## Chapter 23 – 23. Underground Dungeon (4)
#23. Underground Dungeon (4)
“Keugh…!”
I bit down on the cloth in my mouth and pulled the arrow out of my thigh.
A searing pain, like being subjected to a Joseon-era torture device, followed.
If the arrow had simply pierced the flesh, I could have carefully pulled it out, but it was different if the arrowhead had gone all the way through.
I had to break the arrow in half and push the arrowhead through.
Thanks to that, I felt like I was losing consciousness.
“…Poison?”
The wound was throbbing more and more. I wondered if this was normal when an arrow pierced flesh, but something felt off.
Anyway, if I left the wound as it was, I might be forced to choose between poisoning, excessive bleeding, or tetanus.
I had no choice but to turn on the app and go to the store.
I could only hope that they were selling something useful.
[The store’s items have been reset.]
[Lowest Grade Antidote: 200 Coins]
[Sweet Apple: 250 Coins]
[Imperial Army’s Magic Sword: 400 Coins]
[Cultured Books for Elegant Ladies: 540 Coins]
[Superior Random Scroll: 600 Coins]
·
·
·
Fortunately, the store reset and an antidote appeared.
I didn’t know when it had reset, but it was a damn good thing.
‘By the way, the lowest grade health potion and mana potion were 600 coins each, but this is only 200 coins. Isn’t that too cheap?’
I was puzzled for a moment, but after reading the item description, I could understand the pricing.
[Lowest Grade Antidote]
[Grade: Normal]
[Relieves simple poisoning symptoms.]
It didn’t completely cure simple poisoning symptoms, but only relieved them. It was a half-assed potion.
Looking at it this way, even 200 coins seemed expensive.
I sighed, but I was the one in a hurry, so I had no choice but to buy it.
[You have purchased the Lowest Grade Antidote.]
I roughly drank the antidote and checked my remaining balance.
I had 400 coins left.
I didn’t think I would get any rewards for the two Kobold Warriors I had just dealt with because they weren’t first kills, but surprisingly, I got 50 coins each.
‘Still, it’s not enough.’
There was a limit to hunting monsters. A D+ grade first kill was 100 coins, and a duplicate kill reward was 50 coins.
Of course, if the day came when I could catch D+ grade monsters like catching ants, the coins given as rewards would be a great deal.
However, there was no guarantee that the value of 50 coins or 100 coins now would be the same then.
“After all, the settlement I got after matching with Iris gave me the most.”
If I excluded the starter pack as a special case, the matching gave me 300 coins in just over half a day.
I’d probably get more coins when I went back after this matching.
Thinking that way, the answer came quickly.
I should try a new matching when this one was over.
It wasn’t just about the coins. Just as I had become a wizard in this world, I might be able to gain knowledge or items that would help me grow in another world.
“It’s decided.”
While I was sitting and thinking, the poison seemed to have subsided quite a bit.
My body was still heavy, but my magic power had recovered to some extent, so it was time to explore the dungeon again.
“Let’s just fill it up to 1,000 coins.”
I had 8 hours left.
The goal was to collect 1,000 coins by combining the first kill reward and the duplicate kill reward and return within that time.
And with the sweet settlement reward, the framework for my plans for the time being was set.
***
The dungeon was still vast, and there were just as many monsters and traps as I could handle.
[You have defeated the Skeleton Warrior.]
[First Kill Reward: 100 Coins]
[You have defeated the Skeleton Warrior.]
[Duplicate Kill Reward: 50 Coins]
[You have defeated the Skeleton Archer.]
[First Kill Reward: 100 Coins]
Three skeletons appeared at the same time.
[You have defeated the Death Ghoul.]
[First Kill Reward: 100 Coins]
I also faced a giant ghoul whose size was comparable to a C-grade monster.
[You have defeated the Tentaclipper.]
[First Kill Reward: 100 Coins]
A bizarre creature with multiple tentacles that seemed like it came out of an eroge also appeared, and Weakness Detection came in handy at this time.
I struggled for a while because it recovered quickly no matter where I attacked, but thanks to Weakness Detection, I was able to find the core in its solar plexus.
[You have defeated the Devil Snake.]
[First Kill Reward: 100 Coins]
When a snake the size of a mid-sized sedan and 10 meters long appeared, I just laughed.
[You have defeated the Blade Wolf.]
[First Kill Reward: 100 Coins]
To put it simply, this son of a bitch was just awful.
As a wolf, it was faster than a Kobold Warrior, and its steel claws were more powerful than the Poison Spider’s forelegs, so the magic power consumed by the barrier was at least 2.5 times more than when I caught other guys.
Fortunately, it had a very low magic resistance, so I pretended to make a mistake and blew a Thunderbolt into its mouth, turning it into an electric grill.
They usually make all the dog meat into soup, but this guy was electric grilled.
If I sold it as a food truck, certain groups would foam at the mouth.
[You have defeated the Kobold Warrior.]
[Duplicate Kill Reward: 50 Coins]
[You have defeated the Poison Spider x2.]
[Duplicate Kill Reward: 100 Coins]
[You have defeated the Skeleton Warrior.]
[Duplicate Kill Reward: 50 Coins]
Monsters I had already defeated also appeared from time to time, aiming for my neck.
The barrier was broken dozens of times, and I moved forward while burning the monsters with fire and blasting them with lightning.
Now I couldn’t even tell if the bloodstains all over my body were my blood or the monsters’ blood.
“Haa…”
I was out of breath, and I was about to collapse from mana exhaustion due to the empty heart.
Since drinking the antidote, I had been fighting in a way that minimized the consumption of magic power in every moment to reduce the waste of time as much as possible.
In particular, I actively used the modified barrier that I had learned when fighting two Kobold Warriors to reduce the magic consumption of the barrier and continue the battle.
Thanks to this, I was able to reduce the number of meditations and drastically reduce mana consumption, but the fatigue of my brain continued to accumulate. Creating a barrier of the minimum size to accurately block only the point of impact was a crazy thing that a wizard, who was a rear-line job, couldn’t even imagine.
If I had made even a slight mistake in calculating the point of impact, a sword or arrow would have been stuck in my body. Now that I think about it, it wasn’t something I could do with a clear mind, so why did I do it?
But as I did it, I got used to it, and later I was able to block it with almost no error.
Although I was covered in lacerations and had half of my ear cut off, it was a pretty good result. If I went to church later and donated, they would fix it.
I was able to learn dual casting, which uses two magics at the same time, so this injury was a bargain.
“I finally collected it all.”
[Remaining Coins: 1,250 Coins]
With this, I could buy the most expensive item in the store.
Of course, the items they were selling now weren’t that great, so I had to wait for the next time, but it was still a good thing.
In addition, I also collected the magic stones from the bodies of the 15 monsters I had caught so far. Since they were D+ grade monster magic stones, they should sell for a good price.
Except that the process of collecting them was nauseatingly dirty and terrible.
[Remaining Matching Time: 01:15:49]
Now there wasn’t much time left, but fortunately, I was able to reach the goal before that.
“Should I say goodbye to Iris and go back?”
It was a difficult decision to make.
But in the end, I leaned towards not saying goodbye.
It was too tight to get to where Iris was from this point in about an hour.
There was no guarantee that monsters wouldn’t appear on the way back.
Since time in this world would stop when I returned to Earth, there was no need to be so attached to saying goodbye.
“Should I look for the door to the 2nd floor during the remaining time?”
I could also collect coins on the way.
Even if I had reached the goal, the more coins, the better.
Besides, if it seemed like I really couldn’t fight, I could just end the matching.
With that decided, I meditated for 30 minutes to solve the depleted magic power first. As soon as I allowed it, I absorbed the mana that was happily clinging to me, refined it, and stored it in my heart.
Feeling the magic power gradually filling up, I took out the last remaining chicken breast salad and ate it.
‘I bought this to give to Iris too, but I couldn’t give her anything but medicine.’
Leaving the regret behind, I decided to set out.
Considering the time I had left, I didn’t have time to dawdle.
The way to go was still the familiar passage.
The only difference was that the crossroads that used to appear every now and then didn’t appear as much as I thought.
Thanks to this, mapping became much easier, but I felt strange about the sudden change.
Besides, no monsters or traps appeared.
Of course, it had only been 30 minutes, so it was understandable that there were no monsters. The fact that there were no traps… well, I could just think I was lucky and move on.
The discomfort made me feel uneasy, but now there were only 15 minutes left.
There was no more time to think or explore.
Was it too greedy to find the door to the 2nd floor from the first exploration?
I had no choice but to end the matching around here when.
Whoosh!
“?!”
Something was flying quickly from far away, beyond the darkness.
It was so fast that it couldn’t be compared to the arrows of the Kobold Warriors I had faced before.
Thinking that I couldn’t match the time to put up a barrier around my whole body, I calculated the point of impact and spread a modified barrier in that area.
Kwaang!!!
“Keuek?!!”
It was a barrier that I had invested half of my remaining magic power in, in case of an emergency.
Nevertheless, the barrier was shattered at the same time as blocking the attack.
Fortunately, the trajectory of the attack was off, so I wasn’t hurt, but the impact was so great that my body flew back several meters.
I barely managed to stand up.
What was stuck in the floor in front of me was a spear.
“Such power with a spear throw from a distance of over 50m…”
I had a bad feeling.
The heaviness of the approaching magic power was making my survival instinct scream to end the matching right now.
I remembered what the World Tree had told me before I came here.
[Be careful, as there is a guardian who protects the door to the next floor.]
“…Even if I’m careful, that’s…”
What appeared from the darkness was a Lizardman with scales covering his entire body and muscles that were incomparably stronger than those of the Kobold Warrior.
It was a Lizard Warrior, an elite individual among the C-grade Lizardmen.
He was on a different level than the Kobold Warrior.
Unlike the Kobold Warrior, who simply filled in the front lines, this guy was the strongest warrior of the tribe, recognized among the Lizardmen who lived in tribes.
His intelligence was also known to be incomparably higher than that of the Kobolds.
‘The reason you threw the spear was because you had two spears.’
I couldn’t find even a small gap in the guy who was exuding a terrifying pressure and taking out the spear he was carrying on his back and taking a stance.
Weakness Detection sometimes told me the opponent’s weaknesses, but I couldn’t see anything now.
He wasn’t a stupid monster who just acted out of his physical abilities, but a real warrior.
Krrr…
He was at least a C+.
I could somehow catch up to C-, but that was really not it.
“Still, it’s a profit just knowing that you’re the guardian.”
I gave the guy who was growling lowly and emitting infinite hostility and murderous intent towards me the middle finger.
“I’ll be back soon, so wait for me.”
[Do you want to end the matching?]
[Y/N]
[Y]
