Translator: HunterW
Editor: RED
“It’s a pain, but what can I do?” I said to myself outside of Store 72.
The Time Attack quest was much more important than normal dungeon hunting, and I wanted to get first place by a mile. I quickly made my way to Cairo’s Store, but when I got there, I had no choice, but to leave right away. The only way to participate in the quest was to buy an entry pass to either a one-man or a sixteen-man dungeon.
I had to keep my promise to Anton and Marie to keep buying from Store 72. It was a bit of a pain, but they did help me out quite a bit. Besides, it took less than a minute to get from Cairo to Seoul now. I already had the cash to use.
I left Seoul’s Teleporter Zone and headed for Store 72’s general store.
—
“Hey! Are you actually going to do it?”
“Of course I will! You saw the rewards; there’s no way I can pass it up.”
“Dude…if all we needed was motivation, then everyone would do it. But look at the rewards yourself. Do you think it’ll be that easy? You’re going to get ripped apart by the monsters.”
“Oi. Are you telling me to pass it up?”
“No, do it. Knock yourself out. The entry passes are 1 golden ring each, anyway. Just don’t expect anything. You should look in a mirror. You actually look like you’ll get first place! Puhahaha!”
“Tsk. You…you never know! I might not get first place, but I could at least rank high! I may not look it, but I’m the ace of my team!”
“Ha…sure, whatever. The rankings are going to come out after today so good luck with whatever you’re going to do.”
——
Everyone was talking about the Time Attack quest.
-Yeah, it always gets noisy when these types of quests appear.-
These quests were perfect for people to compare themselves and find out who was really stronger, even for average devas. In the past, I didn’t have anyone to do that with, but now, at least I had a few people I could show off to.
I quickly headed up to the general store and bought 60 one-man entry passes and 60 sixteen-man entry passes. I knew I could only enter 60 dungeons in the next month, but I bought 120 passes just in case.
“Entry passes aren’t resellable and will expire in thirty days.”
“Okay, got it.”
As I browsed through some other items, I heard a loud bang that sounded every time I came to this Store. I left the general store and looked up to see Anton.
“It’s you again, Lee Jiwon?”
I decided that it would be best to visit his office first next time. He was attracting way too much attention.
—
I found myself back in Anton’s office, sipping on tea and talking with Anton and Marie.
“Ha… you always give me a fright every time you come to my Store.”
“I can see that. I’ll make sure to visit your office first. It’s getting old.”
“I know, right? Please do that from now on,” Anton said, taking my joke seriously. “Anyway, what did you do this time? There aren’t that many things that could give me these many points.”
It could only be Absolute Destruction. I doubted that Altered Equality could make Anton this excited.
“Hehehe.” It was always nice being able to surprise someone like this.
“Why are you laughing? Well, whatever the reason, it’s good for me too. If my best customer’s happy, then I’m happy too.” Anton started laughing too.
“It’s nice to see you’ve been doing well, Master Lee.”
“Thanks, Marie.”
—
After a few more words, I left Anton’s office.
“Hey, that’s him, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it’s Lee Jiwon.”
“Is he here for Time Attack?”
“I guess so. But wouldn’t he be super helpful in a sixteen-man dungeon?”
“Of course he will. Even if half of his rumors are true, having him on your team would be one hell of an advantage. Someone of his caliber could easily make short work of the quest.”
“Then, since he’s not part of any guild or anything, there’s going to be some fierce competition to get him on a team.”
“Who knows? It’s only the first day, and there’s still plenty of time left. All we can do is wait and see.”
“Damn…all those guys who had been saying that they’re the top players must be freaking out. Everyone’s going to see the results right away.”
“Hah! You’re right. It’s going to be fun to watch.”
Again, people were staring at me and talking to themselves. I quickly wove through the crowd and left the Store.
“Blink 1. Blink 2.” I Blinked away to get as far away from the Store’s vicinity as possible. “Looks like there aren’t any records out yet.”
Next to both Cairo’s Store and Anton’s Store were two large thirty-meter tall display boards. One was for the one-man dungeons and the other was for the sixteen-man dungeons.
“Then again, the quest did just drop.” Only an hour had passed since I first heard about the quest in Alexandria.
“The highest record back then was…huh, I don’t know.” I racked my brain but it didn’t come to me. I didn’t really care about the quest back then, so it was obvious that I didn’t know.
“Oh, but I do remember that all of the deities monopolized the one-man dungeons.” The memory came to me as I looked back at the display boards from atop a building overlooking the Store.
The sixteen-man dungeons were mostly completed by parties, but the one-man dungeons required a player to tank and deal damage on his own. In other words, healers and supporters couldn’t enter one-man dungeons on their own, it was impossible for them. Tanks were in similar situations, as well.
Only high-damage dealers and all-rounders stood a chance in one-man dungeons, but even mages, archers, or assassins were at risk, as they couldn’t withstand high amounts of damage.
“That’s right. People were going off that the one-man dungeons were made specifically for deities.” They really were the perfect dungeons for deities, who could attack and defend easily.
“But now…heh.” Things would be different now. I was going to get so far ahead of everyone else that people would start thinking that my ranking was a bug. Then again, if I did that, I could cause quite a stir…
“Well… it doesn’t matter now. I can’t hide my strength anymore.”
I took out a one-man dungeon entry pass from my inventory. “Enter one-man dungeon.”
==[You have used a one-man dungeon entry pass.
You will now be moved to a one-man dungeon.
Dying in the dungeon will incur the same death penalty as always. However, you can always give up the dungeon and will be moved back outside.
Monsters in this dungeon do not drop items, golden rings or EXP.
You will be timed until you defeat the dungeon’s boss monster.]==
I was soon transferred from the rooftop to another place, inside a dungeon I had never seen before.
“Mana Conversion – Fire.”
==[Mana Conversion – Fire Level 2 has been activated.]==
This was only my first attempt. I still had plenty more chances, and decided to use Mana Conversion to test the waters here.
“Let’s do this.” There was a wall behind me and the only way was forward. I stepped forth, filled with anticipation and excitement. Soon, I could see hordes of orcs blocking the way.
“Nice. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen you guys.” Monsters had to be orcs. However, these orcs weren’t normal. They all looked as strong as the Legendary Orc Champion, the first dungeon boss monster I’d ever faced. But still, they weren’t boss monsters, and I had grown much, much stronger since then.
I charged in at the horde without hesitation, and pummeled them with my spear.
“Gwek!” an orc cried out as my spear stabbed through his chest.
“Skree! It’s a human!”
“Kill him!” The orcs charged in at me as well, but it was exactly what I wanted them to do.
-One, two, three, four….-
I swung my spear at the orcs without rest and counted each time I attacked. I wanted to see Absolute Destruction go off. There was only a 1% chance it would work. In other words, it should go off in about 100 attacks. But going off once every 100 attacks was basically worthless. It had to at least go off once every 50 attacks.
“Kwek!”
-Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine…-
I started to get nervous the closer I got to 50. I was lucky enough to have Shaman Ko give me 3 Stat points a day when that itself only had a 1% chance of working. Powerful Shock went off a few times, too; although it only did it just when I was about to forget about it.
-This isn’t looking good…-
If Absolute Destruction activates as often as Powerful Shock, then it would really suck. It would have been better to get another effect.
“Kwek!”
Of course, I didn’t really need either of them to activate against these orcs that fell easily against my attacks. It would be better if they activated against the boss monster later on.
“But if they don’t go off here, how can I expect them to go off in the boss room?”
I struck down the final orc in front of me. In less than seven minutes, I had cleared the surrounding area of elite orcs.
“Ha…that was 317 attacks, and still no sign of Absolute Destruction.” Neither effect had activated against at least a hundred orcs.
“No…it’s too early to give up!” I quickly headed forward. There were undead monsters for balance purposes and a few spike traps and rock traps here and there. There was also an iron door that required constant damage to break but none of these were enough to slow me down. I crushed anything in my way and sprinted ahead. I wasn’t worried about any of that.
“Shit. What is…going on here?” Absolute Destruction’s probability was very weird.
It did end up going off; on my 453rd attack.
A black bolt of lightning struck an undead monster’s head.
==[Absolute Destruction has been activated.
Your opponent dies regardless of how much HP it has.]==
:
:
==[Absolute Destruction has been activated.
Your opponent dies regardless of how much HP it has.]==
It went off until my 463rd attack. It went off eleven times in a row!
“Huh…how am I supposed to react to this?” I was glad that it went off consecutively like that, but it was completely random. There was nothing that could tell me it would go off soon.
“Geez. It’s not like I can’t alter it in any way, either.”
There wasn’t much I could do, so I decided to leave it at that. At least it activated and I saw its power.
I just had to hope it would go off against the boss monster. I just kept charging forward, cutting down the monsters in front of me.
==[Boss Room]==
“That took about an hour and twenty minutes.” I did take my time going through the dungeon as I checked this and that. “If I go as fast as I can, I could cut down my time by twenty to thirty minutes. That leaves me about an hour to clear the dungeon.”
In the end, it had to activate on the boss monster. If it did, then I could set the fastest record. It’d even be better if it went off on the first attack!
I stepped closer to the boss room.
