Raid Breaker

Level 3 Dungeon

“It is not a formal mission.  I think a group made up of noobie knights, in order to earn some experience, are trying to tackle a level 3 dungeon.  Since they didn’t receive a formal knight training, they are trying to find a cleaner that will keep his mouth shut.”

“In that case, they could simply clear the dungeon and then call in the cleaner, and yet they want to take a cleaner along?”

“Since they just became knights, they don’t have that much money.  They worked hard to find level 3 dungeon, as well as the key to open the dungeon, but if they only catch the demons, they will only break even, so they thought.  Therefore, they decided to clear the beasts as well, and it was in that process that they needed a cleaner.”

“It’s the really rich folks that go overboard, it seems like.”

“You can’t help it.  This type of jobs is common now days.”

“How much are they paying?”

“Around $500 I think.  However, since the dungeon they are attacking is not registered with the colony, if you keep their secrets, they will compensate you for all the used supplies, and they will add $200 more at the end.”

“They did a good job of hiding cla.s.s 3 dungeon from the colony, didn’t they?”

“It barely pa.s.sed as a level 3 dungeon, therefore it didn’t register with the quest device, probably.  Since the dungeon cla.s.sification system was man-made there will be some that escape the device from time to time.”

In reality, basic cleaning payment for level 3 dungeon was $1000.  Even if you take consideration of the cost of the expendables, once the beasts had been properly slaughtered and sold, there would be more than enough to cover $1000 cleaning fee.

Of course in order to clean level 3 dungeon, it takes at least 9 days, but a cleaning job that can bring in a decent money is a cla.s.s 3 dungeon cleanup.

For them to pay only $700 for such a dungeon can only make one feel less than happy, but never the less, SuHyuk agreed to the job.

For SuHyuk, who valued dimensional force (DF) more than the money, he wanted to do whatever it took to be included in the hunt.

“Sure, I will do it.”

“Good choice.  It’s difficult to find even this kind of jobs now days.  That is the reality.”

SuHyuk listened to SuhWonTae and couldn’t do anything but to admit that YunGuu was a very skillful broker.’

——————————————————————

Was it because it was SuhWonTae’s introduction?  Or was it that they were in a hurry?  There was no definite answer, but SuHyuk’s addition to the team was very quickly taken care of.

As he also wanted to enter the dungeon as quickly as possible, there was no problem.

They immediately gave SuHyuk the location of the dungeon, and, as for SuHyuk, he left the colony as soon as he received the location.  Afterwards, he called YunGuu immediately to let him know that he had finished cleaning the 4th and 5th dungeon.  He did that since cleaning out the level 3 dungeon would take a few days.  As for the equipment, because he had organized his equipment while moving in and out of the house, all that was left was to head out.

The location of the level 3 dungeon was inside of an old collapsed department store in an area that was used to be called JuukJun.  Once he arrived at the location, representative of the knights working as a helper received him.

“Nice to meet you.  My name is Lee WuJin.” Even if looking at him with just one eye, he seemed like a veteran with a lot of years.

Recently, there have been some stories that old veteran knights started to work as helpers, but even now there are more helpers without a knight background.  Especially, these special groups of helpers were loan-type soldiers often labeled as “reinforced humans.”

There wasn’t much to the reinforced humans.  Once upon a time, they were receiving more attention than the t.i.tans, and they were considered as innovative epitome of demon engineering, as they received artificial mana circuit implanted into their bodies.

The intent of the project was to make artificial knights, but in the hindsight, it was a gruesome failure.

Not only were they weaker than the natural knights, but because they had the mana circuit implanted in them, the circuit had required quite a bit of mana consumption, and that was not cost effective.

At first, optimistic view was that they would be able to get rid of all the demons, and therefore received a lot of praise, but in reality it was better off to train a human knight.

Though, at one time, the reinforced humans were so popular that countries all over the world were making them, now days, with the overabundance of these rejects resulted in no one making them anymore.  As such, these reinforced humans, because they required profession that brought in enough money to satisfy their mana intake, they left the military and took on a helper profession.  It is for this reason that there were so many reinforced humans that were helpers.

Lee WuJin was one of those reinforced humans.  As a veteran reinforced human of 15 years, he can be considered as one of the prototype reinforced humans.

He was 38 years old, but due to faster aging seen in reinforced humans, he looked like he was in his late 40s.

“My name is Kang SuHyuk.”

“Sorry for asking you to hurry.  We had hard time finding a cleaner so we were thinking of starting the raid without a cleaner.”

“Ah, is that so.”  SuHyuk understood why they were in hurry.

“As you can see, those three over there are the main fighers, the knights, and including me, there are 4 helpers.

Having briefed about the team, SuHyuk took a look at the group.

‘Excluding this guy, aren’t these helpers amateurs?  No way, aren’t those knights amateurs as well?’  Because he was constantly going in and out of the dungeon for over 10 years, he was able to, instantly, a.s.sess whether the fighters were experienced or not.  Nevertheless, a knight that seems to be the leader appeared as if he had some experience under his belt.

Noticing SuHyuk’s facial expression keep on turning for the worse, WuJin approached him and whispered to him.  “Looks like you pretty much figured out….me and the captain are the only two individuals that have any experience fighting in the dungeon, and the captain is a 1 year veteran in the military.”

“Even if there are three knights, they are pretty much noobies.  Are we gonna be okay?”  SuHyuk followed WuJin’s example and whispered back.

“There shouldn’t be any big problems.  Actually, I wasn’t too happy either, but jobs, now days, are hard to come by so I had to join them.  Aren’t you in the same boat?”

Whether it was the helpers or the cleaners, their situations were pretty much the same.

“Yes, pretty much.”  Apprehending the situation, SuHyuk nodded.

“No matter how inexperienced they are, since there are three knights it shouldn’t be too dangerous.  As for the helpers, I will be in charge of them so you should be able to focus on cleaning behind them.”

By the time the two pretty much finished up their conversation, team captain Lee HoSuk lead the team toward the dungeon.  He didn’t really care enough to bother talking to SuHyuk the cleaner.  Not only that, besides the knights, the only person that he spoke to was WuJin.

“Alright, let’s go.”

Jeeeing, churkuk!

Very expensive looking dimensional key entered the dungeon lock and it disappeared as it unlocked the lock.

Lee HoSuk was determined to sweep all the demons and beasts in the dungeon in order to pay for the dimensional key.  Slaughtering the beasts into sell-able portions was a ha.s.sle, but luckily at the last moment a cleaner joined up.

——————————————————————

John Lane, aka The Iron Hurk, was known as the cream of the crop celebrity among the hero level knights.  One out of his top 10 basic rules of dungeon sweeping was, “Dungeon sweeping must not be done in haste.”

This sounded kind of simple, but in reality, it was a very important statement.  One must be composed and must keep a sound mind, but not everybody adhere to such simple statement.

“We are going too fast.”  Wujin spoke his mind to HoSuk once more.

“This is not fast.  All we have to do is catch the dungeon boss.  Why be so careful when it is only a level 3 demon?  Did you forget that we have 3 knights over here?”

Usually, in level 3 dungeon, level 2-3 demons are the dungeon bosses. Also, level 3 demon was something the soldier level knights would have no problem handling.  If only thinking up to this point, what Lee HoSuk said would be correct, but in reality it was a dumb statement.

“As I have told you before, it is not about the level 3 demon.  I am saying this just in case we make a mistake and we invite wave of demons and beasts.”

If the initial plan was to systemically sweep the beasts and demons from one end to the other, WuJin would not have said anything, but HoSuk’s plan was to shoot straight to where dungeon boss “should” be and kill it first.  This was what’s called “Point Break” strategy.  Of course, the rest of the beasts will be dealt with afterwards.

It really didn’t matter what strategy one picked, and point break strategy was not bad.  However, WuJin’s point of view was that their pace was just too quick.

“I will personally pull the boss.  That will take care of the problem don’t you think?  You are not thinking that I will cause a wave, like an amateur, do you?”

“It’s not that, but…”  Since HoSuk said it like that, WuJin couldn’t say anything anymore.  If he contradicted HoSuk, at this point, it was same as looking down upon HoSuk, as if he was an amateur.

“Then stop talking.  No matter how experienced you are and no matter how much skill you have got.  Ultimately, I am the leader of this group.  Therefore, follow my decision.” An authoritative and oppressive att.i.tude.

Not all knights are like that, but there are many knights that think that they were the center of the world.

‘I don’t feel good about this…’  Having witnessed this interaction from the rear point, SuHyuk quietly shook his head.

‘Yan, how much DF did I collect so far?’

-it totals 490.

‘It is definitely a lot.  It has only been 4 hours, and I have 490…we didn’t even catch one demon…ah, this honey train must keep on going, but…’

Even though his job description was dungeon cleaner, sticking to the rear and being out of the way of the group was not all there was to being a cleaner.  In combat situations, cleaners would also partic.i.p.ate in the battle.

Since the ever so ‘oh so important’ knights in this group were too big to be involved in beast subjugation, SuHyuk was able to sweep the beasts to his content.

Entertaining aspect about this arrangement for SuHyuk was that one earns the DF according to the contribution one puts in during the sweep.  As such, SuHyuk went out of his way to subjugate the beasts even when it was not expected of him.  He was so proficient in marksmanship that he was even praised by WuJin.

‘Yan, by chance, are you able to tell how many beasts are near by?’

-When inside of the dungeon, to scan beyond 100 meter require DF expenditure.  Would you like me to use some DF to increase the scan radius?

‘No, even if you find anything they will not listen to me anyway…just keep me posted within the 100 meter radius.’

-Okay.

Just in case, SuHyuk told Yan to scan systematically and took out some magazines from his backpack and hung some grenades on his vest.

‘I don’t care how much conscience that guy lack, but at least have some skills to compensate for it.’

SuHyuk looked at Lee HoSuk as if he was praying.  HoSuk announced that he would advance 500 meters on his own to pull the dungeon boss to their location.

The size of the level 3 dungeon, on average, was about 2-4 square kilometers.  It was not a small size.  Also, because this dungeon’s terrain was that of a jungle, it seemed especially big.

To kill a boss is like killing a dungeon.  Two things happen once boss is killed.  First is that the length of time that the dungeon is accessible to outsiders expands to 10 times the amount, and second is that the dungeon exit is created.  What is interesting is that even though there was only one entrance from the outside, but from the inside, there are two exit doors that open up.  As expected, the doors were one-way doors.

That means unless the boss is killed, the entrants are stuck inside the dungeon.  Of course the dungeons do periodically open up even if the boss was not killed.  “Dungeon Break” was the term used to describe this periodic opening of the dungeon.  However, if the dungeons opens up on its own while there are entrants inside, they tend to be forced out right along with the demons, and thus, they become the very first meal outside of the dungeon for the demons.  It is for this reason that the sweepers must sweep clear the dungeon before the dungeon opens up on its own.

Once 10 minutes pa.s.sed by, slowly SuHyuk became anxious.

‘He should have been back….’

In actuality, not everyone can “pull,”  Lee HoSuk was acting confident, but in SuHyuk’s experience, real good teams always had designated pullers, and such pullers were really treasured.

Since he knew the difference, he was uneasy.

Lee HoSuk made it sound like all he had to do was to head over there and annoy the boss a little bit and simply return.  If he wasn’t a knight, SuHyuk would have slapped the back of his head already.  Even though SuHyuk was only a cleaner, he had studied the dungeon earnestly, and thus, he knew that Lee HoSuk’s baseless confidence will only bring disaster for the group.

-there is a chunk of DF at the outer edge of 100 meter radius

‘Just one?’

-yes, just one.  Looking at the size of the DF, it seems like about level 3 demon.

‘Can you give me more detail?’

-500 DF must be consumed in order to gain better information. Would you like to spend some?

‘Crazy….why so much?’  Just thinking about 100 DF was making him hesitate with worry, but 500 DF was just too big of a number.’

-It will soon get in the visual field.

While SuHyuk was talking to Yan, huge level 3 demon, looking like a pile of stones, divided the vegetations and came into our view.  And of course, in front of it was the Lee HoSuk.

‘Ho-oh, did he succeed?’

Seeing HoSuk’s silhouette, SuHyuk had a better impression of the captain.  However, such thought shattered in exactly 2 seconds.

-Just beyond 100 meter there are mult.i.tudes of DF cl.u.s.ters showing up.  24 Beast, 4 second level demons are approaching.

“Cr, Crazy!”  As soon as he heard Yan’s report, profanity shot out.  He didn’t succeed.  He pulled the boss right along with the rest of the beasts that were around the boss.  This was an event that all sweepers fear, the ‘Wave.’

“Yiaaaahhh!”  Lee HoSuk screamed a little bit too late as he turned around.  Of course, he realized that he had caused the wave.  If he was a seasoned puller, as soon as he realized that he had caused the wave, he would have headed in a direction opposite of the group and died alone.  However, he was a stupid knight that was afraid of dying.  Therefore, hoping that the group could kill off the beasts, he pulled them toward the group.

‘Th, This b.a.s.t.a.r.d.’

No matter how you looked at it, it was a clear declaration saying, “lets die together.”

Lee HoSuk, though late, took hold of himself and faced against the demon, but from SuHyuk’s point of view, soldier level knight Lee HoSuk definitely wouldn’t be able to contain this wave.

Lee HoSuk was one of those morphing type knights. His right arm morphed into a big shield and his left arm turned into pointy and sharp sword.  It was a style of morph that was known to be popular among the morphing type knights.  They called it ‘swordshield morph.’ In addition, his body slightly enlarged as an added supplementation for the morph.

‘Oh ho, having morphed into sword-shield morph, he is also a reinforced type?  With that combination, he should be capable of being an officer level knight.’

Though reinforcement alone wasn’t much to be proud about, but when combining two different technologies into one man meant that Lee HoSuk’s talent was at least not trashy.  However, the problem was that no matter how much potential he had showed, in this situation, he wasn’t that big of a help.  He had the typical tanker’s ability, but there was no way he could block all of the demons and the beasts alone.

Not only that, the two noobie knights Lee HoSuk had brought along seemed only flashy in their appearance.  In terms of their actual worth, they were confused and so helpless that they couldn’t fully utilize their innate abilities.  They were just taking up s.p.a.ce.

‘Those kids….did they even receive basic training?’

Once you move up the ranks to become a knight, world knight group (WKG) gives them a one month long training.  The training was free, but because it was told that they do pretty good job of giving basic training, most of the knights received their training.  However, these two jokers, no matter how you look at them, didn’t seem like they went to that training.  It may be that Lee HoSuk might have told them that he would train them himself.  Whatever the case may be, the situation was not good.

Koong koong koong!

Blue stone demon.  Blue stones were stacked on top of each other and were covering arms, legs, and the head.  It was about 4 meters tall, and in entirety, arms and legs were short so it bobbled slightly as it moved.  This was the level 3 dungeon boss.  Lee HoSuk was the very first one to collide with the boss demon.  At least he was capable of pulling his own weight.  Then the next person pulling his own weight was Lee WuJin.

“Don’t be scared and concentrate on firing!”  Even though the situation was not great, as it was better than standing there to be killed off without a fight, he quickly gave orders as he readied both of his arms with dimension rifles.

If it was a normal soldier, handling the recoil of one rifle would be the limit, but as an reinforced human, handling two rifles weren’t very hard thing to do.

Unlike others, SuHyuk had already fired at the level 3 demon that Lee HoSuk was fighting even before Lee WuJin yelled out his orders.

‘We must take care of that one first.’

WuJin and SuHyuk’s rifles were, at the same time, bursting with fire.

Thoo-thoo-thoo-thoo!

They focused all of their firepower on the level 3 demon while Lee HoSuk had its attention.

Lee HoSuk was doing fairly well.  Also, even the two stooge knights, in response to the overwhelming number of the demons and the beasts, they started to reveal their strength.

One knight, by the looks of the flashes coming out of one of his hands, he was a piercing type fighter and the other one was pounding the beasts with his bare hands, meaning he was a reinforced type.

‘This level 3 demon….is it moss rock demon?’ It was SuHyuk’s dream to be able to fight one on one with a demon.  Therefore, with his spare time, he had read up on demon hunting books, and once he had exhausted all of the book resources, he had started to depend on internet sources.  Therefore, his expertise was quite good, to be able to be on the same level as the more experienced helper, Lee WuJin.

– Accurately speaking, it is a blue moss rock demon.

Because of a sudden response by Yan, SuHyuk was startled.

‘What? You even know names of the demons?’

– I just naturally knew when I looked at it.  If you want to find out more, I can use some DF to….

‘I’ll pa.s.s for now’  SuHyuk was fairly knowledgeable regarding the moss rock demon.

Moss rock demon’s biggest a.s.set was the moss.  These mosses had the capability to continuously regenerate.  Of course, moss was not a benign yard decoration.  It had the effect of nullifying close-combat style attacks by way of making attacks slip and absorbing impacts in place of the rock.  i.e., it had a very solid defense in close combat.  On top of that, because its body is a living organism type, it had developed tolerance to many variety types of attacks.

Electric, fire, ice, and other mainstream attacks had very little effect on the rock demon.  Therefore, if the goal was to kill the demon, physical impact attacks must be focused on the rock crevices, but even that was hampered by the presence of the moss.  As such, moss rock demon’s difficulty level was cla.s.sified fairly high up among the level 3 demons.

There are two popular means of getting around this problem, but first is to have numerous flame type knights to constantly burn away the moss faster than it can regenerate itself, and while the moss has been neutralized, helpers are to concentrate their firepower unto the bare rock surface to fell the demons.

Second method was to use the t.i.tans, which would be a piece of cake.

‘But, at this moment, we can’t utilize any of the two options.  Then….’  If you don’t have any fingernails, then you will just have to fight with bare fingers.

Churkuk.

SuHyuk, quickly, pulled out a magazine that was labeled with a red tape and swapped out the normal magazine from his weapon with the one with the red tape.  At the same time, after readying his rifle b.u.t.t inside his armpit, he concentrated on the demon.

‘Yan, are you capable of highlighting that guy’s sword trajectory?’

-that knight’s movement is not that fast so, if I can use DF to activate the ‘visual a.s.sistance system,’ it is possible.

‘Then do so.’

He didn’t want to use any DF, but now was not the time to complain.

As soon as SuHyuk gave it a go, visual a.s.sistance system activated and red lines appeared in his vision.  The red lines were not only outlining Lee HoSuk’s swing direction, but it was also showing the intended path of the sword’s tip.

Even though there were demons and monsters everywhere, SuHyuk completely ignored them.  After 20 years of having experienced something much worse than this, he was able to keep his poise to a normal level.

‘Now!’

After, looking at the demon with unbreakable concentration, SuHyuk, finally, had the right timing and he squeezed the trigger.

Tatatata~ng!

He was aiming for blue moss rock demon’s flank.  To be precise, the point of his aim was corresponding to the point that HoSuk’s sword tip was heading toward.

KaKhawng,  pha-rrrrk!

As soon as SuHyuk’s rifle expelled a stream of fire, moss rock demon’s flank also lighted with fire.  Inside of his special magazine were a very high-end flame ammos, but technically, it wasn’t that special.  As such, even if SuHyuk used this special ammo on the moss rock demon, moss on the demon would only briefly disappear at the moment of contact.  Once the impact and effect of the ammo ends, it would quickly regenerate as if nothing has happened.

That was all he could do to help HoSuk.

If there were 5 helpers, each equipped with thousand rounds of flame ammo, and they all concentrated on one spot of the moss rock demon, they could deal some serious damage, but what little that SuHyuk fired just now would have been very negligible, but this time, the situation was a bit different.

KaKhawng, Zhuuuk!

SuHyuk was not delusional enough to think that he would directly deal damage to the rock demon.  Realistically, that was impossible.  Therefore, he resorted to using the most effective method of damaging the rock demon, and that was dependent on Lee HoSuk.

If it was his left arm, morphed into a st.u.r.dy and sharp sword, was doing the attacking, the damage would be possible.  What SuHyuk did was to make sure that the moss does not get in the way of HoSuk’s attack.

It could be seen as nothing special in that it can be seen as a mere coincidence, but it was more than that.  He had to time his shot with reference to HoSuk’s swing, and at the same time, he had to have the ability to shoot where he intended.

For him to be able to accomplish that with all the madness around him was something special.

“Whoa!”  The one that was most surprised at the result was HoSuk.  In truth, he was swinging his sword with half desperation, but it ended up hitting.  He didn’t know who timed the round to supplement his attack, but if such help was repeatable he was confident that he could kill off the blue moss rock demon.

‘Once more,’

Since all that he can do was swing, Lee HoSuk swung again.  But, even this time, right before his swing landed, there was a red burst of flame.

KaKhawng,  pha-rrrrk!

“That’s it!” Now that he had witnessed the repeat of the previous miracle, Lee HoSuk was br.i.m.m.i.n.g with confidence.  The situation has not improved, overall, but if this continued, he was sure he could kill the boss at least.