“Hah… I’m sorry for causing trouble.”
“No, that’s not what I meant… I just thought you should know.”
“Right. Hyeon Woo-seok… I wonder if he’s trying to vent his frustrations on us by capturing us… I can’t figure out what he’s thinking. I heard he had a good reputation for being a decent person?”
Ah-rin furrowed her brow as she fiddled with her long ears.
“I really want to touch those ears…”
I wasn’t too surprised by people’s evaluations; I had experienced that what people think often differs from reality. I was just curious about the soft texture of Ah-rin’s ears right now.
“Have you seen Hyeon Woo-seok?”
“I’ve seen him sparring from a distance a few times. That guy is unbelievably strong. I thought, ‘So this is what they call a genius.’ He’s basically a monster who has only practiced swordsmanship since birth. Apparently, he’s even recognized as the best talent in his family.”
“I heard too. They say he’s a genius who broke Hyeon Il-hwan’s record for being the youngest A-rank Hunter…”
“And it was Yeon-hee who broke that record.”
It wouldn’t be any different this time.
“Everyone in that family is a monster… Even the instructors from Ilseom Guild are no joke, but it seems like those with blood connections can’t be caught up to.”
While I listened to their conversation, I focused on the waves of senses spread over several kilometers.
“Hmm… The tail I attached to Baek Ah-rin is still following her around at this time?”
I detected someone watching us from a distance.
“Of all people, it’s a guy. Hmm… I wonder if he’s sticking around Noh Ha-yoon? There are many strong people around her, so he probably got caught quickly, right?”
Anyway, if I dump the annoying business on Noh Ha-yoon, most of it should be resolved.
She owed me for that random trouble she caused, so it’d only be right to help.
Yeon-hee and Ah-rin were wearing serious expressions while talking.
The fact that there’s an enemy that could shadow us at any moment is more annoying than I thought.
“Hyeon Joong-gil… doesn’t seem like someone to talk to about this, right…?”
“Exactly…”
Yeon-hee asked me about Hyeon Joong-gil for some reason.
“Well… I can’t predict how he would react to this issue.”
We just got connected, so it wouldn’t do to say something that would drive us apart.
Moreover, this isn’t a trivial matter to call someone over.
We set aside that topic and discussed our plans moving forward.
“We’ll be entering the Frog Folk Dungeon starting tomorrow… Yeon-hee has already cleared it a few times, so it might get boring.”
“No way. Not at all. The terrain and monster composition change every time we enter, so it’s always fresh. Plus, I haven’t even seen the flying herbivorous monster that’s said to appear only in C-rank dungeons.”
“Oh, you mean ‘Hanjaring’?”
“Yes. I haven’t seen it in the swamp area so far. They say it pops up sometimes.”
Hanjaring is one of the highly regarded ingredients alongside Big Boar.
It looks like a large sparrow, but it’s extremely sensitive to sound, making it really hard to catch.
Just plucking its feathers and roasting it is better than your average chicken. The more of them you catch for the future, the better.
“Big Boar, Hanjaring, and Momonga tree. I need to secure these three as much as possible.”
That should be enough nutrition-wise.
“Even though I’ve cleared that dungeon a few times, we can think of it as Yeon-hee training to handle Werewolves.”
The number of my summoned creatures had already surpassed 90 in an instant.
Since it would be different from before, practice was necessary.
Truthfully, considering Yeon-hee’s capabilities, she could run through the dungeon alone, but there are regulations about the minimum number of people, so it couldn’t be helped.
The two of them chatted for over two hours, and during that time, I produced daggers with bone material.
The number of daggers had now exceeded 100.
As my proficiency increased, the time it took to make them was gradually decreasing.
When Yeon-hee and Ah-rin began to wrap up their conversation and stood up slowly.
Brrrr—
“Oh, it’s Ha-yoon.”
I got a contact from Noh Ha-yoon.
She had been exploring the Frog Folk Dungeon for several days, which isn’t surprising since it’s common to gain experience in one dungeon for more than ten days.
She hadn’t made a promise to party with us, so it was essential to tie it down this time.
“It’s been a while~”
As always, Noh Ha-yoon showed up with her usual half-honorifics and a bright smile.
In the time I hadn’t seen her, she looked more mentally relaxed.
“Her magic power has increased significantly.”
That relaxation must be due to a tremendous increase in her stats.
Though not to the extent of Yeon-hee, Noh Ha-yoon had also experienced rapid growth in my absence.
“That bracelet. It’s an artifact.”
With the addition of a bracelet I hadn’t seen before, her magic power skyrocketed, and it was clearly an artifact that her mom bought her as a gift.
“Super Diamond spoon…”
Though not her birthday, she casually bought it as a rare treat for the ‘witch’ returning from her territory after a long time.
Yeon-hee and Ah-rin could only blink in envy.
“How much was that?”
Ah-rin eventually couldn’t hold back and asked for the price.
“Oh this? It’s not that expensive. My mom said it’s perfect for use at C-rank, but I don’t know the exact price. It’s classified as a budget model, so it’s cheap.”
Things of value from another world are supplied daily by Hunters, yet the price of artifacts is said to be the cheapest it has ever been, steadily rising every year.
Thinking of the skyrocketing prices recently, it must have been a price that could make you shiver.
“…… Not that expensive… budget…”
“Yes. There’s a lot of stock on the market, so I think calling it a budget model makes sense as long as you have the money to buy it.”
Even if it didn’t match the meaning of being widely used and affordable, I understood what she meant in some way.
“I see…”
Ah-rin’s ears drooped slightly as if she was having some strange thoughts again.
Anyway, Noh Ha-yoon’s casual remarks about demoralizing others seemed to be quite a skill in itself.
But I only realized later that such words were said without malice at all.
Occasionally, her sudden outbursts don’t make sense, but after I recognized that she was a level of crazy that could be controlled, I didn’t feel particularly uncomfortable when treating her.
“I’ll have to talk about that bone-made item later.”
I’ll have to find the right time during our dungeon exploration to negotiate. It seems worth trading for an artifact like that bracelet.
“Can I ask what the effect of the bracelet is?”
“15% decrease in mana consumption for water-type spells and an increase of 250 magic power?”
“Wow… A 15% decrease in mana consumption… That’s amazing!”
“If it weren’t good, my mom wouldn’t give it to me.”
“That’s true…”
“Now I won’t have much trouble using big skills.”
Baek Ah-rin acknowledged that and leaned forward to speak about another topic.
“First, let’s confirm the party contract. Ha-yoon, will you continue to go with our party?”
“Eh? What do you mean? Of course, yes!!”
Noh Ha-yoon replied angrily as if asking how I could even ask her that.
“Eh? Oh… uh, really?”
Ah-rin seemed surprised that she liked our party so much.
“Yes. Why?”
“Ah, no. It’s great if you join us, but… don’t the guild members say anything?”
“My mom, or the representative, is a cold person. She closely observes my growth when I’m in any party and suggested that it would be better to join you guys. In fact, the other party was asking what kind of luck follows me to keep getting those kinds of benefits?”
“Luck? I’ve been in nearly life-threatening situations.”
I had actually died a few times, so Yeon-hee and I had surely been on a perilous path.
“Ha-yoon… you know that isn’t what we wanted to stop you from, right?”
Yeon-hee showed a somewhat dissatisfied reaction.
It seems she’s become sensitive to talk about luck because she returned after an unsatisfactory summon.
“But isn’t it good if you encounter such things often and level up quickly? I think that’s what makes our party great… though there are many other reasons.”
“Really?!”
Yeon-hee was taken aback, as it was a reason she hadn’t considered.
“Noh Ha-yoon has really good instincts. It’s like some sixth sense filled in where a screw is missing…”
I quietly looked at Noh Ha-yoon, whose watery eyes sparkled.
“Still, it can’t be easy to send a Hunter from your faction to another party. You’re quite decisive.”
“Various ways… she’s amazing. Not because she’s my mom, but she really has a fierce side. If I told you how I got [Ice Growth], you’d faint.”
“Oh… [Ice Growth]. I see now. So that’s why she turned out like this? Those strange tastes might also come from childhood influence.”
I had heard that there’s a specific training method that gives one a powerful affinity for certain attributes.
Usually, such unique training methods belong to families that have dominated a certain faction, and to maximize effectiveness, they have to start at a very young age. The pain from training for attributes that humans find hard to become familiar with is said to be beyond imagination.
Particularly, it’s said to be true for more narrow concepts like freezing attributes.
It’s evident that Noh Ha-yoon likely underwent near-abusive training from a ‘witch’ since she was a child.
“It’s said that she’s a weirdo made by the witch’s greed…”
Still, thanks to the witch, she gained a trait with the word ‘growth,’ so if you look at it just from the perspective of her future as a Hunter, she could say she got sufficient reward.
“As time passes, her growth accelerates.”
She would achieve unmatched growth within the freezing category.
Right now, her growth may be slower than Yeon-hee’s, but who knows how it’ll be later on?
“By the way, Il-wol seems to have gone too far. Is he okay?”
From the moment Noh Ha-yoon arrived, she had been focused solely on me, continuing the conversation.
Her question was somewhat abstract, but we all understood what her concerns were about.
“Il-wol has indeed become too strong. Honestly, I feel like he’d pass the B-rank promotion test as he is. And he’s handsome too.”
“Puhuh— just looking at his appearance gives off a vibe of a typical A-rank dungeon boss.”
“Have you seen an A-rank boss, Ha-yoon?”
“I just mean it feels like that. How would I even go there?”
“Right…”
“But given the current atmosphere, it might soon be possible to briefly enter and exit.”
After all, a villain named Oh Seung-jae had skipped over 1.5 stages, and we had thwarted him.
On the contrary, it means we can now enter the mid-tier B-rank dungeon, and if such phenomena accelerate, it could become possible to challenge an A-rank dungeon by jumping over two stages.
“Hmm… I’d like to take advantage of this phenomenon. But as long as I’m bound with Yeon-hee, it’d be hard…”
Being tied to Yeon-hee gives me a sense of stability, but still, I needed to look for a way out.
“Yeah. I should ask the Master about this once.”
In any case, we were about to start our activities as a complete team again, beginning tomorrow.
“By the way, why haven’t Joo-ah and Eun-young contacted us?”
“Eun-young unnie probably got lost and took a while to sign up, and Joo-ah seems a bit anxious.”
However, contrary to our worries, it wasn’t long before we heard the news of both of them passing.
– Wait, I’m coming now!!!
Bae Joo-ah’s voice was more lively than ever.
She hadn’t shown it, but she must have been pretty worried about not passing.
In fact, I didn’t think our party members were at a level where they should be concerned about the promotion test.
When we were about to settle in, the addition of Joo-ah and Eun-young caused us to move to another place to spend time together until dinner.
Both Joo-ah and Eun-young, whom I hadn’t seen in a while, seemed to have significantly grown since they had crossed a critical period and had developed notably without any part left behind.
“That’s beyond expectations. Plus…”
(……)
Since earlier, there had been a cat staring at me intently while sitting on Ham Eun-young’s shoulder.
With a small horn on its forehead, its palm-sized body had a mackerel pattern, and it was definitely the creature that used to inhabit Ham Eun-young’s mirror—it could either be a demon or some devil.
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