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Chapter 6. Hunting
* * *
In the car heading to the tower.
Samin and Doun exchanged bland small talk. Doun would still enter the tower carrying twice or three times the burden of others, and Samin couldn’t stop him. However, Samin decided not to think hastily.
‘There’s no reason to be impatient.’
This was only the third time coordinating with the Yeoun guild members. They’d barely had time to get to know each other. Expecting dramatic unity from one guild dinner was greedy thinking from the start. It was normal for things to be rough in the early stages like this.
Upon entering the tower, Samin looked at Doun intently. His eyes were glowing bright blue, whether he was using a skill. It was always a mystical sight.
‘The beginning is all just moving.’
As Samin expected, Doun was quickly reviewing several conquest videos. The beginning of all the videos Doun had watched to the point of memorization was the same. Just boring scenery of walking.
There were occasional crazy bastards who showed off by carving guild names into rising ice pillars, but mostly it was just the boring sight of hunters who entered for conquest walking across vast snowfields.
“There’s absolutely no magical beast appearances in the early part, right?”
Doun asked Samin for accurate confirmation.
“Yes. We have to walk north for 30 minutes.”
“Got it.”
“Well then, shall we go?”
When Samin started walking in the lead, the guild members moved as if it were natural. Watching the smooth, flowing movement, Doun glanced at Samin’s profile and thought.
‘I feel this every time, but he’s properly centered…’
The hunter unanimously assigned as main dealer for this conquest was Magnetic, Lee Doun. However, the party leader of the Veritas group that entered to conquer the 47th floor was Samin.
Though most hunters called it party leader, the accurate system designation was group leader. Usually the person who made the most level-headed judgments took this role. In Yeoun Guild, the person suited for group leader was precisely Samin.
‘I thought he was only good at talking nonsense, but after conquering together a few times, his judgment is definitely fast and accurate.’
Doun evaluated Samin highly while slightly lowering his eyes. The conquest team’s mortality rate varied depending on how quickly the group leader declared abandoning conquest.
Too many hunters lost their lives in the few seconds of hesitating to abandon conquest because they felt sorry for the potions and consumables used, the hunters’ time and effort.
The cumulative average mortality rate of alliances attempting first conquests of top floors approached 20%. Because it was hard to properly grasp the characteristics of new terrain and magical beasts, and they often died moving while relying only on potions and healers’ recovery skills as if suffering from safety insensitivity.
Compared to the 38% mortality rate of professional mountaineers climbing Annapurna, called the world’s most dangerous mountain, it was lower, but still not a number to take lightly.
But surprisingly, Yeoun Guild’s top floor conquest team’s mortality rate was 0%. Though they might repeatedly fail at first conquests, it meant that in conquering high floors with guild members alone, not a single hunter had died in towers.
‘Does this make sense?’
When Doun first heard this figure, he couldn’t believe it and had to ask several times if it was really true.
‘It’s really true. When push comes to shove, we throw away all dignity and pride and run. The Prime Minister even gave us a commendation last year as a safety-first hunter guild.’
It was a groundbreaking move. In a place where you never knew where, from what angle, and how much would be recorded from entry until defeating the floor boss, quick conquest abandonment would have been easy prey for other hunters.
[Chat┃Another pants-run from Chronos? (139)]
[Chat┃Ugh giving up when they’re almost there (241)]
[Chat┃Playing it so safe damn Magnetic bastard (170)]
When Chronos Guild abandoned conquest, at least for that day, tremendous mockery and criticism poured in to the point where they couldn’t even dare enter message boards.
Guild masters who were nothing but pride wouldn’t just stand by and watch this. Many small and medium guilds ended up with most of their conquest teams dying after repeatedly proceeding with unreasonable conquests for the sake of pride.
Yet no deaths. This meant not only that individual Yeoun Guild members had outstanding abilities, but also that Samin’s judgment, having authority to abandon conquest, was fast and accurate.
Though it was just walking across the endlessly spread pure white snowfield, as time passed and they walked through increasingly fierce blizzards, Do Hyeonwoo, who had taken the spot next to Doun, asked.
“Hyung. Do you have any favorite fire-attribute magic skills?”
“Since nothing comes to mind immediately, I guess there aren’t any in particular.”
Doun gave a nonchalant answer. Actually, he had many fire-attribute magic skills he could use. He just hadn’t used them much since the late 20th floors.
Because other hunters without special immunity were affected directly or indirectly by magic skills.
‘Ah, shit. All my clothes burned. This was limited edition!’
When Doun was with Chronos before, there was an incident where the clothes of a hunter who briefly joined the conquest team through someone’s introduction caught fire. And after conquest ended, Timer Choi Jeongwook gave feedback to refrain from fire-attribute skills as much as possible.
Since it would directly harm other hunters and cause burns, making the healer busy, let’s focus on other skills instead. Back then, Doun was busy apologizing. But thinking about it again, there were several suspicious points.
‘Why did that person come wearing regular clothes for high-floor conquest?’
Though hunter shops and auctions sold armor, the designs were so bizarre that wearing them casually was quite troublesome. As a result, wearing clothes made from special fibers when conquering towers had become established as basic common sense.
It was fashion that had risen so rapidly that fashion brands competed to release various designs after naming them hunter clothes or hunterwear.
Prices were naturally more expensive than regular clothes, but since they didn’t easily burn or tear from hunters’ skills, clothes were essential purchases…
At that moment, Doun recalled Samin’s words.
‘Everyone needs to build know-how and manage points. Make money and satisfy wealthy hunter spoons’ vanity too. For reference, 47th floor is minimum 3,000 per person.’
According to him, there were hunters who conquered towers not with their own power but others’ power, paying money in return.
Come to think of it, hunters who joined conquest teams through someone’s introduction changed frequently. The faces greeting them saying they came to support were clear. Though to call it support, they usually just lounged around in the rear without lifting a finger.
When Doun couldn’t stand it and subtly expressed doubts to Timer Choi Jeongwook, only then would they be excluded from the next conquest team. Then new hunters would enter, and they likewise wouldn’t properly help with conquest.
‘Could that bastard have secretly slipped these hunters into conquest teams while hiding it from me…?’
It was none other than the guy who made him accept three or four mana links under the pretext of backup. There was sufficient possibility he’d secretly taken back-door money to slip random hunters into conquest teams.
Just as Doun was getting serious, coincidentally the snowfall began to intensify.
“Geez. Should I have brought goggles? Hyung, watch your step.”
Doun looked at the back of Samin’s head as he stood in front serving as guide. Curly brown permed hair was fluttering this way and that.
‘Could this guy also have approached me to use me?’
Though he knew that wasn’t the case, he couldn’t help but have pointless suspicions. To think he was having such thoughts inside.
‘I’m really too ugly for thinking like this.’
Just as Doun’s depression was about to surge, Samin started chattering.
“Doun hyung. Is there any magic to make blizzards disappear? Without just this, we could walk much more easily, really.”
“What?”
An absurd laugh came out at the ridiculous question.
‘Such an innocent guy with that normal face talking nonsense, what was I thinking…’
The fact that he, who had been holed up at home planning to retire forever, could stand here was all Samin’s achievement. How dare he compare the guy who brought guild members to support him when he was falling behind to anyone else.
Without being conscious of his slightly relaxed expression, he slyly narrowed the distance that had grown between him and Samin.
“Doun hyuuung… Don’t you really have such an awesome skill…”
“I don’t, geez. If I had something like that, I would’ve used it already.”
Just in case, he tried using a skill to rack his brain, but there weren’t any skills that could stop blizzards. Though he could crudely summon fireballs to melt snow, making unending snow stop was impossible even for #1 ranker Magnetic.
“Are you cold even with cold resistance buffs?”
Since his constant whining seemed to have other reasons, Doun asked, ready to light a small flame as a hand warmer substitute if needed, but Samin shook his head saying it wasn’t that he was cold.
“I’m not cold, it’s just annoying how it blocks vision. Makes walking a bit hard too.”
“Should I try melting some snow with skills?”
“That’s wasting mana. Hyung’s mana is precious even just for attacking, using it to melt snow has poor cost-effectiveness.”
Don’t like this, don’t like that. What was he supposed to do then? Doun pouted and grumbled.
“Then why did you ask?”
“I just wanted to talk to hyung so I said random things. Our hyung still doesn’t know me well.”
Such an annoying mouth that didn’t even give time to be depressed. Doun chuckled once and turned his head to look straight ahead. If he kept looking, he wouldn’t be able to focus on conquest.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
