Infinite Competitive Dungeon Society

About an hour after we entered the dungeon, I made everyone stop. I sensed something strong, and there was more than one of it.

“I feel something. It might be the boss.”

“Mm… Ah, there really is. One, two… there’s three.”

“Wait, let me use detection magic…. Kyaaak!?”

Because I forgot to say they were hidden underground, I ended up hearing a soprano scream. Just like father said, three spiders suddenly appeared from underground, and I quickly pulled the party back. Each spider was about 3 meters tall. Spiders this big, where did I see them before? Ah, that’s right, Harry Potter!

“Kyaaaaak!”

Mastiford seemed to have received huge shock from the spider’s visual as she kept on screaming. As if it had been annoyed by all the screaming, one of the giant spiders shot a stream of white spider web like a bullet, aimed at Mastiford. Minami then stepped forward and help her shield up.

“Haaaap!”

Boom! The sound of a cannon shell colliding with metal rang out. Such destructive power for a mere spider web! I looked back, worried about Minami’s status. Thankfully, although she looked a little pale, she was fine. It seemed she didn’t say she was good at defense for nothing.

“I-I’m fine, so take care of the spiders!”

“Got it!”

I clenched my fists and charged at one of the giant spiders in front of me. Father was also shooting out shockwaves at the other giant spiders, handling two at the same time. As I could not do long-range attacks with Spirit Aura yet, I could only fight one spider at a time.

“Eat this!”

I kicked the ground and approached a giant spider. Before it could tilt its body and dodge, I plunged my lightning clad gauntlet in the hole where it had shot spider webs earlier. When I let the lightning flow, the giant spider trembled and shrieked.

“Kyaaaaa!”

“Eat another one!”

Left hand this time! Right hand again! When I consecutively punched with my fists, it tried to use its two front legs to strike down at me. Although they were fast, I could easily dodge them as I had seen the legs’ initial movement. The two legs only hit empty air and dug into the ground with an explosive sound.

Immediately afterwards, I threw a right cross at one of its front legs. Clang! A sound like I had hit a metallic pillar rang out. I had to clench my teeth to endure the recoil, but I obtained the result I wanted.

“Kiyaaa!”

“An opening!”

When it screamed and raised its body half way up, I instantly ducked and jumped under it. I then pushed it with my lightning clad fists, making it fall on its back.

“Wow, amazing!”

Leaving behind Minami’s awestruck shout, I leaped up and landed on its belly. Although it struggled and tried to attack me with its legs, it was in vain. I held its carapace on one hand and rained my other hand down like a hammer.

“Die! You! Spider! Bastard! Stop! Shooting! Out! Webs!”

Every time I struck down with my fist strengthened with mana and lightning, the spider twitched. It let out a bloodcurdling scream and struggled every time it was hit, but his reaction lessened as time went on.

Eventually, my fist succeeded in penetrating its belly. With my hand inside it, I let as much lightning flow out as possible.

Pzzzzzt!

“Ki—!”

The giant spider let out a short scream, then became calm as it dropped its eight legs on the ground. After confirming that it was dead, I dropped back down. It was then that I heard a message in my ear.

[You mastered Mid-rank Martial Arts! Attacks that make use of your body will be quicker and stronger. It can intimidate enemies possessing lower proficiency skills.]

That was considered martial arts? I was just punching it! When I was about to rebuke the message in my mind, more shocking messages flowed in.

[You satisfied the condition and learned High-rank Martial Arts skill. Your body becomes even tougher. It becomes easier to use highly complex skills, and your attacks will be effective against enemies stronger than you.]

[You satisfied the condition and learned ‘Thunder Beast’ skill. Thunder Beast is a combat-type special active skill that comes from possessing high-rank martial arts and a lightning ability.]

[Thunder Beast is a dangerous technique that attacks the enemy by exploding the user’s superb physical ability and the power of lightning. This technique puts a burden on its user’s body, so using it without high constitution may hurt the user instead. With its huge magic consumption, your magic stat must be high as well. It uses 1 percent of total mana per 1 second it is active. Using it for a long period of time may have negative effects on the user’s constitution. It uses 1 percent of HP and MP per second when used inside the dungeon.]

My eyes became wide. Obtaining high-rank martial arts was somewhat expected, but the Thunder Beast skill was something I would never have imagined. It was like a surprise present. I knew what skills like it were called.

Compound skill. It was when two or more skills combined to create a stronger skill, or when achieving a certain level created a new skill by combining two or more skills. In my case, Thunder Beast was the result of my high-rank martial arts skill and lightning ability, or more specifically, lightning elemental Peika’s Spirit Aura, combining. Although I had heard of it before, I never thought it would happen to me. I remembered Ellos complaining about wanting to get a compound skill…

The skill itself had an immense drawback befitting of its strong-sounding name. Using 1 percent of my mana every 1 second meant that I could only use it for 100 seconds at most. Not to mention, it said it also put a burden on my body. I could easily see how much burden it would be by looking at its HP consumption in the dungeon. Although it would undoubtedly be strong, I could feel how dangerous it was.

There was a reason for the difference in consumption inside and outside of the dungeon.

Outside of the dungeon, it was impossible to check one’s HP and MP. Both HP and MP were values that only applied in the dungeon. They were safety mechanisms there to prevent dungeon explorers from dying. When the HP hit 0, the explorer would be kicked out of the dungeon. Likewise, MP was the safety mechanism on the explorer’s mana.

No one explained this difference to me. As I explored the dungeon, I naturally learned the difference on my own.

In truth, there was not a big difference in my ability inside or outside the dungeon. It was just that I could not check my HP and MP outside the dungeon. That was just how it was.

Although Thunder Beast seemed to be a dangerous skill, the fact that I could use a powerful skill without my spear made me happy. I thanked my good fortune. With this, I really did not need to use a spear outside the dungeon.

When I finished going over all the messages I received, Mastiford had finally snapped out of it.

When I was about to say something to her, father’s shockwave glazed a spider and hit the ground. It was then that I realized father was dealing with two spiders at once. Uwak, he’s going to scold me later!

“Yeon Hwawoo, Miss, I need help!”

“I’m coming!”

“A-Ah! Sorry, Ajusshi!”

Even Mastiford’s flames could not instantly burn up the giant spider. Plus, the two remaining spiders teamed up, as one attacked with its legs and the other attacked from the back by shooting out its webs.

In the end, Minami stood forward and blocked the spider’s web bullets as father and I dealt with the spider fighting with its legs. Mastifold then managed to burn them up with yellow flames she created with few seconds of concentrating her energy. I thought it was a decent teamplay.

“Since we burned them up, we won’t know if they had Bluestones.”

“I-I don’t want to look through spider corpses! That one too!”

“Mastiford-ssi, that one’s mine. Don’t burn it up.”

I leisurely picked apart the giant spider’s corpse, and found a fist-size Bluestone near its head. As it was the first Bluestone I found, I was especially attached to it. ‘So this Is the reason why so many ability users gritted their teeth to fight monsters?’

“Wow, it’s huge! With that size, it should easily go for 40 million.”

“40 million won? This thing?”

That was equivalent to about 20,000 gold. The giant spider was certainly strong, but that was still the amount I got from two Floor Masters. I was suddenly disillusioned by the job called dungeon explorer. But Minami still had more to say.

“No, it’s 40 million yen.”

“What!?”

Wait, then taking 100 yen as 900 won, that’s… 360 million won!?

“Why are you so surprised? It’s an elite monster even amongst A-rank monsters. Not only are their numbers small, Bluestones don’t always drop. Since we’re fighting with our life on the line, it’s only appropriate. In fact, isn’t it too small?”

“You should take this spider corpse too. I’ve never seen a spider this big, and its carapace is only broken around its belly. It should go for as much as the Bluestone.”

“7, 720 million won…”

‘… Maybe I should work as an ability user on the side.’ Realizing just how much money ability users made, I fiddled around with the Bluestone in my hand. However, as father was also eyeing the Bluestone with sparkling eyes, I left the detailed scrutiny to a later time. For now, I stored the Bluestone into my inventory along with the spider’s corpse.

“Is this mine? Or do we have to split it somehow?”

“Since Yeon Hwawoo-ssi killed it alone, it’s yours. We didn’t help you in any way.”

“… Mm.”

It still felt weird to take it all by myself. I could focus on the one because father was handling the other two, and the two girls then helped take care of the other two.

“I can give 10 percent to each. As a chippu.”

“Yeon Hwawoo-ssi, that’s Japanese.”

“Mm… as a tip1 then.”

How picky from a Japanese. Tip was in English and Mastiford didn’t say anything!

“By the way, that wasn’t the boss just now, right?”

“No. The Event Dungeons collapse when the boss dies. Uuu, with elite monsters like them, the boss monster would be… uuuu.”

Mastiford murmuring to herself with a frown was rather cute. But I just ignored it and walked forward. Of course, father’s eyes were still fixed on me. I won’t give it to you no matter how much you glare at me, father! Be happy with the 10 percent!

1. In English