The Worst Training Ground
"Kishaak!!"
The monster, resembling a massive crab with bubbles foaming from its mouth, scuttled forward rapidly, its pincers clacking together. Mina formed a small dagger and hurled it straight into the creature's opening.
"Kkiiiik!"
Confirming that the dagger had wedged painfully between its shell plates, she immediately kicked off the ground, retreating from the spot. She dodged the pincer that swung toward where she'd been standing and slashed out with her rapier.
"Kkigyeok!"
Another monster's belly split open, releasing a foul stench along with brownish entrails that were indistinguishable from the surrounding mud. But that wasn't the end of it.
-Splash!
From the corpse of the dead monster, several leech-like creatures burst out and lunged at her. Mina swung her sword without hesitation, slicing them away while her face twisted in disgust.
"Of all places, a rotting swamp. This is the absolute worst," she groaned.
She wasn't wearing workout clothes right now. She was fully equipped, having entered the gate alongside Seokjun. The reason they stood in this swamp—where the stench of rotten water and fishy odor permeated everything, the last place that should ever resemble a sterile hospital—was exactly the same.
"Isn't it better to face more novel monsters than something like orcs?" Seokjun asked.
A gate was, after all, a door to another world with no connection to the original location. By now, everyone knew the term came from those overused fantasy novels where no one could even remember who coined it first.
"Even so, I could do without this level of novelty..." Mina muttered.
"In that case, goblins are the most common choice."
"Ugh, that's even worse."
The green jungles where goblins appeared ranked as the number one gate that hunters avoided most. The second was precisely this rotting swamp they stood in now. There were several reasons, but the overwhelming smell of decaying water combined with the muddy, swamp-like terrain that easily soiled equipment and inevitably let water and mud seep into their boots was the biggest issue. Clearing a gate like this meant spending an excessive amount of time showering and doing laundry afterward. Even hunters who didn't shy away from tough work tended to avoid it.
Thank goodness for the gas mask Mr. Seokjun gave me.
Without it, she would have suffered through the stench the entire fight.
"More importantly, how does my power control look now?" Mina asked.
Seokjun stroked his chin thoughtfully for a moment before nodding.
"It seems you've adjusted to roughly the upper tier of B-grade."
"So, does that mean I've finally succeeded?"
"You're still a bit strong for a B-grade hunter, but it's a narrow pass."
"Phew... ah."
She nearly collapsed in relief but remembered she was standing in a foul-smelling swamp and straightened up immediately. After all, the reason she was here wasn't simply to clear the gate. It was purely for mana training.
"It used to be so much easier to control my strength before," she sighed.
"Precise work has always been more difficult, much like how greater value comes with greater effort."
As her total mana increased, it had naturally become harder to control the same amount with the same precision. Thanks to that, even though her mana still overflowed, she felt more exhausted than usual.
"How about trying to retrieve the dagger from a distance now?"
"I'll give it a shot."
Mina looked at the monster that had collapsed after being struck by the dagger she'd thrown. That dagger was something she'd created following Seokjun's advice.
"Throwing weapons?"
"Yes. Miss Mina, your mana is particularly specialized for using flying knives rather than ordinary swords."
What Seokjun showed her was a photo of a black, matte-finished flying knife.
"Would you like to try replicating this exactly?"
"Just a moment."
The flying knife in the photo had a very simple design, so she was able to recreate it easily.
"The mana consumption... isn't that high?"
Compared to when she created swords, the amount of mana used felt almost negligible.
"Isn't the creation speed much faster than when making a longsword?"
When she made another knife, she could form it noticeably quicker than a sword. The smaller size played a part, but the simple form of the knife he'd shown her helped even more.
"It seems to be because there's less time spent visualizing the shape."
The smaller or simpler the object she tried to create with mana, the faster it formed. Conversely, the larger or more complex it was, the slower the process.
"That's a common trait among manufacturing types."
That was why a simple flying knife allowed her to create multiple blades quickly and easily for long-range attacks. Even in close quarters with an enemy, she could respond rapidly in emergencies.
"But you don't only use daggers, right?"
"Even if your mana is specialized for flying knives, that doesn't mean you lose the advantages of other weapons."
Being able to create weapons like rapiers or various types of swords in any desired form gave her a versatility that was rare even among other hunters.
"Above all, it would be a shame to throw away all the skill and experience you've built up until now, wouldn't it?"
"You're right."
Mina had trained diligently in swordsmanship ever since she learned that her mana could manifest as blades. It would feel too hollow for all that time to go to waste.
"The more options you have, the more situations you can handle."
Following Seokjun's advice that it made no sense to reduce one's strengths when even increasing them by one would be beneficial, she had been adjusting her mana output to match the level of the monsters she faced while hunting with flying knives.
The mana consumption is so low.
She was realizing just how convenient this was. Of course, she was using it at a level appropriate for a B-grade hunter, but even taking that into account, it was remarkably efficient.
It must be thanks to the flying knives.
Originally, when attacking from a distance, she had infused her blades with mana to launch cutting strikes. But creating and throwing flying knives consumed far less mana than those slashes. Once the knives embedded themselves in monsters or walls, retrieving them allowed her to reduce her already low mana consumption to practically zero.
"Ugh...!"
Returning to the present, Mina focused her mana on the dagger stuck in the monster. This was a test to see if she could safely retrieve mana from a distance.
Each time retrieval failed, she inched a little closer to the dagger embedded in the monster, trying to gauge the effective range. But the results were disappointing, forcing her to keep retrieving from close range.
-Squelch!
"Ugh! Seriously!"
After approaching the monster's corpse a certain distance, the crab-like shell lifted, and leech-like creatures poured out, rushing toward her. She swung her sword first, slicing them apart.
"Another failure."
In the end, Mina couldn't retrieve the dagger from a distance.
"This is something you can practice slowly outside the gate. There's no need to rush," Seokjun said.
"Yeah..."
Still, it was impossible not to feel drained.
"These monsters are just too annoying."
While using her mana to bat away the remaining wriggling leeches before they could touch her, Mina shuddered. The crab-like creatures were the most common monsters in this rotting swamp—Infested Crabs, D-grade monsters.
"Still, isn't it better than C-grade?"
"Monsters that control other monsters' corpses? It's even more disgusting."
The true form was a monster controlled from within by those leech-like things that emerged from the already-dead Infested Crab. The real main body wasn't the crab at all—it was those leeches. In the early days of the gate incidents, many people suffered because they didn't know that fact.
Between the fishy stench of rotting water, the inevitably filthy environment, and corpses shambling toward them, it was no wonder these gates were so unpopular. Still, since gates could appear anywhere at any time, hunters had no choice but to enter them with gritted teeth.
"Now that you seem to have gotten used to using flying knives, how about facing a named monster?" Seokjun suggested.
"Ah, a named monster..."
She had been so focused on controlling her power while fighting with flying knives that she'd forgotten. In most gates, one of the key elements was the presence of a named monster.
"Wouldn't it be more accurate to just call them bosses?"
"The term 'boss' is only used for S-grade monsters."
For some reason, the dungeon's resident overlords—ranging from as few as one to as many as three—served as leaders, yet officially, they were not classified as boss monsters.
"But most people never even get the chance to encounter an S-grade monster."
Only monsters at the S-grade level, like the Icebound River King they had faced before, were officially called bosses. Mina often wondered about that, but it wasn't something worth dwelling on right now.
"The named monster of the rotting swamp is... ugh, an Infested Chimera."
The Infested Chimera was the named monster of the rotting swamp. True to its name, it was a creature formed from various corpses connected by leech-like mana parasites, moving as a single organism. Because of that trait, it had the widest variety of forms among named monsters.
"In the worst cases, it can even reach C-grade."
Each individual varied significantly in strength.
"Since it's not excessively weak, wouldn't it make a good opponent for testing new combat methods?"
"That's not the problem! It's the smell of the corpses!"
One consistent feature was that it was a monster with a horribly rotten stench. And so, they continued advancing through the swamp where ominous, rotting trees loomed overhead.
-Rustle, rustle.
Unaware that something was following closely behind them.