A crumpled stack of receipts, several ten-thousand-won bills, and three small, cloudy mana stones lay on the desk.
Yoo Woo-min opened the calculator app on his phone and tapped the screen.
It was the daily wage he had earned from clearing debris and working as a porter in an F-rank goblin dungeon. His fingers moved with mechanical detachment as he added and subtracted the numbers.
Rent, utilities, and food expenses.
Then came the living expenses and the cost of his parents’ joint medication, which he sent them every month without fail.
Once everything had been deducted, the amount remaining was as pitiful as ever.
“How am I ever supposed to save money like this?”
Woo-min turned off the calculator and toyed with the mana-stone fragments scattered across the desk.
They were rough, cloudy pebbles. To anyone else, they were junk items that wouldn’t even fetch the price of a pack of cigarettes, but to Woo-min, they were more precious than any jewel.
‘This is the problem with hunting in a party.’
In terms of survival, entering a dungeon with other Hunters was unquestionably safer. Having a shieldbearer draw the monsters’ attention while a spearman attacked and the others handled the remaining work from behind was the standard way for low-ranking Hunters to prolong their lives.
But the limitations of dividing the loot were too obvious.
He could only spend so long watching his party members and secretly slipping mana-stone fragments away in a corner as he had today. He couldn’t remain a porter forever, subsisting on scraps divided into 1/N shares.
But spending whatever money he had left to buy mana stones at full price from the Hunter Association Shop and feeding them to the sword?
‘That’s insane. It’d be suicide.’
Woo-min firmly shook his head. He still had no idea how many mana stones the Unnamed Sword would ultimately devour.
Plenty of low-ranking Hunters owned next to nothing yet became obsessed with enhancing their equipment, even borrowing money from loan sharks to fund it. Most of them ended up losing their organs or dying alone inside a dungeon.
Woo-min had no intention of gambling his life away like those idiots. With a family to support, recklessly pouring all his money into a weapon he knew nothing about would simply be foolish.
He needed somewhere safe where he could monopolize every mana stone.
A place where he could keep everything he acquired, even if its profitability was abysmal.
“So solo play is my best option for now.”
Muttering to himself, Woo-min pulled out his chair, sat down, and took hold of his old mouse.
He accessed the Hunter Association Brokerage website and began thoroughly searching the list of F-rank dungeons that permitted solo entry.
His criteria were clear.
A large monster population, low danger, and an unpopular area that other Hunters had no reason to visit.
After scrolling for a long while, Woo-min’s gaze stopped on the title of one request.
[F-Rank Dungeon - No. 3 Industrial Complex Abandoned Factory Zone]
–Primary Monster: Ironclad Rat
–Recommended Party Size: 1–3
–Special Notes: Mana stones sell at the lowest rate. Materials cannot be purchased.
The community comment section was filled with vicious criticism.
–Don’t go here. Those rat bastards have fucking tough hides that’ll chip your entire blade.
–Even scrapyards won’t take their bones. A legendary waste-of-time dungeon.
–Repairs cost more than the daily pay. Absolutely not recommended.
It was an infamous place, practically synonymous with wasted effort among Hunters.
To Woo-min, however, those hostile comments looked more like glowing praise.
Low mana-stone prices and worthless materials meant Hunters avoided the dungeon. If Hunters stayed away, that meant the monsters had been allowed to multiply unchecked.
He wasn’t going there to earn money.
All he needed was a large quantity of food for his weapon.
“This is it. It’s perfect.”
Without the slightest hesitation, Woo-min applied to clear the dungeon.
***
A branch of the Hunter Brokerage Agency stood on a quiet street on the outskirts of the city.
The receptionist alternated between Woo-min’s face and the application displayed on the monitor, wearing an odd expression.
“Hunter Woo-min, you applied for the abandoned factory dungeon in the No. 3 Industrial Complex, correct? You didn’t select it by mistake?”
“Yes. That’s the one I intended to apply for.”
When Woo-min answered calmly, the employee awkwardly scratched the back of his head.
“Well, I don’t have the authority to stop you if you insist on going.... But the place is genuinely terrible. The Ironclad Rats travel in packs, so fighting them is exhausting, and you won’t earn shit.”
The employee glanced around, then lowered his voice sympathetically.
“Their mana stones are only the size of beans, and they’re so cloudy that they’re worth half as much as goblin mana stones. Their hides and bones are too tough to process, too. I’ve seen plenty of Hunters ruin their swords and then cry when they got hit with the repair bill.”
It was sincere advice, and none of it was wrong.
Woo-min merely nodded and smiled.
“Thank you for your concern. Even so, this place is the best fit for my training. Please approve the application.”
Faced with Woo-min’s firm attitude, the employee gave up trying to dissuade him.
“Well, if you’re certain. Still, there are a lot of them, so be careful not to get surrounded. If it becomes too much, retreat immediately.”
The employee stamped the approval form and handed it to him.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Woo-min collected the receipt and left the brokerage agency. His steps felt strangely light.
***
After changing buses twice, Woo-min arrived at the abandoned factory district on the outskirts of the city.
Beyond a massive gate covered in reddish rust, a dungeon entrance gaped like an open maw, its surrounding space visibly distorted.
Weeds had grown thick around the area, suggesting that no other Hunters had visited in a long time.
With practiced movements, Woo-min tightened his gloves and knee pads. Then he drew the Unnamed Sword from his waist.
Thanks to the mana-stone fragments it had consumed in the goblin den the previous day, much of the hideous reddish rust covering the blade had fallen away. Even in the gloom, its edge gleamed with a reasonably sharp metallic light.
Woo-min familiarized his hand with the sword’s balance and stepped into the darkness.
The factory interior was a complicated maze of broken machinery and severed conveyor belts tangled together like a spiderweb. The stench of sticky machine oil mingled with the rank odor of animal droppings and assaulted his nose.
The moment Woo-min switched on his old lantern and illuminated a pile of collapsed pipes—
SQUEAK! SCREEECH!
Unpleasant metallic shrieks rang out as countless pairs of red eyes lit up around him.
Ironclad Rats emerged above and beneath the pipes, baring their teeth. Their bodies were far thicker than a grown man’s forearm, and their black fur bristled like wire.
Even at a glance, there were well over twenty of them.
Any ordinary low-ranking Hunter who had come to earn money would have started cursing and fled straight back to the entrance.
Instead, a satisfied smile curved Woo-min’s lips.
‘Every one of them is food for my sword.’
There were no party members to watch and no mediator with whom he had to argue over the distribution ratio.
It was the perfect stage for him to claim everything.
The largest Ironclad Rat kicked off with its hind legs and launched itself into the air. Its sharp incisors lunged for Woo-min’s throat.
Woo-min calmed his breathing and extended his sword.
There was no exaggerated swordsmanship or flashy movement. He simply placed the blade precisely in the creature’s flight path.
CLANG! SLICE!
A dull sound like colliding metal rang out, but no bone-numbing recoil traveled through Woo-min’s wrist.
The sword’s durability had recovered after reaching eighteen percent growth.
Its hardened blade tore brutally through the Ironclad Rat’s tough hide and severed its windpipe in a single stroke.
Before the corpse could even hit the ground, Woo-min twisted and charged toward his next target.
The Ironclad Rats attacked from every direction, but their movements were crude and linear.
Woo-min didn’t force his cuts by pouring unnecessary strength into them. Maintaining just enough distance for their stiff fur to nearly brush against him, he used the sword’s weight and flexed his wrist fluidly.
SCREECH! SQUEAK!
Each death cry that echoed through the factory added another Ironclad Rat corpse to the floor.
The scent of blood drove the creatures into an even greater frenzy, but Woo-min remained steady. His footwork closed off every blind spot.
When hunting with a party, his rhythm was constantly disrupted because he had to compensate for other people’s tangled movements. Now, he only needed to move according to his own breathing.
With the weapon’s durability fully supporting him, he could fight efficiently and target nothing but the monsters’ weak points.
Each time a clean trajectory devoid of unnecessary movement flashed through the darkness, dark-red blood sprayed through the air.
Before long, more than twenty rat corpses lay scattered around the open area.
“Haa, haa.......”
Breathing heavily, Woo-min set his lantern on the floor and immediately pulled a dismantling dagger from his pocket.
There was no time to rest.
“All right, time to eat.”
He knelt and roughly cut open the chests of the scattered corpses. Tiny, cloudy gray mana stones dropped out with the blood.
They were cheap mana stones, small and misshapen.
Woo-min gathered them with his blood-soaked hands and immediately pressed them against the surface of the Unnamed Sword.
HUMMMM.
A pleasant vibration tickled his palm. The hard stones melted into soft light and were rapidly drawn into the metal of the sword.
Each time it absorbed another mana stone, the translucent information window flickered into view.
[Current Growth: 19%]
[Current Growth: 21%]
[Current Growth: 24%]
The speed was on an entirely different level from party hunting, when he had been forced to watch the other Hunters and secretly feed the sword only one or two stones at a time.
By monopolizing more than twenty mana stones from a single battle, the number that had once risen in tiny increments now soared.
Woo-min wiped the blood from his sword, kicked the empty corpses aside without a second thought, and stood.
“Next area.”
The abandoned factory was an enormous Ironclad Rat habitat. Whenever he moved a short distance beyond another ruined wall, dozens of pairs of red eyes would once again gleam at him.
Woo-min tirelessly swung his sword in silence.
Cut them down, kill them, slit open their corpses, extract the mana stones, and feed the sword.
The hunting and consumption took place immediately, right where each battle ended. Forgetting even to rest, Woo-min swept through the abandoned factory with a strange vitality on his face instead of exhaustion.
An unknown amount of time passed within the dark space.
Leaving hundreds of rat corpses strewn across the floor behind him, Woo-min killed the final Ironclad Rat and roughly cut open its stomach.
His hands were coated in a thick layer of drying blood.
The moment he pressed the final blood-dripping mana-stone fragment against the Unnamed Sword, a vibration far more intense than before surged up his wrist.
[Current Growth: 37%]
The number on the information window came to a clear stop.
Still panting, Woo-min braced his hands on his knees and silently gazed down at his sword.
That morning, dirty patches of reddish rust had still clung to the base of the blade. Now, no trace of them remained. The crude, ugly blade had completely revealed the smooth texture of its steel and reflected a keen light.
Its weight settled naturally into his hand, and it felt incomparably sturdier and more reliable than before.
To everyone else, this abandoned factory was a worthless dungeon where the costs outweighed the returns—a place they mocked as a complete waste of time.
To Woo-min, it was as magnificent as any buffet in the world.
“Haa....... I can keep feasting on this place for at least a few more days.”
Grinning through his sweat, Woo-min lightly swung the sword through the air.
The blade’s sharp whistle sliced cleanly through the eerie silence of the abandoned factory.