Night Hunt
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He wandered the outskirts of the city until dawn broke.
For Kang Tae-sung, one clear advantage was that the hunters operating in the urban areas—and the hunting teams they formed—did not venture out to hunt at night.
Whether it was because they all prioritized safety by default, none of them seemed desperate enough to take on the handicap of fighting in the dark. As a result, the nighttime hunting grounds could essentially be considered his alone.
The only problem was that monsters were not creatures that stayed in one place, so he had no choice but to move from location to location.
Kang Tae-sung roamed through abandoned apartment complexes where no one lived anymore and old industrial factory zones. He encountered anywhere from one to three monsters at a time, or as many as ten, and hunted them without any real difficulty.
The issue was his mana, which barely recovered despite constant use.
When the mana remaining in his body had dropped to around ten percent, Kang Tae-sung stopped hunting. He sat on the railing of a rooftop on an empty building and looked out over the surroundings.
‘Level 3 is absolutely necessary.’
Mana was one thing, but his magic pouch was already packed so full there was no room left. He had even wrapped some miscellaneous items in a separate piece of leather like a bundle because he couldn’t fit them inside.
Most of the items were things like monster fangs, claws, fragments of scales, or processed tendons. Some of them looked utterly useless at first glance, but even those fetched decent prices at the exchange, so he couldn’t simply throw them away.
‘If only it were physical injuries, there wouldn’t be a problem.’
This had become a nuisance.
He could recover from physical wounds in an instant, but mana recovery had nothing to do with the body. Even the demon heart couldn’t solve that problem.
He could absorb a small amount of mana by drinking the blood of other species, but the side effects were severe. If he had been in that other world, he might have resorted to it when he truly had no other choice, but…
‘There’s no Saintess here.’
There was no one to clean up the aftermath.
It was better not to act rashly.
‘The battery’s almost dead.’
Simply sitting still and breathing was boring.
The tablet he had taken out and fiddled with had lost a significant amount of battery at some point. It seemed to drain even faster when he used the internet.
Still, staying in one spot and browsing the internet had allowed him to gather quite a lot of miscellaneous information. In particular, the additional details he learned about rifts were a good harvest.
Although the system issued quests to defend against spatial rifts, it seemed there was actually no major problem if they were left alone. The only reason people dealt with them was because monsters emerged from them, so they usually bought time by stalling.
But that was only possible when there were people—especially hunters—nearby.
There were also stories that rifts continued to appear and disappear in places far from the city center, where no people lived.
One hunter who had gone out to hunt in an area a little ways from the city discovered a rift there. In the information he posted along with a verification photo, he wrote that monsters were already walking out one or two at a time from a rift that looked like it had been created quite some time ago.
It was only after the hunting team approached it that the rift’s behavior changed slightly, at which point the system finally granted them a rift defense quest. After that, it disappeared over time just like any other rift.
The problem was the rift itself before hunters approached and before the system issued the quest. The monsters that had already come out up to that point continued to exist there, completely unrelated to the quest.
If hunters didn’t approach and eliminate the rifts one by one, they would remain as permanent passages continuously spitting out monsters.
While cities had no major issues, the conclusion people had reached after analyzing the post was that anywhere else would inevitably become a monster zone created by such rifts.
Even though hunters went out hunting like that, the fact that the number of monsters never seemed to decrease was probably because there were invisible rifts somewhere, constantly allowing more monsters to cross over.
It was an interesting story.
However, what was currently making the internet world even noisier was information about the internet itself. Specifically, the news that the internet currently being provided for free was in its beta period, and that once official service began, it would switch to a paid subscription model, was spreading rapidly.
The truth of the rumor was incredibly easy to verify.
Banners advertising it were running on every portal, and the monthly fee was 200,000 won per person. However, each person was allowed up to five devices, so an average family could usually register under one person’s name and use them separately.
‘Is 200,000 won expensive for an ordinary person?’
The internet company, which took the form of a public-private joint venture involving about four corporations and the government, was called the “K Network Service Group,” shortened to K-Net. On internet bulletin boards, however, it was being called Gay-Net—a nickname clearly laced with considerable malice.
‘It would be incredibly inconvenient without the internet.’
All the media outlets people currently used operated entirely on an internet base. Televisions, radios, newspapers, and both large and small devices all received data and information from the internet before outputting it.
So if the internet stopped working, it would clearly cause significant inconvenience, much like people suddenly being unable to use their phones. That must have been why they set the price at that level.
‘Still, it works everywhere and the speed is fast.’
In truth, while ordinary people might find it expensive, for a properly working hunter, 200,000 won a month was nothing.
After confirming that pre-registration would grant three months of free service, Kang Tae-sung decided he would need to stop by the post office—which had temporarily reopened inside the city hall building—and open a new bank account.
No banks had resumed operations yet. The post office was the only place that had started handling business again.
‘I should head there as soon as it gets light.’
He caught a glimpse of a shape moving stealthily across the road below the distant building, but Kang Tae-sung ignored it. It wasn’t a particularly strong monster, and it was wiser to stay still until his mana recovered somewhat.
The time it took to recover roughly half—about forty percent—of his mana through breathing alone was around an hour and a half. The fact that his mental power was at 2, which sped up the recovery rate, was what made it possible.
“I need to raise it. Mental power.”
If he reset his random stat to mental power as well, he could raise it by three more points to reach 5. However, since the random stat he gained when reaching level 2 had already been mental power, the chances of it rising again were low.
‘Still, even 4 would be decent.’
Assuming his mental power reached 4, his mana vessel would become four times larger than before—or twice as large compared to right now. At that level, even if he fought like he had in the first battle last night, he would be able to last roughly two hours.
“This thing’s pretty useful too.”
Moreover, the orc tribe stone axe he had obtained at that time had proven quite serviceable since then.
It consumed only about half as much mana as the jungle knife. Taking that into account, a simple calculation showed he could last four hours in the same fight.
Four hours sounded long, but actual battles that required rampaging for nearly four hours were not that common.
Of course, during large-scale wars, major battles or chaotic melees could drag on for over a day before both sides agreed to a brief lull to rest their troops. But this wasn’t that kind of place, nor was it a warzone.
“I’ll aim for mental power at 4, then look for other ways to increase efficiency after that.”
From what he had seen, there were also pieces of equipment with options that increased mana capacity or recovery rate, aside from weapons. The high price was a drawback, but if he truly needed it, buying one wouldn’t be a bad idea.
Kang Tae-sung leaped lightly and landed on the collapsed rooftop of the neighboring building, then strode forward.
The wolf pelt he had tied his miscellaneous items into was slung diagonally from one shoulder to the opposite hip like the book bundles old-time travelers used to carry, tied securely. Over his other shoulder, he carried the orc tribe stone axe.
The monster he had seen earlier was nowhere to be found.
As he walked along the center of the road toward the city, he occasionally felt faint gazes or something resembling killing intent from between the dead forests of buildings on either side. However, not many creatures actually charged at him.
Of course, there were still some that did.
A large wildcat with gleaming, crazed eyes that howled ferociously as it rushed him, an orc missing one arm—probably given to someone else—and even a pack of over ten wolves that had apparently run off earlier to call their friends. After dealing with all of them, the mana he had barely filled back up to half had once again dropped to around thirty percent.
“Looks like the aggro or whatever is starting to take effect.”
The frequency of monsters that used to carefully observe him before running away was gradually increasing. More and more were charging in without knowing their place. Although a significant number still ignored him, the number of creatures that seemed possessed, rampaging as they chased after him, was growing.
He was fully aware that this was happening because of something called aggro value. But if it was only going to get worse from here on… it didn’t seem like a good thing.
Especially if he started living with his family, it could put them in danger because of him. So Kang Tae-sung kept in mind the aggro value reset potion that could be purchased at level 3.
The price was 100 points.
It was expensive, but to Kang Tae-sung, it didn’t feel that expensive.
“Even if I take this, the fact that I’m an awakened won’t change.”
Still, since there were many other awakened in the city, if he reset his aggro value, there probably wouldn’t be any monsters that would specifically chase after him.
‘At least show the numerical value properly. This is too unfriendly.’
Whoever made this system clearly had no idea how to design a proper game. It was bound to fail.
It was something all hunters commonly complained about.
While he was once again pulling out his loot and rearranging them like Tetris because of the newly acquired byproducts, several more monsters charged at him. After barely managing to clean everything up, the leather bundle on his back had grown considerably in volume.
Even so, he didn’t find it particularly bothersome. The reason was that, for the first time, a skill book had dropped from a monster. He hadn’t seen exactly which one gave it because he used automatic butchering, but when he spotted a thick book among the byproducts, a small smile unconsciously formed on his lips.
Butchering Enhancement 1 Lv
Passive Skill — Strengthens butchering techniques.
That was the name written on the cover of the skill book.
When he read the description, it said that when performing manual butchering, the speed increased by 10 percent and the quality of the results improved slightly. On the other hand, when using automatic butchering, the item drop rate increased by 3 percent.
He wondered if a mere 3 percent would make any meaningful difference, but unlike ordinary hunters, Kang Tae-sung hunted a tremendous number of monsters. Even 3 percent seemed significant to him. Naturally, he activated the skill book and made it his own.
When a skill book was activated, the corresponding skill was added to the user and the book itself disappeared. That was how the system worked. There was no limit to the number of skills an individual could learn, and as long as one had the ability, they could possess as many skills as they wanted.
However, the truly good skills or spells that everyone wanted had prices so high that not everyone could obtain them. They were usually traded through auctions, and among them were skill books worth hundreds of billions of won.
Of course, he didn’t think such luck would come to him.
The world had always been a place where only those destined to succeed would succeed, and those who weren’t, wouldn’t.
“Steady gains are better than hitting the jackpot. If I catch about a hundred of those piranhas, I can get roughly 500 points plus byproduct profits.”
That was what he said after having caught over fifty monsters while wandering around last night. However, if anyone had heard him, they would probably have thought he was either crazy or a liar.
============== Author’s Note ==============
Thank you.
See you next time…
It looks like next time will be Christmas.
I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas.
Even if you’re alone, you can have plenty of fun. Haha…