Namsan
Komodo Hotel, guest room.
Inside the room where Kang Dohyun, Kang Dohun, and Lee Chaerin were staying—
"Zzzzzzz."
Lee Chaerin slept like a rock.
Shhhh...
Kang Dohun was taking a long, refreshing shower.
"Hmm..."
And Kang Dohyun sat studying his gear, lost in thought.
It had been a full week since they'd started farming in Gyeongju. Every day for those seven days, the brothers had spent nine hours roaming the area, killing monsters and collecting items.
But—
"Disappointing."
Aside from the Chungmu Soul Sword sitting in his inventory, Dohyun's usable equipment amounted to the Cloak of Silence (U) and the Artisan's Failed Special Shoes (R)—both special purchases from the shop. Everything they'd actually found in Gyeongju was junk: a Worn Ring (N), a Broken Necklace (N), a Rusted Axe (N), and a Ruined Leather Armor (N).
In other words, only four pieces of usable gear between them.
Well, Dohun did pick up one rare-grade ring, at least.
The haul had fallen well short of expectations.
While Dohyun was still turning it over in his mind, his younger brother finished showering and stepped out of the bathroom.
"Hyung, I'm done. Your turn."
"Dohun. You satisfied?"
"With what? The farming?"
At his brother's question, Dohun shook his head without hesitation.
"Nah. Boring as hell. Not worth it."
Wandering around just to hunt undead—stronger than ordinary zombies, sure, but still mind-numbingly dull. And they didn't even drop much experience. Dohun had been thoroughly sick of it.
"Figured. So how about we hit Namsan tomorrow?"
"Namsan?"
"Yeah. Gyeongju Namsan."
Gyeongju Namsan—a dense concentration of Silla culture, scattered with Buddhist relics, royal tombs, and burial mounds. Even within the special zone that was Gyeongju, Namsan stood apart as something more. It ranked among the genuinely dangerous areas of the special zone.
But danger came with upside.
"Higher chance of good items dropping?"
"Yeah. Better odds on quality gear—but it's a lot more dangerous."
The word dangerous gave Dohun a flicker of worry, but he shrugged it off.
"We just fight while running, right?"
"That should work. So starting tomorrow, we hit Namsan?"
"Yeah. Let's go."
With the brothers in agreement, their hunting grounds shifted to Gyeongju Namsan.
The next day.
As the sun rose, the brothers entered the Gyeongju region and made their way to the entrance of Namsan.
"This is one place even I can't predict."
Because Gyeongju was a special zone, farming basic items there would eventually become common knowledge. Once you cleared level 10, hunting was viable, and the combat power spike from holding actual gear made Gyeongju the default farming destination for countless adventurers.
That was why Dohyun had come early—to farm before the place got famous. But for the two of them right now, the time-to-reward ratio had started feeling thin.
Namsan was a different animal entirely. Even a twenty-person party would stick to the outer edges and hunt with extreme caution. More importantly, Dohyun himself had never farmed Gyeongju Namsan in his previous life.
He looked at his brother and repeated the warning, voice tight with concern.
"Be careful. The second it gets dangerous, we run. Got it?"
"Got it."
The two brothers stepped carefully into Gyeongju Namsan—
"!"
—and the ground beneath their feet turned red.
"Proof that Namsan's no joke."
They crossed into the crimson-stained zone.
Not long after entering Namsan, Presence Detection picked up their first monster.
One hostile entity, two hundred meters ahead.
At Dohyun's hand signal, Dohun nodded and rolled his shoulders loose. They moved carefully along the mountain path until they closed the distance.
"Grrrr..."
A zombie.
Zombies are easy.
Dohun sprinted in lightly and threw a kick. Then—
Whoosh.
The zombie dodged it.
"What the hell? Are you kidding me?!"
Dohun launched a flurry of follow-ups—fists and kicks in rapid succession—but the zombie blocked or slipped every strike.
It was absurd. The silver lining was that the thing wasn't strong enough to counterattack. From the zombie's side, simply blocking and dodging Dohun's assault was already its limit.
Which meant—
Thwip. Thud!
"Kweeeaagh!"
A ki bolt from Dohyun's crossbow, fired from a distance, punched into the zombie and dropped it.
You have slain a Mutated Zombie.
Experience +10. You have obtained 10 Zombie Coins.
"Gives the exp and coins of ten regular zombies."
"That's it? This thing was way stronger than ten zombies."
"That's Gyeongju Namsan for you."
A single opening encounter was enough to feel the difference in level.
After the kill, Dohyun examined the corpse. Then—
"Found it."
Embedded in the zombie's skull was a small stone fragment.
Rare
A stone fragment imbued with a special aura. Slightly increases stamina recovery rate.
"What? A rare item?"
In a full week of hunting across Gyeongju, they'd found exactly one rare. Here, the very first kill had dropped one.
"I can string this into a necklace and wear it."
Dohyun pocketed the fragment.
"It drops this easy?"
"Luck, probably. Still—"
His older brother grinned.
"They're definitely dropping better."
"Yeah. Let's get hunting."
The brothers' motivation ignited all over again.
Further up Gyeongju Namsan, their second encounter was—
"A Buddha statue?"
A stone Buddha with its upper half shattered, leaving only the lower body. The moment it registered the brothers' presence—
Whoosh!
—it launched itself skyward with terrifying force and came crashing down on them.
"BOOM!!"
They dodged, but the impact hit the ground like an explosion, kicking up a shockwave of pure force.
"What the hell?"
"Hit it from both sides!"
On his brother's order, Dohun broke right and Dohyun left, attacking from opposite flanks.
Thud!
Dohun drove a straight punch into it. The statue didn't so much as flinch. Then—
Thwip. Clack!
Dohyun fired his crossbow. Not even a scratch.
Impenetrable defense was bizarre enough—then the statue leapt high again.
BOOM!
It slammed down and unleashed another massive shockwave. The brothers avoided the direct hit but were still knocked back by the blast. Worse, it was already jumping again.
BOOM!
Down once more.
"Damn it!"
Dohun deliberately closed in and threw a kick, drawing the statue's attention. It locked onto him and started spamming jump attacks while he dodged and counterstruck in a grinding loop.
Dohun bought the time. Dohyun thought it over, then pulled the shotgun pistol from his inventory.
One shot. That's all I get.
He watched the fight carefully. The instant the statue finished a jump attack, he rode the drone in at speed—
Click. BLAM!
—and unloaded a shotgun blast at point-blank range. A chunk of the statue cracked and broke away, but—
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
—the thing went berserk, launching into an endless barrage of jump attacks.
"This isn't working! We're out!"
The Chungmu Soul Sword could have finished it, but that wasn't a weapon you drew for every fight.
The brothers fled on the drone. The half-destroyed statue's only means of movement was jumping, so it couldn't give chase.
Once they'd put enough distance between them, they landed.
"What the hell was that statue?"
"Defense on par with a mini-boss."
"I'd believe it if you told me it was a green-dungeon or yellow-dungeon boss."
"Yeah. That level."
Absurd defense plus area attacks—a serious threat. Fortunately, its weakness was just as clear, which was the only reason they'd been able to escape.
"We hunt carefully from here."
With enemies this dangerous roaming the mountain, the brothers steeled themselves to proceed with caution.
Namsan was packed with a wide variety of foes—some weak, some lethal. But the brothers had the drone, and with it they could wage a running guerrilla war: kill the weak ones, flee from the dangerous ones.
It was risky, but they managed to put down a solid number of enemies all the same.
After ten days of farming Gyeongju Namsan, Kang Dohyun had acquired three additional pieces of equipment.
Rare
A necklace crafted from a stone fragment imbued with a special aura. Slightly increases stamina recovery rate.
Rare
A set of old prayer beads once used by an ancient ascetic. Slightly increases defense.
Rare
A ring forged from a metal fragment of a Silla-era mirror. Slightly increases coin acquisition at a low probability.
Three rare-grade pieces, just for him. And Kang Dohun had picked up—
Rare
A ring crafted from a fragment of a nameless Buddha statue. Slightly increases mental fortitude.
Rare
A necklace made from a piece of jade once used as a talisman. Slightly increases agility.
Rare
A ring made from a shard broken off the tombstone of an unnamed Silla noble. Slightly increases attack power.
Between them, the brothers had walked away with six rare items total.
"Call it here?"
The farming had been good—but they couldn't sink any more time into this place.
"Yeah. Time to move on. So where to next?"
"Let's try Pohang this time."
The brothers decided: out of Gyeongju, on to Pohang.