Chapter 6
Chapter 6
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 6
Chapter Title: Monster Gacha
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The day before, I had collapsed from exhaustion and fallen into a deep sleep.
When I woke up in bed, something felt different.
My condition was at its peak.
"Why do I feel so refreshed?"
My body felt light as if I had slept like a log, almost floating.
"Gasp."
A moment later, I realized something tremendous had happened to me.
"Fi, finally…!"
It was something utterly unbelievable.
"I have a Status Window!!"
I ran around the room, expressing my joy with my whole body.
I had awakened, but I never had a Status Window.
Without one, I couldn't learn any skills.
Naturally, I couldn't even dream of gaining experience from killing monsters.
People called me a half-baked hunter because of it.
An awakened hunter with no growth potential—a tragic one.
Just a tiny bit stronger than a regular non-awakened person.
That was the extent of it.
How much I had resented it all this time.
Seeing those who awakened later than me grow so quickly filled me with emptiness.
Why couldn't I do the same?
It was infuriating.
Even after graduating from Hunter Academy, I worked as a porter, not a hunter.
The lowest-paid porter at that.
It was the same even after going to the Eldorado Continent in this other world. In the end, I came back empty-handed.
Back on Earth, not a single person greeted me, not even a call.
Well, that's just my place in the world right now.
Anyway, none of those trivial things mattered now.
The Status Window.
Having it open up huge possibilities for me.
It meant I now had the potential to grow.
Of course, getting a Status Window didn't mean everything would fall into place right away.
If it did, the other porters would have jumped into dungeons long ago to become monster-hunting hunters.
Of course, the stats on my Status Window were at the absolute bottom.
No traits or skills listed, and every category marked with an F. Even with a minus next to each F.
Still, I was thrilled.
Between a hunter whose growth had stalled no matter how hard they tried, and one with even a sliver of growth potential ahead—it's obvious which is better.
For me, this was just the beginning.
'Now that I have a Status Window, I should get that mana inspection done for real.'
The government mana inspection notice that came because I couldn't be reached while on the Eldorado Continent.
I had the Status Window now, but I planned to keep quiet about my trip there for the time being.
I didn't know how I got it, but it had nothing to do with the Eldorado Continent anyway.
Even with the Status Window, my current stats were still rock bottom.
No one would suspect anything during the mana inspection.
"After that, I'll look for porter work again."
With the Status Window, it should be much easier than before.
Speaking of which, I decided to check out the Inventory skill.
I logged into the Hunter Market site, which sells various hunter items and skills.
But price was still the issue.
"An Inventory with just one slot costs 10 million won…"
Just one slot, only able to hold one type of item, for 10 million won.
And even that was sold out.
'Tch.'
Of course, having it was better than nothing.
A porter with even a single-slot Inventory who could endlessly store one type of item was worth more than one lugging a backpack and picking up items one by one.
Even if it wasn't sold out, I couldn't buy it right now anyway, and Inventory wasn't urgent.
It would help with porter work, sure, but my ultimate goal wasn't to be a porter.
I had no intention of ending my life as one.
Portering was just a means to make money and gain experience. My goal was to be a hunter who hunted monsters myself.
With nothing urgent to buy, I closed the Hunter Market site.
My eyes naturally drifted to the game.
'Come to think of it, I got an alert yesterday…'
Something about a sacrifice.
"Ah! The bug!"
I remembered.
The alert saying the lieutenant had offered a sacrifice to me.
The new Altar system that appeared when I expanded the dungeon yesterday.
I thought the Altar system was a chicken rib for now.
With Dungeon Stealth up, no intruders could come, and above all, my only monster, Celia, couldn't leave.
These penalties would lift eventually, but not yet.
And my assumption that no intruders would come was spectacularly wrong.
"What kind of bug let paid items pierce through?"
I logged into the game and checked the alert list.
The alert ended there.
"Abilities absorbed?"
I clicked through various tabs, but nothing seemed changed. Celia, set as my lieutenant, showed no stat increases or anything.
"Hm."
Guess the sacrifice named Yuel was just cannon fodder. Being fodder, the stat boost was so tiny it wasn't visible.
Makes sense—powerful foes wouldn't invade right from the start.
The problem was that even with Stealth up, guys like this could invade the dungeon anytime.
Maybe since the game was newly released, it was full of minor bugs.
So, there was one thing for me to do.
Proceed with the traps and monster placements I'd put off.
"After all, monsters are the flowers of a dungeon."
Basically, monster soldiers guarded dungeons.
That was true for dungeons on Earth and those on the Eldorado Continent.
This game, modeled after the Eldorado Continent, would be no different.
I headed straight to the shop and tapped the gacha tab.
It cost 550 gems to pull one monster. I'd seen gold before, but gems were new.
"How do you get gems? Can you buy them with real money?"
Not knowing gem prices, I couldn't tell if it was expensive or cheap.
I checked the shop to see if gems were cash-buyable.
"Whoa, why is this so expensive?"
550 gems per single pull, 5,000 for ten.
And 5,000 gems cost 55,000 won.
No extra perks for gacha either.
No guarantees for higher grades after so many pulls or anything.
Just that 10-pulls had slightly better value than singles…?
"The prices are insane."
Or maybe the devs were insane about money.
Whatever. I was in a good mood anyway.
With the double gem bonus, I bought 5,000 without hesitation.
'I got the Status Window now—this spending is nothing.'
No big burden.
The mail had a total of 10,000 gems.
"Time for 20 pulls!"
As soon as I got the 10,000 gems, I started pulling.
After five pulls, my face twisted.
"No way, only skeletons?"
All 1-star ones at that.
Their appearances were hopeless from the start.
The Skeleton Soldiers held rusty swords that looked ready to break.
The archers had plain wooden bows—clearly not good gear.
"And this mage is just holding a wooden stick."
Could it even cast magic like that?
At least I'd only done five pulls.
I touched the screen to continue.
Damn it.
Was this game nothing but skeletons?
And what's with "apprentice" and "trainee"?
They were cranking up the difficulty just to force synthesis.
Originally, I planned to do 10 pulls then immediately another 10.
But seeing this mess, I couldn't do back-to-back.
I tapped the monster tab and checked the list.
Truly a simple setup.
God, is this really a game?
Pathetic.
The three skeleton types had slight stat differences, but they were all pathetic.
Of course, better than my Status Window, but this was a game.
55,000 won for these?
My mood plummeted in real time.
At least, among the misfortunes, they had a synthesis system like the lieutenant.
A system where you consume two of the same monster to synthesize.
I had five Skeleton Soldiers and three archers.
I synthesized each pair.
Oh…
Synthesis brought a tiny change.
Then, synthesizing the 1-star archer apprentices turned them into a 2-star Skeleton Archer.
Like the lieutenant, it seemed this game's core mechanic was growth through synthesis.
"Still, only skeletons is crossing the line."
The 10 pulls used 5,000 gems.
5,000 left.
Normally, I'd pull again right away.
But after that skeleton flood, the urge vanished.
"Is there a bug in the gacha too?"
I checked announcements wondering if monsters varied by day of the week, but no announcements.
Better to save additional pulls for later.
No point wasting gems on more of these.
"Now, to deploy these guys…"
The important part: placing them in the dungeon.
Even same monster comps needed terrain-appropriate placement for efficiency.
But my dungeon was a long, narrow cave. Super tight width.
No cover spots.
Deploying here would be pointless?
"Can't change the internal structure?"
Even a wide plaza midway would help…
I checked the Dungeon Management tab for internal structure.
But.
Damn, why does this game have so many unavailable features?
"Tch."
I clicked my tongue and touched the screen.
Obviously, the dungeon-managing lieutenant would do better than me placing them manually.
I planned to leave how to use the gacha monsters entirely to the lieutenant.
I also set all dungeon-related tasks to lieutenant discretion in settings, then logged out.
I wouldn't be able to log in for a while.
With the Status Window, I'd do the mana inspection and find porter work—busy days ahead.
At least this way, it'd grow on its own like an idle game.