* * *
One week after possession.
The rankers each made progress in leveling up at their own pace.
There was Archer, who had made an enemy of his partner and therefore couldn’t make proper progress. There were also possessors who were frantically trying to get a handle on high-difficulty characters. For example, the Paladin who was knocking on the priest’s door every night.
While there were rankers struggling like this…
There were also rankers who had easily entered a stable period and were already rapidly leveling up by frequenting small-scale dungeons.
Among them, the Wizard and the Thief happened to meet in the same dungeon.
Stab! The Thief’s dagger lodged into the body of a two-tailed lizard monster.
Bang! A light electric spell crackled and fell on top of it.
[‘Thief’-nim has defeated 1 ‘Two-Tail Lizard’. Experience Points +100]
“Oops.”
The Thief awkwardly made a gesture of scratching his hooded head.
The Wizard silently stared at the Thief, then put away the tip of his staff from which small puffs of smoke were rising, as if nothing had happened.
The Thief belonged to the Holy Nation of Benaro, and the Wizard was from the island nation of Caseria. In other words, these two would never have been able to meet under normal circumstances.
They could only see each other’s faces like this in this space because they had entered a mini dungeon.
“Um… Are you doing alright?”
He had unexpectedly run into someone he’d only exchanged a few words with in chat. The Thief asked awkwardly out of courtesy.
The Wizard slightly raised his eyes hidden by his robe.
“I’m managing to feed myself.”
It was impossible to tell whether he was being humble, sarcastic, or defensive.
The Wizard’s partner was the Magic Tower Lord, a fellow mage. He had the highest career among all characters, possessing authority, power, and wealth.
So much so that as a penalty, he was the only character with ‘non-participation’ in regular dungeons.
If you chose the Magic Tower Lord, you couldn’t play the eight large-scale dungeons and had to fill the remaining levels only through mini dungeons like this and personal farming.
The Wizard walked away as he was, his robes rustling. The Thief considered letting him go, but the fine silver staff the Wizard was holding bothered him.
He followed along, jingling, showing interest in the staff.
“You already got a weapon? Did you even enhance this?”
“……”
Well, there was no way he’d answer a competitor readily. The Wizard ignored him and walked away.
Another lizard monster could be seen in the bushes over there. The tip of the Wizard’s staff smoothly aimed in that direction.
Bang! An electric spell flew with considerable power.
The Thief was certain. This rich possessor must have tried weapon enhancement.
“That enhancement… You need a high life level for a higher success rate, right?”
Three types of jobs came to the Thief’s mind: farmer, fisherman, miner.
He also remembered how when he first started this game, he had to choose miner even though it was annoyingly tedious, and spent a while just swinging a pickaxe.
In <Tower of Colossus>, enhancement and life professions were closely related. The game’s system led even emperor-class rankers to rice paddies they’d never have in their fate, to sea harbors, to mines.
When someone with life level 0 attempts a 10→11 enhancement, the success rate is 2%.
But when someone over life level 10 attempts it, they can challenge with a 5% probability due to the ‘Dexterity Bonus +3%’ effect.
Also, the probability of the weapon breaking upon failure is greatly reduced.
It wasn’t a concept where you could simply abandon life skills because they were bothersome. In <Tower of Colossus>, life content was essential.
However, if you work for about a week, you can quickly reach level 10, so there’s no problem stopping there.
But they didn’t even have that ‘level 10’.
“Wow… We have to enhance without life levels? The weapons are gonna blow up like crazy. What do we do?”
Unlike the Thief, who was worried in advance, the Wizard showed no particular emotion.
“We’ll just have to invest a lot.”
He, who in modern terms would be a building owner, just spoke monotonously as if it were someone else’s problem.
That evening at 8 o’clock, the Thief’s chat message came up first again today.
[Thief]: Good evening
[Thief]: Has anyone tried enhancement?
At that moment, Archer was preparing to level up according to the game’s story.
‘I can’t help it. Let me get ahead and steal the experience points Kaline would eat.’
In Kaline’s route, there are many vicious Hunter villains who are just right for Kaline to gain experience points from.
Bastards who, far from helping people with their Hunter powers, commit all kinds of evil deeds like threatening and exploiting the weak. Especially when a scene came out where a trash villain kidnapped a child and demanded ransom from the parents, Archer fumed and raged.
‘If it’s a bastard like this… maybe I can close my eyes and kill them. Right, let’s practice killing.’
‘How about getting a job at a prison…? If there’s a Hunter among the criminals brought in, I’ll kill them. If they’re capital offenders who’ll be executed anyway, I’ll get experience points if I do it instead of someone else, but my mental state is… I’ll have to overcome it.’
He was newly reminded of how advantageous Kaline’s position was. Kaline was someone who had taken a knight’s oath to the monarchy, and depending on the circumstances, he even carried out the punishment and execution of criminals.
And the Demihard Kingdom rejected Hunters. Enough to impose harsher punishment on criminals if they were Hunters.
Kaline as a competitor, not a partner.
‘First I need to build my own strength… That damn Predation ability penalty.’
Even if there were Hunters to kill, it was useless if he wasn’t stronger. Because he had to meet the conditions of the Predation ability.
‘To become strong, I need to devour Hunters, but to devour Hunters, I need to be strong?’
It was an ability that ran the gamut of irrationality and contradiction. He thought it was truly shit, not a cheat.
He briefly hit his head at his hopeless situation. Archer straightened his blurred eyes and focused on the chat window.
[Bard]: Good evening.
[Bard]: Are you referring to weapon enhancement that was in the game?
[Bard]: I was just thinking, when I picked up the violin and flute, the enhancement window did pop up.
[Thief]: Ahㅋㅋㅋㅋ right you’re a bard
[Thief]: Then did you try enhancing them?
[Bard]: No. These are the theater troupe’s instruments, so it would be troublesome if they were stolen.
[Bard]: This is a big problem. Getting an instrument will be more expensive than getting a sword.
[Bard]: Forget enhancement, I don’t even have money to buy a weapon.
[Thief]: ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ how
He didn’t have time to worry about the Bard’s circumstances. Archer pondered deeply.
First, the old bow he was holding was too low level, so the enhancement function didn’t appear. It was like that in the game too.
Then if he obtained a suitable bow and enhanced it, Archer’s individual combat power would also increase.
‘This is advantageous for the Predation ability.’
If he had an enhanced weapon, he would be judged as a stronger Hunter.
In other words, even if his Hunter stats were a bit low, he could get an overall evaluation that he was superior by possessing a higher enhanced weapon than others.
[Brawler]: I tried enhancement once
[Brawler]: But I failed at +3
[Brawler]: ㅋ….probability
[Brawler]: We don’t have any life functions at all….
[Puppeteer]: We just have to enhance with low probability?
[Alchemist]: For real though
Since everyone equally had no life levels, you could say it was fair…
‘Wait a minute.’
Archer recalled someone he had briefly forgotten. One possessor who didn’t exist in the chat.
That guy’s job… is a life profession.
“Huh?”
And he was the only one who knew of Hian’s existence.
Archer’s eyes flickered opaquely before returning to normal. Archer imagined it.
Kidnapping Hian, locking him in a room, and making him only enhance his own weapons…
* * *
Today was the day when the market opened every five days in the nearby village. I went from dawn and chose fresh vegetables and salt-cured meat faster than anyone else.
“The mushroom is damaged, you see? Here, can’t you see it?”
“Aw come on, over something like that. If you go home and cook it right away, there’s no problem at all!”
“There is a problem though? Instead, throw in one more of these.”
“A young-looking person being so shrewd. Alright, take it!”
“Sell a lot.”
I managed to get one more clump of brown mushrooms. The merchant grumbled but counted the coins he received from me.
I might not know how to catch a deer, but I knew the market prices of each city’s commercial districts inside and out. No matter what merchant appeared and tried to rip me off as an obvious outsider, I wouldn’t fall for it.
They’d better give up the idea of overcharging me.
‘I bought protein and fiber. Now calcium…’
I was heading inside the village to buy milk and cheese when I felt a gaze looking at me from somewhere.
