Chapter 2

In Seoul around 7 in the morning, Yu Jin was on a bus. One might have thought that a young man his age would be headed to university or work at such a time. Well they might have thought that if not for the leather armour he was wearing and the fact that he was gazing absentmindedly at the sword in his hands.

“Oi, how long are you going to keep perving on your sword. We need to go over how we are going to handle today’s hunt.”

Yu Jin was woken from his daze by the voice coming from next to him. He laughed as he turned around to his friend Kim Min-Jun.

“I’m just checking it for marks, You know I just got It recently.”

“Arg, you’re such idiot of course it’s going to have marks it’s a sword for crying out loud. Come on this is serious.”

The two joking friends were on their way to enter the Seoul dungeon for just the 3rd time. Looking at their carefree attitude one might wonder why they were so calm considering the fact that dungeons were dangerous. As a matter of fact, dungeons were different and not all of them had the same level of danger.

The dungeon Yu Jin and Kim Min-Jun were headed for was a beginner dungeon. Beginner dungeons had 25 levels and the duo was still on the first floor. They had only started entering the dungeon the week before and after the first two times their nerves had already started to settle.

Dungeons were split into 4 levels, from easiest to most difficult they were beginner, intermediate, advanced and S ranked dungeons. All the dungeons except for the beginner dungeons had minimum level requirements. The most active were the beginner and intermediate dungeons whilst very few people ever managed to enter the advanced dungeons.

Yu Jin had decided to not go to university even though he had the grades in order to focus on hunting which was the only thing he had a passion for. Soon after people started entering the dungeons he had secretly started taking kumdo lessons and now 6 years later he here was, a fully fledged dungeon hunter.

He had registered to hunt with this friend Kim Min-Jun as they both shared the same passion since the time they were in school avoiding class so they could daydream about slaying monsters and become rich off it.

***

They duo had planned on venturing up to the second floor today but didn’t have enough people with them.

Kim Min-Jun tried to get Yu Jin focused on the hunt again.

“So who are we going to get? We need either a healer or a mage.”

Yu Jin thought it was so weird how Kim Min-Jun changed so much from his usually joking self and became ‘Mr Responsible’ before a hunt.

“hmmm, I think a mage would be better because it’s still lower down we don’t have to worry too much about heavy injuries. We can always take a break and wait for our health to recover.”

“Okay fine, how about the split?”

“How about 70:30 in our favour?”

“You sure we can’t do 75:25?”

‘Haha, as usual Kim Min-Jun is already thinking about the money. Even being in a dungeon won’t change his thrifty nature.’

“Come on… If you keep being stingy like this we’re not going to get anyone to come with us”.

As Yu Jin said that the bus had arrived at their stop. They were now at the dungeon’s stop. The proximity around the dungeon was bustling with people as shops had been built a few hundred meters away from it which did everything from selling weapons to providing food and accommodation. As they got off the bus Kim Min-Jun finally consented and they went towards the dungeon’s entrance.

The area around the entrance was filled with hunters who were either preparing to enter the dungeon or were looking for people to group up with.

In most countries guilds had started up and these were organizations that hunters joined and worked for. The top guilds possessed massive wealth due to the strong members they had who always made it out of the dungeons with the best mana stones and materials. The guilds who form teams of high level hunters who would attack the higher level floors of the more difficult dungeons. The big guilds usually focused on the intermediate dungeons and rarely entered the advanced dungeons as not that many would people were able to reach the higher levels of the 50 floor dungeon. Currently the most successful expedition had managed to climb 32 floors with just a few casualties so expectations were high that they would make it further up.

Mana stone has become a very important commodity and could be obtained from monsters within the dungeon and were used to create power sources and weapons among other things. The highest quality ones always fetched high prices and led to the top hunters wanting for nothing. Guilds and hunters were ranked in order of weakest to strongest into these categories F,E,D,C,B,A. There were only 3 A rank guilds in Korea and those would never be caught at a beginner dungeon. The top guilds in Korea were Heavenly Light, The Arathian Knights and Subversive Alliance.

***

Yu Jin and Kim Min-Jun just stood around by the entrance. Seeing the pair a few people walked up to them asking to join their party but seeing that most of them were close range fighters their offers were refused. After about half an hour a girl who looked about 18-19 walked up to them.

“Hey, do you guys have space in your team?”

Yu Jin was surprised to see such a beautiful girl here alone. She had long elegant black hair that was in contrast with her pale white skin and peach red lips. She was average height and slender with a short red mage’s robe on which made him want to protect her. While Yu Jin was still dazed Kim Min-Jun stepped forward.

“Yes, you’re a mage right?”

“Yeah, why else would I be wearing these clothes?”

The girl answered irritably .

Yu Jin feeling left out also felt he should ask something.

“What level are you?”

The girl looked at Yu Jin as if sizing him up with a curious gaze.

“3.”

As soon as she muttered that she looked right back at Kim Min-Jun.

‘Arg… not again’

Yu Jin wasn’t even surprised, this always happened when he was with Kim Min-Jun. Girls always ignored him and the worst part that it wasn’t as if he was ugly or anything. Yu Jin’s height was 5’8 and he wasn’t fat he was about 80kg with short wavy black as well as black eyes. He really was average looking, It’s just that Kim Min-Jun was simply that much more attractive than him. Kim Min-Jun was 6’2 with broad shoulders and short brown wavy hair that always looked perfect even though he never took care of it. He was in good shape and seemed like one of those people you’d see in a magazine.

‘Why is he always there when I meet good looking girls?’

For as long as they had known each other Kim Min-Jun had always made getting or keeping a girlfriend difficult for him. If it was someone else Yu Jin might have already ended the friendship but Kim Min-Jun had always looked after him throughout high school when he was almost bullied and when his parents kicked him out for refusing to go to university it was always Kim Min-Jun who helped. So Yu Jin had already come to terms with the fact that he would have to try many times harder to get a girlfriend.

At this point Kim Min-Jun was satisfied with the girl mage.

“Okay great, I’m Kim Min-Jun and this is Yu Jin. We are both level 2, I am a tanker and he is a swordsman. We will be splitting whatever we find 70:30 okay?“

“That’s fine, nice to meet you Kim Min-Jun. My name is Ji Seo-Yun, shall we go?”

‘Might as well not even be here’

Yu Jin was already starting to feel like going back home. He grudgingly followed the pair to the checkpoint. This was the point where the hunter association official checked their id’s to ensure they had permission to enter.

The hunter association was an organization that was part of the government and was established in most major countries as a way to control and censure hunters. They were put in charge of controlling the access to dungeons and were also the main sellers of the weapons used by hunters as well as the purchasers of dungeon materials. They also had the job of measuring the hunters abilities and ranking them.

After the trio were handed back their F-rank id’s they did a final check on their equipment and then stepped into the waiting dungeon.