Chapter 76: Seongsu Station (★★★) Dungeon
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 76: Seongsu Station (★★★) Dungeon
According to Lee Mi-sook, she produced something like this once in a while.
Even though she possessed the Level 7 Cooking Expert skill.
Truly, only once in a very long while.
Of course, she had only recently found out about this herself.
She said she realized it when someone she made a meal for told her their stats had increased.
[Cooking Expert (7★)]
- You have achieved perfect mastery over cooking. Your understanding of ingredients increases.
- Creates rare dishes with a very low probability.
- Creates dishes imbued with special power when using rare ingredients.
I thought it meant that using the skill had a very low chance of producing a rare dish.
But that wasn't the case.
It meant that just by cooking normally, even with ordinary ingredients, there was a slim chance she would create a rare dish with stat bonuses.
It wasn't easy to utilize.
Even with a Level 7 cooking skill, she had cooked countless times since the zombie apocalypse began, yet it had only triggered a handful of times. Relying on it when needed was practically impossible.
Of course, if one did turn up, keeping it in a Thermal Pouch and then a high-powered refrigerator would turn it into a buff that could be consumed at any time.
But putting that method aside for a moment, a dish imbued with special power—that was far more important.
"Go grab that. The rare meat."
"Yes!"
The rare meat I had obtained from hunting was stored separately in the freezer.
Just cooking and eating it increased Stamina by ★ for 3 hours, so what kind of stats would it gain if Lee Mi-sook cooked it?
[Chicken [1-Star]]
- Fresh chicken.
- When cooked and eaten, Stamina increases by ★ for 3 hours.
Seeing it like this, I realized once again just how fucking ridiculous the food Lee Mi-sook made was.
The meat with the rare option itself was Level 1, increasing Stamina by Level 1 for 3 hours.
Yet, Mi-sook had created a Level 2 dish using nothing but ordinary ingredients.
What kind of masterpiece would she produce this time?
Lee Mi-sook took the chicken and went inside.
"I'll make it delicious for you."
She stepped into the kitchen and returned shortly after.
Inside a plastic container was a chicken breast salad made from the chopped chicken.
"I made it so you can easily carry it around and eat it. Shall I cook the other parts as well?"
[Delicious Chicken Breast Salad (5★)]
- A chicken breast salad made with rare ingredients. It is filled with the touch of a professional chef who brings out the best flavor of the ingredients.
- Upon consumption, Strength increases by 3★ for 3 hours.
- Upon consumption, there is a 20% chance for attacks to deal critical damage for 1 hour. When a critical hit lands, the target receives 100% additional damage.
"...Do the rest of it too."
"Yes, yes. Please wait just a moment."
I made the request to Lee Mi-sook, completely dazed.
Even in the zombie apocalypse, if you installed a cooking-related mod, there were mods that temporarily boosted stats through food.
But those were strictly limited to things like quickly satisfying hunger, or at best, briefly raising stats when full. They didn't grant special abilities like this.
A 20% critical hit chance for an hour?
This isn't an RPG game...
Of course, "damage" did exist in the zombie apocalypse.
It wasn't like you absolutely had to pierce a zombie's vital spot to kill it.
If that were the case, the difficulty would be far too high for ordinary people.
Facing and fighting a zombie was already a nightmare, but a zombie that endlessly got back up unless you ended its life by hitting a vital spot?
That was why zombies had life force.
The problem was that their life force was surprisingly high, so trying to beat them to death normally meant they would just keep getting back up like, well, zombies.
This was also why, later on, it was possible to raise your stats and combat level, grab a weapon, and just beat them to death by hitting them anywhere.
In other words, a critical hit was an incredibly good option.
Especially for me.
Until now, I had either stabbed zombies in the neck or beaten them to death while receiving the Base Invincibility effect.
When clearing a Time Attack dungeon like this, could there be any better effect?
"Call me when the food is ready."
The preparations were complete.
I grabbed the potions I had bought from the warehouse whenever the Visiting Black Market Merchant stopped by, a Level 4 Backpack, and a pistol. After carefully packing the dishes Lee Mi-sook made with the remaining ingredients, I left the house.
---
Base Stats: 2★ / 1★ / 1★ / 1★
Base Invincibility: 8★ / 8★ / 8★ / 8★
Rest Bonus: 5★ / 5★ / 5★ / 0
Leather Gloves: 1★ / 0 / 0 / 0
Sauna Healing: 0 / 0 / 1★ / 0
Predation: 1★ / 0 / 1★ / 0
Special Dish: 3★ / 0 / 0 / 0
Total Strength: 20★. Agility: 14★. Stamina: 16★. Mana: 9★.
---
Unfortunately, it seemed only one food buff could be active at a time, so I immediately buffed myself with the special dish.
The buff duration was only an hour, but that was plenty.
With this overflowing power, I felt like I could sweep through a dungeon crawling with Level 5 zombies.
With every step I took, the surrounding scenery flashed past.
I felt like I could run along the sides of buildings, and I didn't feel a shred of fatigue as I sprinted toward Seongsu Station.
Exit 1 of Seongsu Station quickly came into view.
I spotted members of the Seongsu Station Faction nearby, but I ignored them and ran straight for the entrance.
"Uh, wait?"
Before the people who noticed me late could react, I kicked the tightly shut door.
Crash!
The door was ripped clean off its hinges as it burst open.
This welcoming feeling of returning here.
I won't turn back this time.
I entered the dungeon.
[You have entered the dungeon.]
[Starting Time Attack.]
Setting the Fastest Record was my goal.
Since there was no record yet, any time would technically be the fastest, but I wanted to set a flawless record that no one would dare challenge until I broke it again myself.
Naturally, the number of zombies to kill and their levels varied by dungeon.
No matter the variables, my record must remain unbeatable.
I drew my pistol.
Bang!
The gunshot echoed through the subway station in the darkness.
In a confined space, the sound traveled faster and louder.
I heard the sound of zombies swarming toward the source of the gunshot.
Click.
Turning on the construction headlamp strapped to my head, I ran toward the hideously swarming zombies.
In an instant, I dove right into the middle of them.
I swung my fist.
Thud!
A head exploded.
It didn't just crack; it burst like a watermelon.
I didn't know such a description could actually happen in reality.
The power of 20★ Strength was absolutely astonishing.
My fear vanished.
With every swing of my fists, zombies died.
They kept swarming endlessly, but even when surrounded, I didn't take a single scratch.
I refused to let any zombie within a 30-centimeter radius of me.
Level 1 or Level 2.
Honestly, it was hard to tell them apart.
Whether they were Level 1 or Level 2, they all died in a single blow when I struck.
Only when I caught a fleeting glimpse of the number '2' above a falling zombie's head did I think, Ah, so that one was Level 2. But it's barely any different from Level 1.
Whoosh!
As I was clearing them out, a rapid trajectory aimed straight at me entered my vision.
I dodged reflexively.
Something brushed past the spot where I had just been standing.
It was something sharp and pointed.
Turning my gaze toward where it had come from, I saw a zombie with the number '3' marked above its head staring at me.
It was a female zombie.
Short and small-statured.
But because of that, the sharp weapons held in her hands looked even faster and nimbler.
Swish, swish, swish!
Trajectories flew at me once again.
This time, five at once.
The moment they left her hands, they were already almost upon me—it seemed to be the zombie's mode.
A Level 3 zombie.
This was the power of a Level 3 zombie.
The true turning point where the zombie apocalypse actually began.
Novice users could somehow manage up to Level 2 zombies.
Aside from being faster, sturdier, and tougher than Level 1 zombies, they were barely any different.
Even if they used skills, it was only to temporarily boost their physical abilities, so you could just dodge and hunt them down.
But from Level 3 onward, it was different.
From Level 3, the AI changed drastically, as if the zombie apocalypse game had suddenly turned into an RPG boss raid.
Well, it wasn't like they could think or speak, but at least when it came to combat, they were on a completely different level from the brainless zombies that just rushed forward.
Of course, even so, they were still just zombies.
Still, since this was the first Level 3 I had encountered here, I decided to show some courtesy.
[Combat Readiness (6★)]
- A strong mind is the source of strong power.
- Become proficient in combat for 30 minutes.
When I first saw Oh Yoon-seop's skill, I was skeptical.
What did this mean?
What did it mean to "become proficient in combat"?
It didn't even raise stats.
I wondered if it meant showing trajectories like Hunting Expert, but once I used it, I understood.
When swinging my fists, I could feel exactly how to swing them to deal damage efficiently, using the shortest path and the least amount of strength.
It was a matter of pure sensation.
"Holy shit. This is insane."
So this is what a Combat Mode with a base level of 6 is like.
Honestly, it made me want to spend Normal Mode Level Points to upgrade it.
It made me feel like I had been a master fighter all along.
Breaking through the crowd of zombies, I grabbed the back of the neck of the Level 3 zombie that was throwing blades from afar.
"Peekaboo!"
Snap.
The Level 3 zombie's neck snapped like a sheet of paper.