Chillwind

The teleport portal leading out of the dungeon. Lined up in front of it were four small boxes.

Three as the base reward, plus one more paid out as a bonus for slaying the Ice Witch—four in all. And on top of those, the main quest rewards.

Being a chained quest, the second main quest didn't hand out anything dramatic right from the opening stage. Still, this much was a decent haul.

The Random Box Enhancement Scroll. Applied to any random box, it tacked a + onto that box's rank—use it on a D and you had a D+, which in turn raised the odds of better rewards popping out. It went without saying that rather than burning it now, saving it for a B-rank box I'd get my hands on sooner or later was far the wiser play.

Splitting the loot fifty-fifty should do it. And so my share came to two random boxes and one enhancement scroll. Thanks to Hong Yeon-hwa I'd already gotten full value out of the Rank Boost, and the ruby would be finding its way to me later anyway—so I felt not the slightest pang of loss.

The moment I rode the teleport portal out of the dungeon, Shin Byung-cheol—who had been lying in wait pressed against the wall, practically part of it—oozed into view. Then he bowed with deep ceremony.

"Back already, Boss?"

"Yep."

The reason he was radiating reverence with every fiber of his being was that I'd promised him a random box I had zero obligation to hand over. A faithful slave of capitalism, in other words.

Shin Byung-cheol was opening his mouth to say something more when he caught sight of Hong Yeon-hwa on my back and flinched.

"What, is she hurt or something?"

"She's tired. She's sleeping."

"Ah. That's a relief, then."

Sneaking into a dungeon without the qualifications was a rule violation all on its own; coming out of it seriously injured would have made the problem exponentially worse. And everyone involved—the guide included—would have landed under investigation. Shin Byung-cheol had no doubt run those same cold calculations, but what showed on his face looked more like plain, human worry. Only after confirming that Hong Yeon-hwa was snoring softly did his expression ease, and he dialed his volume way down, in his own way of being considerate. His tone, though, was as wheedling as ever.

"So how'd it go, Boss? Clear it nice and clean?"

"Obviously."

For me, clearing a D-grade dungeon was no great feat. It was a place I came and went from as routinely as eating meals. The reason Shin Byung-cheol asked anyway was that his mental circuit ran roughly as follows:

Kim Ho cleared the dungeon without a hitch. → The rewards must have come out generous. → Generous enough that his own cut would be fat. → Woohoo, let's gooo!

And so I fed him the answer he wanted to hear and held out a random box.

"Go on, open it now."

"Brother Kim, how is it you know my heart so well?"

Performing his best Go Hyeon-woo impression, Shin Byung-cheol received the D-rank random box with both hands. Then he took several deep, theatrical breaths.

"Sssuuuh—haaah—"

Having trodden the café owner's path so faithfully all this while, he seemed quietly nervous. But I couldn't stand on ceremony forever, so I lobbed out a taunt.

"Dude. Scared?"

"Aw, c'mon, at least gimme a sec to psych up."

"Then psych up faster."

The taunt worked like a charm; Shin Byung-cheol slapped his hands onto the lid at once. And then, in a flash, his eyes bulged wide.

"Hyaap!"

— Flash! —

"Ooh."

"Ooh."

We let out our exclamations in perfect unison. It was the brightest burst of light that had ever come out of a box Shin Byung-cheol had opened.

Before long the light died down, and the result revealed itself:

Well, what do you know. Honestly, I'd tossed him that random box with the express intention of filling my failure stamps, but the admiration that left my mouth was genuine.

"Not bad. Congrats."

"Pfft, nothing worth congratulating. This much is just easy."

The nervous air of moments ago had vanished without a trace; Shin Byung-cheol was all bluster now. And yet at the same time, he smacked his lips as if something were missing.

"...Still, it feels a touch lacking, no?"

"How so?"

"If it's gonna pop, it shoulda popped something a little better."

Human greed truly had no bottom—even after landing a respectable hit, Shin Byung-cheol was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠pining for 'just a little something better~'. Which was when I slyly produced the second random box from my inventory and delivered the devil's whisper.

"One more?"

"......!"

Shin Byung-cheol's face went rigid as stone. His brain was no doubt grinding through the numbers at high speed. Settle for what he had and cash out two Random Rank-Ups? Or hand the Rank-Ups over to me and roll the dice on a fresh box? The deliberation didn't take long. The corners of his mouth curled upward.

"No choice left at all, then. A true man never runs from a challenge."

"Knew it. A man among men."

"And today's me is not yesterday's me. I've caught the current, if you catch my meaning."

The logic being: he'd done well on the box he'd just opened, so his luck was bound to run even hotter on the next. In moments like these, he seemed even more relentlessly positive than Positivity Boss Go Hyeon-woo himself. Before long, Shin Byung-cheol let out a hearty chuckle.

"I'd better apologize to Hong Yeon-hwa in advance. My sincerest apologies."

"Why apologize?"

"Because it'll shine so bright it'll wake her right up!"

"Ooh."

And with that, Shin Byung-cheol flung the random box open with all his might!

— Click. —

Shin Byung-cheol stared down at the mug cup in his hand without a word. Then he asked, wearing the most obsequious smile he could manage:

"Any chance of a reroll?"

"Not possible."

Leaving Shin Byung-cheol to drown in his regrets, I carried Hong Yeon-hwa toward the girls' dormitory. Right in front of the entrance, I tossed a word over my shoulder.

"Hong Yeon-hwa."

"......?"

"We're here."

Hong Yeon-hwa had been dead asleep right up until that moment, but at my call she seemed to come to, if only barely. The arms locked around my neck went slack, and her feet found the ground. Still half-lost in a dream, though, she didn't even manage a goodbye—just swayed her way through the doors and into the dormitory.

Can't blame her, I suppose. Given the circumstances, I let it slide and headed back to my own room for inspection time.

First on the list: the Stamp Coupon, filled out thanks to Mr. Shin's wholehearted cooperation.

Rank Ups were the sort of thing to stockpile—the more the better, since the skills/traits still to join the roster down the line wouldn't number just one or two. On top of that, I'd just secured two more [Random Rank-Ups] as well. All it would take now were three more failures somewhere, and the ten stamps would be full, unlocking the final reward.

Rank Up (C). One of my skills/traits idling at C-rank could be pushed up to B. If things went well, all ten stamps might even land within the week.

Next on the list: the newly copied skill, Chillwind.

Dark Oublek—or to be precise, the magic skill of the Ice Witch that thing had devoured. Its main effect, as I'd experienced firsthand, was to slow every enemy caught within its radius. Plenty of skills out there inflicted the Slow status, but Chillwind was notorious for the sheer brutality of it. Even hit by a mere F-rank Chillwind, my S-rank Elemental Resistance hadn't been able to cancel it out completely. Naturally, as its rank climbed, it would only grow more vicious still.

Tricky to defend against, too. It was frost-attribute and wind magic at the same time, which left very few avenues for blocking or evasion. And then there was the third and final effect.

Frost ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠amplification. Anything caught inside Chillwind's radius took additional frost-attribute damage and effects on top of everything else. That was part of why an F-rank slow had managed to punch through my Elemental Resistance, if only partially.

Of course, even a skill this potent had a drawback: ranking it up was a colossal pain. Why would the Ice Witch, a D-rank boss, be toting an F-rank skill? Because she, too, had learned it and never managed to raise it. Being a rather high-tier spell, it carried a growth difficulty on par with Amplification or Sovereign—repetitive practice was effectively useless for growing it, and only a Rank Up would move the needle.

For me, though, that was old news. It wasn't as if I had just one or two of those. I already owned a good five or six skills/traits that crawled upward at a glacial pace; this simply added one more to the pile. And the ones with brutal growth difficulty guaranteed rock-solid performance in return, so there was all the more reason not to agonize over it.

Then the investment's settled. Growing a copied skill required making it truly mine first, so I fished out the one Fixing Pin I'd been saving.

The next Fixing Pin goes to Poison Resistance. The S-rank trait I'd copied off the Crow Tailor. Even unfixed, its performance was outstanding on its own merits, but once I had sufficient 'preparation' in place, I planned to spend a pin on it as well. After all, just as Spiral Explosion had been born from three C-rank wind spells fused together, certain skills/traits could combine into something of an even higher order when the conditions lined up.

The truth was, I'd considered playing it by ear and putting off the Poison Resistance fix—but with the second main quest's contents now confirmed, that option was off the table. The Dark Oublek hadn't occurred naturally. Someone had unleashed it deliberately. Proper procedure was to follow the chained quests in sequence and unmask the culprit, but having unmasked them countless times before, I already knew the answer.

The Witch of Decay. An A-rank necromancer, and one of the Legion Commanders serving under the Corpse Dragon. As her name made plain, poison-type magic was her bread and butter. To handle her comfortably, the best play was to have [Poison Resistance] fixed and the relevant traits combined well before the second main quest reached its closing stages.

Which, put another way, meant I still had breathing room. We were still in the opening act. The Witch of Decay had carved the Dark Oublek into dozens—hundreds—of fragments and scattered them across the Dungeon Hall's underground floors, and those fragments were beginning to surface one by one. At least a few dozen parties would be pushing into the underground floors this week, and some of them would hit the Dark Oublek jackpot just as we had. They wouldn't die for it, but they'd be put through the wringer. And once they'd clawed their way out of the dungeon, they would spread the word—sharing replays, confiding in people they trusted, reporting to the academy. As similar reports piled up, the academy's side would gradually sharpen its guard as well.

—that much was the string of events set to unfold over the coming week. The danger wasn't breathing down my neck just yet, and I had a fair idea of when it would be. Which meant the right move wasn't to shrink before the main quest, but to act faster.

Grab what there is to grab, and grab it now. The wider the rumors spread, the graver the atmosphere would turn, and security around the underground floors would tighten. Sneaking in and out would only get harder from there. I had to move before that happened.

I sent a message to Dang Gyu-young.