Toward Rank 9
Lina's stats were excellent across the board. Strength, agility, and intelligence sat in a clean, impressive balance. She wasn't quite on Sujin or Yeonji's level after the effects of Power of Sex — but those two were in a category of their own to begin with.
Her highest stat was intelligence, which tracked for someone with a ranged ability. She was the kind of talent any number of clans would be eager to poach.
Beyond the raw numbers, the title effect was what really caught my eye. A damage boost while she was in peak condition looked extremely useful — and a thirty percent increase was no small thing. Of course, the flip side was that her output would drop off hard once she was pushed to the brink, so it cut both ways.
A chime rang out in front of my eyes. A new notification window had appeared — a quest alert. I took my time reading it.
Toward Rank 9
Raise every party member, including yourself, to Rank 9.
This one's a freebie.
Ranking up to Rank 9 wasn't difficult. There was no promotion exam — you just had to accumulate a certain amount of merit. The threshold wasn't even that high. And Yeonji was already Rank 9.
I opened the Dungeon Hunter app and checked my merit points. They accumulated automatically whenever you finished a dungeon run and settled the rewards, and you could check the amount you needed for promotion on the spot, the same way you'd check a game character's experience bar.
"Oh. We'll be able to rank up once we wrap this dungeon run."
I checked everyone else's merit while I was at it. As party leader, I could view my members' points — provided they'd approved my request for access, which they had. Knowing where everyone stood made it a lot easier to plan efficient expeditions.
Sujin and I would both have enough to hit Rank 9 after this run. Yeonji was already there, so she was a pass. Lina and Jisu still needed a little more.
"It'd be ideal if we all made Rank 9 on this one expedition. If we stretch the run a bit longer than usual, I think we can get everyone over the line in a single trip."
Merit was awarded based on the length of an expedition and what you actually did during it, which meant even a single run could yield plenty if you booked enough days. I pulled up the dungeons I'd already shortlisted and picked one that fit the criteria — something that paid out merit generously and allowed for a long-term stay.
The dungeon that made the cut was Hallasan National Park, over on Jeju Island. Unlike every dungeon we'd run so far, Hallasan was an open-type dungeon. I called a meeting, and we gathered in the study to share what we knew about the place we were about to walk into.
"Hallasan National Park. An open-type dungeon on Jeju, across the water. Recommended clear difficulty is 8-Rank. Profitability's pretty solid."
"First time doing an open-type," Yeonji said, a thread of tension in her voice as she studied an aerial photograph of the park.
Every dungeon we'd explored until now had been a closed-type dungeon. The single biggest distinction between the two was the presence — or absence — of a clear boundary. Closed-type dungeons had a hard line separating the dungeon from everything else: the boundary stones at Emerald Riverside, the entrance passage into Devil's Basement.
In a typical closed-type, the ecology changed violently the moment you crossed that line. More precisely, the world itself changed. Maybe that was why the monsters living in closed-type dungeons so rarely came out. It wasn't that it never happened — but compared to open-types, you could call it a rounding error.
An open-type dungeon, to put it plainly, was human land. Unlike a closed-type, which was an entirely different world, an open-type was simply a piece of ours — human territory that monsters had taken up residence in.
That said, "human land" didn't mean the monsters' mana wasn't twisting the space and rewriting the environment. An open-type dungeon was not, in any meaningful sense, more favorable to people.
Open-types had no clear boundary, and the monsters that lived in them wandered out and hit civilian areas with depressing regularity. That was why their management was several times more rigorous than that of closed-types. Even so, the civilian casualties from monster attacks every year never quite went away.
And even if it was our territory, a dungeon was still a dungeon. Ordinary people who couldn't handle mana could barely approach one. That was why Dungeon Hunters had to manage them, and why periodically culling the monster population in an open-type was such critical work.
Closed-types that formed far from cities were often left alone. Open-types were different — even the ones a long way from any settlement got fully conquered on a regular basis. And by fully conquered, I mean wiping the dungeon itself off the map.
To completely conquer an open-type dungeon, you had to exterminate every monster living in it. Once the population dropped far enough, the dungeon's power faded and the land reverted to ordinary territory. Compared to a closed-type, where you only had to smash the core, it was an overwhelmingly harder job. Which was why the Association itself would personally summon Dungeon Hunters when it wanted an open-type taken off the board.
"The monsters that spawn are Dire Wolves, Gray Wolves, Sharp Tigers, and so on," Jisu said in that crisp, precise voice of hers. "A lot of quadrupedal beast-types."
"I heard most of them are built for speed, so we'll have to stay sharp. Well — we should be fine, right?"
"Of course! I'm ready."
Jisu's answer to Yeonji was all confidence. The recommended difficulty was 8-Rank, but our party was more than strong enough to match it. The others had learned that for themselves on the last clear.
"We'll probably all make Rank 9 on this expedition. The run'll be longer than usual, though. We've had a pretty good stretch of rest, so that's fine, right?"
Nobody disagreed.
"Sounds good. I want to hit Rank 9 as soon as I can."
"Wow. Rank 9 already? Feels like we just finished the training center yesterday."
"Jisu, you graduated last month, didn't you?"
"Yes. I'm just glad we can rank up this fast. It's all because I found a good party."
Jisu beamed, genuinely delighted. She wasn't wrong — our party ranked up fast. What she didn't know was that it was all thanks to my Power of Sex. Our stats so far exceeded what a Rank 10 party should have been capable of that merit piled up on every run. The money came in nicely, too.
With everyone on the same page, we started preparing for the expedition. This time we were flying a long way, and we'd be out longer than usual, so we packed with extra care.
"Look at that! Cumulus clouds! I can't believe they're this close! This is my first time on a plane!"
"I've heard that at least ten times already. You really are that excited, huh."
Jisu stared out at the vast sky beyond the window, awestruck. The plane had punched through the cloud layer and climbed above it; the ground was long gone. She'd made a fuss of herself during takeoff, and now she was pointing at the fluffy white banks like she'd been promoted to fairy. She was awfully loud for a fairy.
"We'll be serving your meal shortly. We have Course A and Course B. Course A is meat; Course B is fish. Which would you prefer?"
We'd booked business class, so even the food came as a proper course. First class still felt like too much of a vulgar splurge for where we were, so I'd reined it in. Business wasn't bad, though. A pretty stewardess came down the aisle to take my order.
"Course A, please."
"Of course. And to drink?"
"Sparkling water."
If we weren't on our way to a dungeon, she'd be worth a pass. Business class apparently meant a higher caliber of stewardess. Not that it was even about her face — that distinctive, immaculate uniform was doing plenty of work on its own. It was the kind of outfit that made me want to bend her over and punish her ass, the same way you'd want to with a teacher in a crisp suit.
I slipped my hand under Sujin's skirt in the seat beside me and kneaded, taking the edge off.
"When we get back, we're doing it in a stewardess outfit. I'm getting hard just thinking about it."
"Nnh… if you keep touching me like that, I'll get wet…"
"No panties, huh. You were looking forward to this too. Sex at twenty thousand feet. How about it?"
"I'd like that… but what if we get caught?"
"Fair point. The airplane bathroom's too cramped for two people anyway. No helping it. We'll have to settle for a handjob. Stroke my cock."
Sujin obliged like it was the most natural thing in the world. I was enjoying her hand when the stewardess came back with the meal. We pulled our hands out of each other's clothes and put on innocent faces. Sujin was used to this kind of thing by now.
"I'll set out your meal now."
We landed in Jeju. We hadn't come as tourists, but there was no fighting the lift in my mood. Palm trees near the airport gave the whole place an exotic air, and the warm wind seemed to heat something behind my ribs. You could really tell we'd come south.
The lodging had been booked from the Party House. We took the hotel shuttle to the Jeju Hotel — the largest hotel on the island, catering primarily to Dungeon Hunters. The prices were what you'd expect from a facility built for that clientele, but the service was rock-solid.
"Hotel beds really are the best! And that fresh-laundry smell. Ahhh~"
The moment we reached the room, Yeonji threw herself onto the mattress. The rooms had been split two and three: Yeonji with me, the other three together. We'd drawn lots.
Once we'd dropped our bags, we met up at the lounge café. We weren't the only Dungeon Hunters there — most of the ones running Jeju's dungeons used this place as a base. Mixed in among them were ordinary people, too: wealthy tourists, most of them foreigners.
"Look over there. They've got a casino in the basement."
Jisu pointed at a standing sign in the hotel lobby. A casino that raked in serious money off big-spending Dungeon Hunters.
"Interested?"
"I am, but I don't want to go right now. We should be focusing on the expedition."
"Good mindset. Hitting it up for some fun after the run wouldn't be the worst idea."
Gambling's fine as long as you treat it like a game. We should stop by once the expedition's over.
We went over the detailed schedule over coffee and cake. Hallasan National Park was an enormous open-type dungeon, which made a tight itinerary essential.
"We'll be camping inside the dungeon for a week. Night watches, a lot to keep on top of. We obviously won't be able to wash properly, so get a good shower in at the hotel before we leave."
"Which route are we taking?"
"Route B. Everyone check the map on the app. It's a bit long, but it's the most efficient path. We'll pass through four monster settlements. Four days pushing forward to the safe area, one night of rest there, then we U-turn the next day."
There was no such thing as over-preparing. We shared everything we had and locked the plan down tight.
The next day, we took the hotel shuttle to the entrance of Hallasan National Park. Calling it an "entrance" was a stretch, given that open-type dungeons had no boundary — but it was the entrance human beings had decided on, at least.
The dungeon occupied the eastern half of Mount Halla. Bisect the mountain at Baengnokdam and the entire right half was the open-type dungeon Hallasan National Park. It was vast, and it had all the inconvenient terrain you'd expect from a mountain range, but the monsters weren't that strong, so the recommended difficulty sat at a comfortable middle.
We would enter from the eastern gate and work our way counterclockwise — tagging the twelve o'clock position before swinging toward three o'clock — a winding ascent. It was a popular route precisely because it put you in front of as many monsters as possible.
A straight shot to the summit would take four hours. Taking Route B, you'd be looking at a solid two days. And since we'd be fighting as we moved, the actual time would be double that.
We stepped into the dungeon. The start of the mountain trail was quiet and peaceful. Of course, every one of us knew the scenery was a lie. This was a brutal dungeon packed with monsters that ate people.
"Monsters ahead. I think they're Dire Wolves."
A pack of Dire Wolves — the textbook quadrupedal beast-type — appeared in front of us. Ten of them. A number worthy of the dungeon's reputation.
The wolves had clocked the intruders. They bared their teeth and growled low in their throats. We weren't about to tuck tail and run at a sound like that. Those cunning things would pounce the instant we turned our backs anyway.
"Sujin. Lina. Take them out."
"Yes."