I paused for a moment and shook my head. It was actually a bit of a stretch, but I had finished the battle smoothly, which gave me some confidence.
“Well, even if monsters swarm in from the smell I’m noticing now, we should be able to handle them, right?”
“Clap, Clap, Clap!!”
In the end, I decided to proceed with butchering the two creatures and got to work. However, Yeon-hee sat next to me, rolled up her sleeves, and said she would help with the butchering. When I stared at her blankly,
“I think I can do it since I’ve seen it a few times.”
It felt like she was dismissing my wariness, but she scratched her head shyly. Eventually, I had to spend a bit more time on the task to show her how it was done.
As I proceeded with heightened tension, contrary to my worries, no additional monsters appeared.
“Luck seems to be on our side today.”
As Yeon-hee said, it was just luck. Eight times out of ten, monsters would have swarmed in from the smell.
“Ah, a monster did come!”
Heh-heh-heh—
There was a group of Earth Puppies staring at us from a distance, but their presence only meant there were no predators around, so I could finish my work without worries.
After pocketing the bones for Wang-wang, I finally left my spot, and as soon as we did, the Earth Puppies rushed in, saliva dripping, to start devouring the carcass.
“Let’s go to the place we saw earlier.”
Nod—
I needed to clean the blood off my body before the next hunt, so I stopped by a small creek I had noticed earlier.
Washing off just the bones didn’t take long, and before I knew it, I was ready to move again.
On the way, I invested the stat points I received from leveling up into Strength, Agility, and Health. Now that I had entered the level 15 range, level-ups would slow down a bit, but as long as I fought mainly Big Boars, which gave more experience than Goblins, I shouldn’t see much of a difference in growth.
=====
[ Skeleton Soldier Il-wol – Lv. 15 ]
Strength: 49 (+5) Agility: 47 (+5) Health: 47 (+5)
Intelligence: 24 Magic Power: 38 Resistance: 1
Sense: 21 Recovery: 5
Traits: Calm, Protection, Pickpocketing, 98 lives, Adhesion
Skills: Slam, Stealth, Dagger Throw, Acid Spray, Basic Transformation, Reckless Charge
Equipment: Roughly Shaped Wooden Club
=====
With the +5 stats from the level-up bonus, I felt that my physiological structure had become more refined, and I shivered with excitement.
“Cleaning is easy, and Il-wol has an unexpectedly convenient body? Hehe-”
“Clap, Clap, Clap-”
“More importantly, I think I’m going to reach level 20 soon. I might hit 19 by the end of today…”
“Oh wow… I was only level 18. Leveling up to 18 in just five months isn’t that fast, but I used to barely last a few hours in dungeons when my mother was around…”
It could be said that I was finally starting to gain momentum in my growth.
“Now that I think about it, I’m already level 15, but compared to Yeon-hee, the growth of summoned creatures seems much faster. What’s up with that? Hmm—”
Thinking about it like a game, it’s probably similar to how higher-ranked characters require more experience to level up, making their growth slower.
“I’m just low-tier, so the amount of experience I need to level up is less… Thinking that way just makes me feel gloomy!!”
To shake off my disappointment, I suddenly started dancing awkwardly, causing Yeon-hee to burst into laughter, clutching her stomach.
Just then, I spotted a group approaching from upstream of the creek.
“Clap, Clap!!”
“Hee hee hee— Huh? Uh-oh! Should we hide?”
“Well, I don’t think we need to run away…”
Even though there were four of them and they significantly outnumbered us, their levels were lower than ours, so escaping wouldn’t be a problem if we wanted.
The problem was their clothing. A black cloak flapped, with a vertically long, slit one-eyed design peeking from inside. There was a commonality in their clothing.
The organization was called “Blue-eyed,” and they were a bunch of middle school delinquents calling themselves a cult. Initially, I thought they were just a group of wannabes, but they rapidly gained strength and eventually grew into a massive force with over a million followers in Korea alone.
Their sole objective was to unite the world within the dungeon with our world.
I had thought it was a foolish notion, and no one had accomplished anything of the sort before I died, but now that I was in this form, I even considered that they might succeed in their attempt.
“I’d prefer not to get entangled with them, but I should keep an eye on them if the opportunity arises.”
Slowly taking out my club and getting ready to respond, the guys hesitated for a moment before changing course and moving in a different direction.
“Phew~ There are many more hunters entering the Big Boar dungeon than the Goblin dungeon, so we might run into a situation soon.”
Yeon-hee wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, still unable to tear her gaze away from the direction they had gone.
After a moment of just standing there, she began to move her feet again. I, who was walking a bit ahead of Yeon-hee, gradually guided her off the normal route.
Surprisingly, she was following me without suspicion, something any other hunter would have realized they were veering off course long ago.
“Definitely a bad navigator…”
Yeon-hee had chatted a lot with me, and it was through those many chats that I learned her confession about being directionally challenged.
The reason she hadn’t grown much in the Goblin dungeon before meeting me wasn’t solely because of her mother.
She had been continually going back and forth in a straight line from the dungeon entrance, meaning her efficiency was even lower.
But ever since she met me, she seemed to have become accustomed to following my lead without question.
“Since it’s her first dungeon, it makes sense. I guess I can deviate from the route more boldly?”
I started to step more boldly toward my intended destination. The route I was on wasn’t much of a path, but since we encountered monsters along the way, she seemed too distracted to notice.
“Other hunters probably won’t take these kinds of paths, meaning there will be many unaddressed monsters…”
People tend to move in the most comfortable and efficient directions, but we were currently walking through rocky terrain, steep slopes, and dense vegetation that wasn’t suitable for fighting monsters.
Finally, just as Yeon-hee, our navigator, began sensing something odd and asked me, “By the way, shouldn’t we turn back soon?”, we reached the highest area in the forest.
The slope suddenly leveled off, leading to a wide plain with a small lake.
I noticed two teams were already engaged in combat on the opposite side of the lake. However, their goal was simply to find unharvested hunting points, not to acquire artifacts like I was.
“Wow~ I didn’t know there were places like this! I didn’t see any info about a lake in my online searches! With how few other hunters are around, could this be a secret hunting spot known only to certain people?”
“That’s about right. If you don’t spread the word about a great dining spot, you’ll just have a long line of people.”
As we climbed up, one of the two teams quickly descended, and the remaining team dispersed after finishing their battle and personal maintenance.
We spent our time hunting a few goblins that were hiding by the lakeside.
“Oh, everyone’s gone. I think there’s a group of Big Boars over there. Let’s go check it out—”
While Yeon-hee chattered and scanned the surroundings, I put away the club I had and jumped straight into the lake.
Splash—
Yeon-hee’s voice was distorted by the waves, tickling my ears, but instead, I pushed against the current to dive deeper.
“I don’t even have to hold my breath; this is a piece of cake.”
The memories of my previous descent, where I panicked while diving, flashed through my mind, causing my shoulders to twitch.
Praying that I wouldn’t exceed the distance of separation from Yeon-hee, I spread my sensory net and eventually discovered a very tiny cave.
It was a cave barely big enough for a person to squeeze through, but crawling a bit further inside, I found a small red jar that looked like blood.
Curiously, the jar remained firmly stuck to the bottom, untouched by the waves, so I grabbed it without hesitation and put it into my inventory.
Immediately, I felt a pulling sensation from behind; Yeon-hee must have been worried about me and was moving back and forth, reaching her distance limit.
Quickly exiting the cave, I surfaced, and as I emerged, Yeon-hee flailed her arms, reaching out a branch toward me.
“I could have gotten out on my own…”
But when I grabbed the branch she extended, as I reached the ground again, I noticed her eyes were slightly moist.
“Hmm— She has definitely changed a lot… I wonder if she’s okay?”
Her still cold expression was deeply embedded in my memory, so it felt unfamiliar and strange to see that look on her face.
“Ying… Il-wol! Why did you suddenly jump into the water?”
I handed her the red jar while she sniffled.
“Sniff-sniff— Huh? What’s this?”
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