2. First Hunt (Illustration Added)
We each entered the temple suited to us and chose our classes. After that, we purchased equipment appropriate to our classes and returned to the temple where we had first landed.
After going through all the procedures, a night passed.
In the early dawn, priests moved about and woke us where we slept in the temple lodgings. Wearing the equipment we had purchased upon gaining our classes, we headed to the outskirts of the city.
At the wall surrounding the city, where a gate should have been, stood a massive temple.
"This is the Temple of the Travel God. It is the place that will guide you to the labyrinth."
When we went inside, it was already packed with adventurers waiting.
"As this is your first day of adventuring, no one will treat you carelessly, so long as they fear the Sky God."
Among the Sky God's doctrines, there is said to be one commanding hospitality toward guests.
According to that doctrine, adventurers who enter the city are provided a place to stay for the night, and during their first venture out, other adventurers are also said to treat them well.
"Got it, everyone?"
"Make sure to learn as much as you can on this venture."
That was how Ms. Kwon Chae-a cautioned the students. Everyone's hair had turned all sorts of colors from the mana reaction that came with gaining their classes, and their appearances, outfitted in gear straight out of a fantasy, looked rather delinquent, but unexpectedly, they were all following the teacher's instructions well.
Perhaps it was thanks to the goodwill she had built up over time. The entire class was remarkably united, considering they had been flung into another world.
'Come to think of it, that is strange. It wouldn't be surprising if about half of them said they couldn't do this.'
『You're not hesitating either, my lord, are you?』
'Well, I gained an Authority, and I'm confident I can hunt because I've talked with you.'
Other kids, especially the girls, should have been making a fuss about not being able to do it.
『That is thanks to Tartarus's interference.』
What?
『I infer that the environment from which you came, my lord, was very peaceful.』
『Those who come from such an environment cannot adapt here.』
『Accordingly, Tartarus altered outsiders so they could adapt.』
Are you saying it messed with our minds?
『What it interfered with was not the mind, but the emotions.』
『Even among humans, attitudes toward threats differ depending on the environment they grew up in.』
『Tartarus merely raised your adaptability to the environment, as if you had grown up here.』
That's still messing with our minds.
For the first time, the existence of a "god"—something that hadn't felt real even after seeing the lightning yesterday—truly sank in.
This is no joke.
No wonder I'd felt strangely composed ever since the lightning struck yesterday.
Since the measure benefited us for now, I had no intention of complaining. But I refused to be caught helpless again. I wished I had some way to defend my mind. I was thinking that when—
"Do-hyeon, did you hear what I said?"
Maybe I'd been distracted by my conversation with Mary. Before I knew it, the teacher had finished her lecture and come over to me.
"Yes. You said not to do anything dangerous, right?"
When I brought up the words that had been drilled into my ears since yesterday, the teacher nodded.
"Right. Do-hyeon. You were listening. But don't you have a party?"
"If no one's letting you join, want to come with me?"
Behind the teacher as she said that were two female students looking at us. They'd occasionally come over and chat when I was reading webtoons, but basically we weren't particularly close.
"Our party has no male students, so I thought it would be reassuring to have you, Do-hyeon. What do you think?"
No male students in the party, she said. Looking at the composition of the other parties, they were all clearly divided into groups of male students and groups of female students, with no mixed groups.
"It's fine. I'm an adult now, after all."
"I have no intention of doing anything dangerous. I just have a plan I want to try."
"Really? If it seems even a little dangerous, you have to come right back, okay?"
After I sent the teacher on her way like that, the next person to come find me was the class president.
A wizard who, like me, had gained her class at the Temple of the God of Magic. Her hair had turned pink from the mana reaction.
The class president looked up at me and spoke.
"Hey, if you don't have anyone to go with, want to come with us?"
That party? Me?
When I glanced over at the class president's party, two of the three were glaring at me as if they wanted to tear me apart. Why was there suddenly a second Lee Se-rin? Had I really done something that bad?
"Sorry. I have my own plan."
"You're not going to do anything dangerous, are you?"
"You don't need to worry. If I get even a little hurt, I'll run away immediately."
"Really? Promise?"
Apparently feeling quite sorry that I'd gotten caught up in this because of her, the class president confirmed once more and then returned to her party. Only then did the two who had been glaring at me look away. Should someone as kind as her really be left among people like that?
Lee Se-rin, from what I saw yesterday, seemed to have skill. Pass.
Park Min-a. A blonde delinquent who'd already been dyeing her hair back in school, just without the tan.
When I peeked at her status window,
［Name］: Park Min-a
［Race］: Human
［Level］: 1 (0 EXP)
［Class］: Rogue
□STR : 12
■DEX : 17
□CON : 12
■INT : 10
□WIS : 15
□CHA : 14
【Perks】
［Blessing］Preemptive Strike
▶First-Move Victory
The first attack you land in combat becomes a critical hit.
A step below Grace, but second from the top—no, third. Barely a pass.
Kim Ha-eun. The female student who had been holding those two back, her hair turned silver from the mana reaction. Her character passes, but would her abilities pass too?
［Name］: Kim Ha-eun
［Race］: Human
［Level］: 1 (0 EXP)
［Class］: Cleric
□STR : 8
□DEX : 12
□CON : 14
□INT : 13
■WIS : 18
■CHA : 15
【Perks】
［Grace］Almighty
▶Almighty God's Choice
You gain different effects depending on the class you choose.
Almighty, huh. Isn't this higher than my Authority?
『Negative. The Incubus Lord's Authority is the more powerful ability.』
More importantly, wasn't a Grace supposed to be hard to get? So far, two Graces and one Blessing. Then what about the class president?
［Name］: Choi Yu-na
［Race］: Human
［Level］: 1 (0 EXP)
［Class］: Wizard
□STR : 7
□DEX : 13
□CON : 14
■INT : 19
■WIS : 13
□CHA : 14
【Perks】
［Grace］Archmage
Requirement: Spellcasting ability
▶Spell Modification
▶Spell Empowerment
Didn't they say the stat baseline is 10 for an ordinary person, with 20 as the cap? High stats, three Graces, and one Blessing. Wouldn't the class president's party be the strongest in our class? I was worried for nothing.
***
A short while later, a priest of the Travel God came to inform us that the gates had opened. When we moved to the location, there were six round holes open in midair at the center of the temple. The interior of each hole showed a different landscape.
"You will enter according to your number tickets."
As if accustomed to it, the priest received round tokens engraved with characters, handed out stones, and then admitted the parties. Even though we had woken up early, our turn was quite far back, so we got to watch. The most popular gate was the one connected to a grassland. Next was the gate connected to a coastline.
Conversely, the unpopular gates were connected to a temple and a cave, which had been explained at the temple yesterday.
The places connected to the gates were divided into open and closed types. Grassland, coast, forest, and wilderness were open types. Temple and cave were closed types.
In open types, you could see monsters approaching from afar and decide whether to fight or flee, and the number of monsters that appeared was small and infrequent, so they were popular.
Conversely, in closed types, it was hard to flee from monsters, and monsters appeared in numbers matching the party size. You could earn a great deal of experience, but few people took such a dangerous path. The cave in particular was said to be completely filled with darkness, so no one even glanced at it.
The turns passed quickly, and before long it was the turn of our class's parties. Everyone, as advised, headed for the grassland, which had the lowest difficulty,
and I, having deliberately taken the last number,
"I'll go to the cave."
"......Are you sure?"
"Yes. The cave."
"The Travel God has said not to forget to look after yourself during your journey."
"It's fine. The cave."
Only after hearing worried advice several times and drawing glares from the adventurers behind me was I finally able to enter the cave.
***
There are two main reasons the cave is dangerous.
First, the environment filled with darkness.
Second, monsters that can see through that darkness appear.
Kobold Warriors or Goblin Minions. Sometimes even Goblin Warriors. All of them can see through the darkness up to 18 meters as if there were faint light.
If one side cannot see the opponent while the other side can see them unilaterally, the outcome of the fight is obvious. In particular, a Goblin Warrior has combat power comparable to a level 1 adventurer, and if the advantage of vision is added on top of that, it's the worst.
But if you walk around with a light on, it's no different from broadcasting your position to distant enemies. Since Goblin Warriors even handle bows, one mistake and you'd become a pincushion. Whether you light a fire or put it out, this cave is a place full of danger.
Moreover, because monsters appear according to the number and level of adventurers, even a level 3 party could suffer casualties here if things went wrong.
In such a place, I—
"Sleep!"
Mana welled up from the mana circuit inside my body. When I poured it into the magic circuit as the Authority guided me, the Goblin Warrior, which had noticed me by my voice, was engulfed by the spell and fell asleep before it could even react.
Success.
The monster's face, full of a pointed nose and fangs, was hideous even in sleep. Leaving that impression behind, I ran over, bound it tightly with the rope from my travel supplies,
then lifted my spell staff with one hand, traced a symbol, and brought it down. True Strike. A cantrip that converts a physical attack into a spell attack.
"Khek?"
The Goblin Warrior was unlucky enough to avoid dying in one hit. But it had already dropped its weapon, and its limbs were bound.
What can you do?
The Goblin Warrior thrashed and bared its teeth, but I dodged it easily and—
"Die!"
"Kweek......."
With the second attack, it let out a death cry and died.
Another clean success!
The darkness is dangerous because we cannot see while the enemies can. But a goblin's darkvision only reaches 18 meters. Incubus Gaze provides three times that darkvision.
If it were only a matter of visual advantage, I might be unlucky enough to take an enemy's lucky punch, but what comes into play there is the classic-style Sleep. Simply put, it's a "contempt for the weak" spell that reliably puts targets below a certain HP to sleep.
If you approach a sleeping target and attack it, that attack is guaranteed to be a critical hit.
On top of that, if I use my cantrip True Strike, I can attack with mana instead of physical force—in other words, using charm. Its power is enough to kill a Goblin Minion or Kobold Warrior in one hit.
A Goblin Warrior might survive if lucky, but if it takes a follow-up hit while bound as just now, it's over. If two Goblin Warriors or three or more Minions appear, I can just spot them from afar and run. This was my hunting plan, worked out from the information I got at the temple yesterday and my consultation with Mary.
Having succeeded in the hunt, I drew a circle with chalk around the fallen goblin warrior's body. As taught at the temple, I offered a prayer, and the corpse vanished while options appeared in my mind.
【Experience】
【Currency】
【Contribution Points】
Like this, if you hunt monsters and offer them to the gods as sacrifices, you can obtain experience or Contribution Points.
Why no currency?
It used to be a choice worth taking, but these days the value of currency has fallen, so no one chooses it. Could it be that not even the gods could prevent inflation?
Of the two remaining choices, I naturally chose experience. If my level rises, I can take down stronger monsters. Stronger monsters naturally give more experience and Contribution Points.
There's no reason not to level up, right? The one problem is that when your level rises, the level of the enemies that appear also rises.
'Still, I can pick and choose my enemies. It seems worth hunting here until level 2.'
Thinking that, I stilled the mana circuit in my body.
Stealth.
One of the several features I had learned upon gaining my class at the temple yesterday. It was a feature I had been practicing since leaving the lodgings in the morning, but I still wasn't used to it, and after two failures, I succeeded.
Now, unless someone looked directly at me or was determined to find me, they wouldn't be able to notice my presence. Would a stupid goblin or kobold ever wander through an empty cave and suddenly start searching for something?
I stuffed the Goblin Warrior's weapon, which could at least fetch scrap-metal value, into my bag, then slipped into the darkness to find my next prey.
***
Hunting is something carried out from a position of one-sided advantage. If it were an even fight, it would be a duel.
In that sense, this was indeed hunting. Two Kobold Warriors, four Goblin Minions, two Goblin Warriors. That was the number of monsters that became sacrifices without putting up any worthwhile resistance.
When I opened my status window, my accumulated experience was 250. Since the experience required for level 2 was 300, I was almost at level 2. I didn't know how the other parties had done, but wouldn't it be hard to gather this much experience without any danger at all?
For a first day, this much should be enough.
To return, I needed to stack the stones provided by the Temple of the Travel God and wait 10 minutes. While waiting, I kept a spell in reserve in case I encountered a monster, but fortunately or unfortunately, I encountered nothing and returned safely.
But what was waiting for me when I returned to the temple was—
"Seo Do-hyeon!"
—a very angry Ms. Kwon Chae-a.
The teacher's party had been hunting weak beasts in the grassland near the castle when they had the bad luck to run into a pack of wolves. Fortunately, they had been able to take down the wolf pack, but they had suffered HP loss and returned quickly.
While she was back at the temple, she had asked the priest about me, and from a priest who had taken particular note of me, she had heard that I had entered the cave.
"Do you know how worried I was?"
Seeing the teacher angry with tears welling in her eyes, I couldn't help feeling sorry.
"I'm sorry. But I was confident. And I did come back safely."
"Even if you were confident, that's not the point. You could have consulted me before doing something like that."
"Well, they said to keep the contents of my status window hidden."
"Couldn't you have trusted me a little more?"
If what I had gained had been a Grace, I might have consulted her while hiding some of the details. But what I had gained was an Authority. A Perk that even the person who had introduced this place to us didn't know about. I thought leaking information about something like that would be far too dangerous.
As I stood there unable to continue, the teacher let out a sigh.
"Fine. Anyway, I'm glad you came back safely. So, did you earn a lot of experience?"
The teacher's expression as she said that
looked like she was saying, "Let's see how well you did."
If the experience I'd earned was pathetic,
wouldn't she say, "You did something that dangerous just to earn that little? Stop it right now!"?
But would it be right to honestly say that I, using an Authority, had earned 250 experience? If I said a number too high, I might be thought a liar or draw suspicion.
In that case, what would be a suitable number?
Half, 125? The number isn't clean. Let's go with 100.
"100."
I had modestly understated it, but—
"You earned 100 experience?"
"You're not lying, are you?"
The teacher was startled,
and her words spread to the students waiting nearby for those who hadn't returned yet.
"What? He earned 100? We barely earned 50 per person."
"Lee Se-rin's group earned 100 each, didn't they? Then what does that make him?"
The female students whispered like that,
"Does soloing earn more experience?"
"If that were true, everyone would solo."
Some male students said openly,
"I knew it from when he went solo. He must have gotten a Grace too."
Even envious voices reached me.
And Lee Se-rin was staring at me as if she had seen a ghost.
I said the wrong number.