seonghyeon entertained that thought for a moment, then deliberately ignored it.
The basis for that was simple.
An organization run by the government could not possibly be that careless.
They must have confirmed the skills of countless Hunters by now, so something like Meteor would not be a big deal.
‘Come on…… The Hunter Association has existed for ten years. Surely they will not tell me to use my skill right away, will they?’
It was a skill that had turned two dungeons into wastelands.
In reality, it would naturally sweep away a building or two at the very least.
Then he would immediately be branded a Villain and have to live in hiding for the rest of his life.
‘Right, the Association must have a way to check skills…….’
Thinking that, Seonghyeon headed toward the Ansan Branch of the Association.