Field Boss, D-3

"Sarang. They say King Slime spawns in three days. Want to go kill it?"

"Yes! I'd love that. I'll have my level caught up by then!"

"Oh—right. You're not high enough yet. Want to hunt with me?"

At Kim Siwoo's words, Lim Sarang shook her head.

"I'd like to... but I'll get myself to level 12 within three days. I want us to start at the same level."

"Ah. Will you be all right? You don't have any attack skills."

"Oh, come on. I may not look it, but I was a Haven ranker with two years behind me. I deleted the character. The connections are still there."

"Aha. Then I won't raise my level until three days from now, either."

"Okay!"

That was the conversation, just before he went off to roll his skills.

The moment Kim Siwoo headed for the Magic Tower, Lim Sarang went straight out to hunt. With no attack skills, hunting was nearly impossible—but there was still a way.

"Thank you."

"Thank us? Just being on familiar terms with a five-star healer is more honor than we deserve. We'll have you there at top speed!"

Before deleting her character, she had asked her old regular raid members for help, and every last one of them came running.

Boosting. A high-level user takes a low-level user into a dungeon and funnels the experience their way. It isn't easy. It isn't impossible, either. It costs a little money, but nothing else climbs a level this fast.

"Whoa. That shield is actually insane."

"Is a shield this big even real at level 1..."

"Pretty sure that's more than mine."

Her former raid members couldn't hide their awe as they got a taste ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of Lim Sarang's skills. Crescent Moon's Blessing, especially, earned a thumbs-up.

"No, seriously. A hundred percent of the target's attack power? That's completely broken, isn't it? We could walk straight into a level-60 dungeon like this."

They settled on a level-1 4-star dungeon as the hunting ground. The raid members were all in their level sixties, so a 5-star dungeon wouldn't have troubled them much—but if they ran into the wrong thing, Lim Sarang could die in a single hit. Safer to run the 4-star.

They gathered the monsters and locked them down, and Lim Sarang threw bomb-type items that could actually hurt them, putting her own damage on the board. It was slow, the return was miserable, and the money leaked in a steady drip—the worst hunting method imaginable. The effect, though, was certain.

"I think I can make it inside of three days."

The one mercy was that she had received, in full, the experience she and Kim Siwoo had swept up together in the 5-star dungeon. Because of it she had jumped straight to level 6. Only six levels left.

That was the advantage of a buffer or a healer. When the person you healed or buffed killed a monster, you were paid in experience according to how much you had contributed. Right now, though, the people she buffed sat so far above the monsters that no experience came in at all, which was why they had chosen this fussy, roundabout method.

She hunted hard for three days, and she didn't forget to leave Kim Siwoo's stream on beside her. The other raid members did the same. They weren't going to die even if they looked away, so they ground the dungeon on repeat like laborers on a shift, talking about whatever came to mind.

"Wow... that guy is really something."

"First person I've seen rolling SS-rank skills at level 11 and going at it like that."

"There might be a few out there, but... he's going all SS, right?"

"Essence prices are going to shoot through the roof."

"I hear they're already rising."

Haven's veterans could look at what was unfolding and already see the chain reaction to come. Lim Sarang felt it too. Starting with Lowest-Grade Essences, the price of every material Kim Siwoo stepped on from here would explode.

"I should stock up on Lowest-Grade Essences..."

She turned it over. She could never follow perfectly in Kim Siwoo's wake. Even so, as the first party member walking beside him, she couldn't afford to hear that some crack in her build made her unworthy of the spot. The small mercy was that the contribution shop, revealed through level 30, looked as if it would let you buy at least one SS-rank skill every ten levels.

"Sarang, if we reset and pull a five-star, could we join too?"

"...I think you'd have to ask Siwoo. He's the party leader."

"Honestly, watching all this, I keep wondering if I should raise a character again."

"Sarang didn't delete hers and reroll for nothing."

"I'm jealous. That bold call. I can't let go of what I've already sunk."

At their grumbling, Lim Sarang smiled, a little shy. They all knew five-star was better. They also knew that the words bold challenge only ever followed the people who succeeded. Fail, and nothing remained—not the money poured into class rolls, and not the time.

A user who hadn't yet invested the years to become a ranker on a 4-Star Class base might actually manage the leap. If luck failed them, they could simply step off at the rest stop called four-star. For the ones who had abandoned everything to chase five-star out of four-star, that option no longer existed. So even knowing it—even feeling that they had to board this current or be left behind—they couldn't bring themselves to switch.

"Call us whenever you need us. We want to run dungeons with five-stars, too."

"Of course."

They could say that, and a ranker on a 4-Star Class still earned more than enough no matter what they did. Walk into Haven's most dangerous dungeons, kill the monsters only a handful of people could hunt, and the materials alone made a hundred-million-won yearly salary look like a joke. That was a ranker. By the old standard, pulling a four-star and pinning on the ranker title was what people called the final setup.

Those users threw their own time away and came to help her hunt for three days. Whether it was to keep an old loyalty to Lim Sarang, or because they wanted to stand near a connection named Kim Siwoo, she couldn't say. She only promised herself this: the day something came along that she, as herself, could do for them, she would.

"Whoa. He rolled another one."

"Mana Affinity? Is that one good, too?"

"...It is. It's a required skill at level 21."

Before she knew it, Kim Siwoo's stream was flashing a message: he had rolled Mana Affinity (SS).

It was the first skill anyone had seen with raw stats bolted onto the special options.

Set beside Attribute Damage Increase, though, it was clearly the skill with less impact.

"It's not that good."

"Even without it, I don't think I'd really be short on mana..."

It wasn't enough to leave me gasping, but filling both slots with the SSS-rank skills I'd been aiming for left me satisfied. Like finishing a piece of homework. On top of that, I'd burned through all hundred thousand I'd bought, and it had dropped before I needed to buy any more. Clean.

"Ah. Everyone, quick announcement. In three days I'm going after the King Slime. Sarang and I actually locked the schedule before I started rolling skills today."

"The way I see it, King Slime might just die in one hit..."

"...Yeah, that might be a stretch. Anyway, I've got a healer now, so I'm going to take a proper slice of the damage."

I put the schedule out there and shut the stream off.

Today had been rough, too.

Rolling options always felt good ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠once it was over. The rolling itself was agony. I was starting to understand why, back when PC games were the rage, rich people donated to streamers and put them to work clicking through their options. For an ordinary person, the fun of spending money made hours of click-click-click tense, dopamine spilling over, and when one option whiffed by a hair the groan reset the fatigue. For a whale sniping a single option and clicking all day, it was nothing but one boring moment after another.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

What else was there to do? Endure it.

I wanted to log out, stand under hot water, and roll around in bed, but there was still something left to do today. I headed straight for the auction house.

"Hm. They're moving a little faster."

There had been about a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠million Lowest-Grade Essences. It felt like only half a day since I'd bought a hundred thousand, and the listings were already down to around six hundred thousand. The price had climbed to about 130,000 won.

"Maybe I should buy some ahead of time."

I scraped a little of the money rotting in my account.