Chapter 8

8. The Taste of Money! Manticore (3)

50 manticores were taken out in two attacks, leaving half remaining.

After seeing the nonsensical experience gains, I calmed my excited heart down, before quickly getting rid of the other half the same way.

Blood stones started rising up from the monsters that were defeated.. It was a beautiful sight.

During that, I thought that calling them a ‘Rising Sun’ wouldn’t be an exaggeration.

The few monsters that were still breathing were dispatched by Sang-Min’s ‘Ilsum’ and Chang-Hyuk’s axe swings.

In only 15 minutes I got over 10,000 experience, and my levels had risen.

This was actually an amazing amount of experience. I mean, the level 6 dungeon boss only gave out 100 experience.

Not to mention, this experience was  divided between 5 people as well.

The party members, who had just finished half the hunt, couldn’t stop being in awe of my ‘Lightning Spray’, as it was stronger than they thought.

Of course, due to the last week’s hunting, the Skill Level was now Level 8.

In-Ah buffing the attack increase, and Yong-Hyun debuffing the opponent’s damage resistance greatly contributed too.

Typically, you would think that having one tanker and four damage dealers would be more effective, but mixing healers and necromancers together sped up the hunting.

It was probably due to the main skills that each class had.

Meanwhile, after learning ‘Lightning Spray’, I had no reason to use ‘Frost Orb’ in the level 6 dungeon.

I had a magic which would destroy them in one hit, after all.

Of course…this only applied to me.

The other half was killed in the same way.

After killing all the monsters, we moved in the 12 o’clock direction, and eventually made it to the dungeon center. Sang-Min shook his head, and said

“Ah… this dungeon’s a failure.”

‘Eh? What about a failure?’

We hunted all those monsters in only 30 minutes, yet he’s saying something about failure?

After seeing the other party members in regret I realized something.

O

h. In this dungeon there was a boss: the boss that dropped the ‘Manticore’s Soul Stone’.

However, he hadn’t appeared.

I asked Sang-Min, “Eh!?” Why can’t I see the boss?”

Sang-Min saw my panicked face and replied,

“Ah… In this dungeon the boss doesn’t always show up. It has a low chance of appearance. In addition to that, you have to kill all the monsters in the dungeon for it to show up. Manticores have a large aggro radius so we couldn’t have missed any, therefore, this dungeon is a failure.”

Damn it! I thought it was strange when they said one soul stone equaled 1 billion.

I thought ‘The association is either lazy or rich.’

But even if the boss didn’t come out, I could still get a larger profit than clearing a level 6 dungeon solo.

1 run gives over 30,000 exp, many blood stones, and the probability of a manticore soul stone.

‘This… I think I should just  stay for a few days and suck the honey?’ 1

After leaving the dungeon, Sang-Min, as if he liked the Lightning Spray’s damage, came over.

“Min-Cheol ssi, when can you do it ‘till??”

He brought out his smartphone and continued to talk.

“It’s 10am right now, and we can go until 4-5pm. If you’re okay with that, then let’s hunt together!” ”

“I’m okay until that time too.”

I smiled to myself and thought ‘Nope! I’m cool whenever, be it night or dawn.’‘

“Ah,really? That’s good. It’s hard to get greater damage dealers. You’re also really strong compared to your level, so the other guild members like you too.”

“Really? That’s a relief.”

After getting my promise of hunting with them, Sang-Min leaves the blood stone calculation to the other members who are restoring their mana and talks to me.

“Min-Cheol ssi, I’ll go to the Awakened ATM machine after we’ve divided up your share and send your money to you.”

Normally, when hunting with guild members or friends, you would share the loot after all the hunts were finished.

But my case was different, so he probably talked about the loot first.

I think he’s a decent guy.

Since it was the first time I had been treated well in my life, I didn’t know what to do and started fidgeting.

Young-Hyun spoke up, breaking up the awkward conversation.

“Hyung-nim, there are 12 F ranks and 1 D rank.”

We hunted around 200 manticores, but only 13 stones came out.

It reminded me, once again, about the low drop rates of the blood stones.

Of course, one stone is D rank, so it would fetch a higher price..

“Did you find out the current price?”

“You didn’t tell me to do that.”

He waved his hand and turned around, as if to say he wasn’t even surprised by this point.

“Yeah, I’m sorry. Find out the current price and say it, please?”

“Yes, Hyung!”

Sang-Min was pressing down on his temple during this  time.

After completing the search, Yong-Hyun pressed down some buttons on his handphone, and said, “Hyung! Right now F rank is 20,500 won, and D rank is 70,000 won. All together it’s 316,000 won!

“Yong-Hyun, how many times do I have to say this? Take off the odds and ends and give it to Chang-Hyuk. We can just say it’s 300,000 and give everyone 60,000. The municipal rate doesn’t fall down that much.”

As if swallowing a sweet potato the size of an arm, I could sense the frustration.

‘If it was my younger brother, I would tie him up and beat the living daylights out of him.’

Sang-Min looked at me with a contradictory look as he talked to Yong-Hyun.

“We should give a bit more money to the main tanker.. The equipment wear is far worse for them, so we can’t do anything about it. Of course, most parties do this.. It’s fine, right?”

I saw that shield’s life being beaten out of it with my own eyes, so I could clearly understand the point.

“Ah, right. Let’s hunt together when we have the time. Can I have your phone number?”

“Eh? Ah… I’ll type it.”

Kim Min-Cheol

Level : 25

Exp : [34,260/220,000]

Class : Magician

Special Ability : Mana doesn’t run out.

Strength : 10

Mana : ∞

Agility : 10

Vitality : 130

Unspent Points  : 0

Current Skills

Frost Orb Level 12 [1450/90000]

Lightning Spray Level 18 [86536/150000]

It was the fifth day of hunting with Sang-Min and his party.

The manticore boss hadn’t shown up once, even though we hunted 7 hours each day.

Although we stayed there for 10 hours total, Lee In-Ah, and Jo Yong-Hyun spend 3 hours restoring their mana, so the actual hunting time was less.

Of course, I had to put up an act while they rested. I pretended to need mana restoration time, too.

When our hunting time together was finished, I went to a level 6 dungeon alone.

This was for Skill Experience.

I aggro’d all the monsters, and killed them all, including the boss.

I could easily tank their attacks, as my vitality stat was at 130.

A 6 level dungeon usually needed a 5 member team of at least Level 10+.

Parties would have tankers and damage dealers, but I did that all on my own.

The amount of time it took for me to move to the boss room was equivalent to the time used to complete a dungeon run.

Every day at 6 am Sang-Min called me.

Aside from my mother, no one else had given me this much attention.

I felt uncomfortable and awkward, but I soon found that someone looking for you was actually a good feeling.

The amount of money I got per day from manticore hunting was around 100-120 million won.

In addition to this, the income from other hunting was around 200,000 won.

I could earn 800 million per week.

But this wasn’t enough. I needed more money.

To get that I needed stronger skills, better items, and more growth.

But right now I was completely focused on repaying the loan.

My next objective was to get the skills ‘Flashing’ and ‘Frozen Shield’.

Due to my infinite mana, I could cast ‘Lightning Spray’ without rest. In order to level up, the skills I needed were not attack skills, but defensive ones.

“Now, let’s get to work!”