Labyrinth (1)
Two days had passed since I summoned Caligo.
Many things had happened during those two days.
First, the conditions of the Apocalypse Summoning Tome had been updated.
[Points Remaining Until the Next Legacy Inheritance]
▶0/2,000 pt
*Lower-grade summoning tomes can be offered as sacrifices to obtain sacrifice points.
Advanced: 2 pt
Rare: 5 pt
Hero: 25 pt
Legendary: 200 pt
Mythic: 1,000 pt
The Common-grade points had disappeared, and the points for Advanced and Rare had been reduced.
And the points I had to fill increased to 2,000 points.
The most efficient method was to buy Hero Summon Tickets, but I needed 80 of them.
If I bought them at the lowest price of 2 million won each, that would be 160 million won.
The cost had increased eightfold from 20 million won.
I could not even estimate how much money I would need next time.
‘Still, once I start climbing the tower in earnest, I will be able to earn money.’
Would I, the unofficial number-one ranker, really be unable to earn a mere 80 Summon Tickets?
Now that I had obtained Caligo, I could start moving in earnest.
I had already quit my job, and I had confessed to my family that I had awakened as an adventurer.
Now was the time to run straight ahead.
And there was one more thing that had changed.
First, by repeatedly clearing the Rune Dungeon, I had raised Caligo’s level to the same level as Hertia.
【Death Liberator Caligo】
Attribute: Dark
Level: 10
Grade: Apocalypse
Class Line: Priest
[Stats]
Attack Power 7
Defense 13
Vitality 53
Speed 20
Critical Rate 15%
Critical Damage 15
Effect Hit 0
Effect Resistance 0
[Unique Skill]
1st Skill <Caligo’s Law of Exchange>
Description: Through the law of exchange discovered by Caligo, enemy buffs are exchanged for enhanced debuffs, and ally debuffs are exchanged for enhanced buffs. This skill is guaranteed to hit.
This guy was just as infamous as Hertia.
He had tremendous support ability that could overturn the board when allies were covered in debuffs.
At the same time, he was also a vicious debuffer who could turn enemy buffs into debuffs.
On top of that, his 2nd and 3rd skills, which would be unlocked later, were also structured to deal damage.
Perhaps because of that, his compatibility with Hertia was extremely good.
Besides, his class classification was Priest, was it not?
In Legend Seven, the Priest position was generally on the sturdy side.
The fact that he could endure enemy attacks while placing buffs on allies and debuffs on enemies was also a fairly large advantage.
What if Hertia used her 2nd skill for an all-target attack through this skill?
‘Need I even say it? It would be annihilation.’
To maximize this effect, I wanted to prepare equipment as soon as possible.
‘Then the farming location I should go to has been decided.’
I chose the Labyrinth as my next target to clear.
Along with Attribute Rune Dungeons, Labyrinths were among the few dungeons that did not leave behind clear-time rankings.
Their main reward?
Completed equipment!
Their upper limit was lower than equipment crafted directly by gathering materials, but there was nowhere more efficient for putting together a basic set through short-term farming.
However, what I was aiming for this time was another item rather than equipment.
‘Artifacts. I have to give Hertia and Caligo artifacts.’
Legend Seven had a total of eight item slots.
Six basic equipment slots, one exclusive equipment slot, and finally, one space for an artifact.
Basic equipment merely handled a summon’s basic stats, but the other two slots were a little special.
First was exclusive equipment.
Exclusive equipment strengthened a summon’s unique skills or changed its abilities.
And then came the long-awaited artifact.
This thing granted a summon a new ability and filled in the mechanisms it lacked.
It was like oiling gears that creaked in their pure state.
They were all necessary elements, but exclusive equipment was difficult to prepare right away.
‘Going that far is practically the realm of graduation.’
However, in preparation for the update coming one month later, I needed to put the rest into proper shape.
My current goal was to create a force that could go toe-to-toe with the Elf Legion.
‘And equipment is the first step toward that.’
***
The next day.
I was at Bundang Central Park, located across from Bundang District Office.
That was because this was the area where the Labyrinth was located.
But there were far too few people.
Even the few people I could see were high-level adventurers running Hero-grade or higher Labyrinths.
Compared to the Rune Dungeon, it was truly a difference between heaven and earth.
‘As expected, Labyrinths are dead content even in reality.’
It was not that I could not understand why.
Back when this was a game, the Labyrinth had been called ‘failed content’. It was a dungeon in a truly awkward position in many ways.
Like other dungeons, Labyrinths were divided by grade, but just because a grade was low did not mean it was necessarily easy.
There were traps lurking everywhere, as well as a complicated and long maze.
Compared to such difficulty, from a newbie’s perspective, even if they prepared equipment, they had no summons that would grow dramatically stronger through it.
And veterans had no reason to farm low-ceiling completed equipment when they could use custom-made equipment from the Workshop Tower.
It was, in every sense, a dungeon that was difficult to enjoy but too wasteful to completely discard.
‘But for me right now, there is no place better than this.’
The old me had truly scraped Legend Seven down to the bottom.
The reason was nothing special. As a student, spending money on the game was out of the question, so I had intended to at least farm rewards.
Thanks to that, I had run the Labyrinth countless times whenever I had time, all to collect every achievement as well.
As a result—
‘I can roughly see the path just by looking at the entrance pattern.’
In other words, for me, this Labyrinth became ‘a dungeon that can be cleared easily and quickly even at a low level, with decent rewards as well.’
‘Now then, which grade should I choose?’
The boss of the Common grade was probably the Goblin Chief.
It was the same fellow from the tutorial, though there would probably be a stronger version.
However, with Hertia and Caligo present, there was no need to bother going to the Common grade.
‘The Advanced Labyrinth does not have that much merit either.’
If I was thinking about the equipment I would wear going forward, I had to go to a slightly higher-grade Labyrinth.
In the end, this time as well, I chose to enter a Rare-grade Labyrinth.
‘Most importantly, artifacts only start dropping from Rare grade and above.’
《Entering the Berserker’s Labyrinth (Rare).》
***
At the same time, in the Record Tower.
Team Leader Lee Jeongyul was still frantic in her search for the adventurer who had broken the tutorial record.
“Taegyun. Still nothing today?”
“Yes. There are still no dungeons where the record has been broken.”
“...I see. Please keep checking for now.”
Lee Jeongyul felt frustrated.
According to her original plan, she had been confident that she would be able to identify the rookie quickly.
However, as time passed, the number of new adventurers kept increasing, and it became increasingly difficult to identify the rookie.
One month from now, a new episode would appear.
There had been many different kinds of updates until now, but all of them had led to an ‘increase in difficulty’.
But this time, it was not an ordinary update. It was a ‘main episode’ update.
That hinted at a sharp rise in difficulty, and at the same time, it also meant there was a high possibility of large-scale dungeon breaks occurring due to failed clears.
What if the Republic of Korea, which had not yet completely recovered from the shock of the first dungeon break, experienced another dungeon break?
At that point, even this peace they were barely maintaining would come to an end.
That was why the Republic of Korea had to find the super rookie they had discovered before anyone else.
‘He really did not enter a Rune Dungeon, did he?’
But that was far too irrational.
A person who had just cleared the tutorial dungeon challenging a Rune Dungeon?
There was a 99%, no, 100% chance he would die.
‘...Surely he did not actually die, right?’
What if he was not a remarkable rookie, but merely an idiot who had luckily drawn a good summon?
What if he overestimated his own strength, recklessly rammed his head into a high-difficulty dungeon, and died alone somewhere?
Just as this suspicion, which was beginning to gain plausibility, deepened Team Leader Lee Jeongyul’s frustration, Park Taegyun offered an unexpected opinion.
“About that rookie. Could he possibly be someone with an enormous amount of money?”
“Pardon?”
“No, if you think about it, it is strange, is it not? Even if he drew a good summon as an awakening reward, clearing in 34 seconds is still...”
“That is... true.”
“So, what if he was extremely rich from the start and entered the tutorial after plastering high-grade summons with equipment? If he has so much money that it is rotting away, he would not need to run places like the Growth Forest anyway.”
“...Keep talking.”
“Pardon? What more...?”
“I mean, if the rookie is a diamond-spoon type like that, what do you think he will do from now on?”
“Uh... If it were me, I would run the tutorial once for the experience, sell everything after enjoying it, and then live leisurely.”
“...Get back to work.”
If only that had not been his conclusion!
Still, the idea that the rookie was wealthy was a fairly persuasive hypothesis.
‘He is usually tactless, yet strangely sharp in odd places.’
If this guess was true, then the rookie was probably ‘shopping’ right about now.
Rather than running insignificant places like the Growth Forest or Rune Dungeons to pick up scraps, it would be more efficient to overwhelm everything with money by buying summons and equipment.
And once he finished shopping...
‘He will probably try to clear the tower all at once. After all, the honor of being a top-tier clearer grants influence that even conglomerates cannot easily obtain.’
If she believed this hypothesis, she would have to keep an eye on the tower for a while.
Moreover, if this rookie had connections to political and business circles, that would be favorable in negotiations.
Instead of clumsily competing with foreign guilds through money, they could offer benefits such as conveniences for businesses conducted domestically.
‘Of course, it is not something I can resolve at my level, but the one who will be rolling around anyway is the Association President, so that has nothing to do with me.’
She could not be certain yet, but it felt as though the scope of her thoughts had opened up a little.
No, rather, since there were now more variables to consider, her head might ache even more going forward.
Lee Jeongyul sighed and leaned back in her chair.
Around the time she frowned at the stinging headache—
RING, RING—
-Ah, yes. No, no. Yes, Korea Adventurer Association here.
When she looked to the side, an International Affairs Department employee was responding in stiff English.
Look at that expression as if he was about to cry. He was definitely being thoroughly chewed out.
It was something she had learned while talking with Association President Jeon Myeongil, but recently, pressure from adventurer powerhouse nations had become severe.
It was because of the appearance of the new episode, and they were apparently already starting to keep other countries in check, insisting that they receive the information first.
If Korea ignored the proposal, cooperation with the Republic of Korea’s tower clears might become difficult, or something along those lines.
‘Using people’s lives to do business. Those madmen.’
However, that was reality.
Their adventurer force was so weak that they could barely stop dungeon breaks without aid from other countries.
While she leaned her head back and briefly sank into thought, Park Taegyun delivered a sharp reminder.
“But Team Leader. Is there not something else urgent right now?”
“Pardon? Ah, ah! Right, there was that too! This is driving me insane, truly.”
The most urgent matter right now was preparation work for the upcoming minor patch.
The so-called taste-test updates were minor patches applied in advance before major updates.
There were cases where the system or dungeon structure changed completely, so this was also the time when accidents occurred most often during adventures.
Although this was the first main episode update, they were on high alert because they expected there would be minor patches, just like with previous updates.
“It is about time for it to come out, is it not? Usually, they were carried out within a week of the announcement.”
“Most of them did proceed that way, but...”
It was then.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
A beeping sound rang from the Record Tower.
It was the signal that the details of the advance patch would soon arrive.
The large electronic display inside the Record Tower flashed.
《An advance patch will be carried out before the Episode 8 update.》
《The target of the advance patch is the ‘Labyrinth’.》
《When entering a Labyrinth, Nightmare Mode will activate at a certain probability.》
《In Nightmare Mode, the Labyrinth’s difficulty increases, and the maze changes in real time.》
The employees who saw the patch details groaned.
“This was something that only existed in the highest difficulty, was it not? They are going to apply content that even old-timers avoided to all Labyrinths?!”
“This is too much! People who could not earn well risked their lives farming in Labyrinths.”
“This is basically telling them to die!”
Despite the employees’ lamentations, the system continued reciting the patch details without reacting.
《After the patch, if a Labyrinth is not cleared within a certain period of time, a dungeon break may occur.》
《If you clear a Nightmare Mode Labyrinth, you can obtain great rewards.》
《Patch 2.45.12B, which contains these details, will be applied immediately in 20 seconds.》
《Please check the detailed page for more information.》
They raised the difficulty of the Labyrinths, and what?
If the Labyrinths were not cleared, dungeon breaks would occur?
This was as good as telling them to suffer on purpose.
The Record Tower employees grew heated with frustration and slumped into their chairs.
However, as team leader, Lee Jeongyul immediately gave the instructions that needed to be given.
“All right, everyone! We do not have time! The patch will be applied in 20 seconds. Hurry and send a notice to all adventurers! Especially! Until clear strategy information is confirmed, entry into Labyrinths is strictly forbidden!”
At the same time as she issued the instructions, a thought rose in one corner of her mind.
‘Still, it is a relief. If that rookie really is rich as we guessed, at least he will not get caught up in the Labyrinth anomaly.’
To put it bluntly, conglomerates could simply wrap themselves from head to toe in custom-made equipment. Why would they go around working their feet to the bone in a place like the Labyrinth?
***
《Nightmare Mode has activated.》
《The Labyrinth’s difficulty has increased.》
《The map of a Labyrinth where Nightmare Mode has activated will change in real time.》
‘...What kind of nonsense is this now?’