The Weakest of the S-Class (1)
Chased out by Go Seok-gu as good as expelled, Lee Jun made a beeline for Seoul.
It was seven o'clock, the sun already slanting low. Even accounting for the longer summer days, darkness would be falling soon. Normally, dungeon entry after sundown was prohibited for safety reasons—but Lee Jun was the only S-Class hunter in South Korea. Setting up an exception for someone like him took no effort at all.
"Phew. Good thing I tucked that clause in back then."
Having fought tooth and nail with the government when the hunter laws were being drafted was proving its worth. That said, there was one small problem.
"Huh… it's way too empty in here."
The plains that should have been crawling with monsters at midday were bare and vacant. Given that Seoul Dungeon boasted the highest daily traffic of any dungeon in the country thanks to its location, it made sense. He hadn't visited in a while, but apparently the monsters here were still being culled down to the last one every single day.
"Respawn's at midnight… I didn't just waste a trip, did I?"
It was already common knowledge that Seoul Dungeon's boss monster got farmed daily. He'd come hoping at least one or two elite monsters might still be lingering, but from the looks of it, even those had been wiped clean today.
"Hmm… maybe I'll just wait for the respawn and take the boss myself…."
Lee Jun mentally ran through one of the scenarios he'd drawn up in advance. But idling away the five hours he had left here felt like a waste—and it wasn't as if he had any other errands nearby. He'd shaken off the reporters with real effort to get here; he didn't want to squander the time like this.
"Whatever the Association needs handled… I'd feel pretty awkward crawling back in right now."
The moment he set foot in the Association, Go Seok-gu would have him by the collar and fold him in half. Regrettably, his meeting with the Director of the Technology Bureau would have to wait.
That left exactly one option. A little reckless, perhaps… but there was something he'd been meaning to test.
"Might as well check the state of my body while I'm at it. No need to rush."
Murmuring this, Lee Jun started walking toward the abandoned building visible in the distance.
Whoooosh—
The cold wind bit at his nose. It was midsummer in July, but dungeons doing whatever they pleased with their interiors was nothing new. Not that Seoul Dungeon was high-grade enough to develop its own climate—which meant…
"Something strange is sleeping down here, isn't there."
Lee Jun stepped into the abandoned building. Well, "inside" was a generous term—he'd dug nearly fifty meters down to get here, but close enough. The fact that a shovel was conveniently waiting down here was part of the respawn mechanics too. It was technically a dungeon item; haul one out and sell it each day, and wouldn't that make decent pocket money?
"Ugh. Look at me, thinking about pointless stuff."
Digging fifty meters through earth alone with a shovel was brutal labor fit for an Egyptian slave. But martial-art hunters could do this kind of thing without batting an eye. Lee Jun counted among them, technically… though at the moment his arms were trembling.
"Damn it all. If I've got no mana, shouldn't I at least get some perks in this department?"
But no one was listening to complaints. Fine—a thousand people gained powers, and it's only fair that the token incompetent gets one too. Unbelievable.
"Haah… anyway, the real question is whether I can clear this with the body I've got."
The digging had taken him nearly an hour. Less than four remained until respawn. He needed to be out of here by then, at the very latest.
'This place isn't clearable in a day or two anyway. I'll just poke down to the third floor for now.'
With that decided, Lee Jun stood before an enormous door. This was a multi-level double dungeon descending into the earth. Buried this deep, finding it was like plucking a star from the sky—especially since no anomaly whatsoever registered on the surface. Its discovery had been pure chance: some gadget-obsessed maniac had unloaded a satellite's orbital bombardment right on this spot until the thing overloaded, supposedly as a "new technology field test." Ended up drilling straight through the poor dungeon boss's skull.
The result was the discovery of this dungeon entrance, fifty meters underground. Safety, at least, had been assured—he'd analyzed nearly a month of hunter movement data and picked a spot where no one's footsteps would ever reach. The only snag was that the person who'd lured the boss monster two kilometers from its spawn point to this very place had been Lee Jun himself.
"…"
Still, he chose to look on the bright side. Thanks to that, he'd discovered the location of this double dungeon, and confirmed it truly sat where no human footfall would ever disturb it. And compared to his other work… it had practically been child's play, so calling it a fond memory wouldn't be wrong.
After a brief drift down memory lane, Lee Jun collected himself and placed both hands on the door. He shoved the three-meter slab of wood with all his strength from both sides.
Creeeeeeak—
Thud—
Lighter than it looked, the door swung wide in a billow of dust.
"Whew…."
A chill rolled out from within. Presumably because the first floor of the double dungeon carried a snowfield theme. Each floor of this dungeon had its own. Most dungeons contained only a single theme, but this one was an exception—or perhaps each floor simply counted as its own dungeon. It hardly mattered to a hunter. Hunters only needed to clear the place.
"What was it called again… the Ant Nest?"
The Director of the Technology Bureau had named it after seeing the distinct themes on each floor. Something about how it resembled an ant colony, with a different purpose for every chamber. Whatever the name, the rewards this place offered were more than generous.
'…Liberation of Potential.'
In the world before his regression, they had cleared up to the fifteenth floor—but even that wasn't the end. The reward for the fifteenth floor was the Liberation of Potential. Even that floor alone was historic, and they'd confirmed a sixteenth existed beyond it. Who knew how far the Ant Nest actually extended? No telling what kind of reward would be waiting for whoever cleared it to the very end.
"If I can awaken my potential… maybe I'll finally get mana."
That was the first hope regression-era Lee Jun had staked everything on. One way or another, he would claim the fifteenth floor's reward and unlock it.
"And the other floors' rewards are pretty decent too… so this should work out fine."
Today's targets—the first through third floors—offered rewards of moderate quality. None of them were types Lee Jun personally favored, but once he got his management company off the ground, his contracted hunters could use them. And if anything proved truly useless, he could always sell it or hand it over to the Association.
"Whew…."
Plan set, Lee Jun faced the cold head-on and set out to conquer the Ant Nest.
Lee Jun's fundamental combat style was rooted in body technique. He could handle a variety of weapons to a degree, but his core was bare-handed close-quarters fighting.
'No internal mana.'
But he had been exposed to the mana in the air for a long, long time, and he'd reaped the benefits thoroughly. His physical abilities might lose out to other hunters', yet he stood far, far beyond the realm of ordinary humans.
Swoosh—
He slipped past the lunging Saber Tiger's attack and stomped down on its tail. The beast's center of gravity collapsed mid-swing, and its forepaw slammed into the ground.
BOOM!
"Whoa there."
Felines like this one favored attacks with their forepaws. A Saber Tiger's fangs were threatening too, but at anything beyond close range, those paws were the only real concern.
Which made the collarbone the first target. The moment he released the pinned tail, the beast spun its body around, readying its next strike. Lee Jun wheeled in the opposite direction and drove a kick into the collarbone.
Crack—
The blow landed exactly where he wanted it, shattering bone. He couldn't reinforce his body with mana, but he still had a hunter's physique. Lee Jun layered experience and explosive reflexes on top of that foundation, carving his way through each situation as it came.
"Hoo…."
Left forepaw: out of commission. And for a four-legged beast, the forepaws were also its means of movement. Naturally, the creature's weight sagged to the left.
Shing—
A dagger had appeared in Lee Jun's hand at some point—drawn from the watch-like device on his wrist. Another of the Technology Bureau Director's creations: the so-called Pocket. A scientific replica of the subspace pouches that occasionally surfaced as artifacts. It was one of his favorite inventions of hers. With this one thing, grocery shopping became an absolute breeze.
"Grrrr…."
The sudden appearance of a blade seemed to spook the Saber Tiger; it let out a low growl. But at this stage, there was precious little it could do.
Tak—
Lee Jun flung the dagger and launched himself after it. The blade flew straight for the beast's brow—but the tiger wasn't wounded there yet, and its head snapped aside, dodging the throw with startling speed.
Except the throw was only the setup. The real follow-through came next.
Thud—
"Grrraaaargh!"
He was faster than a dagger thrown with deliberately slackened force. The toss existed solely to steal the Saber Tiger's attention—the true killing blow was this blade in his hand.
A cheap trick. But low-intelligence monsters really were this stupid.
'And… it's obvious, too.'
Without even pausing to retrieve his dagger, Lee Jun flung himself sideways.
KRAAAK—
Where he'd been standing, a second Saber Tiger's forepaw came crashing down. It had crept close while he was occupied with the first. With no mana of his own, sensing enemies by reading their mana flow was impossible for him—which was exactly why he'd trained his five senses to their absolute limit.
Sight. Hearing. Smell. Senses honed to a razor's edge read the shape of the battlefield moment by moment. And even mid-combat, Lee Jun never stopped watching his surroundings. Detection work had belonged to specialized comrades back in the day, but as solo engagements piled up, he'd learned the necessity himself.
After all, it wasn't as if only one or two people in this line of work had crossed the river of no return via ambush.
Lee Jun righted his stance and drew a second dagger from the Pocket.
"Whew…."
He steadied his breathing, deliberate and controlled. An old habit, worn into his bones long ago. Gathering a breath that wasn't even labored, he gripped the dagger tight.
'Three around me, is it?'
Two more besides the one in front of him. The small mercy was that the beast he'd been fighting until moments ago now lay with its skull caved in under the lead one's paws.
"I've got to take you all down anyway. Might as well appreciate you coming at me in a pack."
Murmuring this, he found himself mentally reviewing the arsenal stored in his Pocket.
"Hmm… the third floor might be pushing it."
The Ant Nest was never designed to be cleared solo in the first place. Each floor was effectively a dungeon unto itself. In its previous cycle, the Ant Nest had already been rated a final S+ grade. Even the first floor alone was B-Class territory. Nowhere near easy.
To be fair, a top-tier A-Class hunter or an S-Class could sweep a B-Class dungeon solo without breaking a sweat. Even the buffers and healers among the S-Class could solo a B-Class dungeon.
But that grading system didn't apply to Lee Jun the same way. He was S-Class, same as the rest of them. A defective S-Class—and everyone knew it. Even Lee Jun himself.
And yet.
S-Class was still S-Class.
"Haah… haah…."
His breath was starting to labor. Somewhere along the way, countless Saber Tiger corpses had piled up around him, and a matching number of weapons lay scattered across the ground—a chipped sword, a spear with a snapped haft, an axe buried deep in the dirt. The only weapon left in Lee Jun's hand was a single handgun.
A maximally modified model, loaded with top-grade mana rounds—but even so, it lacked real stopping power. Worth exactly what he'd paid for it, nothing more. In an age where firearms simply didn't work, a hunter with no gun-related skills was something nobody spared a second glance.
Lee Jun, however, had nothing to hide. Any damage was damage, so everything went into the Pocket first and got sorted out later.
"Whew…."
BANG—
BANG—
BANG—
BANG— BANG— BANG— BANG—
Dozens of rounds hammered into a single point, one after another. Reload, reload, reload again. He fired as many shots as it took until the Saber Tiger's skull finally caved in.
"God, this thing is stubborn."
Having emptied three magazines in the end, Lee Jun tucked the gun back into the Pocket. Then he leaned against one of the Saber Tiger carcasses strewn about and caught his breath. From the Pocket he pulled out his phone and checked the time, casually ignoring the flood of messages and reading only the digits.
Elapsed time… one hour and twelve minutes. The third floor was clearly out of reach today.
With that judgment made, Lee Jun rose from where he sat and headed for the second floor.
His break had lasted all of three minutes.