Do Monsters Spawn at 100x Too?!

For a hunter, skills are everything.

The skill you hold decides the role you play in a dungeon, and right behind that in importance is the skill's rank. Even if you've got a gorgeous pistol that can put a monster down, whether that thing is a rifle loaded with live rounds or a flashy BB gun that only looks the part goes far beyond style points — it can be ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the difference between walking out and not walking out at all.

So of course a high-rank skill is better. Everyone wants a good skill at a high rank. Unfortunately, reality doesn't play that nice.

Awakening is luck. The skill you receive is luck. Even the rank of that skill is luck. Someone out there could reasonably howl that the road to becoming a hunter who lives in dungeons is nothing but luck — a straight-up RNG dumpster fire of a game.

But there's one thing that shuts those whiners up. Skill levels. The one mechanic that lets you become a decent hunter on effort and ability alone.

"If you use the skill you have to its fullest and can actually put it to work in a dungeon, even the crappiest skill can be grown into something useful."

Every now and then, stories circulate through the Hunter Gallery, the communities, and the news about hunters who stacked levels on a D-class or C-class skill and walked away with an A-class hunter license. They're a handful of stories you could count on your fingers among hundreds of thousands — millions — of hunters. But in a world where you can't even get your foot in the door unless you're one of the chosen, the fact that it's possible matters more than you'd think.

Of course, something that hard means raising skill EXP takes the kind of effort that grinds flesh off bone. You have to go into dungeons every day, use your skill, cheat death over and over, and hone it for years — sometimes more than a decade — before you become an expert in that skill.

How would I know, rolling around in my room and leeching off my parents?

"Huh. Raising skill levels is stupid easy."

My little sister, eight years younger than me. Kim Yerin, a C-class hunter, used to whine about this exact thing whenever she got the chance. We barely even saw each other except at meals, but every time we sat down to eat she'd complain to Mom and Dad. That raising skill levels was hard. That she wished she'd hit level 5 or 10 already so a special ability would unlock. That she hoped she'd get lucky and pick up a useful option every time she leveled.

Every time, I'd hit her with a that's a skill issue — but watching a hundred cards fan out when a skill leveled up, I felt Kim Yerin's pain in a single hit.

"So hunters just take ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠whatever single card they get handed?"

The system of picking growth cards was a growth method that only applied in the 100x server. I'd never seen a single post on the Hunter Gallery or any other community about hunters picking growth cards and choosing how they grew when they leveled up. At the most basic level, the reward system for leveling up was different — and the same went for skills.

"That'd be actual hell, wouldn't it?"

For character levels, hunters got stat points as a substitute, so it hadn't really hit me. If I didn't have the 100x multiplier, I'd have been stuck picking from a single card through level 10, swallowing whatever I got like a bitter pill. I'd even thought there might be cases where dumping guaranteed-floor points into the stats you actually wanted would be the better deal.

This, though. I could feel the difference.

At first I thought I'd misread it. I even wondered if it was supposed to reduce MP cost by 1 and a bug had written it as plus 1 instead. But it wasn't just one or two of these. Almost half of the hundred cards were useless Normal cards with numbers so small they barely registered. Something like Damage +2% would have looked better by comparison.

"If this weren't 100x, I'd be crying."

Compared to the character level-up growth cards, this pool was a lot more punishing. But even among them, Advanced and Rare cards definitely existed — and once again, there was a single Hero card.

"100x is the best."

The 80% damage became 90%. I'd seen A-class ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and higher hunters on YouTube with flashy skill animations, so I'd thought it might be nice if a card like that came up — but my Double Attack was only level 2.

"They say special effects can drop every five levels."

A reassuring little thought — I could just raise it a bit more and see — settled me down. And just like that, the weeds scattered around the house no longer felt like a nuisance.

"If I cut them all, I'll hit level 5, right?"

It was a perpetual-motion machine. Every weed growing around the cabin was Life Grass, and I'd been collecting every red fruit I spotted while cutting, biting into them whenever I got hungry.

My first home. So this is how those fools feel who refuse to hire anyone and do the move-in cleaning themselves. I raked the Life Grass stalks into a pile for firewood and put my back into it, and around sunset I got another system message.

"Hell yeah!!"

It was just the front yard. About ten meters around the cabin. I'd only neatly cut down the weeds growing in every direction, but the suddenly open view filled me with satisfaction even though my whole body was heavy and exhausted.

"Damn, the view's killer."

So this is what it looked like. A wide stretch of land spreading out from the cabin entrance, and a fence standing at a comfortable distance beyond it. It looked like a cabin plopped down in the middle of nowhere, but having my own wide plot of land made me feel solid. And then there were the red fruits piled high in one corner of the living room.

"I'm getting a little sick of these..."

It was nice not going hungry, but still a shame. Even the tastiest food gets old if you eat it constantly. After nearly two days of nothing but the Fruit of Life, I was craving something hot and punchy.

"Isn't there any meat?"

The Server Connection Device's energy was also sitting at nearly 90%, which left me torn. Should I wait a little longer, log out, and go home? Or just sleep one more night, wake up, and fill out the remaining EXP on Double Attack — which was sitting right before level 5 even though I'd already cut all the weeds — then head back?

Not being able to come and go as I pleased made it a real dilemma. If I was going to do it, I wanted to hit level 5, check whether that special option that hadn't shown up through level 4 would appear, and then leave.

Once again, a quest neatly settled my dilemma.

"What the hell?"

I wasn't even particularly surprised anymore. In the Survival Server, it would actually be weirder if something that threatened my life didn't show up. Even while cutting weeds, what had made me uneasy was the thought that something might jump me from the darkness, from between weeds as tall as I was.

The first thought that came to me was whether I should even bother. Did I really need to clear this quest? The debate between just lying down, sleeping, and spamming Double Attack on grass tomorrow to hit level 5... well, that debate takes a different turn when the other option is that I — a guy who's never fought anyone in his entire life — have to fight a wild dog.

If I dumped coins into the remaining 10% energy and ran, I wouldn't even have to worry about it. According to the quest, if I topped up the energy, the cabin would be fine.

"One of them... I could probably handle that."

But then, from somewhere, a baseless confidence welled up. Did I really have to run? If I were still yesterday's Kim Woojin — a thirty-year-old unemployed parasite — running without looking back would've been the right call. But what about the me of now?

Level 9, no less. I'd hit level 4 on the B-class skill Double Attack, and I was in a full-blown state of ego inflation where I figured I was probably around a D-class hunter, at least by feel. And in that state, looking at the quest rewards... I wanted them.

"If I ditch this piece-of-shit sickle and start cutting with a longsword..."

And it wasn't just any longsword — it was a random rank.

"That's 100x too, right?"

A gacha reward that went all the way up to Legendary! If I logged out, that might count as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠surviving and I'd maybe get an Advanced shield, but that didn't even register.

"Let's do this."

I pulled a rusty copper sword from the toolbox I'd moved inside — just as rusty as the sickle. Same rust, but in terms of reach, a sword had to beat a sickle. I had a pile of Fruit of Life that restored HP and healed wounds, and if things went south I could just run back into the cabin. With that calculation in place, I dragged my tense body toward the entrance.

But something was off.

"It said one, didn't it?"

The quest completion condition clearly said defeat one. So why were there, at a conservative count, more than ten of them outside the window?

"Oh, fuck."

I was going to have to take back every joke I'd been enjoying about this being a braindead 100x cheat-mode server.

A proper sense of tension. The 100x multiplier applied to the parts that threatened me, too.