chapter 30

The wolf could do nothing to stop the bloodsword from slurping up its blood. It kept baring its sharp fangs at me in anger and obvious duress, but the chain was even stronger than I had hoped. I wonder how many people knew there was such a simple and easy way to take care of a monster like this. I sure know I didn’t until now.

Stab Stab!

Seeing the wolf trying to bite into the restraining chains, I took my new sword out and poked him a couple sides into his middle. Though I was sure now that he wasn’t strong enough to break free of his bonds, I wanted to make sure he didn’t snap them with his teeth. Better safe than sorry because the cave wolves are known for their tremendous biting strength…good not to underestimate that.

When I kept stabbing at him with Park Jungbeh…oh excuse me…MY sword, the wolf now tried to move backwards out of the hole, instead of through it. But there would be nowhere for it to go but to the mouth of the cave. I kept glancing at my watch, waiting for the time to run out.

I recall that last time, it had taken about 2 minutes for my sword to drink up almost every last drop. Since I couldn’t be sure, I decided it would be best to wait 5 minutes.

Beep.

The timer I had set for 5 minutes went off. I went through the chain and walked to the front and saw a collapsed mound that was the wolf. I pulled out a pepper bomb from my pocket and threw it at the heap.

Even as the pepper smoke plumed into the air, I remained alert. Since it was a mixture of red pepper and black pepper, no matter how hard it tried to play dead, it would not be able to handle it. I think. Once I confirmed the wolf remained ever motionless, I held out my longsword and carefully padded forth.

“Ahem!”

I purposely cleared my throat loudly, but the wolf remained still. I kept my distance as far away from the monster as I could and reached over to try and poke at its eye with my sword.

“Grawr!”

The wolf jumped towards me, jaws wide, as if it was waiting for just this moment. But I had been expecting it this whole time so I kept my cool. I plunged my sword right into its open mouth.

The wolf dropped to its side, throwing up black blood and shivering as it lay on the ground. That should do it. If it got up again this time, I would bet my life it wasn’t a wolf but a damn zombie.

[+1000]

Finally. Those sweet green digits appeared above the monster’s head. The same amount as last time. With this, I should have over 4,000 reward points in all. Now I knew what people meant when they said they felt full even without having eaten a thing. I felt content.

I pulled out my bloodysword from the dead wolf’s side. There was barely any blood seeping out of the wound, as expected, and there was now a black tint to the sword. Just how much blood did it drink for it to be so dark? Jeez.

I placed the bloodysword back on my hip and, before the monster could evaporate, I wiped off the longsword onto its fur. I needed to take care of this so I could sell it later. Unless it was broken or something, there was rarely any case where an item’s value would depreciate, so I could expect 100,000 for this.

As the wolf kept evaporating into dust..then into air..I walked over to the chains and started to collect them back into my backpack. I didn’t think of recycling it again but I didn’t want to leave it behind for Park Jungbeh and his crew to see and learn my now new trick. Of course those idiots wouldn’t figure out what I used it for. But just in case.

After cleaning up, I went back to the wolf.

The wolf had dropped an item.

“What is this?”

I picked up the thing that dropped to the floor and examined it. It looked to be a roll of A4 sized papers tied with a string. I pulled on the string and unrolled the papers to check it out. Luckily, this time, I was able to read it.

‘Escape’

Ok. If I were to take the literal meaning of it, then maybe it was a way to escape this dungeon. I would guess that if I were to face a monster that was too ferocious, ripping up this paper would transport me to safety.

“Ha…I scored another jackpot didn’t I?”

It wasn’t a weapon or a skillbook but, since I have a bad habit of always meeting irregulars, this would seem to be something that would be very useful. If you looked at it in one way, it might even be more valuable than a high level equipment. And since there were 5 pieces of paper, that meant I could use it a total of 5 times.

Wait. No.

Now that I think about it, I would probably have to take into account each party member. As if I could escape by myself and ditch my party if an irregular shows up.

I couldn’t do that even if it meant my life. So I guess it was the same as having just a one time use. And on top of that, if Jung Sooah ever decided to join us then we would be one escape paper shy.

That kind of sucks, but it’s still a great haul. If anything, what made it even more valuable was the fact that this has never before appeared at the hunter’s market. First the level 0 skillbook and now this…something was up.

The raids that had been happening without any change these past 50 years were now going through a lot in a short time. But I don’t mind at all. For a person who’s all the way at the bottom like me, things can only go up from here.

***

As soon as I left the dungeon, my eyes met with an all too familiar silhouette. When she saw my face, she made a great big sigh.

It was Jung Sooah.

“You’re alive.”

“Didn’t I personally take you to the bus and send you off?”

“I turned back around. I was worried.”

“Why.”

“I, I came too.”

Glasses girl peeked out her head from behind Jung Sooah. I lightly raised my brows and said.

“You are definitely big for a girl.”

“What, what are you saying? I’m a girl because I’m big!”

Jung Sooah yelled out as her face turned a red hue. I was talking about her size. Why is she talking about her boobs?

“I meant you’re big boned.”

“…”

“I meant you were big because I didn’t even notice Bae Yeongyoung hiding behind you.”

“…”

“Do you think I’m the type of guy who would look at a girl’s breasts the moment I step out of a dungeon?”

“Hm…so mean. Really.”

I should stop picking on her now.

Glasses girl said with a slightly red face too.

“Party head. But where did you get that armor?”

“It was a gift. It seemed there was someone very generous in that party.”

At my words, Jung Sooah began to poke at the armor before saying.

“Wait. Isn’t this Park Jungbeh’s?”

“Yep.”

“You’re saying that bastard gave this to you? As a present?”

“Some things happened. Anyway, let’s go home. I’d rather not stick around and bump into them.”

“Wa…wait.”

“Talk while we walk. While we walk.”

I left the dungeon with Jung Sooah and glasses girl in tow. As we left the Baekoonsa dungeon, I saw Han Joonseok and Cho Youngoo waiting on stand by.

Jeez. Them too?

Han Joonseok came forward first and said.

“I felt like you were trapped into a crappy situation so I came back because I was worried. I thought I could maybe be at least a little help if something happened.”

“I made him come. Joonseok wanted to just leave but I forced him to come back with me.”

“Didn’t I tell you not to say anything stupid?”

“It seems I put an unnecessary burden on everyone.”

I couldn’t get why these people I’ve only met two times cared at all about my well being. Could this be the friendship skill at work? Or is it that they’re masochists and liked being in danger? I usually like to err on the side of caution and think of the worst case scenario. Maybe they thought I would keep them on board to breeze through dungeon clearings if they were nice to me. Who knows. But I decided to take their kindness at face value this time.

Now that we were all together again, we decided to go get something to eat as a group. It was a relief that manager Kim wasn’t here. If he were, then we would probably all be forced to drink like hell again.

“Ha ha ha! You guys weren’t thinking of drinking without me now were you?!”

Manager Kim appeared. Out of nowhere.

“Who the hell called manager Kim?”

There was no way this man came all on his own. Glasses girl raised her hand with a small smile.

“Um..I thought since we were all here…it would be nice to include everyone.”

And so we were off to drink like no tomorrow. Again. Thanks a lot manager Kim.