42. My Buff is a Drug
42. My Buff is a Drug
The moment they entered the otherworld, the exam began.
Hye-yong surveyed their surroundings first.
The sound of lapping waves.
He could see the ocean and a beach.
It felt like the entire island was the otherworld.
"What's the plan?"
"The monsters get stronger the further in you go, so let's push in just deep enough to farm D-ranks or so."
"Sounds good."
Students who had clustered up with their parties debated the plan, then headed into the island.
Hye-yong needed to find his own party members too.
'Where'd they go?'
As he kept scanning the area, he spotted some familiar girls waving at him.
Since Hye-yong had been at the very back of the line, he had no choice but to arrive last.
"Everyone's here."
"I-it's r-really s-starting now...!"
Seo Ha-yoon was pretty wound up, wasn't she.
Instead of dealing with the stammering Seo Ha-yoon, Hye-yong decided to take the lead and ask Ah-yeong the questions.
"We're all gathered, so what's the plan now?"
"From what I've studied, when an island this big is the otherworld, the island itself becomes one big dungeon."
"Meaning it can get dangerous anywhere."
"Exactly. We'll have to take turns on night watch even when we sleep."
Night watch.
A really shitty phrase, but with this party, the story was different.
A chance to sit together late at night and chat intimately.
A man and a woman sitting together in the silent night...
He didn't know exactly what would happen, but something would happen.
'Isn't this a scene that pops up in manhwa all the damn time?'
Hye-yong was already counting his chickens.
"Hold on, I got a map."
It seemed they'd handed out maps separately to the leader of each party.
Choi Ah-young unfolded the map.
The rough shape of the island was laid out.
She placed her finger on the left side, where the coastline was visible.
"Our current location is right here."
Her finger moved gradually inward.
"The stronger monsters will probably show up the further in we go, right?"
Next, she pointed to the dead center of the island.
"I think the dungeon and the core will be around here."
After a brief explanation, she slid her finger all the way back out.
"This is where we'll set up. We need to pick out E-rank to E+ Rank monsters and take them down."
E-rank to E+ Rank.
It certainly looked a bit shabby, but at least there probably wouldn't be any competition with other parties.
Not that it was something to be happy about, of course.
'Still, this is an exam with a high chance of failure.'
Living here for a week while hunting fifty monsters apiece was never going to be easy.
Even if our rank was a bit low, if we executed perfectly, it would serve as a steady stepping stone for growth.
'I'm not saying there won't be any competition... but up until C-rank, your own effort matters more than competing against others.'
They just had to do their part well.
He decided to refine the buffs he would give his party members.
[ Flower's Feast ]
Cognitive Filter applied
Stamina stat 5 level increase
Protection stat 5 level increase
Confidence boost while holding a shield 2 level increase (output hidden)
Exclusive to Seo Ha-yoon
[ Power Surge ]
Strength stat 7 level increase
One-handed sword proficiency 2 level increase
Exclusive to Chae Hwa-ra
[ Sword's Enlightenment ]
Longsword proficiency 4 level increase
Strength stat 3 level increase
Agility stat 3 level increase
Exclusive to Choi Ah-young
[ Archer's Confidence ]
Bow proficiency 4 level increase
Bow power 2 level increase
Strength stat 4 level increase
Bow shooting accuracy 5 level increase (output hidden)
Exclusive to Na Hee-yeon
[ Firearm Proficiency Enhancement ]
Handgun proficiency 7 level increase
Handgun shooting accuracy 8 level increase
Self-cast only
'Done. This much should be more than enough of a boost.'
Hadn't the party's strength risen to the point where they could at least handle D-rank monsters?
Especially for Chae Hwa-ra, just boosting her strength felt off, so he'd thrown in a one-handed sword proficiency option too.
And he had no plans to boost the firepower of his handgun unless it was absolutely necessary.
It was already quite powerful on its own, and if he punched through a D-rank monster's mana barrier to deal full damage, it would be practically advertising that he had a related trait.
The goal for today—no, for the whole week!
Clear it safely and amicably.
"Shall we get moving?"
"Let's."
Ah-yeong and Hye-yong decided on the direction to go, and they all huddled together and cautiously advanced, wary of any enemy they might suddenly run into.
But along the way, a strange thing happened.
Choi Ah-young, who had been walking down the forest path, suddenly vanished.
"What the—!?"
Startled, Hye-yong stopped in his tracks.
"Ah-yeong? Choi Ah-young?"
As Hye-yong glanced around with a bewildered look, Seo Ha-yoon started stammering badly.
"Wha, wh-wha, what? S-someth-thing, s-something wrong!?"
"Ah-yeong just disappeared."
Just then, Chae Hwa-ra clomped over and stuck her arm straight into the spot where Ah-yeong had vanished.
"Hey, H-Hwa-ra?"
"Fufu! What is there to fear, comrade? This is merely a passage where offerings to 'That Person' exist."
A passage?
Was she saying this was normal?
"The field in this otherworld seems to use an encounter system."
The moment he heard Na Hee-yeon's words, Hye-yong wondered if it was that kind of encounter he was thinking of.
In classic RPGs, didn't the screen just change and enemies appear simply from walking around the forest?
It sounded like there were monsters if you passed through here.
Swoosh!
Chae Hwa-ra glanced at Hye-yong's flustered face, gave a little smirk, and walked inside.
For an instant, her figure seemed to undulate up and down before vanishing into the space.
'Wow. That's cool as hell. These girls really live in a world where this kind of thing is normal.'
As expected of another world.
If it's another world, you've got to have at least one thing like this, right?
Hye-yong decided to stop spacing out and go in himself.
'I don't feel anything when I step in, though...'
Once inside, a different kind of mountain path greeted him.
"I was wondering why you were taking so long."
It looked like Choi Ah-young had taken off her backpack and was waiting for the group.
Seeing Ah-young had set down her heavy pack, Chae Hwa-ra immediately took hers off as well and leaned it beside the other.
Hye-yong went in and, openly showing how amazed he was, said,
"I've never seen anything like this. It's really fascinating."
He figured that would prompt Choi Ah-young to explain.
Choi Ah-young briefly wore a look that said, "You didn't know this either?" but she seemed to have gotten used to it, as her face returned to its intellectual expression and she explained.
"When you wander through the otherworld, you can often find passages that seem like someone cut and pasted dimensions together. That's called a random encounter—everyone just calls them encounters."
"Oh... I see. I've only done raids where you fight one monster a day and that's it, so I didn't know."
"That's because the rank is low. Up to E+ rank, you usually just face one boss. The moment you hit D-rank, the otherworld is mostly like this—you have to roam the field looking for the boss."
So this kind of thing existed too.
He was learning something new every day.
"Well... haa."
As they talked, Seo Ha-yoon and Na Hee-yeon also set their bags down.
"Hye-yong, you put your backpack down too. Let's rest a bit before the fight and then go."
"Alright."
Ugh, Hye-yong sighed and took his off where the rest of the group had placed theirs.
Putting the heavy backpack down felt like having a haste spell cast on him.
Pop! Pop!
Maybe because he'd accumulated a lot of fatigue even with that spell on, his shoulders made a series of popping sounds as he loosened them.
The stat difference must be pretty big.
'What would've happened if I hadn't boosted my stamina at least?'
It felt especially heavy, probably because he'd deleted the Backpack-Carrying Specialist buff earlier while checking his teammates' buffs.
"We're still at the entrance, so I don't think any strong enemies will show up... but let's stay alert. We don't know how to counter them like we do every time we get a briefing."
The enemies here were indeed random.
The monsters that appeared in this otherworld were bound to show up, but since you couldn't know who you'd face, you also didn't know how to deal with them.
They definitely had to stay tense...
Gulp!
Tremble, tremble!
At the words to stay alert, Seo Ha-yoon gulped and even started trembling.
You seem like you need to calm down a bit!
'Let's cast at least a level 1 Comfortable Feeling on her.'
With that thought, Hye-yong temporarily deleted a buff he had on himself and created a buff for Seo Ha-yoon, casting it on her.
"Huh...?"
Seo Ha-yoon, realizing a buff had been cast on her, looked at Hye-yong.
"Ha-yoon, you need to chill out. Take a deep breath after getting that buff, deep breaths!"
"R, r-right!"
Huuup, haaah.
Huuup, haaah.
After repeating the deep breath about four times, Seo Ha-yoon's face looked a little more at ease.
"I-is it thanks t-to the buff? S-still, I feel k-kind of calmer."
"You don't need to be that nervous. We've done well so far. The enemies we'll see here won't be a big deal."
"Y-yeah. Knowing and not knowing are different, so I think I got too nervous. Thanks, Hye-yong."
Good, well done, Seo Ha-yoon.
Just keep fixing it little by little like that.
"Let's rest just one more minute and then head out."
"But is it okay to leave our backpacks here? Other parties can come in here too, right? What if they just take them all?"
He thought maybe he was being overly cautious, but he still felt he had to ask.
"It's fine. The encounter zone closes about five minutes after you first enter."
"Then what, if we don't finish it within five minutes, we can't get out either?"
"Hmm. It's not like that. We can leave since we're already inside the encounter zone."
Choi Ah-young smiled as if to say, "Worried about everything, are you?"
'Then that's a relief.'
A minute had already passed during that talk.
"Shall we go? To check out our first opponent in this exam."
"Sounds good. Let's get off on the right foot."
"Fufu! This body is ready to fight at any time!"
The party walked along the forest path.
What appeared at the end of it was...
"It's a One-Eyed Spike-Tailed Lizard!"
Choi Ah-young shouted.
The name really just sounded like a literal description of how it looked.
A brown cyclops lizard, about five meters long and one meter tall, stared at the party with its huge eye and flicked its tongue.
'Eugh, creepy.'
Its skin looked inexplicably damp.
Spikes jutted out irregularly around its tail.
And for some reason, it had six legs.
Most of all, the source of revulsion was the large, chilling eye typical of reptiles.
'Let's get rid of it fast.'
With that in mind, he cast buffs on everyone.
Having received her buff, Choi Ah-young briskly gave orders.
"Rank varies from E to E+ depending on the individual. Once it fully registers you as an enemy, it approaches at a pretty high speed, so we have to be careful. It's one of those monsters whose aggro is really erratic since you can't easily predict its behavior patterns. Ha-yoon! You protect Hye-yong."
"R-right! I'll p-protect him for sure!"
Seo Ha-yoon, who had been at the front, backed up and glued herself to Hye-yong's side.
She probably didn't need to stick that close, but being protected by a petite beauty with a timid personality didn't feel too bad.
"The eye is big so it's a weak point, but it won't die even if the eye gets wrecked. If it gets injured, it goes berserk so much that getting close is hard even in melee! For now, it'll be way more effective to soften it up with ranged attacks first. Hee-yeon, get ready to attack!"
"Got it!"
Slither...
As if sensing some kind of movement from this side, the lizard continuously flicked its forked tongue and rolled its eye.
Then it busily moved its six legs and approached.
It was like a giant cockroach coming closer.
Its speed was quite fast too, clearly a signal of aggression.
Whooaaah...!
Na Hee-yeon took a bead out of the case at her waist and infused it with magical power. The bead soon swelled and transformed into an arrow.
He'd seen it before, but it was still fascinating every time.
A substance that remembered the shape of mana, was it?
It was said to be the most common of the new materials from the otherworld and the one that had been successfully commercialized.
Thwack!
Na Hee-yeon hit the lizard directly in the eye with her arrow.
"A h-hit!"
The bow shooting accuracy increase option seemed to have done its job.
"Kshaaaaaaaah!"
Hit in the eye by the arrow and staggered, the lizard began to rampage.
The mark of the arrow embedded deep in its eye was quite gruesome.
"Nice, Hee-yeon!"
Hye-yong, recalling that it was useful to sap its strength with ranged attacks, also drew his Burst Wolf.
[ Firearm Proficiency Enhancement ]
Handgun proficiency 7 level increase
Handgun shooting accuracy 8 level increase
Self-cast only
He cast the buff he'd recreated on himself, then aimed at the eye and fired three shots.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
One shot missed because it was thrashing too much, but two shots lodged properly in the eye.
"Ksyyaaaaaak!"
Bubble, bubble...
Pop!
As the mana bullet entered the soft eye, the fluid inside seemed to boil, and then—fwoomp!—the eye burst.
It rampaged, spinning around in place, and after about twenty seconds, its movements grew much slower, as if it was exhausted.
"Hwa-ra, now we have to finish it off!"
"At last, it is time for me to shine!"
Because ranged attacks didn't work well on parts other than the eye, it was up to the melee dealers to end it.
Slash!
"Shyaak!"
Slash!
When its whole body was hacked up, it started rampaging again, but the rampage no longer had any real force behind it.
Toyed with by the two of them, the One-eyed Spike-tailed Lizard soon lost the strength to resist and went completely limp.
Seizing the moment without hesitation, Choi Ah-young pulled a capsule from her backpack and absorbed the monster's mana.
As if to say "One down," Choi Ah-young held up the capsule and showed it to her party members.
So this was how they'd do it!