Why Are There So Many Nameds?!

"Wait, these count as dungeon objects too? They're dropping loot."

In the original game, NPCs never showed up inside dungeons, so I'd had no idea. Not that it mattered much — the drops were just consumables and Normal-grade gear.

I equipped the gear I'd stripped off the neutral NPCs, wrapped my eyes in red spiritual energy to cut through the dark, and launched myself at three worker ants hauling a corpse, chunks of meat, and one still-living neutral NPC toward the feeding chamber.

My first target was obvious: the worker ant dragging the helpless neutral NPC. I swung a hand sheathed in red spiritual energy and carved the ant and its captive into three pieces in a single stroke.

A double kill in one hit — I could feel the spiritual energy surging higher than usual. The other two workers froze, still trying to process what had happened, and I finished them off before they could react. Instantly the ant nest shuddered, and far off on the minimap, red dots began blooming in the corridor leading into the feeding chamber.

Do these damn ants have an alarm system or something?!

At least this was a dungeon, not the open field — death meant respawn — and the narrow tunnels meant the only things coming at me were worker ants.

"Alright. Time to level up."

No way I was losing to a pack of regular mobs with no Named among them. Worker ants were only upper Level 50s! Sure, I had no AoE and had to pick them off one by one, but killing living things restored my HP and spiritual energy — so the more trash mobs, the better.

Honestly, even out in the field I wouldn't have lost if it hadn't been for that Named worker ant! I'd already burned through most of my spiritual energy dealing with the Named scout ant, and then I got dumped straight into another Named fight. That's the only reason I went down!

Having finished my little mental victory lap of self-justification, I went back to cutting down the worker ants flooding in one by one — until a message window slammed across my vision and I desperately hauled up every scrap of spiritual energy I had left.

"Why the hell are so many Nameds spawning?!"

A new corridor lit up on the minimap at the same instant the left-hand wall exploded outward, and a fresh Named worker ant tore through the rubble straight at me.

I threw a preemptive strike with the spiritual energy I'd gathered, but a Named was still a Named — the ant tanked the hit and started thrashing, widening the tunnel as it came.

Spiritual energy drained at a terrifying rate as the world around me slowed to a crawl. I wound pure Slaughter Tribulation around both hands and charged the Named ant head-on.

Raw Slaughter Tribulation — experience points burned wholesale before conversion into spiritual energy — a devastating force that shredded the Named worker ant in an instant.

Even after dumping Double Speed Mod to clean up the Named, massive ants were already pouring through the new corridor.

Soldier ants, easily twice the size of the workers and looking far tougher — and I didn't care in the slightest. I reached for the golden light only visible through Item Filter Mode.

A Unique weapon. I equipped it the second it hit my hand and pulled spiritual energy into it. The greatsword — shaped like an ant's head — rose, wrapped in spiritual energy, and a single swing unleashed a red storm that shredded not only the charging worker ants but the soldier ants as well.

Experience poured in. A full, swelling satisfaction filled me, and I smiled inwardly as I spoke.

"Auto-Battle!"

This is so damn easy!

As long as no Nameds showed up, regular trash in front of me with a Unique weapon equipped was free real estate — barring some event Eok-kka.

I already recovered spiritual energy and HP every time I killed something, so the drain from Auto-Battle was more than manageable.

Because Slaughter Tribulation had a compounding nature — the longer the chain of kills continued, the larger it grew. The recovery ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at the start was nothing special, sure.

But this was a dungeon.

A place that endlessly spawned the monsters its space remembered once the timer hit. So long as my mental fortitude held out and no event Eok-kka triggered, grinding time to the limit would keep feeding that Slaughter Tribulation. Weak at first, then steadily monstrous — and every bit of it would become my own power.

"Auto-Battle."

The curtain rose on a long, boring grind.

As if the game didn't want me getting too bored, event windows kept popping up mid-grind — each one nearly stopping my heart — but otherwise there was genuinely nothing to it.

Misfortune hit twice along the way, spitting out a Narrow Victory and a Meaningless Victory, but by then the Slaughter Tribulation had swollen like compound interest on a massive loan. It restored my spiritual energy and HP in an instant, so the damage barely registered.

"These drop rates are absolute garbage."

I'd killed four more Nameds in the middle of all this, and all I'd gotten was one Magic-grade piece of armor and three Rare consumables.

Did pulling one Unique two-hander just evaporate the rest of my luck?

Even that Unique two-hander was grinding down toward zero durability from the endless farming. One of the Rare consumables restored equipment durability, thank god — without it, the blade would've shattered ages ago.

"I'd settle for even a single Magic-grade weapon ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at this point."

Armor wasn't urgent — Slaughter Tribulation already handled HP and spiritual energy recovery — but weapons were a different story.

My spiritual energy's killing power was solid enough given its nature, but the difference in attack power with and without a weapon was night and day.

Basically, my spiritual energy worked as a percentage multiplier on attack power. Bare-handed, the base attack was so low ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that dumping spiritual energy into it barely moved the needle. Stick a Unique weapon in my hands, though, and the attack power ballooned.

"How do you smash that many objects and still..."

Everything that had dropped so far was Normal-grade weapons. Nothing else.

I swallowed the disappointment, stashed the Unique for whenever another durability consumable showed up, pulled out a Normal weapon, and kept the noticeably slower auto-hunt going. Then I finished off yet another Named ant.

A Great Success event and an elite Named mid-boss in the same breath. I nearly had a heart attack. I yanked the barely-holding Unique weapon from my inventory, detonated my spiritual energy, and swung —

"KIIIIIIIIIIEEK!!!"

"What kind of Eok-kka is this at my level?!"

It was only a mid-boss, but between the Great Success event and that Ancient prefix, Trena tanked a Unique-weapon strike without so much as a flinch. Its roar alone kicked up a storm of spiritual energy that blasted me clean off my feet.

A monster with the Legendary effect boosting its grade by an entire tier, plus the Ancient effect stacking a 20% level correction on top. An absolutely broken combination.

The Ancient prefix only ever showed up on Great Success or Great Failure events — even with cheats, forcing one of these to spawn was a nightmare. And here it was, just... appearing.

"There's a limit to how bullshit you can be! You piece-of-shit game!!"

I loaded another swing full of spiritual energy — and the Unique weapon, durability finally spent, shattered on impact and dissolved into empty air. I pulled a Normal-grade weapon and charged the mid-boss again.

"Auto-Battle!!!"

My consciousness dimmed, fading slowly to black.

I recognized it now by instinct — the phenomenon unique to Auto-Battle Mode when facing a truly overwhelming enemy. Yu Hee's awareness slipped away, and her body went still.

And the mid-boss that had been about to exploit that defenseless opening — Legendary Worker Ant Trena — froze solid at the horrific killing intent erupting from that small frame.

It was an ant that had awakened the blood of the ancient past through sheer rage, and it had worn the Legendary prefix from the start. A being of that caliber could see things others couldn't.

Deep underground, in the heart of their own nest, a sky made of pure killing intent unfurled overhead — and in that sky, a red star rose. Death itself, given form.

And Death looked at it.

The spiritual energy in its body was crushed flat. Instinct screamed and thrashed, begging it to run, but it couldn't move a single limb.

Helpless, able to do nothing but twitch, it could only watch as that monster shaped like death itself approached — slow, unhurried.

The ant knew its end had come.