Vroooom.
‘Phew…….’
As he rode in a taxi from his office to the Hunter Association, his mind was in turmoil.
He still couldn't quite believe that such good fortune had come his way.
‘Status Window.’
-Name : Baek Hyeon-su
-Grade : E
-Class : Dungeon Designer (Hidden)
-Skill : Design Mode
He couldn't stop checking his Status Window.
“We've arrived.”
Hyeon-su got out of the taxi, looked up at the enormous building, and entered the first-floor lobby.
The Korean Hunter Association, a government institution of the Republic of Korea.
Commonly called the Hunter Association, it was the government agency responsible for managing Hunters and dungeons.
‘Let's see. Which floor do I need to go to?’
He checked the floor directory in the lobby.
-2F Hunter Registration Office
He went up to the second floor to register as a Hunter.
Once there, he approached the unoccupied Counter No. 1.
“Hello~ Congratulations on becoming a Hunter!”
“Ah, thank you…….”
For a moment, he was taken aback by her cheerfulness, something he'd never encountered at his cold, cutthroat workplace.
“When did you awaken as a Hunter?”
“Today.”
“I see.”
“Yes. And which class did you awaken as?”
‘I'd better keep that to myself.’
Being a Hunter sounded impressive, but outside a dungeon, Hunters were no different from ordinary people.
After all, they couldn't use their skills in the real world.
‘Just because you're special inside a dungeon doesn't mean you're special in the real world.’
Hyeon-su decided it would be better to conceal his class until he had power in the real world as well.
“Do I have to tell you?”
The employee seemed flustered and stumbled over her words.
“Oh, no. I was just asking to confirm.”
‘That's a relief.’
Hyeon-su relaxed.
“May I see your ID?”
“Yes, here you go.”
The employee looked at his ID, did something on her computer, then handed it back to him.
“Shall we go to the dungeon entrance, then?”
She rose as she spoke.
To receive a Hunter ID, applicants had to prove they were Hunters by entering a dungeon and coming back out.
That was why the Hunter Association had been built right beside a dungeon.
Hyeon-su and the employee left the building and headed toward it.
“As you probably know, you don't actually have to clear the dungeon. This is just to verify that you're a Hunter, so you can go in and come straight back out.”
“Okay.”
A majestic dungeon gate shone with white light.
Hyeon-su steadied his breathing, then stepped inside.
***
The air changed as a message announced his entry into the dungeon.
[You have entered a dungeon.]
Looking around, he found himself in the middle of a tranquil meadow where a gentle breeze blew. Flowers and trees of every variety lent the place a peaceful air.
It didn't feel real.
Boing—!
Boing, boing—!
A cute sound from somewhere drew Hyeon-su's attention.
Green slimes that looked as though they'd feel soft and squishy to the touch were bouncing around.
‘What a pretty color.’
The subtle hues of the slightly translucent slimes awakened his designer's eye.
‘Oh, right. This isn't the time for that. I need to check my skill first…….’
Hyeon-su called out the skill name he'd seen in his Status Window.
“Design Mode!”
As soon as he shouted it, some kind of energy spread outward.
And at that moment,
The slimes that had been bouncing around stopped, suspended slightly above the ground.
Leaves falling from the trees froze in midair.
An eerie stillness descended, as though even the wind had stopped.
Once everything had come to a halt, a 3D rendering of the meadow appeared before Hyeon-su's eyes.
His jaw dropped.
“……Holy crap.”
He reached a trembling hand toward the 3D hologram floating before him.
He'd already taken a mouse out of his Inventory and was holding it, but the hologram seemed to require direct touch, so he put the mouse back into his Inventory.
The hologram seemed to reproduce the scene before him exactly as he'd seen it.
In the upper-right corner, a timer displayed how long he could use Design Mode.
53 seconds.
52 seconds.
51 seconds…….
Even the slime suspended slightly above the ground was depicted there.
Looking closely at it, he could see a round core inside.
Apparently, because slimes were jelly-like monsters, they could wriggle back together and revive as long as their cores remained intact.
Gulp.
Hyeon-su pressed the slime.
Click.
[Cut]
[Move]
[Rotate]
[Resize]
[Delete]
The basic skill buttons appeared.
Hyeon-su pressed [Cut].
-Draw the section you wish to cut.
A message appeared.
He drew a long cut through the slime's body, passing right through the core inside it.
Then,
“Deactivate Design Mode.”
Rustle, rustle.
The leaves that had hung in midair began to fall.
SPLAT—!
The slime that had been suspended above the ground split in two, and both halves dropped to the floor.
A gentle breeze began to blow again, and everything that had stopped returned to normal.
‘This is nuts……!’
He was dumbfounded.
-You have gained 1 EXP.
‘It's that easy?’
And Hyeon-su realized something.
The skill he possessed was the best there was.
He wouldn't have to struggle like hell the way other Hunters did.
Thump, thump, thump.
Adrenaline surged rapidly through his entire body.
‘This is insane……!’
Every time his grade increased, he'd be able to acquire more main skills. If that happened, becoming Korea's first S-Grade Hunter was entirely possible.
No, he might even become the world's first SS-Grade Hunter.
And he'd be able to do it with an incredible degree of safety.
Hyeon-su clenched his fist, determined to seize the good fortune that had come his way.
He was still basking in his excitement after discovering the true power of Design Mode, which brought everything to a standstill, when he suddenly came to his senses.
Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be in peril in a hundred battles.
Whether he became SS-Grade or S-Grade, if he intended to live as a Hunter from now on—no, if he wanted to be certain he could quit his job—he needed to understand his abilities better.
“Design Mode.”
-This skill can be used in 2 minutes and 18 seconds.
‘Ah…… Right, there's a cooldown.’
After a short while, when Design Mode came off the cooldown, Hyeon-su selected another slime and clicked [Move].
-Drag the selected target to your desired location.
He tried moving a slime from the right to the left.
Then,
“Deactivate Design Mode.”
Everything that had been frozen began moving again, and the slime Hyeon-su had selected was now on the left.
“Wow…….”
He waited out the cooldowns and tested the other skills as well.
With [Rotate], he could turn the selected target in any direction.
With [Resize], he could change its size.
‘This is seriously overpowered.’
He'd lost count of how many times he'd been astonished today.
He couldn't even begin to imagine what extraordinary things he might be able to accomplish with this.
‘If I could shrink a giant monster like an ogre…….’
[Delete].
Cutting and resizing were already ridiculously overpowered, so just how incredible would Delete be?
Hyeon-su swallowed hard and pressed the last remaining skill, [Delete].
But,
-Living creatures cannot be deleted.
Contrary to his expectations, a message appeared stating that living creatures could not be deleted.
“Wait. ‘Living creatures’……?”
At that moment, his eyes fell on a towering tree at the edge of the meadow.
Sensing something, Hyeon-su selected the tree and pressed [Delete].
“……!”
The tree vanished.
A dungeon structure, supposedly something that could never be tampered with, had disappeared.
Hyeon-su blankly murmured the name of his class.
“So this is…… Dungeon Designer.”
Being able to manipulate dungeon structures at will was an incredible ability.
He might not have been a Hunter before, but as an avid viewer of Hunter videos on NaTube, Hyeon-su knew that very well.
Most Hunters had to struggle through dungeons, changing their strategies countless times because of the dungeon structures.
Thrilled, Hyeon-su continued using his skills to move things around inside the dungeon.
-External factors cannot interfere during editing.
‘What exactly does it mean that external factors can't interfere?’
He tested it from several different angles, but he couldn't verify what that explanation meant.
‘It's my own skill. It makes no sense that I don't understand it.’
Hyeon-su was so strongly T and J on the MBTI that he absolutely hated the thought of something he didn't understand becoming an unpredictable variable.
It was like a sudden change in the weather delaying a construction deadline.
‘I'll have to test it again in the next dungeon.’
As he moved the pond in the center of the meadow, Hyeon-su marveled at his skill once more.
“But this really is incredible…… It's like I've become a god who creates worlds.”
When working on actual interiors, he'd had to rack his brain to meet his clients' needs under countless constraints.
He'd been subjected to every kind of stress imaginable and had gradually grown more and more worn down. Yet the dungeon offered Hyeon-su a chance to relax and heal.
He'd never felt this free before.
‘Now, shall I check my weapon?’
<Mouse>
-Exclusive weapon for the Dungeon Designer. Can use basic skills.
-Skills activate when the user moves the mouse according to the image envisioned in their mind.
-However, it cannot be used directly on living creatures.
Hyeon-su tried using the mouse to cut a slime, but just as the description said, the skill didn't activate.
Then he imagined cutting horizontally through a tree at the edge of the meadow and moved the mouse sideways. Sure enough, the tree was cut exactly as he'd imagined.
“This is driving me crazy…….”
Because it was just that good.
After trying the mouse in various ways, he discovered that he could use his skills on everything inside the dungeon except monsters, even without Design Mode.
Having thoroughly tested what he'd been given, Hyeon-su found it easier than he'd expected, and his ambitions grew.
‘I only meant to check my skills, but with this, couldn't I even kill the boss monster?’
He looked at the slimes bouncing around before him.
‘I'll take care of these guys first.’
“Design Mode.”
When the 3D hologram appeared before him, he began cutting through only the cores of the slimes that had been hopping around the meadow.
‘That should be all of them, right? One, two, three, four, five, six…….’
“Deactivate Design Mode.”
SPLAT.
SPLAT, SPLAT.
SPLOSH.
The sounds of slimes falling to the ground came from all around him.
-You have gained 2 EXP.
-You have gained 1 EXP.
-You have gained 3 EXP.
-You have gained 1 EXP.
-You have gained 1…….
“Yes!”
As the EXP notifications appeared, Hyeon-su was overcome with joy, as though he'd just scored a perfect 100 for the first time.
“Now then, shall I collect my rewards?”
He approached the slime corpses sprawled across the ground and laid a hand on one.
“Collect.”
-You have obtained 1 Slime Gel.
-You have obtained 1 Slime Core.
-You have obtained 3 Slime Residues.
-You have obtained 1 Lowest-Grade Magic Stone.
-You have obtained 1 Slime Orb…….
“What? A Magic Stone?!”
Magic Stones always dropped from boss monsters, but the chances of getting one from an ordinary monster—especially one of the lowest grade—were extremely slim.
“I never imagined I'd get a Magic Stone. This is a huge jackpot.”
‘I could get a few million won if I sold this.’
Excited, Hyeon-su went around to the slime corpses scattered everywhere, diligently placing his hands on them.
After collecting all the items, he looked around, intending to hunt the boss monster and clear the dungeon.
E-Grade dungeons generally had such simple layouts that they were practically one-way paths.
It was as though they were openly telling anyone who entered exactly where to find the boss monster.
So, without giving it much thought, Hyeon-su headed deeper into the forest.
As he ventured farther in, he spotted a clearing.
And there stood the Slime King, looking like the ruler of the place.
‘So the boss is red.’
Unlike the ordinary slimes, which were green, the Slime King was larger and red.
THUD—!
THUD—!
As if enraged by the intrusion into its territory, the Slime King bounced violently, growing agitated.
SKREEEEEE!
It opened its mouth wide in a threatening roar, then launched itself off the ground and shot toward Hyeon-su like an arrow.
“Design Mode!”
Hyeon-su calmly activated his skill.
An unseen energy seemed to spread outward, and the Slime King froze in midair just as it came flying toward him with a roar.
Without delay, Hyeon-su used his skill to split the Slime King's core.
[Cut]
Then, as he looked at the hologram,
‘What's that?’
There was a staircase leading downward beneath a large boulder behind the Slime King.
Hyeon-su selected the boulder and used [Move].
After moving the boulder to the right,
He deactivated his skill.
SPLAT—!
With its core destroyed, the Slime King dropped out of the air and landed on the ground.
-You have defeated the boss monster.
-You have gained 7 EXP.
-The dungeon has been cleared.
-A dungeon gate will appear in 10 seconds.
After checking the messages that appeared before his eyes, he walked over to where the boulder had been.
“Incredible.”
Where the boulder had originally stood, there was now an opening. Looking down into it, he saw that there really was a staircase leading downward.
Every Hunter in the Republic of Korea had passed through this dungeon to obtain their Hunter ID.
Yet a space that had never once been discovered had now revealed itself.