Pink Land Harvest
"Wow~ It's so pretty."
Pale pink weeds carpeted the ground. Strange trees hung heavy with crimson leaves, as if autumn had already drained the color from every branch. Overhead, the sky burned like a sunset on the verge of nightfall.
This was Pink Land—an E-rank dungeon.
"Even the pond looks weird."
"That's just the surrounding colors reflecting on the water. Don't even think about drinking it. You'll die."
"Okay..."
Lee Donggeul's earlier excitement deflated at my warning. Still, her natural personality kept peeking through; she was noticeably brighter than when we'd first met.
Dumb as ever, though.
Baek Hwayeon and Kim Isol, on the other hand, hadn't changed one bit. One remained painfully reserved, the other permanently irritated. I'd thought Kim Isol was finally starting to open up to me, but today she was all icy wind again.
What the hell was her problem?
I wanted to ask if something bad had happened, but that conversation could wait until we were back at the lodging. Right now the priority was hitting our target in the shortest time possible.
The civil servant at the entrance had practically thrown a welcome party for us. A recent gate reverse-flow had left him living right on the doorstep of the dungeon, and the constant anxiety was clearly eating him alive. Pink Land was notoriously unpopular among Awoken hunters; supposedly the military only sent someone once a year to thin out the monster population that had ballooned over the previous twelve months.
This year that Awoken still hadn't shown up even two months past the usual date, so the poor guy had been fretting nonstop. Our sudden arrival must have felt like a miracle.
"Hyung-nim. Are those the rays?"
"Yeah."
Hundreds of floating shapes drifted across the sky. Maybe thousands. With the entrance already this crowded, the civil servant's nerves made perfect sense. He should have requested support from some big corporation instead of just sitting on his hands.
"We're short on time. We start immediately. Get ready."
First up: Baek Hwayeon.
I wanted to confirm whether a single shot from her could one-shot the flying bastards. I told her to use only as much mana as she had against the werewolves last time.
Twang!
The bowstring snapped. A mana-charged arrow streaked upward and struck dead center. Her accuracy really was something else.
It just didn't finish the job.
"Get ready. Incoming."
Purple blood dripping from the wound, the ray began its gliding dive toward us. The hit had clearly hurt; it was already listing.
"Aim for the head. Heart placement varies a little from ray to ray. Try the head next—target the mouth."
"Yes..."
Her second arrow landed exactly where I told her. Unlike the werewolves, though, it didn't punch clean through. F-5 mana was apparently the limit.
I needed to grow her faster.
Enraged and in pain, the ray dropped to within a few meters of the ground and opened fire.
"Watch out! Magic!"
Jang Yong stepped forward and raised his shield. The coverage he could provide was tiny; the ray's attack radius was wide. He could protect maybe one person, and that person was Baek Hwayeon.
Mana spit poured from the creature's mouth like rain, blanketing her. Because it had come so low, the effective range was only about three meters. I was far enough away to take zero damage. The only one in real trouble was the archer herself.
Jang Yong strained to cover her; most of the barrage slammed into his shield instead.
"Ugh..."
No shield in the world can block every drop of rain. Baek Hwayeon still caught a few hits. Thanks to her suit and an Awoken's natural toughness, the damage looked like nothing worse than light bruises—but bruises stack, and this was an E-rank dungeon, not F.
"No healing yet. Wait until the damage piles up more."
"Yes, Team Leader."
At least everyone was following my orders about seventy percent of the time now. They seemed to accept me as the real leader. The remaining thirty percent was always Kim Isol.
Like right now.
She concentrated mana into her lower body, kicked off the ground, and launched skyward with ridiculous jump power. She was trying to cut the floating ray down mid-air. I thought that height might be borderline impossible—then she sailed clean over the thing like it was nothing.
Right. I'd already raised her mana to E-1.
Slash!
One clean cut. The ray split in two. Purple blood rained down like a summer shower.
"Whew~ How's that?"
"Give me a heads-up next time... I'm covered in this filthy blood."
Sorry, not sorry. No praise coming. Today was my turn to shine. Shut up and watch.
I'd been holding back on purpose so the kids could rack up combat experience. Kim Isol had just ruined the whole plan. Still, I couldn't exactly yell at the person who'd just saved her teammates. I let it slide in silence.
"You all right?"
"Yes... for now. Haa..."
I'd ordered no healing, then walked over and asked if she was okay. A little shameless, maybe, but I wasn't about to waste a heal. Fortunately her face was only a bit flushed; nothing serious.
I'd already emailed the entire party the Long-bearded Sky Ray strategy guide days ago. They should have memorized it, yet they still looked like they only half understood. No choice.
"Listen carefully. First, ranged attacks..."
I walked them through it again and made them fight three or four more rays. Only then did they start looking like actual Awoken hunters.
"Hoo... That's enough for today."
"Huh?"
"We're leaving already? I've only used one heal."
"What? I've still got tons of mana left!"
"Who said anything about leaving?"
They'd completely misread me. I wasn't calling the expedition off. I was telling them to stop playing house and start hunting for real.
You rookies.
"From now on, I'll take the first strike."
"What? Hyung-nim?"
"Are you crazy? You want to die? You couldn't even tank one spit from those things."
"She's right. I can just heal you, but..."
"Is that contempt or concern?"
Their reactions were so predictable I almost yawned. I ignored them and simply gave the order. The timing felt right to show a little of what I could do.
"I'm going to drag them down to the ground. Finish the thrashing ones immediately. Use the absolute minimum mana."
"What the hell are you planning... Wait, no way..."
"Hmm... You're quick on the uptake."
Kim Isol was the only one sharp enough to guess. I gave her a deliberately creepy grin and moved.
"One more time—light attacks will kill them easily. Don't waste mana."
With that I walked straight under a ray whose long beard was already brushing the ground, grabbed the tendril, and—
Huh? Why isn't the info window showing?
Just kidding. The suit covering my hand had blocked it, exactly as expected. I brought the beard up and rubbed it against my cheek.
Then I erased the ray's mana.
"W-wait, careful—!"
"Whoa—!"
Thud!
The instant its mana vanished, the ray lost the ability to fly and plummeted. I was standing directly underneath and nearly got flattened. The thing was huge—five meters counting the tail, probably several hundred kilos, maybe close to a ton. I barely managed to roll aside.
Good thing I hadn't struck a cool pose and kept my eyes on the sky the whole time. The shield would have kept me from dying, but the embarrassment would have killed me.
Squeeeak— squeeeak—
The crash alone had hurt it, but the ray was still very much alive. Monsters don't die that easily. Without flight, though, it was helpless—just flopping around on the dirt.
"Think of this spot as the head and stab around here. Not there—next to it... Ah, that must be it. From now on, aim there."
"Hyung-nim, what the hell are you..."
"Next one. No more breaks. I'm dropping them nonstop, so kill them the second they hit."
I sprinted along every beard that touched the ground, wiping out their mana one after another.
Thud! Thud! Boom!
Dozens of Long-bearded Sky Rays began raining from the sky. Absolute free real estate. Since it cost me zero mana, I ran around like a kid on a sugar high. Giant ray corpses piled up right at the gate entrance.
The others stared at me with a thousand questions on their faces. When I refused to answer, they just trailed after me in stunned silence, finishing off the grounded rays as fast as they could.
I kept at it until my lungs were on fire—dozens, hundreds of times. All I had to do was grab a beard and press it to my cheek. That simple motion had already killed hundreds of the things.
Hahahaha.
It felt incredible. Cathartic. For this moment every last Awoken was nothing more than my assistant, and I was loving every second of it.
"Hah... hah..."
I was out of breath already?
Damn it. I really needed to work on my stamina. I should have known something was wrong when nights with Senior An Sora left me this wiped at my age. A few dozen minutes of running and I was already cooked.
No need to worry, though.
Panting, I checked the message floating in front of my eyes.
Of course!
Recover stamina?
Why does it ask every single time for something this obvious? I selected recover, of course.
Stamina fully restored.
Energy consumed: 0.1%
0.1... Is that a lot or a little? Last time I recovered after two rounds of sex it also cost 0.1%.
The truth was, last Saturday I had unlocked a new ability. Reaching 100% Synchronization Rate with Senior An Sora had raised my Authority to Level 3. The power had been complicated and hard to grasp at first, but the more I used it the more my lips curled into a grin. It was insanely useful.
Unlike Level 2, I now understood far more and could make direct choices—recover stamina like this, or heal wounds the way the gash on the back of my head had closed before.
And that wasn't all.
Remaining energy: 48.1%
Maximum charge capacity: 50%
I could check remaining energy and consumption amounts whenever I wanted just by thinking about them. That meant I could prepare before the shield ever vanished from energy depletion. I had also figured out how to restore energy.
Sex.
More precisely, raising Synchronization Rate with a partner charged a certain amount of energy. Sleep recovered a tiny bit too—0.3% over an entire Saturday and Sunday—so it was basically useless.
The one thing that still puzzled me was the hard cap at 50%. Maybe Authority Level 3 wasn't the maximum after all. How to reach Level 4 remained a complete mystery.
Stamina restored, I took off running again, hunting every beard that brushed the ground. The work continued until no more tendrils dragged across the dirt.
We had entered the dungeon at one in the afternoon. Somehow it was already past four. I'd been having so much fun I never noticed the time.
That was enough for today.
"Haa... haa..."
"A-are you finished now, Hyung-nim?"
"You're insane..."
"Great work, everyone. Now we cut off the beards."
"What?"
"Huh? It's not over yet?"
"We have to make money, don't we? Why else do you think we just killed nearly a thousand of these things?"