Chapter 10
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 10
Chapter Title: The 701st Wave (3)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Light seeped through the shabby curtains of the studio apartment.
There was no time to greet the morning that forced its way in.
My eyes were still fixed on the pixelated screen.
[A Half Drake has taken 1 damage from ‘Goblin Warrior’!]
Since starting the 701st wave, I was greeting my third morning.
For those three days, I did nothing but tap the pixelated screen and wait.
For the moment I would completely fend off the 701st wave.
Grrrrumble.
The first twelve hours were bearable.
The problem started after that.
After twelve hours, my arms, which had been tapping the barrier every three seconds, began to scream.
After that, it became a matter of survival.
First, my biological needs tormented me.
Next, my starving stomach ached as if it were being wrung out.
After another twelve hours, I no longer felt hungry.
My parched throat craved a sip of water more than any feast.
[A Wyvern has taken 1 damage from ‘Goblin Warrior’! Critical Hit! A Wyvern has been annihilated!]
Things only became manageable about thirty hours after I started playing.
The low-health Wyverns started to die and fall.
And as the number of monsters decreased, the constraints holding me back loosened.
[Critical Hit! A Wyvern Rider has been annihilated!]
When twenty Wyverns were gone, I could open the fridge door with one hand and chug some water.
When five riders were gone, I was able to grab and eat the stale potato chips I'd left on my desk.
After two Half Drakes were annihilated, the system allowed me just enough freedom to go to the ‘bathroom’.
“Just one left now.”
And so, sixty hours passed.
After an eternity of sixty hours, finally, only a single monster remained on the screen.
[Monsters Remaining: 1/60]
The last remaining Half Drake was wandering in front of the barrier piled high with corpses.
It was the one that had dodged the goblin's spoon thousands of times.
In a way, it was lucky.
In another, it was terribly unlucky.
[A Half Drake has taken 30 damage from ‘Goblin Slave’! Critical Hit! A Half Drake has been annihilated!]
And finally, the status window appeared.
Even after confirming the message that ended the long, bloody battle, I remained frozen in a daze for a moment.
It felt a little unreal, I suppose.
A flicker of anxiety passed through me, a ‘what if’ fear.
But thankfully, as if to soothe that anxiety, a new information window popped up right over the pixelated screen.
[Congratulations. You have cleared the 701st wave.]
This wasn't an information window from within 'MonMonMak'.
It was the status window I was used to, made of a smooth hologram, not jagged pixels.
“I cleared it.”
Only then did a sound escape my lips.
“Hoo, haha. I somehow cleared it again.”
A joy that surged from the depths of my chest burst out through my hoarse throat.
How long had it been since I'd felt such overwhelming emotion?
When I broke through the 100th wave with a single goblin?
When I received my first donation from a viewer?
The moment I cleared the 700th wave with the Lord's Miracle?
No.
This wasn't something that could be described with that level of emotion.
‘Rather…’
Back when I first Awakened.
When I didn't know how high the walls of reality surrounding the world were.
It was similar to the overwhelming feeling I had back then.
[Exiting 「Monsters Are Blocked by Monsters」.]
I pushed the status window aside as if tossing it away.
And then, like a zombie, I rose from my chair and threw myself onto the bed.
It was time to succumb to the crushing wave of sleep.
[Calculating rewards.]
Thanks to that, I didn't immediately notice the status window I'd pushed to the edge of my vision begin to flash.
* * *
“Reward calculation?”
After being passed out for a full twelve hours.
Only then was I able to check the status window that had been forlornly neglected for those twelve hours.
[701st Wave Reward Calculation]
The information displayed was concise.
But the information below it was not.
[You have repelled Count Gular and his Dragon Fang unit! The Count never would have dreamed that he and his elites would die by the spoon! Ah, but now he can't dream even if he wanted to!]
The message read as if it had watched my entire sixty-hour playthrough.
And below the chatty message, the specific rewards were listed.
[The Dream Lord's Castle has acquired spoils of war. Acquired Spoils: Wyvern Bones x20, Half-Dragon Scales x10, Half-Dragon Heart x5]
“Spoils of war?”
The concept of spoils was unfamiliar.
In the original 'MonMonMak', the reward for fending off a wave was simple.
Only gold.
But the status window version of MonMonMak was different.
There was no gold on the rewards list.
Instead, there were 'spoils of war', and byproducts extracted from monsters were listed.
I touched my earlobe to check for more detailed information.
A new message immediately appeared, overlaying the previous one.
[The 'Manufacturing Room' for utilizing spoils can be used upon meeting certain conditions.]
“Manufacturing Room?”
My eyes shot open.
The only rooms you could build in the original MonMonMak were barracks for stationing monsters or darkrooms for traps.
But a Manufacturing Room meant.
‘I can build special rooms, too!’
I'd made a mistake.
I should have gathered more information before the 'MonMonMak' screen disappeared.
Of course, the situation before the wave started and after it ended wasn't exactly conducive to that.
Next time, I'll be sure to obsessively collect all the new information about MonMonMak.
With firm resolve, I touched my earlobe.
[Two conditions for the skill 「Conversation with the Lord」 have been met. * Defend against a monster wave 1/1, Play for over 50 hours 1/1]
Come to think of it, I did have the 'Conversation with the Lord' skill.
During this wave, the Lord had reverted from the previous awe-inspiring, overpowered character to just a pretty decoration.
Once this skill was unlocked, I had a mountain of questions to ask this pretty decoration.
‘Alright, next.’
[Confirming the final reward.]
I nodded and moved on to the final reward section.
And then.
“……Huh?”
This time, I truly froze, unable to say a word.
* * *
“I'm sorry. Even if I had ten mouths, I'd have no excuse for this.”
The next morning.
Against the backdrop of a clear autumn sky, I was bowing my head in apology.
Flutter.
A pigeon took flight.
Thankfully, no bird droppings fell on the back of my neck to add to the humiliation.
Not that it lessened the embarrassment I was feeling.
“No, it's okay, Hunter Kim Hanul! Y-You don't have to do this! You explained the situation last night!”
In front of me, the Hunter I once dedicated my life to fangirling over was waving her hands in dismay.
Yoon Sua of the Pungbaek Guild.
I'll admit it again.
She was worth dedicating my life to fangirling over.
She was an angel.
An angel who, after being stood up two days in a row by some no-name Hunter, understood everything after a single phone call and came running.
“Sorry? You think a simple 'sorry' is enough?”
Of course, I hadn't known that after being stood up once, she had waited here the next day as well.
Yoon Sua, naturally, hadn't mentioned it during our call yesterday.
So I probably would have never known.
“Hey, you! Do you have any idea how many hours our Sua waited here for two days because of you?”
The man currently glaring daggers at me from beside Yoon Sua and snapping at me.
…if it weren't for Yoon Suhyeok, the vice guild master of the Pungbaek Guild.
“Ugh, if the management office hadn't contacted me, she would have waited all day in this cold weather!”
I completely understand.
He had every right to be angry.
Yoon Suhyeok and his younger sister, Yoon Sua, were famous in this field for their close bond.
“Oppa.”
“I even canceled today's dungeon expedition because of you! I was worried our Sua would be freezing her butt off in the dead of winter waiting for some bum again!”
“It's still early autumn, Oppa. And that's enough…”
But his true nature seemed a bit more twisted than that.
In any case, Yoon Suhyeok scrunched up his handsome face and started breathing fire again.
“Just thinking about you standing Sua up two days in a row makes me want to shove flames into your scalp and burn you from the inside out…”
“Vice Guild Master.”
In that instant, the atmosphere changed.
The air, which had been blazing as hotly as Yoon Suhyeok's ability, turned ice-cold in a flash.
Gulp.
While maintaining my best poker face, I swallowed hard at the sudden shift in atmosphere.
Gulp.
And I heard the sound of a dry swallow from somewhere else.
It was the sound coming from the throat of the S-rank Hunter and Pungbaek's vice guild master, who was now the target of Yoon Sua's icy gaze.
“Uh, uh-huh. What is it?”
“Did you accompany me just to act so informally?”
Yoon Sua's voice was as cold as ice fresh from the freezer.
In contrast, Yoon Suhyeok looked at her with a warm smile.
But it was a smile like a broken heater.
The beads of sweat trickling down from his dyed-blonde hair were proof.
“Uh, no. I'm sorry, Sua. I got worked up because this is the first time our Sua has been stood up like this. So, please calm down, and let's talk like we usually do, okay?”
Yoon Sua let out a faint sigh.
Then, returning to her usual self, she continued.
“I told you it wasn't like that. It's not like Hunter Hanul asked me to come here personally. And Hunter Hanul is a benefactor to our guild. At least, he is to me. What kind of attitude is that toward him? If you're going to be like that, go back right now.”
“No. I was just…”
Yoon Suhyeok, who had opened his mouth with an aggrieved expression, shut it as if under a spell.
Yoon Sua had simply stared at him.
That alone was enough for Yoon Suhyeok to quietly zip his lips.
Anyone who met her gaze head-on would have done the same.
After zipping her one and only brother's mouth shut, Yoon Sua turned to me with a smile.
“I'm sorry, Hunter Hanul. He can be a bit like this sometimes…”
“It's alright. I completely understand.”
I replied, my words carrying multiple meanings as I glanced at Yoon Suhyeok, who was drooping like a rain-soaked puppy.
Yoon Sua nodded and asked.
“So, should we process the payment for the ogre first? Or the other thing you requested?”
The payment, of course, was important.
But right now, it was time to confirm something far more important.
I smiled and said.
“Let's start with what I mentioned, please.”
* * *
“Ah, no. Uh, I mean.”
The employee who had accepted the goblin hearts three days ago with a grimace looked incredibly haggard.
And for good reason.
He probably never expected an E-rank Hunter to show up before him, flanked by the current 5th and 16th ranked Hunters.
“So, you're saying that you, Hunter Kim Hanul, really hunted the ogre?”
The employee asked, looking at me.
But I kept my mouth shut.
This wasn't a matter for me to answer.
“Yes, I confirmed it. Given the situation at the time, there was no room for another Hunter to have intervened.”
Instead, the witness sitting beside me nodded with a firm gaze.
It was Yoon Sua.
When she'd learned I was an E-rank, her pupils had shaken as if an earthquake had struck, but thankfully, that wasn't the case now.
“Is there a problem?”
“Ah, well, there's no separate evidence or data…”
“Are you saying you don't believe my sister?”
The blond young man shoved his face toward the hesitant employee's counter.
“You think the Pungbaek Guild would come here over one Hunter and…”
“Vice Guild Master.”
“Uh, Sua!”
“Please sit down quietly.”
“Okay!”
The vice guild master, who had intervened to uphold the guild's honor, quietly returned to his original seat.
“I'm sorry, but this wasn't an S-rank gate that required a guild coalition, and it was an unofficial subjugation that wasn't even exposed to the media. That's why we couldn't secure any separate evidence.”
“Is this not enough?”
At this point, I finally spoke up.
“I'm sure I wasn't told a few days ago that I needed to thoroughly prepare separate evidence.”
“That's true. But this is an unprecedented case, so…”
The employee muttered with a troubled and intimidated expression.
Well, it is unprecedented.
A Hunter who's never been on an expedition went into an E-rank gate to hunt goblins and came back with an ogre.
Normally, they would have kicked me out, calling it bullshit, or conducted a thorough investigation even with a witness.
If that witness hadn't been Yoon Sua of Pungbaek, one of Korea's top three guilds.
“P-Please wait a moment. I'll check with my supervisor.”
In the end, the employee used the ultimate move only available to civil servants and disappeared.
Ten minutes later, he returned to the counter, still looking haggard.
“I've inquired, and the person in charge of licenses said it's fine.”
“That's a relief.”
“B-But there is one procedure that's necessary. If the Hunter had hunted a D-rank monster, it wouldn't matter, but since this is an ogre, which ranges from C-rank to B-rank at minimum…”
The hesitant employee glanced around before carefully speaking.
“They said we need to confirm whether to raise your rank to match the monster, or to follow procedure and raise it to D-rank…”
Aha.
So that's what it was about.
“You want to re-measure my stats before the promotion, right?”
“Yes. That's… correct. They said that if your stats are the same as your previous license records, we would have to reconsider the promotion itself for safety reasons. Because this point-based promotion system itself was an issue approved under the first Director's administration…”
Even as he answered, the employee glanced at Yoon Sua.
In a way, it could be seen as him not believing her words.
A public servant, even under orders from his superiors, still has to walk on eggshells like this.
That's just how influential Korea's top three guilds were.
“…”
But for some reason, Yoon Sua was looking at me with an apologetic expression.
As if she felt this happened because her own influence was lacking.
There's no need for that.
“Fine. Let's do it right now, the measurement.”
A stat measurement. Just what I was hoping for.
It was time to reveal the ace up my sleeve, the one I'd gotten as a reward.