chapter 9

Thud.

The arrow had hit the monster’s shoulder. Athena’s bow was a level 4 weapon. Though it’s damage points were not high because it had the option of not hurting humans, it should have been enough to at least hurt that monster.

Ahhhhhhkk!

The monster whipped its head around in this direction. At the same instant I threw the bow to Park Jungbeh. And that moron caught it. It seemed he didn’t have the balls to drop something worth 20 million dollars.

“What, what the hell? Shit!”

Keuuuuuuu….

The monster had its eyes fixed on Park Jungbeh. Not only was that arrow already shiny enough to draw attention, but having been hit by it…of course it would stare at the owner.

Holding the bow in his hands, Park Jungbeh seemed at a loss for what to do….then he started walking to Song Hansol.

“Han, Hansol? What do I do with this?”

“I, I don’t know. You bastard. Go away!”

Song Hansol glanced at the monster before slowly trying to get away. He probably knew. That that monster was not something he could handle with his level. Even with Mr. Jung and Youngchul combined, they probably wouldn’t be able to bring this beast down.

Rawwwwrrr!

“Ahhhk!”

“Ah shit! Throw that shit to the ground and run!”

“Do you know how much this is?”

“Is it more important than your life? Just toss it!”

When the monster roared again, Song Hansol dashed away screaming at the top of his lungs. Park Jungbeh lost all his qualms about the expensive weapon and tossed it before running after his friend while also screaming aloud. But this was after the monster already fixed itself to Jungbeh.

Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!

“Ahhhhh! Shiiit! It’s following us!!”

“You psychos! Stop following me!”

“There’s no other way except here! You bastard! Trying to get away by yourself!”

The monster was catching up rapidly with its enormous legs and the three of them were running and cursing each other at the same time. Thanks guys. Thanks for leading the monster away from me without me having to ask.

“Haa haaa.”

Jung Sooah was shivering with fear on the floor where the idiots had dropped her before running. I grabbed the bow from the floor and hooked it over my shoulder. Then went to grab her hand and help her up.

“Get up. There’s no time to waste here. If those idiots get eaten, we’re next.”

“One moment…let me just pull myself together.”

She closed her eyes for a minute and took a few deep breaths before she slowly got up.

“Let’s go.”

“Are you alright?”

“I think I’m a bit better now. I hope those bastards become monster food and die.”

“Seems you recovered pretty fast.”

“Ha! I can still feel my heart racing like a jackhammer! I might have gotten a trauma from all this.”

“Might have?”

“Thanks to you I’m better than I might have been. Honestly, you were in more danger than I was.”

“I guess.”

I nodded my head. It was all pretty crazy now that I think about it.

“How can you be so calm?”

“I don’t know. I guess maybe because I’d been in plenty of life and death situations before?”

“Ah is that so? I guess a porter’s life is really dangerous. Ah ah. If I had known it would be like this, I wouldn’t have done it. Why did I go through years of training for something like this? You know, I really tried hard to become a real porter?”

“One day all your hard work will pay off.”

“One day….sheesh. I hope so.”

She outstretched her arms for a moment before slowly walking ahead. It seemed she was physically trying to shrug off what had happened and I took comfort in her resilience.

“What are you doing? Aren’t you coming?”

As soon as we came out of the dungeon, we saw Youngchul and Mr. Jung waiting outside. I handed the bow over to the young lad and said.

“That piece of…Song Hansol…what happened to him?”

“I don’t know. The dungeon got dark out of nowhere so we ran out. Mr. Jung was just about to go back in but you guys came out.”

“What happened? What happened to the other young masters?”

“Who knows. Maybe they died. What does it have to do with me?”

How would I know. We didn’t see them on the way out. Maybe they got eaten up. No. I hope they got eaten up.

Mr. Jung’s eyes rolled back as he grabbed my collar.

“You. You killed them.”

“I should have.”

“What? This bastard…!”

“Stop it!”

Kim Youngchul came in between me and Mr. Jung. Mr. Jung couldn’t do anything further but let go of my collar. Kim Youngchul spoke in my direction.

“I know you don’t want to say it. But a person’s life might be at stake. Can you please tell us what happened?”

“…while we were going at it, the dungeon got dark. At first, we thought the dungeon was reset but it wasn’t. Instead a level 4 monster appeared out of nowhere. After that, I don’t remember anything else honestly. I ran away with Sooah while I figured they came out safely before us since they had run off ahead.”

“Is, is that true?”

Mr. Jung’s expression was desperate. He was worried about his pay. If something had actually happened to Song Hansol then his life was probably over. In a way, you had to feel sorry for him too.

“In any case, did you report it?”

I asked Kim Youngchul.

“Yeah. They said they would arrive within 10 minutes so they should be here any moment now.”

In a few minutes, a hunter wearing some expensive looking armor arrived. He was probably in his mid 30s.

“I received a call about an incident at a dungeon.”

He spoke in Mr. Jung’s direction. There were about 20 lookeeloos and a bunch of civil servants running around as if they were chickens with their heads cut off.

“A level 4 monster has appeared inside.”

“Please save our young masters. Please.”

Mr. Jung and I had spoken out at the same time.

“Hm. Something like this happened here too? I will take care of it so don’t worry.”

He spoke as he glanced at me.

“How did you know it was a level 4?”

“I had run into a similar monster recently.”

“Hm..when?”

“About five hours ago.”

“Is that so. Pretty impressive to see that you’re still alive after running into a level 4 monster twice in one day. Oh yeah. I’m just saying this as a warning but it might be best if you didn’t go into a dungeon for a while.”

“Can I ask why?”

“Recently there have been a number of cases where monsters not within the dungeons’ level have appeared. In just this country alone there have been about several hundred victims due to such cases.”

“Oh my…”

“Something like this hasn’t happened in decades. If this isn’t an isolated case and keeps happening, then dungeons will no longer be a place people can go.”

I frowned at his words. This would mean a stop to all the dungeon exploration. And my job as a porter would be at risk.

Only Song Hansol and Park Jungbeh made it out alive. The other hunter was found dead with only a partial body recovered. I had hoped that Song Hansol bastard would have died but he was pretty fast so I didn’t expect it to happen that way.

Kim Youngchul told me he would be my witness so he told me to call if I needed him. But I knew what would happen. Song Hansol would probably hire an attorney for a crapload of money. Even if I took out all my savings, all I had was 80,000 dollars to my name. There was no way I could win a case against him. Even if I were to win, that would cause problems too. Who would use a porter that had won a case against a hunter? Jung Sooah probably thought the same.

But there was an even bigger issue.

All dungeon raids for leisure were paused due to this event until further notice. That meant I would have no means of income for over a month. I thought about going to a job market but tossed that idea. There wouldn’t be a job suitable for a porter there.

“Whew.”

I blew out a sigh as I opened the drawer to my desk. I glanced at the skillbook. If I sold this, I would probably be ok.

A month ago, the day of the incident, I had put up the skillbook at the hunter market right away. But it didn’t sell so I had to take it back down.

The price I had put it up for was 10,000 dollars. I had thought it was a pretty cheap price but there wasn’t even one person willing to buy it. There were a few people who saw the level 0 and thought it was interesting. Some offered a few hundred dollars. I could have sold it for that much but I thought it was a waste especially for a skillbook. Even if it was only level 0, it WAS a skillbook after all.

On the other hand, they probably thought it was obvious to only sell it for a few hundred. Probably because most skillbooks weren’t unique. There were usually a few of them laying around. For that reason, people usually knew what each skillbook could do. But this one. This one was one of a kind.

There was no way anyone would pay 10,000 dollars for a 0 level skillbook that no one even knew what it could do.