A New Summon
Park Juhee's item-looting skills were no joke.
Swords driven into the ground, accessories someone had been wearing, armor and the like.
She missed nothing—not even things buried under buildings or in the dirt.
Looting was easy.
There was no need to wrench anything loose by force.
With just a touch of the hand—
You have acquired 'Jet-Black Sword' (Rare).
The item slid straight into the inventory, as if it had no owner at all.
"Still, it's all Rare-grade or better."
"Just how much pillaging did they do? Phew—these bad guys were practically wearing money."
While Park Juhee and Yoo Seon-ah made the rounds, Han Minwoo and Jackson merely stood by and watched. When it came to purging the criminal syndicate, they'd done nothing. Which meant the spoils rightfully belonged to the others.
Meanwhile, Seo Hwarang drifted over to a nearby corner and pulled out a scrap of paper.
[Item]
Name: Random Summon Scroll
Grade: Legendary
Type: Scroll
Description: Tear this scroll to obtain a powerful summon known only in legend.
Legendary again.
Same grade as the Staff of Ruin he was already using... which meant whatever came out of this was bound to be another monster of a summon.
This kind of thing was better used than sold.
Rrip!
He didn't deliberate long. No praying, no ritual for a good result—because he wouldn't have known which outcome was the good one anyway.
Paat!
Light flashed between the torn halves of the scroll. And then—
Wrrrung?
Oh?
A creature the thickness of his forearm popped out with a little plop.
"A fox?"
It was a silver fox. And an absurdly cute one, at that.
What kind of abilities would this one have?
He opened the status window. The method was the same as pulling up an item's info.
Oh.
The summon's status window was similar to an Awakener's. Levels, stats...
And if that was the case?
There had to be a skill window too, right?
"Skill window."
1. Gluttony
2. Starlight Call
- Tap and hold for details.
Just as he thought.
It popped right up. But—
Only two?
Seo Hwarang pressed into each one and examined them.
Proficiency: 100 (MAX)
├─ Exclusive skill of the Starlight Fox.
├─ Consuming monsters grants a permanent increase to a random stat.
└─ The moment it exceeds a certain amount of consumption, the Starlight Fox will become Mythic. ★
Uh...
Huh?
What is this?
A permanent stat increase every time it ate a monster? Wasn't this broken even by broken standards?
And on top of that...
If it ate enough, it would eventually grow into a Mythic being? Mythic—the final tier known to exist, one step above Legendary.
The very first skill was already absurd.
Next—what about Starlight Call?
Proficiency: 100 (MAX)
├─ Exclusive skill of the Starlight Fox.
├─ Stars fall upon every hostile presence within a 30m radius of the fox.
└─ Enemies struck by starlight suffer a 10% movement speed reduction and take magic damage.
Ha.
Just a plain AoE skill.
But once it got mixed in with Gluttony...
From that point on, it would stop being simple at all.
Say its Intelligence kept climbing—100, then 1,000. Wouldn't every single falling star become a nuke?
"This is insane."
Wrrung, wrrung!
The forearm-sized fox tried to clamber up Seo Hwarang's leg. Then—
Tah-tah-tat!
It scrambled up his body and perched on his shoulder, nuzzling its fur against his face.
So that's it, then.
This adorable little pet had the potential to grow into an absolute nightmare someday, huh?
That said—could this tiny thing even eat monsters in the first place?
He did spot a few monster corpses nearby. Looked like the ones swept aside during the earlier battle.
"Hey, Starlight Fox."
Wrung?
Hmm.
The name was a bit long. Shouldn't there be a nickname?
It was a Starlight Fox, so... hmm, yeah.
Byeol-i would do.
"Byeol-i."
Wrung!
"You want to try eating some of that stuff over there?"
The moment Seo Hwarang pointed at the fallen monsters—
Wrroooung...!
The fox puffed up its cheeks and shook its head back and forth.
What? Why not?
The skill said it consumes monsters, didn't it?
Don't tell me...
Was it a picky eater?
"...Hm."
He'd just have to bring it along for now. He'd figure it out eventually.
"Whoa, what's that?!"
"Kyaa! It's adorable. What is that?!"
The moment Seo Hwarang returned, every scrap of attention in the party poured onto Byeol-i.
"My reward for this run. Just think of it as a pet I'll be bringing along from now on."
"It's way too cute! This is a fox?"
"Yes, a fox."
"Why do I never get anything! A fox!"
Yoo Seon-ah, in particular, was green with envy. But—
Why do I never get anything, she says.
It wasn't just her, noona. The rest of us don't have one either.
"Anyway, are you all done looting?"
"Yep. One Unique and thirty Rare items, just by themselves. Juhee decided to sell it all as a rush job on the black market."
"Sounds good."
The Unique alone would fetch at least a billion won, and the Rares would pull in a minimum of a hundred million each—at least four billion total. A tidy little sum.
Of course, the truly lucrative find was something else entirely.
Disaster-grade beast cores.
They seemed to show up fairly often here, and he figured he'd need to stockpile quite a few over the course of this journey.
FWOOSH!
They lit a campfire in the middle of camp and were taking a short breather when—
"Hyung-nim."
Han Minwoo, who had clearly been mulling something over for a while, finally spoke up.
"That Sword Master from earlier... was mid-tier even among S-rank Awakeners. By domestic standards, that's skill enough to rank within the top three. And yet you, hyung-nim... you took down that monster without exerting any real effort."
Hmm.
So that guy was just mid-tier?
Apparently S-rank Awakeners weren't all that, either.
"Pretty much."
"Asking about your identity or background would obviously be out of line, so I won't."
A powerhouse of this caliber hiding his strength obviously had his reasons. Still, even someone this skilled might be coming to Egypt for the first time.
And Han Minwoo was confident in his role as guide.
"You came here to hunt high-level monsters and clear dungeons, yes, hyung-nim?"
"Yeah."
"...Then might I ask—are you here targeting those things, the ones even stronger than Disaster-grade beasts?"
Hm?
Above Disaster-grade?
He'd never even heard of such a thing.
"..."
"..."
Yoo Seon-ah and Park Juhee had fallen silent as well. From the look of it, they were all about to unload information he didn't have.
"What's that supposed to be?"
"I figured as much. To be honest, we've only heard rumors ourselves."
Han Minwoo warmed his hands over the fire and began to explain.
Apparently, if ten Disaster-grade beasts went unprocessed, those ten would serve as sacrifices and a golden rift would tear open in the sky. Out of it emerged something far stronger than any Disaster-grade beast—still lacking an internationally agreed-upon name, but informally known as a Calamity-class monster.
And that Calamity-class monster, he said, had already appeared in Cairo. That Sword Master had probably been driven back to this region by the thing in the first place.
Whew.
So if you failed to hunt the Disaster-grade beasts, an even stronger one spawned? Countries that still functioned normally hunted down every Disaster-grade beast the moment it appeared, which was why no one had ever glimpsed the next tier up.
Fascinating, really.
"So how much stronger is this Calamity thing compared to a Disaster-grade beast?" Yoo Seon-ah asked.
"I only know what the rumors say. But at minimum, I'd guess ten times stronger? That's the kind of tribute it demands, after all..."
"Ten times a Disaster-grade beast."
Seo Hwarang closed his eyes and ran a quick simulation. He'd faced two Disaster-grade beasts so far—the Blood Wolf, and Igniras.
What if there were ten of them gathered in one place?
Still seemed like it'd be easy, honestly.
"Okay."
Decision made.
"We're going to Cairo."
"You mean it?!"
Han Minwoo snapped his head up.
"Yeah. From the looks of it, the monsters will be packed in there too. Our final destination for this journey is Cairo."
He'd farm coins up to exactly that point, then head back over to the Etherion Continent.
"Then, hyung-nim!"
Han Minwoo clenched his fists.
"Would you allow me to guide the way?"
He knew instinctively: the safest place in the world was trailing behind that man. Even just picking at the scraps of the monsters that man produced, they'd profit far more safely than they would hunting as a duo.
"I have this route mapped out end to end. I can take you there by the fastest path possible."
"Yeah?"
A guide would certainly be convenient.
Seo Hwarang glanced over and asked Yoo Seon-ah and Park Juhee for their opinions; both nodded as if it made no difference to them. When you were out in the field, you took the advice of an experienced local.
"Alright—but one condition."
Their party had an unwritten rule. And on this, he wouldn't budge an inch.
"From now on, whatever odd jobs there are, you do whatever that Park Juhee over there tells you to. Got it?"
"Leave it to me! I can handle it all!"
"Just leave it to me!"
Jackson cheerfully chimed in with his own plea.
And so, the party gained two more members.
The straight-line distance from Damietta to Cairo was roughly 160 kilometers.
Going by road, though, you had to budget at least 200 kilometers depending on the route.
They planned the trip with plenty of slack: a grand total of ten days, moving twenty kilometers a day.
By that schedule they'd arrive in two weeks. The broker they'd come with—they'd simply have to send him off. Well, he'd find a way back eventually.
They left Damietta Governorate behind at once.
Spot a monster on the way? Kill it on the spot.
Spot a C-rank-or-above dungeon? Clear it in the blink of an eye.
Whatever time remained after travel went to rest—or training.
And on the lucky days they happened upon wild game, Seo Hwarang's special house cooking made its grand appearance.
"Wooooow! Hyung-nim! How do you make food like this?!"
"That's crazy! It's so delicious! Unbelievable!"
"And wait—doesn't this actually raise your stats? Good heavens, hyung-nim! Did you learn a Cooking skill too? Those skills cost a fortune!"
Ssssss—
And right around the time the campfire cooked the meat evenly through—
Grrrrr!
Yip! Yip!
More trash mobs came swarming in, drawn by the fragrant smell of roasting meat.
Take them down, harvest the leather, done.
Yes.
The Leatherworking proficiency, stuck at 70 for so long, had finally crept up.
So grinding really was the answer? He harvested a thousand hides and the system just handed him proficiency? At this rate, he'd probably break into Advanced leatherworking before long.
Oh, and one more thing.
"Byeol-i."
Kiiiing!
The Starlight Fox squirmed around on his shoulder. The funny thing about this little rascal was—
It wouldn't eat anything else, but it absolutely devoured A-rank monster corpses. And how it ate them! Within moments, nothing remained but bones.
An A-rank monster has been consumed.
Strength permanently increases by 1.
That was how it worked—one permanent stat per A-rank monster consumed.
It might be nothing now, but give it time and the thing would be gorging itself on a staggering scale, wouldn't it?
And so ten uneventful days slipped by.
He'd grown genuinely fond of Han Minwoo and Jackson.
"Hyung-nim! If you're ever in Korea, let's have a glass of soju! I'll come find you!"
"Soju! So tasty!"
They'd even exchanged pleasantries like that in their idle hours.
Phew.
His coin balance had grown considerably. One thing he'd learned from all this monster hunting:
C-rank yielded 20 coins, B-rank 500, A-rank 1,000.
And a Disaster-grade beast paid out 3,000.
Which meant the coins he'd amassed totaled—
Over 350,000 already.
But he was still a long way off from summoning the Mini-Dragon.
Absolutely insane.
Five million—five million coins, of all things.
"Hyung-nim!"
Han Minwoo approached and lowered his voice.
"There it is. That's Cairo—the capital of Egypt."
A capital that had lost all its prosperity.
The sky was stained with darkness, and a thick gray fog blanketed the entire city. On top of that—
Kieeeek!
Kyaaaaaa!
Came the shrieking cries of monsters from every direction.
"As of now... it is a dead city. Not a single living soul remains."