The Price of Numbers

It wasn’t only that.

In addition, a supplementary explanation stated that no matter what the current stat values were, any physical development gained through personal training could be applied directly to the body.

In other words, the numbers in the status window didn’t simply indicate the degree of one’s physical or mental strength. It was more accurate to view them as multipliers showing the level of reinforcement. A stat of 1 meant one times, becoming 2 meant two times, and so on.

So basic physical training is important as well.

The body could be trained through practice, but when it came to mental strength, he wondered if there was any personal way to reinforce it. Recalling the mages from the other world, he knew they expanded their vessels through mana breathing or meditation, yet he had no idea whether such methods would work here as well.

There are skills, too.

The skill window displayed various abilities divided into passive skills and active skills—those that applied automatically and those that required direct use.

Only rough categories were currently available; the rest had to be obtained or purchased directly.

There were subdivided passive skills such as Weapon Mastery for each type of weapon, along with consumable skills ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that spent mana to deliver temporarily powerful attacks.

However, the only skill currently available for purchase in the point mall was a passive one: Recovery Reinforcement for 100 points.

The description noted that if further improvement was required, the same skill could be sacrificed along with an additional set amount of points to raise the skill level.

Failure probability?

And, of course, a helpful note explained that skill enhancement carried a chance of failure.

It seemed every skill followed this same enhancement system. The more you attempted to raise a skill’s level by consuming identical skills and points, the lower the success rate became.

If this had been a real game, purchasing points with cash would probably have been possible, but no such option appeared. Still, it seemed points could be obtained through trade with other hunters, so hunting wasn’t the only way to acquire them.

In the end, points are what matter.

He remembered the female sniper’s earlier offhand remark about hunters who sold their bodies to earn points.

For a frail woman to awaken, she ultimately had no choice but to slip into groups of men and share the experience. To do that, she would need good connections… or she would have to use what she possessed.

He could picture the prospective hunters trying to impress awakened hunters, sometimes even offering their bodies just to join a hunt.

It did feel excessive, yet if the world truly worked this way, making a stable living without becoming a hunter would be nearly impossible. He couldn’t say he didn’t understand.

Wherever he looked, women used their bodies to secure work, earn money, or simply avoid starving to death. At least in the other world, he had never seen a woman do so merely for luxury or vanity. Would this side be any different?

Probably not much different.

Kang Tae-sung looked at the menu for the part he currently needed. It concerned how to handle the corpses of defeated monsters.

The default “Self-Resolution” option meant butchering or disposing of the monster or beast’s remains personally.

Selecting the other menu, “Automatic Butchering and Drop,” meant that hunted monsters would drop usable items and then disappear.

Both had advantages and disadvantages.

If handled personally, the byproducts obtained would equal the full yield from one complete monster—hide, bones, organs, everything.

However, butchering creatures with tough hides, resilient bodies, or highly acidic bodily fluids would not be ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠easy.

On the other hand, the automatic system’s advantage was that items such as hides and bones would drop already processed into usable forms without extra work. The downside was that, depending on probability, nothing might drop at all, or the quantities could be small.

Still, automatic drops also included a chance for regular items like weapons or armor, so it wasn’t entirely bad.

Automatic will be more convenient for now.

Deciding he had no leisure to spend time butchering, Kang Tae-sung set it to Automatic Butchering and Drop.

Following the guide voice and menu explanation, Kang Tae-sung butchered the wolves’ corpses one by one.

Because he had set it to automatic, simply looking at the corpse and thinking or speaking the activation word “Butcher” caused the body to vanish, leaving items in its place.

The wolf hides had been processed into neat one-meter-by-one-meter squares ready for immediate use.

Five wolves had only dropped three hides, which could be interpreted as two failing to drop while the other three succeeded. In reality, one wolf had dropped two hides while three dropped none.

If he had butchered them manually, he would have obtained every hide regardless of quality, but he knew how difficult it was to skin and properly process them. He felt no particular regret.

The items labeled wolf meat were deep-red chunks that felt like roughly five kilograms each. One dropped per wolf, though whether it was guaranteed remained unclear.

The leg bones and skulls looked exactly as described, clean with no clinging flesh or bloodstains.

The unexpected drop was a crude-looking spear apparently made from wolf bone. It was indeed a spear; while the shaft was wooden, the head and decorative parts consisted of wolf fangs and claws.

It didn’t appear particularly valuable at a glance, but since his hands were currently empty, he decided it was better than nothing and picked it up.

The subsequent guide voice informed him that, aside from trading between individuals, dropped items could also be exchanged for points.

Wolf hides were worth 0.1 points each, leg bones half that at 0.05, and skulls could be exchanged for a full 1 point—though what they were used for was unclear.

If he had a personal inventory, he would have swept everything inside, but checking the menu revealed that while personal inventories did exist, they could only be purchased from the point shop after reaching Level 3.

Just about every item and skill is cash-only.

Shaking his head, Kang Tae-sung remembered he possessed one object that could substitute for an inventory.

The leather pouch the King had given him still had plenty of space. He crouched down, swept all the scattered hides, meat, and bones into it, then stood up holding the wolf-bone spear.

When the women who had been hiding in the distance cautiously revealed themselves and approached, Kang Tae-sung finished reading the remaining system explanations he had yet to review.

So this is why leveling up is difficult.

He now understood why awakening as a hunter was so hard, and why accumulating experience even after awakening wasn’t easy.

Fundamentally, it came down to the penalty applied the more people were involved.

Though it varied by monster type, if a single monster held 1 experience point, hunting it completely alone would grant the full 1 point.

But if two people hunted it, they did not each receive 0.5. The base 1 point was first divided by 2 into 0.5, then divided by 2 again, leaving each with only 0.25.

In short, the more people who participated in subjugating a target, the lower both the experience and points it granted became. Those reduced amounts were then split among the participants.

The more people, the heavier the penalty. The system is telling us to move alone or in small numbers whenever possible.

Yet hunting monsters alone was practically suicidal unless one possessed considerable skill.

Instead of thinking that hunting in groups incurs a penalty, it might be better to think that the closer the number is to solo, the higher the reward.

That was why hunting monsters in large military groups inevitably yielded pitiful amounts of experience and points.

Only now did he truly understand the claim that spending two years in the army could lead to awakening. It showed just how difficult awakening really was.

Therefore, the gazes the women directed at him—someone who had awakened in a single instant here—could not possibly be ordinary. Some people sold their bodies just to join a hunting party, yet here was a man who had awakened without effort.

Still, once they considered that he had single-handedly killed five wolf monsters, his awakening no longer seemed strange.

Rather, the truly bizarre part was that he possessed such strength alone. The women began watching Kang Tae-sung with noticeably more caution than before.

“C-congrats.”

The female sniper, whose speech was neither fully polite nor fully casual, simply blurted the word. When Kang Tae-sung gave a calm nod, she cleared her throat awkwardly and scratched her head.

“Does it take long to reach headquarters?”

“During the day, a few cars still run, so you can hitch a ride and get there faster. But it’s nighttime, so we have no choice but to walk. Still, the roads are in good condition, so it won’t take too long.”

She told him that just a year ago, traveling between collapsed buildings everywhere had been a real struggle.

Rebuilding this far had been difficult too, she added. Something seemed to irritate her; she twitched her cheek slightly, then took the lead once more and began walking.