The Level 1 Five-Star Dungeon

This time, at least when it came to choosing a level 1 five-star dungeon, I decided to follow the viewers' will.

The majority wanted me to pick a dungeon whose special options included anything tied to monster attack power. The reason was simple.

I thought it was a fair enough point, so I went along with it. Even in the handful of existing clear videos for level 1 five-star dungeons, it was common to see users in their level forties drop to death's door the instant they got careless. Haven Online's defense formula was realistic enough that even level 40 didn't mean a level 1 dungeon tickled — which only meant the attack power was that high.

"Let's have a look."

Being a Haven Bank VVIP let me pull up the dungeon location maps, so I browsed them at my leisure.

And then I found one that was downright perfect.

It sat a fair distance from Seoul, out along the road from Seoul toward Incheon, on the Gimpo Airport side. The route itself had only been opened recently, which made it a high-level zone — the kind of place where level 50 users did most of the hunting.

The viewers didn't really object. If it had been completely uncleared ground they would have, but even if it wasn't a hundred percent cleared, you could still come and go. More importantly, on a Haven Bank VVIP dungeon map, dungeons in uncleared regions didn't even show up.

"Hmm. This one's completely made for me, isn't it?"

Treated as a stable income, a five-star dungeon was a loss. It paid something, sure, but real profit only came if a five-star item actually dropped — and with a drop rate that vicious, you fell behind by exactly as much time as you spent gambling on it. Even so, two years on, there were more raid parties out farming level 1 five-star dungeons than I would have guessed. If parties like that had left this one untouched, then setting profit aside, the clear difficulty itself had to be brutal.

I headed out at once. One of the viewers drove all the way to where I was and picked me up.

"Mr. Siwoo. I'll take you there."

"Oh. Thank you."

I stepped out right in front of the dungeon, easy and without a scratch.

"Whew."

I checked my mana potions. Five hundred intermediate ones. It felt like overkill, but aside from the health potions I already owned, I hadn't bought a single one — so mana was all ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I'd packed. There was nothing else worth bringing. It would come down to one of two things: I cleared the dungeon, or I died.

"All right. Let's go."

I broke into a run toward the dungeon entrance.

"Long as it isn't a boss, right?"

There hadn't been a single boss-related option, so the odds that a boss monster was the clear condition were extremely low. As long as it wasn't that, I could handle it. I had enough attack power to kill the monsters even by smacking them with my staff.

Flash. The world changed.

"...Huh?"

I was still staring blankly when a roar loud enough to stuff my ears crashed in from every side.

"Everyone, attack!"

"Hold formation!"

"The dark elf bastards are coming!"

"Get inside the barrier!"

"Huh?"

Noise. The sound of fighting everywhere. I'd been dropped into the middle of a battlefield, and not a single soul spared me a glance — they were too busy killing each other. And they were the same kind of people.

"What is this. A black-and-white war?"

"No... their skin..."

Calling it black and white didn't quite fit. The pale side carried a bright, faintly green cast, and the other was a deep, dark green. Their builds were similar enough — humanoid, both of them — that color was the only way to tell them apart. How to put it.

"Elves?"

A few of the viewers who had already put it together spelled it out for me.

At the same moment, a quest popped.

"Whoa. So this is how it comes out."

The game was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠two years old. Five-star dungeons hadn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠been on farm status for all that long, but in all that time this information had never once gone public — and now it was going public through my stream.

A standard that had always been vague finally locked into place. If anything, I thought it was fine.

"But if I'm not fighting alone, it doesn't seem that bad, does it?"

"Aaaagh!"

"Those dark elves are too strong!"

"The World Tree's blessing is too powerful."

"...The elves are at a bit of a disadvantage, huh?"

Fine, maybe. Easy, I didn't think so.

"All right. Let's go. Still — the board's been set for me."

A solo dungeon or a theme dungeon like this, it was the same either way: take one hit and you die. If the fighting wasn't focused on me, my odds of staying alive had to be at least a little better.

Pop. I pulled out the Supreme Holy Water I'd been saving. With options that only lasted thirty minutes, drinking it before the fight began would do far more than chugging it before I even stepped into the dungeon.

Gulp, gulp. I threw it back in one go.

The gap between me and the dark elves — their stats swollen by the special options — narrowed by ten.

And then the temporary buffs rolled through after. My body went almost weightless. Everything in the world seemed to move in slow motion, and a confidence I couldn't hold down surged up through me.

Since every stat had risen, my defense should have climbed some way with them. But the defense on my gear wasn't all that high, so getting hit would still hurt. That was enough. I had no intention of getting hit in the first place.

A low hum. Fireballs and ice arrows bloomed into being in the empty air.

"Thirty-minute showtime. I'm going in."

The spells mingled with the elves' attacks and lanced into the dark elves pouring in past counting. Well then. Hit. I was proud enough of how much my control had improved that the thought of missing never even crossed my mind.

Boom. Crack.

And the prediction didn't miss. The attacks landed. What mattered was what came after. Would the monsters of a five-star dungeon — creatures with a full thirty points stacked onto every stat — actually die to a single spell of mine?

I was thinking the same thing. In four-star content the monsters had been brutally tanky. My weapon was stronger now, and I'd drunk the Supreme Holy Water, but a health pool that had doubled still wasn't something I could afford to take lightly.

Except it wasn't.

Whoosh—! Crack!

"...!"

From the points where the spells struck and buried themselves, fire and shards of ice blossomed into a spectacle — red and blue spilling out together in every direction across a ten-meter radius.

It was a spectacle. And it was a signal flare.

Spells unleashed in endless penta-casts flew without end. Flames and shards of ice swallowed the forest. Like dominoes falling, the fragments bursting from a single point spread ten meters at a time, until at last they blanketed the entire wood.