A strange sensation washed over me. The feeling of my soul being pulled out of my chest wasn't anything new. I quickly steadied myself against the dizziness and opened my eyes. Perhaps It was because this body hadn't been inside a gate yet, but my vision remained hazy, the world around me nothing more than shifting blurs.
Time passed, and my surrounding finally into focus.
"Oh, wow.."
Doesn't this place look like it crawled out from a nightmare? What the heck?
"Hey, did I enter the right gate? I could've sworn this place was F-rank, why does this place look more dangerous than it's supposed to be?.." I muttered under my breath.
I stood in the middle of a dark forest, where trees arched in an unnatural way and the air felt cool and damp against my skin.
'Well, then. Shall we hunt some F-rank monsters now?'
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"ARGH! Why aren't there any?!" I sat slumped against a tree., completely exhausted. "Man, i'm spent!" With a groan, I pulled out a sandwich I'd packed just for this trip and took a bite.
"I've spent over an hour searching for any monsters..and yet there wasn't even a dust of them!" I grumbled, taking a bite.
Honestly, should I just go back? There still should be another 3 hours before the gate closes, so If I start going back now, I should still be able to make it. 'It's probably a good idea, I didn't even register for the gate, so If i get caught, I'll end up behind bars for a bit.'
I sighed, and glanced around. It was incredibly dark, the trees were hustled so close together that it blocked out any sun from coming through to the forest floor. Then my nose caught something, something foul and rotten.
A smell like..a rotten corpse?
I sat up straight. What? That couldn't be right. There shouldn't be any humans around.
But the stench only grew stronger the closer I walked.Huh?Even though the place was thick with the aroma of earth and the cool breeze of the wind to the point was quite hard to make out the smell, it was definitely the smell of a corpse.
"Ugh, this place stinks!" I covered my nose with my hand and hopped over a fallen branch. Soon after, I arrived at a vast area.
And then I saw it.
A battleground. Trees were cleaved in half. Swords jutting from the ground like forgotten relics. Blood splattered onto trees that survived against the battle.
And corpses.
I stepped around the corpses carefully, crouching near it to search for something.
'Ah, found it!' A hunter license.
"Han yooseung. 35 year old. D-rank."
How did a D-rank manage to die in a F-rank? The same goes for all the other bodies I managed to find intact.
'Hyunwoo Kang. 27 years old. D-rank'
'Daehyun Shin. 30 years old. E-rank'
and so on..
Strange. An F-rank should've been relatively easy to clear. There was only two reasons why they have died. One reason they might have died was that they panicked before the monsters.
However, that was only the case for beginner hunters. If I look closer at their equipment, those were definitely artefacts you wouldn't be able to get as a beginner, leading me to the conclusion that they were at least novice hunters.
Which lead me to the other reason. This gate had mutated, meaning that it wasn't any F-rank but something higher that even a D-rank couldn't handle it.
'Oh dear. I'm done for, aren't I?'
As a F-rank, wasn't this the situation where you know you're fucked?
I got up quickly from my spot. Now wasn't the time, to think, I should get out of here quickly if I want to live! However, before I could take a step forward, something had lunged out of the bushes and swiped at me.
"Eeek!" I jumped back.
With the {Hermes' shoes}, I managed to dodge by an inch. 'If I didn't come prepared, that swipe would've killed me!' That thought made me shiver, dying again to some beast wasn't exactly on my to-do list.
growlll.
The beast had two horns on the side of the head…and a larger horn protruding from the middle..
Wait…
((Three-horned wolf))- B-rank
B-rank? Wasn't that at least 4 rank higher than me?.. Haha, it seemed like today might be my last day?
The monster lunged again, but this time, I quickly turned around and bolted. Fuck! Even with the shows, my stamina drained fast.
'Damn it! What do I do?! Think!'
Hang on a second.
Wasn't my staff an A-rank? Doesn't that mean the flames should be able to handle the beast?
I stopped in my tracks and quickly took out my staff from my sub-space ring. I pointed my staff at the beast quickly catching up to me.
Huh? Isn't this more than one beast? And slowly but surely, an entire group of ((Three-horned wolf)) showed up. Dang it! They must have followed me whilst I was running. Did that beast call them over? Well no worries, I have my precious weapon- which was my staff- so there should be no problem!
The wolves, seeing my weapon, halted in their steps. They looked wary, it must be because they felt the mana imbued in this staff.
"Scared, are you? Haha, this should tell you not to mess with me!" Brimming with high confidence, I swung the staff.
"Take this!" I waved my staff at them.
…
Except, nothing happened.
Uh?
I tried again, waving my staff about at the wolves. "Take this!" Nothing. "Taaake that!" No fireball come out. An awkward silence penetrated the air.
Ah, I just remembered. This should be my first time trying to handle a magic weapon, right? Mhm, I shouldn't have been so confident…
Yap yap yap yap!
Then the wolves started laughing. Actually laughing. My face quickly turned red and I groaned. "dang it.." I coughed.
Soon after, the wolves stopped laughing and looked at me.
'…'
I looked at the wolves,
"Hey, won't you spare me? Haha…"
The wolves pounced.
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Oh my.. how long have I ran for? I huffed, wiping the sweat on my forehead. Currently, I was in the middle of running away from a pack of wild beast chasing at me.
Whilst reading their information, I found out that they actually spewed poison out from their moth. That poison was said to also be lethal, with only a small chance of surviving it if the user didn't have any healing equipment on them.
Though that was bad news, the good news however, was that these beasts didn't seem to know how to use that ability. 'They must be still young..'
At the same I was running, I was also trying to find a way to make the staff work. As you can see, it wasn't going so well.
"Ahh, just work, dammit!" I swinged the staff at the wolves desperately. Still nothing.
One of the wolves, the smaller of the group, jumped at me, baring its fangs.
Suddenly, I slipped. "AHHHH!" I held the staff tighter, and out of panic, stabbed the staff into the ground.
The world erupted.
The earth cracked beneath us and fire erupted in a violent storm. Trees burned. And the ground was craved into a crater.
And the wolves? Gone.
I blinked, staring at the glowing mana stone on the staff's head.
Oh. I see. So all I needed to do was strike my staff in the ground? Haha, I've never felt dumber.
ding!
[Congrats for completing your first quest! You have been gifted 5 points]
[The points has been sent to your inbox.]
Quests (Beginner)
Kill 5 monsters in a gate (15/5) Reward: 5 points
Clear a gate (0/1) Reward: 10 points
Purchase something from the shop (0/1) Reward: Bonus box
More coming soon.
"Wow.." I rubbed the back of my neck. "I can't believe I was running for my life when all I had to do was poke the ground.."
Well, at least I figured out the function of the staff. So that's a win. I glanced at the quests. 'Clear a gate..It should be easy!'
And with a smile, I set off to the boss room to clear the second quest.
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ding!
[Congrats for completing your second quest! You have been gifted 10 points.]
[The points has been sent to your inbox.]
The boss laid below me, scorched black from the flames, an A-rank monster, ((Poison-horned wolf)) pitifully meeting its end, without even giving a scratch.
That's a lie. I could barely stand up straight. My clothes was soaked in blood. My body throbbed with bruises, cuts and burns. Some of its poison had made home inside my injury, making it throb painfully.
'I should find an antidote quickly…'
"O..pen.." I forced through my breath.
A large system appeared before me. I quickly searched 'antidote' in the search bar. Many pictures of antidotes appeared later. I scrolled quickly down the list, trying to find the right one used to treat poison of a B-rank.
'Found it' I tapped on the picture. {Vial of healing poison}. A B-rank item that was capable of healing any type of poison of B-rank and below. Luckily, even though the Boss was an A-rank, its poison efficiency was quite low, so there was no need for me to spend a lot of points.
'I currently have 15 points. After buying this antidote, I'd have 9 left, and I still need to buy a healing potion for my injuries..'
Whatever, I could always just take another quest, right? I clicked buy and the vial materialized in my hands.
I quickly drank the small vial. My heart felt fuller, and I even felt my energy recovering faster. Huh, this vial is also capable of doing another thing than just treating poison…
ding!
[Congrats on completing your quests! A bonus box has been sent to your inbox. New quests will be coming in 17 hours.]
Quests (Beginner)
Kill 5 monsters in a gate (15/5) Reward: 5 points
Clear a gate (1/1) Reward: 10 points
Purchase something from the shop (1/1) Reward: Bonus box
More coming soon.
Sweet!
[For completing your quests, all your injuries you have earned will be healed.]
Huh?
My body started glowing in a faint white glow, all the bruises I had slowly disappeared and the injuries closed up. In the end, my body was completely healed.
"It seems like I don't need to buy a healing potion after all.."
whoosh
A gate appeared before me. That meant I could finally go home, right? Sweet! The idea of staying in this gate any longer might make me go crazy. I quickly took a horn from the boss' head and made my way over to the gate.
'I can finally rest!'
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In front of the association center, chaos was being held. The bearded man, Kwang-ho, a general manager for the company was seen talking to a group of reporters.
"Excuse me, sir! Is it true that the association failed to calculate the correct rank of the so-called F-rank?"
"Sir, over here! Why didn't the association do anything? Why did you let those group of hunters die?"
"Sir!"
Microphones was shoved in his face, he could see the blinding flickers of cameras.
"…We the association..had correctly predicted the rank..however, the gate had mutated, changing the difficulty level higher."
The reporters quickly fell into silence.
"As the ones in charge of the gate, we will take responsibility and provide compensation to the fallen's family," He responded, and then he bowed down 90 degrees. "We are incredibly sorry for the inconvenience."
This was all captured by the cameras.
Inside the association center, a man with red hair sat by his desk, flipping through pages of work.
"Have you found out who cleared the gate yet?"
A woman in a black suit and blonde hair responded back, "No sir, there were no cameras by the gates so we wasn't able to see who had entered the gate after the fallen hunters."
The man hummed, "Is that so?" He quickly scribbled something down. "Well no matter, I suppose it can't be helped."
He gave the note to the woman, "Hand out all the compensation to the families of the dead hunters. Make sure the public doesn't lose faith in us."
The woman bowed, and left the office, leaving the red-haired man all alone. He seemed deep in thought. A small smile slowly crept up his face.
"I'm quite curious..who was the hunter who cleared the gate?"