[Episode 13] Building up your inner strength (4)
Hadonggun opened his eyes.
As I slightly pulled back the blackout curtains, dazzling sunlight poured into the bed in the bedroom.
It seemed like the sun was already high in the sky.
This was his new home.
Since Kim Jae-hyun’s territory expanded to the entire apartment complex, he moved here with Kim Ga-young and lived there.
It is known that Moon Byung-ho’s grandmother, Kang Deok-su, and Kim Geon were living in room 2901, where they had previously been staying, and Yoo Hye-rin and Oh Eon-ju are currently living in room 2902, which was originally Kim Da-jeong’s house.
Because the house felt too small when Ha Dong-geon and Kim Ga-yeong were living there together, they moved in as soon as conditions were right.
‘The smell of soybean paste stew’
Crunch.
When I opened the door and went out, my mother-in-law and Kim Ga-young were cooking together in the kitchen.
“Are you awake?”
“What about Myeong-hwan?”
“I went hunting early in the morning.”
“You didn’t even eat?”
“You have to go far to hunt goblins.”
Although the roads were largely maintained, there were still not many people who had cars in good condition.
Because of this, they had to walk more than 2km to hunt.
“Myung-hwan is working hard too.”
“You want to be like us.”
After Kim Myeong-hwan witnessed the Ha Dong-geon party fighting with his own eyes, he went out hunting monsters diligently every day.
In order to be chosen by Kim Jae-hyun, one had to be someone who could achieve success through hunting.
“I heard you’re doing well these days.”
I heard that he had even created a hunting team of people his own age and was active, and I knew that the results were not bad.
“Myung-hwan also takes after me and is quite talented at archery.”
Of course, Kim Myung-hwan not only had talent, but also had good friends.
This is because he received support for bows and spears from Ha Dong-geon and Kim Ga-yeong from the beginning.
It was inevitable that the starting point would be different from others, starting with the support of quality weapons.
“Hey sir. Come and sit down.”
“thank you.”
Ha Dong-geon smiled faintly as he looked at the table full of side dishes.
“Since my mother-in-law came, the table has become much more abundant.”
Kim Ga-young immediately made a tackle.
“Oh, it was so filling when I prepared it too.”
“Back then, there was a lot of delivery food. Pizza, chicken, raw beef…”
“Stop it! I made it myself three or four times a week!”
“Yeah, ramen, fried rice, spam, it was all delicious.”
“Ahem.”
The mother-in-law covered her mouth and laughed.
“I’m sorry. I think I raised our Gayoung too preciously. But I thought she would take care of herself once she got married…”
“Gayoung is really good at boiling ramen.”
After the three Dorandoran family members finished eating, Kim Ga-young said.
“Shall we have grilled meat for dinner tonight?”
“Okay.”
“Mom! I’ll go check out the market!”
“Draw.”
As I stepped outside, the chilly air hit my cheek.
“Shall we take a walk? To help digestion.”
“Okay then.”
Kim Ga-young held Ha Dong-geon’s hand and led him along the walking trail.
Perhaps because the weather had gotten colder, there were only two people on the trail.
Kim Ga-young asked.
“are you okay?”
“what?”
Kim Ga-young grumbled as she watched Ha Dong-geon answer calmly.
“If it’s hard, just say it’s hard. Okay?”
“okay.”
“Ugh. It’s cold. Let’s go buy some meat and go inside.”
Hadong Geon had accumulated billions in cash from his hunting activities.
Because he played such a central role in the party, he was able to earn a lot of money with just his base salary.
Not only Ha Dong-geon, but everyone in his party had become wealthy people with assets in the hundreds of millions.
‘It’s peaceful’
Unlike the outside where they were fighting fiercely, the inside of the area was very peaceful.
As the weather grew colder, the streets became more and more deserted, but just being able to walk without worrying about monster attacks felt like a blessing.
Arriving at the store, they bought plenty of meat and vegetables to wrap and returned home.
Kim Myung-hwan came back around sunset, and we had dinner together.
“Listen, Sister! I heard that today you finally succeeded in hunting an orc for the first time?”
“Orc? You? How?”
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“I pierced his skull with an arrow! Oh, brother-in-law! You should have seen that scene with me.”
That evening was filled with Kim Myeong-hwan’s tales of bravery.
After a cozy dinner, everyone dispersed to their rooms.
Kim Myeong-hwan quickly fell asleep in the small room at the end of the hallway, preparing for the hunt tomorrow, while his mother-in-law also slept in what was originally the guest room.
Then Ha Dong-geon and Kim Ga-yeong came into the bedroom and lay down on the bed.
“good night.”
“You too.”
There was silence for a while.
And then.
“You know.”
Ha Dong-geon’s voice rang out in the darkness.
“Why don’t I shed tears?”
“Dong-geon-ah”
“There’s no such thing as an unfilial child, right? But I guess I can’t really say it feels real. It was definitely our house at that time, and the bloodstains were clear, but I guess I just feel like he’s still alive and well somewhere.”
There was no emotion of sadness in Ha Dong-geon’s calm voice.
He continued speaking in a really calm and indifferent voice.
“I’m sleeping more than usual, and food is delicious. I should be sad, I should be sad, but strangely, it’s not going well.”
Kim Ga-young slowly moved her body and hugged Ha Dong-geon.
“Gayoung?”
Hadonggun didn’t cry.
No, maybe it’s because I can’t cry.
That’s why it was Kim Ga-young’s role to shed tears today as well.
“Gayoung, I’m really okay.”
“…It’s because I’m not okay.”
Kim Ga-young asked him in a tearful voice.
“Just a little, just a little bit, let’s stay like this.”
Ha Dong-geon wanted to wipe away Kim Ga-yeong’s tears, but he didn’t have the strength to do so.
Because it was too burdensome to raise my hand.
‘Sleep…!’
I was overcome with drowsiness.
It seems like I’ve been sleeping a lot lately.
It wasn’t like this before.
It was a strange feeling that no matter how much I slept, my fatigue wouldn’t go away. It was a dazed feeling, like my head was covered in fog.
When I open my eyes tomorrow, will the sun be high in the sky again?
The day was very short.
This was the first time in his life that he had been this lazy, so Ha Dong-geon couldn’t get used to his lazy self.
But it was a bit bothersome to do anything.
I’ll just spend another day like today, breathing.
Kim Ga-young said.
“Sorry.”
With Kim Ga-young’s trembling voice as a lullaby, Ha Dong-geon felt his eyelids growing heavier and heavier.
‘don’t cry’
He wanted to tell her, he wanted to comfort Kim Ga-young, but he didn’t have the strength to do so.
All I can do is surrender to the drowsiness that is creeping upon me.
“It’s okay. It’ll be okay soon.”
Kim Ga-young’s arms were warm.
As she said.
Time flew by.
Over the past ten days, everyone has worked together as one to improve the city, and stability has been quickly restored.
Talents poured in from all over.
In particular, those who were most active were those who had experience working at construction sites.
“Hey Mr. Kim! Come here!”
“Start here!”
We quickly rebuilt the city that Cyclops had destroyed by operating heavy equipment deployed on site.
Experts from each field stepped forward and assisted each other to get the work done.
But the problem is.
‘The economically active population is full!’
There were two main ways for citizens to make money at present.
One is to become an economically active person and live off of a daily wage, and the other is to hunt monsters.
As the total population increased, the economically active population also increased, but it was not infinite.
Although I was delivering the salary directly through quests, this was only a stopgap measure.
Inevitably, people will emerge who must make a living by hunting monsters.
Especially students.
It was not easy for them, who had no experience or expertise, to contribute something and join the economically active population.
It is possible to do jobs such as cleaning restrooms or managing public facilities that require receiving donations, but even for those jobs, the competition is so fierce that there are no available positions.
In the end, the only option left for these people was to hunt monsters.
‘The problem is that the level of the monsters to hunt has increased too much.’
The only prey that an ordinary person who is just starting out hunting can target is goblins.
No, from the perspective of ordinary people, just dealing with goblins was dangerous enough.
However, there are not many places where you can hunt goblins.
‘Except for some areas, only powerful monsters like sea monsters and orcs remain.’
The area where goblins appear is Yeonsan-dong, beyond Hwangnyeongsan Mountain.
As of now, that was the only spot where goblins appeared.
Naturally, the place was already occupied by veterans who were accustomed to hunting goblins. It was a world too difficult for children who had just been granted citizenship to survive on their own.
Many people were able to survive thanks to the free distribution centers operated as a welfare facility.
‘We need to give them a chance too!’
There were cases where people who had spare time would take in students.
But even that mostly happened between children’s close friends or people they knew for a long time, and there were children who were left out of the public eye.
‘I wish there were enough goblins’
There was no problem when we were just expanding our territory and there were a lot of goblins around.
Goblins could be easily defeated with crude weapons, and people could grow little by little.
‘I never thought the day would come when I would wish for the existence of monsters.’
It was ironic.
Monsters that were once a nightmare have now become necessary for maintaining society.
Just as I was racking my brain over this problem, a welcome notification sound came.
[Citizen Lee Jun-hyeok defeated the leader of the ‘Lizardman Swamp’.]
[You will receive 10 crystals as a reward.]
[You have completely cleared the dungeon for the first time.]
[You will receive 100 crystals as a reward.]
As planned, Lee Jun-hyeok’s party successfully cleared the D-class dungeon 10 times.
‘Thanks to the first reward, the crystals increased to 400’
The number of crystals needed to draw a new item is 300.
‘The solution may come from the newly drawn magic’
The moment I was about to proceed with the draw, anticipating what kind of magic would come out this time.
[Condition met.]
[‘F-Grade Instant Dungeon {Goblin Lair}’ is added to the buildable items.]
“huh?”
I couldn’t help but tilt my head at the strange notification.
‘You can build a dungeon?’
-F-class instant dungeon {Goblin Den} (13,000,000 won)
A hunting ground for low-level citizens.
A double base salary event is applied to citizens below level 20.
It can be conquered 100 times, and approximately 80 to 110 goblins appear per time.
※Up to 10 can be installed at a time.
‘…This is?’
Instant dungeon.
It was a facility that could greatly help solve the problem of prey while also fostering new hunting teams.
The ability to create monsters
I had some idea that the basis of my ability was ‘creation’.
Store, maintain your dignity.
It could be said to be the ability to create things and create things like gas, electricity, and water.
But who would have thought that even monsters could be created?
‘Use it for now’
This was a feature that was desperately needed in the current situation.
‘I guess I need to explain it a little differently!’
I contacted Kim Da-bin right away.
[Ms. Dabin.]
[Yes, Jaehyun.]
[Please call all managers together.]
[All right.]
Kim Da-bin explained to the executives who had quickly gathered through telepathy.
“In the future, dungeons will appear within the area.”
Among the managers, there were some who knew about the dungeon that Lee Jun-hyeok’s party was conquering.
“Are you talking about the dungeon where the lizardmen appear?”
“No, it’s a little different. The dungeons that will appear in the future will be much less difficult.”
“then….”
“Yes. It’s a dungeon where goblins appear.”
The reactions of the managers who heard that there was a dungeon with goblins were split in half.
“What happens if I fail to clear the dungeon?”
There are those who are wary of the dungeon itself.
“If it’s a dungeon where goblins appear, I think we should welcome it. Aren’t there quite a few people who are thirsty for goblin hunting?”
He spoke to them.
“The dungeon won’t explode or anything. However, unlike the dungeon that Lee Jun-hyeok’s party is clearing this time, they will have to clear it a total of 100 times, and they will have to kill almost 100 goblins each time they clear it. I think this will be a very dangerous challenge depending on the level of the party.”
It was an instant dungeon created to support people who made a living by hunting.
It would be absurd if someone lost their life or was seriously injured there.
“So I’d like to set a solid standard for a party that can easily handle 100 goblins.”
[Episode 13] Building Internal Strength (4)> End
