Please Come Out...!

Come on, just appear already…!

The message window contained one other notification besides the raid rewards, but I decided to check that later.

I immediately claimed the skill cards that had been issued.

This was precisely why S-class and higher talents—those expensive prospects—risked their lives to clear the tenth floor.

These days, hunters below B-class rarely formed their own parties to tackle boss floors like the tenth or twentieth. After all, being the first to clear the tenth floor would require gathering over a hundred people and a considerable amount of capital.

If they simply added a little more money to hire high-rank, high-level hunters, they could clear it faster, safer, and climb higher. People called it “getting carried.”

Of course, that meant the carried hunter’s contribution would be 0%, so they wouldn’t receive any skill cards. The high-level hunter providing the carry wouldn’t be recognized as the first clearer either, making their cards vanish. But none of that mattered.

When you were the first to clear the tenth floor, the system issued a total of ten skill cards.

A raid party, however, easily exceeded a hundred members.

For B-class or lower hunters, it made far more sense to ascend safely rather than gamble their lives for a single card they might not even get. But for an A-class hunter? That one card would hold far greater value.

If that was true for A-class, then what about S-class? Or SS-class?

They couldn’t possibly pass it up. Even an SSS-class hunter’s single skill card was provisionally worth hundreds of billions of won. Giving that up? Unthinkable.

Ironically, the higher the rank, the less likely they were to accept a carry. For SSS-class hunters especially, it was almost an absolute rule that the party would funnel contribution toward them so they could secure at least one extra card.

Naturally, this also raised the danger for SSS-class hunters. Their mortality rate, serious injury rate, number of retreats, and challenge attempts all increased accordingly. Still, it was a necessary choice.

The moment an SSS-class hunter with an astronomical market value chose safety and accepted a carry, they would lose far more than just the skill cards. They would be abandoning the future possibility of growing stronger with those cards, which could mean having to forfeit the next boss floors they might have been able to clear.

If that snowball kept rolling, an SSS-class hunter could eventually become weaker than an S-class or SS-class who had properly cleared the boss floors themselves.

Just as people say the rich get richer with money, high-rank hunters could become even stronger by already being strong.

Of course, the official record for highest contribution on the tenth floor was 73 percent, earning seven cards—held by America’s Penny Phoenix Junior.

That meant I was probably the only person in the world to achieve 100 percent contribution and claim all ten cards for myself.

Of course, it would remain an unofficial record.

‘Besides, ten cards aren’t the end of it.’

Thanks to the Moira’s Scales trait, I had received a 1+1 bonus on the skill cards.

In total, I now had twenty cards to open.

I opened them with careful deliberation.

My top priority was, without question, a healing skill—one that could cure Grandfather.

New skill options appeared every five levels. Now that I had reached level 20, it wouldn’t be strange for a healing skill that had never shown up before to finally appear.

I was an apprentice, sure, but I was still a priest! Wasn’t it reasonable to at least get one healing skill?

My second target was a means to bring Goblius and the three goblin knights with me to the next floor.

That hadn’t appeared yet either, but since I was now level 20, I allowed myself to hope.

I examined the five options. If what I wanted wasn’t there, I refreshed until it was.

I couldn’t guarantee the healing skill would appear, so I always used every single refresh.

My current level was 20. Thanks to the Moros’s Sword trait, I could refresh each card twenty times. Since they came in 1+1 sets, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that effectively meant twenty refreshes across two cards.

It would have been nice if every skill had an equal chance, but experience had taught me that appearance rates varied.

The most common option, by far, was stat increases.

Usually two or three out of five cards were stat skills, with the rest being class-related. The appearance rate for stat cards was overwhelmingly high.

That was probably why even high-level awakeners didn’t have that many skills—normal people couldn’t refresh their options like I could.

With twenty refreshes per set of two cards, I would obtain the needed skill with one card and exhaust all refreshes on the other.

Yet the healing skill I wanted refused to appear.

Was it simply not available at my current level range? Was the probability abysmal? Or had I been thirsting after a skill that didn’t even exist?

I pushed down every anxious thought and used up every refresh. Then I picked the most useful card among those that had appeared and moved on to the next.

One card. Two. Three. Four…

The stack of remaining cards grew smaller and smaller, but the skill I wanted still refused to show itself.

“What’s wrong, Humin? Is something the matter?”

“Hm? Ah! No, everything’s fine. Sorry. Are you getting bored waiting?”

“I’m okay. It’s just that your expression has looked incredibly tense for a while now.”

“Mine?”

“Do you even realize your back is soaked with cold sweat?”

‘Ah…’

Only after she pointed it out did I notice that not just my back but my forehead as well was drenched in cold sweat.

I tried to steady my nerves and resumed opening cards.

How many more did I open? The remaining cards were nearly gone, and my hope had been utterly crushed into powder.

Honestly, every card that could possibly appear had already shown up. I had seen four or five duplicates so many times I was sick of them.

‘So in the end, even though I’m an apprentice, I’m not a priest. Or I’m a priest but still an apprentice. But what the hell is an apprentice priest if it’s a priest? Seriously…’

Completely resigned, I pressed the final refresh button on the twentieth card without any real expectation.

“…Huh?”

I had been reaching for the card to select Shadow Veil and claim the tenth-level skill trait when my eyes froze on one particular card.

“Wait…?”

I hurriedly stretched out my hand and clicked on it.

Clicking a skill card didn’t grant it immediately; it first showed the skill’s purpose and effects.

“It came ouuuut!!”

“H-Humin?”

In my excitement I didn’t realize I had pulled Sowon into a hug and was jumping around like a madman. Startled, she awkwardly offered her congratulations.

It wasn’t the number-one healing skill I had wanted most, but it was the number-two skill I had hoped for.

“I don’t know what it is, but congratulations. Now could you let go of my arm and explain properly? What on earth has been going on with you? You’re making me curious.”

Her words brought me back to my senses and I released her. But my excitement refused to die down, so I explained with a flushed face.

“It’ll be faster to show you than to explain. Watch this.”

I reached out toward Goblius, the three goblin knights, and the remaining goblin minions who were on standby and activated the skill.

“Cradle of the Dead.”

When the skill activated, pitch-black yet somehow comforting fog wrapped around the minions and made them vanish on the spot.

Sowon’s eyes widened in surprise at the sudden disappearance.

“What just happened? All the minions are gone!”

“Cradle of the Dead is a dedicated subspace storage skill that lets me keep the undead monsters and corpses I’ve summoned. I can take them out anytime, anywhere. Like this—Cradle of the Dead.”

When I recited the activation phrase again, the familiar black fog billowed up, then faded to reveal Goblius, the three goblin knights, and the goblin minions once more.

“Hmm… Huh?”

At first Sowon had looked as if she didn’t quite understand why this was such a big deal, but her eyes soon grew huge.

“W-wait a second! Normally, when you leave a floor, you have to abandon the Minions of the Underworld you summoned there, right?”

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

“That’s correct.”

“Then this means you don’t have to do that anymore…”

“Exactly. I can take them to the next floor. These guys, I mean.”

Sowon stared at Goblius and the three goblin knights with even wider eyes.

She realized I wasn’t just using the tenth floor’s boss monster and named monsters and discarding them—I could bring them upward.

“So the reason you looked so anxious while opening the skill cards was…”

“Ah, the skill I wanted most still didn’t appear. But this was the next skill I wanted most, so it’s still a huge win.”

“What was the skill you wanted most?”

“A healing skill.”

“H-healing? A necromancer class can use healing skills?”

When Sowon looked shocked, I scratched my cheek awkwardly and answered.

“It’s a bit complicated to explain… but while it’s similar to a necromancer, it’s not exactly that. If I had to classify it, I’d say it’s closer to a priest?”

“A priest who commands undead monsters? Does something like that really exist?”

“Hahaha…”

Even after saying it myself, I didn’t fully understand what it meant. Just what the hell was my class, anyway?

“Oh, Sowon. I have a favor to ask. Would it be all right if I hunted alone for a little longer before we head back?”

“I don’t mind, but may I ask why? You can’t gain any more experience, and both your backpack and inventory are already full of mana stones.”

“When I received the skill cards this time, I raised my Minion of the Underworld level quite a bit. I want to use that to recruit some useful goblins here before we leave.”

“Ah, if that’s the case, then you don’t need me to tag along. I’ll wait for you outside.”

“Got it! Please wait just a bit. I’ll be out soon.”

“Still, be careful just in case.”

Once Sowon left the neutral zone and exited the tower, I stepped out of the neutral zone once more.

My current Minion of the Underworld level was a whopping 24.

Upon reaching level 20, I had received an additional trait besides Army of the Dead.

In the past, I would have chosen Elite Soldier without hesitation to increase combat power. Since the minions were meant to be consumed on the current floor anyway, there was no reason to feel regret, and a 100 percent final stat increase was an enormous bonus.

In contrast, Blood and Flesh—which only offered recovery and no direct combat benefit—had seemed like a disappointing trait. It was far more efficient to simply summon a new minion from a corpse than to feed it to an existing one for repairs.

But now my evaluation of both traits had completely flipped.

With monsters like Goblius and the three goblin knights in my arsenal, the Elite Soldier trait—which reduced unlimited summoning time to a mere one hour—was instantly out of consideration.

On the other hand, Blood and Flesh, which I had once thought had nothing but recovery to offer, had become an irreplaceable treasure thanks to that very recovery ability.

Being able to feed corpses to Goblius and the knights to heal their injuries was an incredible merit.

Having chosen Blood and Flesh to follow Army of the Dead, I led Goblius and the knights outside the safe zone.

The maximum number of minions I could currently summon was 24 from the base limit, plus 40 more from the Army of the Dead trait that granted five additional slots per three levels thanks to Thanatos’s Baptism.

That totaled 64.

Subtracting the five slots Goblius used and the six slots used by the three knights for a total of eleven left me with 53 slots.

In other words, I could take 53 goblin soldiers as minions.

The fact that Cradle of the Dead could only store ten undead and corpses was no longer an issue either. Because the skill carried the (Dead) attribute, Thanatos’s Baptism amplified its ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠effect fivefold, expanding the storage to fifty.

‘I need to carefully balance the types and ratios…’

After careful consideration, I hunted only champion-grade goblins that possessed higher stats and special abilities, turning them into minions.

Once I had filled every slot, I was finally able to leave the goblin kingdom that had given me so many treasures besides mana stones.