『Mana Grade increased: F+ => E-』
『Cannibal Trait, Contempt for the Weak, can be acquired. Y/N』
Joo Do-gyeom’s eyes gleamed.
His long-awaited Rank increase, followed by an offer for an additional Trait?
It was an effect truly worthy of a Special Mana Stone.
His admiration lasted only a moment.
Joo Do-gyeom’s attention turned to the Trait, Contempt for the Weak.
There was a simple reason the System asked for confirmation when someone acquired a Trait, unlike when a Skill or stat Rank increased.
The number of Traits a Hunter could ordinarily possess was limited.
The basic maximum was three.
It could later be increased through special equipment, another Trait, a Skill, or some other method, but that was the general rule.
Because of that, the Hunter community always warned people to choose their Traits carefully.
Traits weren’t easy to obtain in the first place.
However, there were cases where Traits acquired indiscriminately early on became a poison later.
Joo Do-gyeom wasn’t concerned.
“I’ll acquire Contempt for the Weak.”
『User Joo Do-gyeom acquires the Trait, Contempt for the Weak.』
As a regressor, he knew several easy ways to increase the maximum number of Traits he could possess.
More importantly, Contempt for the Weak.
This Trait was difficult to refuse.
Its effect was simple.
When fighting an opponent weaker than himself, the Rank of every stat increased by one grade.
Simply put, Joo Do-gyeom’s Mana stat, which was currently E-, would become E while fighting someone weaker than himself.
What mattered was.
As stated, this increase applied to ‘every stat.’
And there was no upper limit.
Even after reaching S-Rank, which was considered humanity’s limit in the current era, one could reach S+ Rank.
With the Contempt for the Weak Trait alone!
Some might wonder whether that meant anything when fighting opponents weaker than oneself.
‘Of course it does.’
There was no rule saying there could only be one weaker opponent.
A smile unconsciously formed on Joo Do-gyeom’s face as he spoke.
“With this, I can go straight to ‘that place,’ can’t I?”
His plans had changed yet again.
But he felt no burden whatsoever.
As his smile showed, this was far too beneficial for that.
***
The next day.
Joo Do-gyeom visited Yongdun once again, sold his remaining Mana Stones, and purchased several items.
The first was clothing made from dungeon materials.
It consisted of an ordinary but flexible long-sleeved shirt and a pair of trousers.
They offered better protection from the cold and injuries than short sleeves and shorts.
More importantly, they were cheap enough that buying them wasn’t a burden.
The second item he purchased was a dungeon-made sledgehammer.
It had a fairly long handle and a large, heavy head.
When he placed it inside his Inventory, which contained only twenty slots, the weapon alone occupied a staggering eight of them.
The seller claimed its official name was ‘War Hammer,’ but in Joo Do-gyeom’s eyes, it wasn’t a war hammer.
A true war hammer was much lighter and more efficient as an anti-personnel weapon.
Despite that, there was a simple reason Joo Do-gyeom bought the fake war hammer—the sledgehammer.
‘It’ll have plenty of uses inside the dungeon I’m planning to enter next.’
The item was also extremely cheap.
The reason was the same as before.
It was heavy and inconvenient.
Dungeon-made weapons were normally quite expensive, but it was difficult to find a buyer for this sledgehammer, allowing him to purchase it cheaply.
After purchasing his clothing and weapon, the next store Joo Do-gyeom visited in Yongdun was a ‘Magic Item Shop.’
As the name suggested.
The items sold there were expensive.
However, they were worth just as much.
There, Joo Do-gyeom purchased his third, fourth, and fifth items at the same time.
One was the ‘Infinite Rope.’
This belt-shaped magic item looked like an ordinary rope, and its effect was simple.
It could extend infinitely.
Even if it was cut, it regenerated.
It possessed no other special functions.
It wasn’t especially durable, nor could it change shape.
That made it difficult to use in combat, but it was still useful.
While exploring dungeons, Hunters occasionally—no, surprisingly often—encountered bizarre terrain that made them wonder how anyone was supposed to cross it.
The next item was the ‘Purification Water Bottle.’
Its effect was exactly as its name suggested.
It purified contaminated water.
It could even purify poison.
Of course, it was only effective against poisons below a certain level.
Even so, it could provide the hydration humans needed in most situations.
The final item he purchased was the ‘Mental Fortification Ring.’
In truth, this was the most expensive item.
The previous two items were sought after by so many people that they could almost be considered basic Hunter supplies, so stores carried plenty of stock.
Their materials were cheap, and they were easy to make.
Hunters with magic-item-crafting Classes produced them as though operating factories.
The Mental Fortification Ring was different.
There weren’t many people capable of making one, and the materials were expensive.
He had been told that producing one required several lowest-grade Mana Stones to be processed and melted down.
Despite that, Joo Do-gyeom emptied his pockets to purchase the ring.
Was it so that he, as a solo player, could resist mental status-effect magic inside a dungeon?
No.
The Heavenly Killer’s madness was more important.
‘For now, it only made me swing a fish.’
Even so, it had manifested.
That meant he couldn’t know what direction the madness might take next.
With this ring, he would be able to control it to some extent.
At the very least, he might notice an abnormal sensation in his mind before the madness manifested.
After finishing his shopping for magic items.
Joo Do-gyeom spent his remaining change on dried rations he could eat inside a dungeon and stored them in his Inventory.
Thanks to the self-proclaimed war hammer—the sledgehammer—that occupied eight slots by itself, that alone completely filled his Hunter-exclusive Inventory.
‘I need to expand my Inventory soon.’
After finishing his shopping and adding another objective to his plans, Joo Do-gyeom returned home.
***
After returning to his room, Joo Do-gyeom first opened the banking application on his smartphone and checked the stock market.
His initial capital had been one million won.
After adding more money whenever he could, the amount had already grown to tens of millions of won.
A few days earlier.
Ardent Bio Science had received FDA approval for the Emergency Mana Recovery Drug.
Even as Joo Do-gyeom looked at the figure, his expression remained indifferent.
It was only natural.
If events followed the history he remembered from before his Regression, this money would soon grow into hundreds of millions of won.
What if he withdrew it around the final point he had in mind?
It would become more than one billion won.
Compared to that, tens of millions of won was still a cute little sum.
No.
Bluntly speaking, Joo Do-gyeom would probably remain indifferent even when he withdrew one billion won.
Was it because he could use his knowledge of the future to earn even more money afterward?
That was certainly part of it, but there was a more fundamental reason.
Once the future he knew arrived, capital would become nothing more than worthless scraps of paper.
He had experienced that himself.
That didn’t mean he had transcended his desire for money.
Society was still functioning properly.
Cash remained useful, so he checked the news and opened his banking application in preparation for unforeseen circumstances.
As he had experienced with the Oh Jin-seok incident, the future could change.
He then placed an automatic sell order for when the stock reached his target price.
With that done, Joo Do-gyeom forgot about the money that hadn’t yet entered his hands.
Instead, he sat cross-legged and examined the internal injuries he had suffered inside the Cannibal’s Mansion.
They still hadn’t completely healed.
Even so.
‘This is enough to move on to the next stage.’
His decision was made.
He would head directly to his next destination.
Joo Do-gyeom opened his mouth.
“Enter dungeon. Select destination: Zombie Burst.”
His body disappeared from Earth.
***
Zombie Burst.
As its name suggested, this dungeon was a world filled with zombies.
One of its defining features was its open-world structure.
In other words, it was a dungeon where numerous Hunters shared one enormous map.
The method of clearing it was fairly simple.
『Kill 1,000 zombies within the time limit.』
『Dungeon time limit: 72 hours』
As could be seen from the somewhat overwhelming number and the time limit, it wasn’t an easy dungeon.
Despite that, it also had an entry restriction.
Hunters whose overall stats exceeded D-Rank couldn’t enter.
However, unlike the Cannibal’s Mansion, it wasn’t included among the Hunter community’s Top 50 Worst Dungeons.
On the contrary, it proudly held a place among the community’s Top 100 Easy-Money Dungeons.
The reason was simple.
The world inside the Zombie Burst dungeon resembled twenty-first-century Earth.
There, Hunters could find electrically powered weapons such as chainsaws.
If they were lucky, they could even find guns or bombs.
Of course, those items were usually broken, but they could be repaired and used after being taken outside.
Expensive electronic devices could also be sold for money.
That was why it was considered an easy-money dungeon.
The danger?
That was only natural for someone who had become a Hunter.
Moreover, the requirement to kill one thousand zombies.
It didn’t need to be completed alone.
A Hunter could clear the dungeon quest together with companions in a party.
For reference, an ordinary party could contain a maximum of three people.
One thousand zombies might be difficult alone, but it was manageable with three people.
No.
Considering the twenty-first-century dungeon items that could be obtained inside, anyone who didn’t visit it at least once while still at a low Rank was considered a fool.
That was the reputation of the Zombie Burst dungeon.
Joo Do-gyeom entered Zombie Burst alone.
All his stats were still only between E- and E-Rank.
Honestly, no matter how much of a regressor Joo Do-gyeom was, this wasn’t something he should have attempted.
Bluntly speaking, he was no longer entering his first dungeon, so he didn’t even have the Tutorial adjustment.
‘That would be true if I didn’t have the Trait, Contempt for the Weak.’
The zombies in Zombie Burst were numerous, but each individual zombie wasn’t particularly strong.
Bluntly speaking, even an F-Rank Hunter could easily defeat ten of them alone, provided the Hunter was armed, didn’t panic, and fought properly.
Therefore.
From Joo Do-gyeom’s perspective, with every stat now at E- or higher, every monster inside Zombie Burst was prey for Contempt for the Weak.
For reference, a Hunter’s starting point upon entering the dungeon was random.
In Joo Do-gyeom’s case, he appeared on the rooftop of an apartment building.
Considering the dungeon’s dark urban environment, where it was difficult to find any proper light other than the moon, this was also the best possible starting point.
Joo Do-gyeom spoke without realizing it.
“I’m lucky.”
He hadn’t expected to find himself saying a line commonly spoken by the protagonists of the web novels he used to read.
That was how pleased he was with the current situation.
The basic reasons he had entered the Zombie Burst dungeon were his confidence and the fact that there was something he needed to obtain there.
However, he had another clear objective.
He wanted to train his martial-arts Skills, which gained greater benefits only inside dungeons.
Earth Formula Qigong and Heaven Formula Qigong were examples.
As stated before, Inner Cultivation Methods like these produced only negligible Mana increases on Earth, so training them there had little effect.
Inside a dungeon, however, things were different.
Zombie Burst was approximately the size of a single district in Seoul—such as Mapo-gu, Gangnam-gu, or Dobong-gu.
Inside a dungeon that large, it would naturally be easy to find somewhere he could comfortably train such Inner Cultivation Methods.
‘And my starting point happens to be an apartment rooftop.’
It was even the rooftop of a high-rise apartment building roughly twenty stories tall.
Of course, zombies appeared even in places like this inside the Zombie Burst dungeon.
Even now, while he looked around.
GRAAAAAH—!
A zombie lying on one side of the rooftop released an inhuman howl and began to rise.
Without a word, Joo Do-gyeom pulled the sledgehammer from his Inventory.
Normally, it had felt fairly heavy even when held with both hands.
Now, however, it felt surprisingly manageable.
CRRRRK—!
The power of the Trait, Contempt for the Weak, filled his entire body.
Every stat increased by one grade.
Just as Joo Do-gyeom keenly felt the Trait’s effect.
The zombie sprang to its feet and charged toward him with an inhuman roar.
The zombies of Zombie Burst weren’t the leisurely zombies of the old era.
They were MZ zombies.
Joo Do-gyeom calmly watched it approach before lightly swinging the sledgehammer.
BOOOOM—!
A satisfyingly powerful impact rang out.
The zombie took the head of the sledgehammer directly, spun through the air, and fell from the rooftop of the twenty-story apartment building.
Ending as a pile of mush was the inevitable result.
Joo Do-gyeom didn’t even look in its direction.
The first zombie’s movement had served as a signal.
The zombies sprawled across various parts of the rooftop rose together, while others emerged in droves from their hiding places and prepared to charge him.
It wasn’t a bad situation.
As stated, Joo Do-gyeom had more than one objective.
His first was martial-arts training.
His second was restoring the combat instincts that might have dulled slightly after his Regression.
The Zombie Burst dungeon, where he had to kill one thousand zombies, was perfectly suited for that.
And finally, he intended to properly test the Heavenly Killer’s power.
Red dots filled Joo Do-gyeom’s indifferent eyes.
They were visible across the bodies of every zombie charging toward him.
A smile naturally formed on his lips.
And with good reason.
Weren’t zombies already ‘the dead’?
Yet he could see points through which those dead beings could be killed.
It was a contradiction.
That was precisely why it was so clear.
The Heavenly Killer’s ‘ability to kill anything’ was manifesting properly.
Joo Do-gyeom silently stepped forward and thought.
‘It’d better be worth the madness.’