Chapter 44
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 44
Chapter Title: Raon Guild (4)
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Eun-young noona did a back handspring and got behind the unicorn.
Sensing her presence, the unicorn froze.
It seemed to be hesitating, unsure whether to attack me in front of it or Eun-young noona behind it.
After a moment's deliberation, the unicorn charged at the unarmed noona.
Eun-young noona dodged the attack and leaped onto the unicorn's back.
Wait, she’s not thinking of riding it, is she?
It might look like a horse, but it's not a normal one.
Just as I was genuinely starting to panic, I heard the sound of a neck bone snapping.
With a screech like nails on a chalkboard, the unicorn’s neck twisted, and it collapsed.
Hopping down from the fallen unicorn, Eun-young noona casually waved her hand.
To be honest, when I heard the qualification dungeon was the [Sky Garden], I was a little worried.
Unicorns weren't numerous, but they were fast and agile, meaning a single mistake could easily lead to a fatal wound.
Moreover, they preferred to target individuals who were alone or defenseless rather than groups.
The typical strategy was for one Hunter to lure it to a designated point, after which everyone would surround and attack it.
‘I guess it doesn’t matter.’
Judging by Eun-young noona's reaction, she didn't seem like the type to be taken by a surprise attack.
Eun-young noona was crouched in front of the dead unicorn.
Sheathing my sword, I walked over to her.
"Noona, what are you doing?"
"Don't we need to collect any loot?"
Dungeons contained strange creatures and plants that didn't exist in the outside world.
The very monsters we had to kill were subjects of research for humanity.
There was a time when research on dungeon flora and fauna was active, but the initial fervor had died down.
The reason? Simple. They weren't very useful.
Take the Ant Nest dungeon I was in last time, for example.
Things like the Giant Queen Ant's eggs could be sold as materials for advanced research, but the rest of the giant ants were useless.
The ants' carapaces, which boasted the hardness of steel?
Not only was it a pain to remove the flesh attached to the shell, but it was also difficult to process.
You might as well just use steel at that point.
The power of modern science was greater than one might think.
The reality was that, with a few exceptions, items from D- and C-rank dungeons were treated as little more than trash.
So, was there no loot at all?
Not exactly. Some items from high-rank dungeons could fetch prices so high you could name your own.
The prerequisites for valuable loot were rarity and utility.
Well, if Eun-young noona wanted to take the unicorn's horn as a memento from her first monster kill, I wasn't going to stop her.
"It’s not very useful, though."
"I heard unicorn horns sell for a high price. Is that not true?"
"Stop reading the wiki."
"You read it all the time!"
Eun-young noona dusted herself off and stood up.
It was true that a certain kind of horn sold for a high price.
To be precise, that horn wasn't a unicorn's horn.
"It's not a unicorn's horn, but a bicorn's."
The boss, a bicorn, was a black steed with two horns.
In contrast to the single-horned unicorns, they’re called bicorns, and among them, a hidden boss with red horns would appear at a certain probability.
Those red horns were used as a primary ingredient for status-curing potions.
The horn Eun-young noona was talking about was the red horn of a bicorn.
She nodded at my explanation.
"So, a regular unicorn's horn is useless?"
"It's not completely useless. Grinding it up and eating it is good for you."
"Good for what?"
"For virility?"
Looking disappointed, Eun-young noona dusted herself off and stood up.
I had heard that some guys actually bought and ate them based on such rumors.
If we had more people, it wouldn't be bad to grab a few to sell off cheap, but with just the two of us, we weren't in a position to be collecting every single horn.
If we were to take anything, it would be the bicorn's red horns.
"I thought everyone collected loot when they entered a dungeon."
You said you read the wiki!
This was all written there; she must not have read it properly.
Don't just scroll through it.
Think of how hard those people in their rooms worked to write all that.
"That might be the case in B- or A-rank dungeons."
Even so, collecting loot, except in special cases, was mostly left to the follow-up teams.
A short walk from where we killed the first unicorn, we came upon a hill-like mound.
Unicorns were scattered across the mound at regular intervals.
They were highly individualistic creatures, so they tended to respect each other's space like that.
For those hunting them, this kind of habitat was incredibly convenient.
An old stone slab stood atop the mound.
We decided to set up a base camp by a river a short distance from the mound.
Not that it was much of a base camp. I just tossed the bag I'd brought onto a suitably shaped tree branch.
Typically, D- or C-rank dungeons required an overnight stay on average.
Some special dungeons could take up to two nights, but those were few and far between.
You could plan on about one day per dungeon.
Seeing Eun-young noona's skill, I didn't think we would need to stay the night.
"You can't handle a weapon, so why are you so good at brawling?"
I wasn't sure if you could call it a brawl.
To put it more elegantly, it was martial arts, plain and simple.
Normally, it was standard for Awakened Ones to use weapons.
Attacking was much easier with a weapon, as was defending oneself.
You could fight without one, but that meant your body had to endure the strain, making it a riskier fighting style.
In Eun-young noona's case, she had no talent for weapons, but her hand-to-hand combat skills were truly exceptional.
The way she dodged the unicorn's surprise attack was proof enough.
"I learned from my father. He was a martial artist Hunter. Oh, I started learning in elementary school."
"Huh?"
Did I hear that right?
He taught an elementary school kid how to fight?
Reading my bewildered expression, Eun-young noona explained.
"My father is... how should I put it... a bit unique. I once came home after getting beaten up in a fight with some friends. He flew into a rage and told me that if I was going to get hit, I might as well be the one doing the hitting."
"That's not something you say to a child."
"Right? It's still funny thinking about it now. But still..."
Eun-young noona clenched her fist.
Talent with weapons aside, the only thing she could do during her long years as an unaffiliated Hunter was to master the fighting style her father had taught her.
I could imagine how much effort she must have put in without her having to say a word.
"Alright, let's get a move on!"
Together, we headed toward the mound.
I climbed a tree to observe the unicorns' condition.
Eun-young noona came up beside me.
"So how do we get this sealed orb?"
"They'll drop when we take care of the unicorns. That one over there looks good."
Sometimes missions were complicated, but this was a C+-rank dungeon. There was no reason for them to make it overly complex.
Noona and I planned a simple way to deal with the unicorns.
In fact, it was so simple it barely needed to be called a plan.
"First, I draw its aggro. Second, you ambush it from behind. That's pretty much it."
Eun-young noona killed monsters by climbing onto their bodies and twisting their heads.
It was the same method she used to kill the orc last time.
This was a result of her lack of real combat experience against monsters.
‘I'll have to ask Choi Soo-hyun to help her with that.’
Currently, Eun-young noona's strength stat was A.
The only person who could handle her strength and had decent martial arts skills was Choi Soo-hyun.
Seeing how he took her punches, he seemed to have a high pain tolerance, too.
"Is there a problem?"
"Sorry, I was just thinking. I don't think you should attack by climbing on the unicorn's back like before."
That kind of attack only worked on something like an orc.
Against stronger monsters, there was no guarantee that simply twisting their neck would kill them.
The unicorn died in one hit simply because noona was overwhelmingly strong.
Relying on brute strength wasn't necessarily bad, but it could lead to serious injury if things went wrong.
"Got it."
Instead, we changed our approach to target the unicorn's weak points.
After our discussion, we moved out to hunt the unicorns.
I drew my sword and entered the unicorn's range. The wary creature charged toward me.
I blocked the unicorn's charge with my sword.
Its horn grazed past my neck.
The unicorn's horn began to glow.
The first one had been killed by noona before it had a chance to use magic, but these creatures were fundamentally magic-users.
I pulled my sword back and created some distance.
A bolt of lightning struck the spot where I had been standing.
After using magic, a unicorn enters a very brief stun state.
"Noona, now!"
At my signal, noona, who was in the unicorn's blind spot, rushed in.
A quick approach, right foot, left foot. Then a slight leap into a punch. Noona struck the heart area I told her about with perfect accuracy.
I'd only given her a rough verbal description of the area, but the fact that she pinpointed it so accurately showed she had a real knack for this.
The unicorn screamed and coughed up blood. As it tried to flee, I got into position and threw a punch.
The body of the over 2-meter-tall unicorn staggered and fell to its side.
‘Is it not dead yet?’
The fallen unicorn's body twitched.
As I was debating whether I should deliver a finishing blow, noona climbed onto its back and stomped on its spine.
"Got it!"
Seeing her excited expression, I broke out in a cold sweat.
For a brief moment, I wondered if a god had made a mistake while creating her.
Whatever the case, I knew I should never get on Eun-young noona's bad side.
Amidst the black blood the unicorn had coughed up, I saw a single white orb. For a second, I thought it was a fragment for creating a thought-form and panicked.
Eun-young noona picked up the orb.
"This is an item, right?"
"Looks like a quest item."
"The sealed orb thing? Is one enough?"
"I'm not sure. Let's just grab as many as we can and then head up."
There was no reason to rush clearing the dungeon.
Eun-young noona and I lured and dispatched the nearby unicorns.
I thought she would get tired after killing a few, but she seemed surprisingly fine.
My growth was fast due to my past experiences, but Eun-young noona was an ordinary human.
Even considering that, her senses and abilities were truly excellent.
She was passionate, of course, but at this point, I started to wonder why the other gods hadn't chosen her.
As we continued, she got the hang of it and began to take down the unicorns at an even faster pace.
The fact that she was launching surprise attacks against unicorns, whose main weapon was surprise attacks, showed just how confident she had become.
As she was killing a unicorn and picking up a sealed orb, I called out to her.
"Eun-young noona! Let's pull back."