Chapter 5 — The Most Unimpressive Riches
For a few seconds after the Cursed Goblin Chieftain collapsed, neither Aken nor Jae-Min moved. The massive body of the creature lay sprawled across the cracked arena floor, its black blood slowly pooling around it. The silence felt unreal. Jae-Min was the first to break it. "…Is it actually dead?"
Aken stared at the monster for a moment longer before nodding slowly. "Yeah"
Jae-Min let out a long breath. "Thank every god in existence."
He lay there staring at the red dungeon sky. "I swear that thing was at least D-Rank."
Aken didn't disagree. Instead, he looked at the system notifications still floating in front of him. The reward calculations finished, then the drops appeared. Items materialized around the corpse in small flashes of light.
Jae-Min immediately jumped to his feet. "Yippee, loot!"
The word alone had enough power to revive a dying Player. He rushed toward the monster's body like a starving man spotting food. Aken walked over more calmly. Several glowing objects rested on the ground., Jae-Min crouched and began counting excitedly. "One… two… three… four…" He kept going. "…twelve!"
He turned around with wide eyes. "Twelve mana stones!"
That was actually impressive for an F-Rank dungeon, Mana stones were the most basic dungeon resource. They were used for energy technology, weapons, equipment crafting, and all sorts of Player gear. Even low-grade ones had decent value, Jae-Min picked one up and tossed it to Aken. The stone glowed faintly blue, Aken slipped it into his storage. One slot, then another and another. After storing several stones, he paused. "…Wait."
Jae-Min blinked. "What is it?"
"My storage only has five slots." Aken said
Jae-Min stared at him. "Only five?"
"Mhm."
"That's worse than a cheap backpack."
Aken ignored the comment, he opened his status window again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Inventory Slots: 5]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The curse reward hadn't expanded his storage, he was actually hoping it would. Jae-Min was still examining the loot pile. "Alright, what else do we have…"
He reached toward a dark object near the boss corpse, when he picked it up, his eyes widened. "Oh."
Aken looked over. In Jae-Min's hand was a small black crystal, it pulsed faintly with energy. A Boss Core.
Jae-Min slowly turned it in his hand. "…D-Rank."
Aken raised an eyebrow. "From an F-Rank dungeon?"
Jae-Min laughed. "I know right. That mutation really paid off."
Boss cores were significantly more valuable than mana stones, they were used to craft high-grade equipment or power certain artifacts. This one alone would probably be worth more than everything else combined. Jae-Min suddenly spotted the last items, two small glass bottles rolled across the stone floor. He picked them up and squinted. "Potions…?"
He wiped dust off the labels, then grinned. "One D-Rank Mana Potion and a D-rank health potion. Jackpot"
He held them up triumphantly. Aken folded his arms. "Isn't that a bit too dramatic?"
Jae-Min looked offended. "You clearly don't understand the economics of being a mid-level Player."
Aken stared at him silently, Jae-Min sighed. "Fine, I'll explain."
He began counting on his fingers. "Twelve mana stones, One boss core and Two potions."
Then he grinned again. "We're basically rich."
Aken wasn't convinced. Still, they collected everything. The boss corpse dissolved slowly as the dungeon began stabilizing. Moments later the familiar dungeon exit portal appeared.
Jae-Min stretched. "Well then."
He grinned at Aken. "Let's go become slightly less poor."
An hour later they stood in front of the Korean Player Union building. The massive glass structure towered over the surrounding city blocks, players constantly moved in and out of the entrance. Some wearing armor, others carrying weapons. Some looked like ordinary office workers, but every single one of them possessed the system.
Aken and Jae-Min stepped inside, the interior was chaos. Players filled the massive hall like honey bees on a busy sunday. Some argued loudly, others where negotiating prices, several people were bragging loudly about dungeon clears. A group of heavily armored Players pushed past them carrying what looked like a giant monster horn.
Jae-Min whistled. "Today looks pretty busy."
Aken looked around calmly, this place was the center of the Player economy. Guild recruiters, quest boards, trading counters and even equipment dealers. Everything passed through here. Jae-Min walked up to one of the trade counters, a rather tired employee sat behind a glass window.
She barely looked up. "Next please."
Jae-Min placed their loot on the counter. "Twelve mana stones, one D-Rank boss core, and one D-Rank mana potion."
The employee finally looked up, her eyes widened slightly."From an F-Rank dungeon?"
Jae-Min puffed up proudly. "Mutated boss type."
She typed something into her computer, the machine scanned the items. A few seconds later the screen flashed a number, the employee adjusted her glasses. "Total valuation…" She paused. "₩110,000."
Silence. Jae-Min blinked. "…That's it?"
The employee nodded. "That is the market value."
Jae-Min looked personally offended. "Hold on."
He pointed dramatically at the boss core. "That thing tried to murder us."
"Yes."
"And it's only worth ₩110,000 combined?"
"Yes."
Jae-Min placed his hands on the counter. "We nearly died."
"is that all." she said without emotion.
The employee stared at him blankly. "That is not included in the pricing."
Aken quietly stepped forward. "That's fine, thank you."
Jae-Min turned to him in disbelief. "You're accepting this?"
Aken shrugged. "It's still money."
The employee transferred the payment to Jae-Min's Player account.
[TRANSACTION COMPLETE: ₩110,000]
Jae-Min stared at the number, then he sighed dramatically. "Fine, if you insist."
He turned to Aken. "Dinner's on me."
Aken raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
Jae-Min nodded confidently. "Of course." Five seconds later he added, "…but nothing too expensive."
Aken pathed him on his back. "Your ridiculous"
As they walked away from the counter, Aken glanced at his system window again. His curse felt slightly stronger, his stamina was already fully recovered. Curse Regeneration quietly continued working, but something else bothered him. When the mutated boss appeared earlier…
The system had said something strange, external interference.
That meant someone—or something—had affected the dungeon and if that was true…
Then today's dungeon was not an accident. Somewhere in the city, someone might already know about him but at that exact moment, Jae-Min grabbed his shoulder excitedly. "Hey dude!"
Aken blinked. "What?"
Jae-Min pointed toward a restaurant across the street. "Look what I found."
A sign read: PLAYER DISCOUNT RAMEN
Aken stared at it. Jae-Min grinned. "Now that's real treasure."
Aken sighed, but for the first time in a while…
He almost smiled—almost.
END IF CHAPTER 5