Chapter 38

I was originally short on skill points, making it tough to invest in Shatter. But among the Rune Stones I got from wiping out the Geumchook Guild, there was one that proved incredibly useful.

It was the Skill Point Rune Stone.

Normally, people don’t use this Rune Stone much.

That’s because ninety percent of hunters run out of Rune Stone slots long before they run out of skill points.

But for someone like me who had gained a windfall and ended up with extra slots, it made perfect sense to slot this thing into one of them.

The one the dog bastard spat out was F-rank and gave +3 skill points.

Usually, sacrificing an entire slot for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠just three measly skill points would make anyone tilt their head in confusion. But from my current position, it looked pretty damn attractive.

Because now I could dump those three points straight into Shatter.

Inside the tower, gunpowder couldn’t be used at all.

Electrical equipment and internal combustion engines were also impossible.

There was a method using quicklime and water to fracture rock, but the whole process from mixing to curing took at least six hours.

That kind of delay made it completely impossible to finish the excavation within the eight-hour time limit of the trial.

The moment I drove the pickaxe handle in and activated Shatter—

Whooooosh—

The handle of the mithril glass pick instantly vaporized, causing the pick head to glow with brilliant light.

The heat even reached my face…

And then—

Kuuuuuuuuuuuung—

Crack— Craaack—

The bedrock that had seemed utterly unbreakable ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠finally began to split apart with deep fissures.

I pulled the pickaxe back out and touched the metal handle. It was still cold and solid.

When I scraped away the shattered stone with my blade, the concept of “actually digging forward” finally started to make sense.

The Ougresses who had been watching broke into a frenzy—dancing, screaming, completely losing their minds.

I had done in a single minute what had taken them half a day. To their simple eyes, I must have looked like a wizard.

Katang-ka!

Katang-ka! Katang-ka!

Katang-ka!

The cycle repeated.

Drill several holes with the pick.

Tang— Tang— Tang— Tang— Tang— Tang—

Insert the handle and trigger Shatter…

Kuuuuuuuuuuuung—

Crack— Craaack—

Then scrape it all out.

Scraaape— Scraaape— Scraaape—

The work was slow, but it was definitely progressing.

Let’s go!

Straight to the 3rd Basement Level!

I had no idea what was waiting for me down there…

But soon enough, it would all be mine!

* * *

“Huk. Huuuk. Aaaaaah!”

Unlike when I was working on the 1st Basement Level’s Rotter sewer, this time I dug at a roughly 45-degree incline.

The floor of B1 (which was also the ceiling of B2) was about 30 meters thick.

There was no guarantee the floor of B2 would be the same thickness, but assuming it was similar—

Digging straight down 30 meters at a 45-degree angle meant I’d have to excavate roughly 42.5 meters.

Simple Pythagorean theorem.

Still, unlike on the 1st Basement Level, I had no choice but to dig at this angle.

Lifting relatively light soil was possible using my subspace inventory and a pulley system.

But what I had to haul up to the surface now were fragments of bedrock so heavy they defied imagination.

Even with my superhuman strength of 290 Strength and 88 Stamina, dragging every single piece of that rock straight upward in a vertical shaft was brutally exhausting work.

The inventory only reduced weight—it didn’t make it zero. So even with the Twin Palms Eight Horses belt’s benefits, there was still a hard limit.

But if I had a ramp, the story changed completely.

I could simply load the broken fragments into the belt, shoulder it, and walk up the slope.

Of course, even that was by no means easy.

If I had unlimited time, I could take it slow.

But this was a trial with only eight hours on the clock.

That fact alone was enough to drive a person insane.

Because the end was unknown, I had to pour everything I had into every single minute and second.

“Aaaagh~ Ahahaheuuu……”

It was heavy.

Way too heavy.

My shoulders, waist, knees, and ankles all felt like they weighed a thousand pounds.

No matter how monstrous my strength was, carrying rocks at the very limit of what that strength allowed turned the pain into something no different from what an ordinary laborer would feel.

“Huuuk~ Huuuk~”

Eventually, after passing the 30-meter mark, I decided to set up a pulley system to drag up the belts loaded with stone.

Even then, the ramp was a huge help.

Dragging them along the slope took far less effort than lifting them through open air.

I was currently level 17!

The 17th number in the Fibonacci sequence was a whopping 1,597…

So every meter I dug earned me about 4.55 million won.

The scale of money I’d been making lately had grown so large that 4.55 million didn’t even feel like much anymore. Still, nobody hates money coming in.

And of course, support items arrived as well.

Gulp— Gulp—

And…

The Manatamin Drink really did work.

Plus, the “Plus” version seemed even stronger.

Even when my bones felt like they were about to snap and I wanted to die, one bottle of this made me think, Alright, let’s do this again.

“Let’s do it again! Katang-ka!”

Katang-ka! Katang-ka! Katang-ka!

I had roared at the Ougresses several times when they tried to help, chasing them away. Now they stood at a distance, sending nothing but cheers.

And then…

After enduring seven hours and thirty-three minutes of backbreaking labor that felt like it would tear my whole body apart, a change finally appeared that made my eyes snap wide open.

“Uwaaaaaagh! Hic!”

I couldn’t help but scream.

The fact that the random lucky item had changed was a very clear message.

The end was near.

The end.

Wait… what?

Hold on a second…

Bee venom relief injection?

Did that mean there were bees down there?

I was already wearing a full-body protective suit made of special material that covered even my face.

But I couldn’t afford to ignore the warning from the random lucky item.

I immediately pulled the mask of the protective suit over my face and switched to full-body protection mode.

Since I had secured everything thoroughly before starting, there was no risk of the floor suddenly collapsing and dropping me.

And…

Even in the middle of my frantic work, I climbed back up to the 1st Basement Level, grabbed something, came back down, and placed it near the entrance of the tunnel.

Now I began the final Rock Drilling phase.

Just a little farther down and I would finally reach the 3rd Basement Level!

Time remaining: about fifteen minutes.

The strength that had been nearly exhausted suddenly surged back up!

Tang—

A hole was drilled into the bedrock.

The sensation in my hands was clearly different from before.

It felt like I had pierced a thin membrane.

Craaaack—

And astonishingly, even without using Shatter, the bedrock split wide open.

Then…

A palm-sized fragment fell from beside the pickaxe I had embedded and dropped straight down into the darkness below.

Huh?

Was it done?

Had I reached it?

I stomped on the floor with my foot.

Thud. Thud.

I even jumped and slammed down with my full weight.

Boom. Boom.

But the bedrock was so incredibly hard that my body weight alone still couldn’t make it budge.

I immediately thought of Earthquake.

I climbed back up to the surface first, took a running start, then threw my body slightly forward and dove into the 50-meter-deep tunnel that slanted downward at a 45-degree angle.

I crossed my arms over my chest in an X-shape and fell nimbly through the shaft.

My body barely avoided scraping the walls as I successfully reached the bottom.

A small earthquake erupted.

Kwaaaaaaaaang!

Craaack— Craaaaaack—

Craaaaaack—

Crack—

The bedrock beneath my feet began to fracture, and the entire platform collapsed.

I was hanging in midair by my harness, but the fragments fell endlessly through the dust-filled space below.

At the same time, a status window appeared.

Uahaha!

Now I could command even the male Ougres that the Ougresses were raising.

This was what it truly meant to be the master of the 2nd Basement Level.

Being able to command only the Ougresses was kind of…

But the moment that thought crossed my mind, a buzzing, rattling sound suddenly filled both my ears.

I looked down.

An unknown space filled with dust…

But the dust was swirling and moving in a vortex.

Bzzzzzzzz—

Tatatata—

Fuck.

It wasn’t dust at all!

I immediately climbed back into the shaft.

At that moment, a yellow insect the size of a child’s forearm flew straight at me and began hovering right outside the tunnel entrance. It stopped dead in midair, tilting its head as it stared at me intently.

What the hell is that?

A bee?

A mantis?

With those sharp, sickle-like serrated forelegs and a triangular head, it definitely looked like a mantis.

But its abdomen had yellow-and-black stripes, and at the tip was a terrifying stinger.

That part made it look like a giant hornet.

Its wings were firmly attached to its back and were currently buzzing and rattling violently as it hovered.

Looking at the way those wings collided while making that tatata sound, it also resembled a dragonfly.

A mantis-wasp-dragonfly?

A wasp-mantis?

A mantis-wasp-dragonfly?

Powerful forelegs and wide field of vision like a mantis, flight capability like a dragonfly?

And a stinger plus colonial behavior like a giant hornet?

Whatever it was, it was clearly a horrifying hybrid.

I reached out to grab the creature that was over 20 centimeters tall.

It let out a buzz, dodged my hand with a backward flight, and resumed hovering at a fixed distance.

It could even do reverse flight, which was supposed to be incredibly difficult…

This thing was insane!

Then its comrades began gathering beside it.

Two, three, six, eight, twelve…

After that, they were uncountable.

Dozens. No—now hundreds were swarming.

One of them turned around.

It looked like it was preparing to attack with its stinger.

Then every single one of the mantis-wasps turned and aimed their rear ends at me.

The protective suit I wore was optimized to block viruses.

There was no guarantee it could stop piercing attacks like this.

Finally, one of them shot toward me like a bullet.

Almost simultaneously, hundreds of the monstrous insects began their assault.

God damn it.

I immediately slammed the floor of the tunnel and deployed the Safety Work Tent.

Ding— Ding— Ding— Ding—

Ding— Ding— Ding— Ding—

The hybrids were all bounced away in an instant.

Then, as if showing off, they attacked again!

Hundreds of sharp points kept appearing and disappearing across the green surface, threatening me, but fortunately they couldn’t pierce the tough tent material.

Uahaha!

This was the Safety Tent, wasn’t it?

The one that had even blocked those insane Rotters’ attacks…

Hahaha.

Haha.

Pffft—

Then a hole appeared in one spot on the tent.

Fuck.

And that was the signal…

Pffft— Pffft— Pffft—

Shit… it’s over…

Pffft— Pffft— Pffft— Pffft— Pffft— Pffft—

By the time I came to my senses, dozens—hundreds—of holes had been punched into the tent’s surface by the wasp stingers. The once-taut fabric was now ragged and torn.

This can’t be happening.

It’s supposed to be ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a Safety Tent?

That was when it happened.

Splaaash— Splaaash— Splaaash—

The creatures began spraying venom into the tent all at once.

I knew that aggressive hornets like giant hornets could spray venom, but experiencing it firsthand was horrifying.

Fortunately, my full-body suit—including the goggles—protected me, so I wasn’t immediately affected by the poison. But when their venom began streaming down the outside of my clothes like rainwater, I felt my mind start to grow hazy.

That was when I saw it.

One ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of the hybrid wasps was forcing its body through one of the small holes the stingers had made.

It was well known that rodents and insects could somehow squeeze through holes that looked far too small for them to pass through by human standards.

Sluuuuurp—

These monstrous creatures were no different.

They were actually squeezing through those tiny holes made by the stingers…

Of course, I wasn’t just sitting there.

Squish—

I grabbed the creature’s abdomen with my hand and squeezed with all my strength.

The feeling of crushing a monster insect the size of a baby’s forearm with pure grip strength wasn’t pleasant at all, but I killed it nonetheless.

But then came the second, third, and fourth attempts.

Splat—

Squelch—

Crunch—

Like someone playing whack-a-mole, I crushed every insect that tried to shove its rear into the tent.

However…

It quickly became too much to handle.

Dozens of them were now trying to force their way in at the same time.

Aggressive hornets were known to risk their lives to punish anything that threatened their nest.

If even the giant hornets, black-tailed hornets, and paper wasps of the human world behaved that way, how could these demonic creatures be any different?

Fuck.

Running away was the best option here.

After all…

The tent only lasted ten minutes.

It was better to act now than to wait until the ten minutes were up.

I gripped a shovel in each hand.

After mentally preparing myself, I retracted the tent.

The instant the tent disappeared, the sound of their buzzing and rattling wings hit me like the roar of Camp Nou after a last-minute winning goal against Real Madrid.

Without looking back, I immediately cast Shovel Long Jump toward the upward slope of the tunnel.

Whether it was because I didn’t take a running start or because I was jumping upward along the slope, I only flew about 20 meters before landing on the ramp.

For the next thirty seconds or so!

I crawled up the slope on all fours at the fastest speed I had ever moved in my life.

I looked like a complete beast.

At the same time…

To increase the damage of Earthquake, I began hurling the stone fragments I had left in my belt wildly behind me.

It clearly had an effect.

Thud— Thump— Kwaang— Thud—

Crunch— Crack— Splat— Crunch—

Along with the sound of heavy stones rolling, the terrible noises of insects being crushed and stomped kept reaching my ears.