Hunter Life With 12.6 Billion Skeletons – Episode 15: Hunter Threads
My whole body felt like it had been beaten black and blue, yet the feeling inside me was nothing but good.
“How is it? The feeling after hatching the egg?”
The way Kim Taesu was looking at me had changed.
Before, it had been the eyes of some worthless guy watching a brat. Now they were like a father’s gaze.
Was it strange?
“It’s nice.”
“Does the world feel different?”
“Yeah.”
“Here, wear this watch and rest for a bit.”
Kim Taesu took off the watch he was wearing and handed it over.
“What is this?”
“What do you mean ‘what is this’? It’s an artifact.”
“Oh… It’s really pretty. It even comes out like this?”
“It’s not a drop item. It’s a production item.”
---
**TechLine – Hana-bi’s Recovery Smart Watch** **// Quickly recover your battle fatigue! //** **Rest HP recovery +50%** **Rest MP recovery +50%**
The legendary designer Hana-bi and the artifact manufacturer TechLine had teamed up. Limited-edition recovery smart watch for the anniversary of their collaboration. The recovery watch, crafted with world-class magic-engineering technology, was made from 150g of top-grade magic stone, sapphire crystal, troll’s blood, vampire fangs, and silicone.
---
The system window popped up automatically.
“Oh… Wow…”
“Natural recovery speed is increasing. Fill your HP completely and rest.”
“Ah, thank you.”
Once I put on the smart watch, something inside me that had been blocked up felt cool and started circulating.
The fatigue itself was gone.
In this world, people said 7 out of 10 items came from drops and 3 out of 10 from classes.
That meant item power was important, and I felt it with my own body.
“The performance is insane.”
“It’s pretty good, isn’t it? I hardly used it. You can call it a must-have honey item. Get one too.”
“How much?”
“Five thousand. But mine is the Hana-bi Limited Edition, so eight thousand.”
“Haa…”
“I’m surprised. Who would’ve thought it was new?”
It was tempting.
My HP that had dropped to 1 quickly filled back up to 10.
“It’s too much money for me.”
“Hunters make money fast if they hunt properly for a few days.”
“Can I even do it? I’m E-rank.”
“What difference does the rank make? Do you know what’s most important to a hunter?”
“Equipment?”
“No. Willpower. Honestly, I didn’t think you’d clear the exhaustion quest. As I said, people who succeed at that are really rare.”
“It’s thanks to hyung.”
It was true.
If Tess-hyung hadn’t shouted in my ear not to give up and push harder, I would’ve given up long ago.
“I was watching too and something was boiling inside me. I thought it was just some whiny kid, but I was wrong. Not like these days’ kids. I admit it.”
He gave me a thumbs-up.
“It’s embarrassing.”
Still, the feeling was good.
+——+——+Stats+——+——+
**Fortitude active – HP below 10%.** Strength (STR): 8(+3) Agility (AGI): 5(+3) Constitution (CON): 5(+3) Intelligence (INT): 18(+3) Wisdom (WIS): 26(+3) Luck (LUK): 3
**Available points: 0**
+——+——+——+——+
When Fortitude was active, the remaining stats rose by the amount of the Luck stat. My Strength stat was now a whopping 11.
From 10 or higher in physical stats, it was said to be the realm of superhumans.
I squeezed one of the sticks hard as a test and it shattered with a crack.
**HP has risen above 10%. Fortitude effect has been removed.**
The power that had been boiling deep inside me now felt cold.
It was a shame.
**‘If I use this trait well…’**
I thought of one possibility.
I would keep HP below 10% constantly and dump all the distribution points from level-up rewards into the Luck stat. In theory, it was almost the same as raising all stats.
But the problem was how to keep HP below 10%.
Natural recovery was happening, and I couldn’t hurt myself.
Most of all, it was dangerous. In plain words, it was a double-edged sword.
One slip and it was death.
“And while you’re recovering, enter **Hunthreads** and read the tip guides once. I don’t want you to hear the ping sound anywhere. Everything I say is for you.”
Ping was short for “finger princess.” It referred to people who asked strangers instead of searching themselves or tried to solve things easily.
“Yeah.”
It was like a nag, but it was all for me.
I opened my smartphone to rest.
I sat on the camping chair I had brought and opened the phone.
Dad had sent several messages.
I felt a little guilty for checking late, but when I looked, there was a photo of the table Dad had prepared alone.
- Han Sik made this jjajangmyeon, it tastes amazing. Can I sell it?
- Han Sik made this codfish jjim, it tastes amazing. I’d pay money to eat it.
- Han Sik made this anchovy stir-fry, it tastes amazing. Should I make a side dish set?
......
A chuckle slipped out.
Dad’s doing well.
I probably needed to get one skeleton soldier as a gift for him.
I answered the question I hadn’t been asked.
Me: Dad, I’m doing well too.
**Connected to Hunthreads.**
It was a time when hunters needed broader understanding and knowledge of the hunter world.
- **Skeletonping-nim** is now online.
- **Cash held: 0 won** [account linked]
- **Current rank: E- (private)**
- **Party matching role: (unset)**
**Hmm, interesting. Why does the internet work inside gates? Aren’t these other worlds?**
Before reading the tip guides, I searched for something urgent on Hunthreads.
The answer came right away. The link led to a post in the tip/info board titled ‘Internet Works Inside Gates – EU’ by a user called ‘Yongsan Phone Seller’. The post had a lot of views and recommendations.
In short, even though gates were independent dimensions, they had a strange energy source that allowed connection to the outside world. That energy was called ether waves, which had similar properties to wireless signals and could combine with our current 7G signals... To make that happen, you needed a kind of wireless repeater called an ‘ether converter’...
The post had drawn diagrams and research results and even linked to papers, but I caught acute brain fog and the interest faded quickly.
**So the conclusion is that internet works inside gates for a reason?**
I wasn’t a major in this. This was enough.
Next, I searched the search bar for ‘skeleton’.
It was the original question I had been curious about since I awakened.
Was there someone like me? And I had the [Skeleton] trait too.
I wanted to know the secret of that trait even if I couldn’t figure out where it was used.
- **Sokcho Gate S-rank assessment, Boss Monster Skeleton King S-rank hunter 3 people died without dying in their raid.**
- **S-rank hunter Jang Hyung-guk, “The Skeleton King doesn’t die. We only need to prevent gate breaks and manage them...”**
- **Hunter Army Commander Park Sang-do, “Thorough management of the Sokcho Gate to ensure the safety of the citizens...”**
**“Skeleton King?”**
There was no talk about the trait. Only content about the boss monster of the S-rank gate called the Skeleton King.
And when I looked at the post, there were complaints from necromancers who said they had raised skeletons from corpses, and many posts complaining that the battle intelligence was too low and they didn’t want to party with necromancers.
Next search term: **Lord**.
It was another trait I had held since my awakening.
The search exploded with an enormous amount of news at the same time. The protagonists of the news were the US’s ‘Nightmare Lord’ Natalie Chaser and the Middle East’s ‘Vampire Lord’ Al Bladi.
In the question of who the strongest hunter in the world was, these monsters always fought for first and second place.
They were called **National Power-class**, not even S-rank.
It wasn’t an exaggeration.
They were beings outside the common sense who could alone swallow one whole country.
Natalie Chaser was a fraudulent character who made enemies fall into nightmares, manipulated their brains, and made them move according to her will. Al Bladi was a monster who turned humans into vampires and made them his subordinates.
The common point was that they had the power to build their own hunter legions alone.
The two were enemies, and their existence was like nuclear weapons, suppressing each other.
**“Could those people not have the Lord trait too? Maybe it’s a fake trait?”**
Hope circuits turned on. But if that was true, I wouldn’t be dead.
Last, I searched the search bar for ‘fortitude’.
- **Fortitude tanker Lee Yeon-su, single-handedly held on to the Yoncheon Gate break for one hour, received the presidential medal....**
- **Mir Guild Leader Choi Gang, representative of the Republic of Korea, emphasized ‘fortitude willpower’ to new 19th-year hunters.**
- **Babylon Inc. challenges new businesses with the spirit of fortitude. Stock up +82.3% this year, shareholders cheer.**
......
Even when I scrolled down, there were articles and posts unrelated to the fortitude trait.
I was secretly happy. If the fortitude trait was as common as a hair or a tooth, I would have been disappointed.
But among the search results related to ‘fortitude’, there was a post that caught my eye.
- **[Must Read] Complete List of Item Options You Must Never Buy**
The author’s nickname was River Choi. The title didn’t mention ‘fortitude’. That meant the word ‘fortitude’ was in the content, not the title. Anyway, I clicked without hesitation because I was curious about the post itself.
The first thing it started with was the difference between ‘artifact’ and ‘item’.
**Artifact**: Created by humans using various materials including magic stone.
**Item**: Loot obtained by being granted by a constellation or dropped by defeated monsters.
This post was about ‘items’, as the title suggested. Artifacts didn’t have options in the first place. It was a long post, so I read the obvious debuff options like [Curse] and [Weak] and scrolled down, stopping at the part highlighted for the search term ‘fortitude’.
//
**Must-abandon option tier 0 –**
*[Curse] or [Weak] like national debuff options can be accepted if the other options are overwhelmingly better, but below this, anyone with a firm mind must never buy them.*
1. **[Reflection]** : HP -70%, no recovery
This isn’t about reflecting the damage an enemy deals. If you want that, you need to buy an item with the [Thorn] option. The [Reflection] option here means ‘almost dead’. In fact, over half dead. When equipped, HP drops by -70% and there is also an automatic no-recovery option. But if you wear two, it’s not instant death. If you recognize it as the effect of equipping one more while HP is at 30%, you can expect about 9% left.
If you’re a hunter with the fortitude will, maybe. But no matter how good the other options are, don’t even look at items with [Reflection]. It’s that dangerous.
//
**Hunter with the fortitude will?**
**Fortitude will...** Someone who knows something about the trait?
The author’s nickname was River Choi.
Wait. River is Choi Kang. Choi is Choi.
**Choi Kang? Could it be the Mir Guild Leader?**
Thinking about it, I had just passed the article titled “Mir Guild Leader Choi Gang, representative of the Republic of Korea, emphasizes ‘fortitude willpower’ to new hunters” when I searched for fortitude.
I checked again. It was definitely true.
I started to think there was a rational possibility that he was the one with the [Fortitude] trait.
Would this post be giving a hint about that?
It was possible enough.
This was a post containing hints about special strategies and mechanics using the fortitude trait.
The puzzle pieces clicked together in my head.
First, prepare two items with the [Reflection] option. Equip them to lower HP to 9% and keep the Fortitude trait active at all times. It might look dangerous right now because I have to keep HP at the double-edged-sword level, but it’s an important part I can’t miss. The ‘Constitution’ stat that affects max HP also rises by the Luck stat.
If the Luck stat is high enough, 10% HP could be higher than 100% HP without the Constitution stat raised.
**“This is it....”**
More than anything, I wasn’t going to fight with a skeleton soldier as a meta, was I?
Actually, it wasn’t that important for tankiness compared to other classes.
My blood felt like it was pumping fast.
I immediately moved to the Hunterthreads trading exchange.
I did real-name verification and selected **Artifacts / Items**.
The artifact exchange was an online shopping interface where all kinds of brand artifacts were listed one after another, and the item exchange was a place where individual hunters used it like an auction house. Of course, they often listed them at the listed price without putting them up for auction.
I selected **Items**.
It was a UI similar to a second-hand market app.
I started shopping roughly.
The scroll went on and on.
Countless items were listed for sale.
After roughly glancing, the memorable ones were [(Rare) Shadow Goblin’s Poison Blade], [(Rare) Harpy’s Mana Bracelet], [(Rare) Bishop’s Strength Necklace], [(Unique) Lightning’s Ion Ring], [(Unique) Valiant’s Flame Axe], [(Legend) Ramur’s Thorn Shield], [(Unique) Berserker’s Belt] and so on.
When I sorted by price out of curiosity, the most expensive item right now was [(Mythic) Phoenix’s Wing Cloak].
From the name alone, it was out of the ordinary, and the current auction price was a staggering....
**“1.499 billion? Insane.”**
I looked at the pictures for a moment, then started searching for the item I wanted.
I clicked the filter and entered [Reflection] for the specific option search.
**“There should be some.”**
Search.
Items with the [Reflection] option came up one after another.
23 of them. More than I thought. And quite cheap prices.
That made sense. They were too expensive to throw away and too cheap to sell.
But it wasn’t literally the price of crap.
It was just the price of crap based on hunters’ purchasing power.
After scanning, the price ranges roughly formed 10 million won to 3 billion won.
Items that could easily sell for more than ten times if they didn’t have the [Reflection] option.
I clicked each one and examined the detailed options.
After scrolling through for a while, two items stacked in my cart.
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