Chapter 2. Boy Becomes a Dungeon Explorer (2)

I couldn’t calm myself hearing all these alerts. The first thing I thought of was ‘Yes! I’m finally a dungeon explorer!’ The next thing was ‘is Bronze Rank 9 high or low?’ The last was ‘what’s a Potion?’

Anything more was hard to put into my head.

“Ugh, I’m getting dizzy. Can you say that slower?”

[Would you like to check your message log?]

“What’s a message log?”

[It contains the messages Kang Shin-nim received.]

“Yes, show me!”

As soon as the words left my mouth, a translucent window appeared in front of my eyes. Startled, I took a step back. To think it could trick and appear before me, who has better senses than my father… But when I realized that it did not have a real form, I let my guard down and approached it. There, the voices I had been hearing were recorded. It was amazing.

“Sharp Wooden Spear?”

[It is inside your inventory. Would you like to confirm?]

“Confirm how?”

[You just have to say the word inventory.]

“Inventory…? Uwoah!”

It was the same as before. A translucent window suddenly appeared before my eyes. The only difference was that this one did not have words on it, and that it was long in height and short in width. There were 10 fist-sized spaces next to each other. There was nothing above or below them, so it was 1x10. And on the first space was picture of a glass bottle filled with red liquid. The number 5 was written next to it. It seemed this was the potion the voice was talking about. In the second space was a wooden spear. When I reached toward it subconsciously, my hand went into the window.

“Uwoah!”

What was more surprising was that my hand didn’t come out the other side. It really felt like my hand was ‘inside’ the window. I wriggled my hand in surprise, but I stopped when I felt something touching my hand. It was thick and long. This was… a spear! I instinctively grabbed onto it and pulled it out of the window. As expected, a sharp-looking wooden spear was in my hand. As I stared at it, a small window popped up in front of me.

[Sharp Wooden Spear (Normal)

Durability – 70/70

Attack – 10

Equipment Limit – None

Explanation – A wooden spear perfect for a beginner to use. It has no special abilities.]

“Mm.”

I will be honest. I had no clue what this meant. For me who had never played a single game before, the terms ‘beginner’s weapon’ and ‘basic weapons’ were foreign. In any case, I knew it was a weapon I could use. That was enough.

I hung the wooden spear on my back and proceeded to check out this thing called potion. It said it would restore 100 HP, but I didn’t know what that meant. Then, the voice told me to check my status. I didn’t know whose voice this was, but I thought of it as a nice noona’s, and just like she told me, I yelled out ‘check status.’

[Name: Kang Shin Race: Human Sex: Male

Class: None Title: None Rank: Bronze 9

Level: 1

HP – 240/240 MP – 0

Strength – 18 Dexterity – 16 Constitution – 17

Intelligence – 5 Magic – 0 Charm – 7 Luck – 10

Skill – Low-rank Martial Arts (Lv 4), Low-rank Spear Technique (Master), Mid-rank Spear Technique (Lv 3)]

Strange. I see two zeros there. And if my strength is 18 but my intelligence is 5, is my strength high or is my intelligence low?

“What’s HP and what’s MP?”

[HP represents your life. When you get attacked by monsters, your HP will decrease. When it reaches 0, you will be kicked out of the dungeon. In that case, you will not be able to re-enter the dungeon for one week.]

[MP represents your mana. It is used to cast magic or skills. It is also called Qi.]

“Qi!”

[Your MP is 0. It other words, you have no Qi.]

“How can I get it?”

[Those from worlds other than Earth know methods to accumulate mana in their bodies. Also, those who already have mana can increase the amount of mana they have by clearing the dungeon floor and leveling up.]

“Leveling up?”

[It will be explained to you soon. In conclusion, there is currently no way for Kang Shin-nim to obtain MP.]

“What can I do to get it?”

[You need to obtain a mana cultivation method.]

“How can I obtain that?”

[You can buy it at the Floor Shop located at the end of dungeon floors. Note, it can only be bought from Floor Shops above 10F, and they are very expensive.]

“10F! Since I’m on 1st floor, I just have to climb to 10th, right?”

[That is right.]

“How much does it cost? …is it more than 50,000 won?”

I was in my 3rd year of middle school, and with my monthly allowance being 10,000 won, 50,000 won was an enormous amount of money. As I was wondering, the voice answered me.

[You cannot buy Floor Shop items with the won currency. You may only trade gold or monster remains dropped by the dungeon’s monsters.]

“Gold!”

Okay, there was hope! From what I understood, there were monsters in the dungeon and they dropped gold when defeated. I could climb to a higher floor when I defeated all of them, and when I reached the end of the 10th floor, I could buy a mana cultivation method from something called the Floor Shop. Then, I could finally obtain Qi! I could fulfill my father’s dream as well!

I was awed at my brain’s ability to comprehend all this.

Of course, my brain wasn’t yet capable of thinking ‘if it was so easy, my father would have done it already.’ My intelligence was 5, and it was only a year later that I learned the average level 1 stat was 10. I even forgot why I wanted to become a dungeon explorer, and set my eyes on obtaining Qi.

I signaled noona that I wanted to begin exploring by asking her where monsters lived. Noona kindly told me I could begin by shouting ‘Commence Exploration.’ I shouted as soon as I heard it.

“Commence Exploration!”

Then, all the windows that had been surrounding me disappeared in an instant and an ominous aura began to surround me. A few of the torches were extinguished and only the ones closest to me remained lit, burning strongly. Because I traveled the world with my father every break, darkness could not faze me. However, the prickling sensation I felt on my skin was concerning. Then, I felt a presence I did not feel before.

I held my wooden spear and put up my guard. This presence was like that of the 10m long anaconda I fought at the Amazon…!

Sss, sss. I could sense the anacondas crawling towards me from all sides, and I gulped. I knew I couldn’t defeat an anaconda with my strength alone. Previously, father and I had barely defeated it with me drawing its attention and my father delivering blow after blow. But could I defeat several of them? Alone? I didn’t want to be kicked out when I finally became a dungeon explorer!

Thinking this, I tightly gripped my wooden spear. I saw them walk out of the darkness, and my eyes opened wide in surprise.

“Uwaaa…aah?

50cm long and 30cm wide. What seemed like puddings seemed to be diligently crawling towards me. To compare these things to anacondas… I felt sorry to the anacondas. I doubted whether these things were even alive. I stabbed my spear through one to check and it easily pierced through.

[You obtained a Slime Piece.]

[You obtained 1 gold.]

It exploded with a bang. I stood still, stupefied, but soon gave a shout of joy and jumped.

“Whoo! I’m a dungeon explorer now!”

The curtains had lifted for the legendary stage of the dungeon explorer Kang Shin!

… Or so I thought before I knew any better. It didn’t take long until harsh reality set in.

When I first felt it was when I reached the 3rd floor, past the 2nd floor when honey bees attacked. Compared to the 1st and 2nd floor, which were relatively easy, monsters called goblins appeared on the 3rd floor, giving me trouble.

At first, I did not even know what happened as my HP reached 0 and I was chased out. I couldn’t re-enter the dungeon for a week. The next week, I grit my teeth and entered the dungeon. Then, I finally figured out how I had died. Poisonous darts. The goblins had shot out poisonous darts and I had been completely paralyzed.

When monsters hit me, it usually hurt as much as when my father hit me. But because of the paralyzing poison, I couldn’t feel any pain whatsoever. Not feeling pain was scarier than one might think. Because there were so many of them, it was hard to dodge every single poisonous dart. As a result, my HP reached 0 multiple times and I couldn’t enter the dungeon for a whole month. In the end, I asked my father for advice.

“Father, the goblins keep shooting poisonous darts at me.”

“Hm? You’re already at the 3rd floor? It hasn’t even been three months yet.”

“Am I fast?”

“It took your father a whole year to reach the 2nd floor.”

It turned out my father had not yet awoken his sixth sense and was unable to feel the slimes approaching. As a result, it had taken him a year to take the initiative. Since you couldn’t enter the dungeon for a week once you were kicked out, it wasn’t surprising it had taken so long. Even I made no progress for a month.

“So you’re level 3 now?”

“Yep.”

When you cleared the dungeon floor, your level increased by 1 and you were given 5 bonus stats. With it, you could raise your strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, and others. Because I was unhappy with my intelligence being at 5, I put all my stats into intelligence when I reached level 2. Thanks to that, my intelligence had reached the level of an average person.

Of course, even with my increased intelligence, because of the long years I lived out of touch with reality, I still believed I could easily reach the 10th floor. I tried to raise my magic stat when I reached level 3, but I couldn’t put any points into a stat that was 0. In the end, I put 2 into strength, 2 into dexterity, and 1 into constitution.

“You must have made some money then.”

“Money?”

I tilted my head. Money? I had gold, but no money. What relation was there between the dungeon’s gold and money? What my father said next made my ears perk up.