1 — A Day Cursed With Bad Luck (1)

“Cleanup complete.”

The end of a long axe handle pressed down hard against the back of a wild boar–type monster. The C-rank Destroyer, having successfully subdued the last remaining monster, spoke in a calm voice.

“Cleanup’s done, so let’s begin.”

A C-rank Mage followed up in a loud voice. At the signal, the designated gatherers scattered in all directions. Ye Hyeonseong also started walking off in a suitable direction.

Trudging across the vast grassland, Hyeonseong called up the dungeon information and checked it again.

It had been roughly thirty-five minutes since they entered the dungeon. Even with two C-rank Awakened whose ranks exceeded the dungeon’s rating stepping in, it had taken this long.

That was inevitable. In dungeons like this, where the scale was huge but the personnel limit was absurdly low, the number of monsters that appeared was small relative to the dungeon’s size.

Tracking a small number of enemies hiding across such a wide area was no easy task.

Still, this time they’d been relatively lucky. The monsters had been clustered within a range not too far from the entry point. Thanks to that, at least it hadn’t dragged on into the hours.

At this point, they had deliberately left behind a single weakest monster to keep the dungeon open for resource gathering.

From here on, the plan was to gather as many resources as possible until the remaining time dropped below one hour.

Hyeonseong settled into a spot she’d picked out while tracking monsters and opened her skill, Infinite Corridor. When she slipped her hand into the space opened in midair, a hoe automatically fell into her grip.

Taking out one of the precious Three Divine Tools, Hyeonseong began gathering resources. Grasses and flowers used as ingredients for various potions were pulled from the ground one after another.

Originally, Hyeonseong hadn’t come along as a gatherer but as a porter. Just loading the items others gathered into Infinite Corridor was enough to earn her pay.

But there was no rule saying a porter couldn’t gather resources. As long as she got the party’s permission and didn’t cause trouble, it was fine. Needing to earn even a little more money, Hyeonseong often went out to gather like this.

Any extra resources she collected became pure side income. With a so-called “free profit” dungeon like this opening up, how could she just sit around?

From the party’s perspective, gathering even one extra resource was a gain. Since there was little chance of a major accident, there was no reason to refuse a porter’s resource gathering.

Thanks to that, Hyeonseong roamed around the dungeon, happily harvesting grass and flowers. In one section of Infinite Corridor, the plants she carefully pulled so as not to damage their roots piled up neatly.

About four hours passed like that, with her fully absorbed in gathering. There were roughly an hour and thirty minutes left before the time limit expired.

A sudden anomaly occurred. A red message window, letters the color of dark blood, flickered into existence before Hyeonseong’s eyes.

“What the hell?”

Faced with the worst possible kind of bad luck that could occur during a dungeon raid, Hyeonseong felt utterly dumbfounded.

She’d thought she’d finally hit a lucky, easy dungeon—only to get blindsided like this.

Muttering curses under her breath, Hyeonseong carefully tossed the hoe and a freshly gathered stalk of mana grass into Infinite Corridor.

Even in an emergency, she couldn’t just throw precious work equipment and valuable side income onto the ground.

With her hands free, she pulled out her hunter-exclusive terminal. It was a device that any Awakened entering and exiting dungeons was required to carry, capable of tracking party members’ positions inside the dungeon and communicating with the outside.

She checked the distance between her current location and the designated emergency rendezvous point. Immediately after, she broke into a full sprint. Even as she ran, the message warning of dungeon evolution flickered ominously.

She ran blindly with her eyes shut, and before she knew it, she’d reached the meeting point. Two C-rank Awakened and five gatherers were already assembled there.

The single monster they’d left behind to maintain the dungeon was now a corpse. The two C-rank Awakened had killed it the moment they saw the dungeon evolution message.

That should have been the last monster, yet the dungeon didn’t close. There was only one thing that could mean.

Somewhere, a powerful monster that had already raised the dungeon’s rank had appeared.

If you were lucky, even after the dungeon evolution message appeared, you could still escape by killing all monsters that had spawned before the evolution.

But seeing the dungeon still open, it seemed that kind of luck had abandoned them this time as well.

The two C-rank Awakened demanded that Hyeonseong collect the monster corpse as soon as they saw her. Even with the situation going sideways, they didn’t miss a chance to squeeze out a bit more profit.

Their constantly commanding tone was irritating, but Hyeonseong readily tossed the corpse into her inventory. One way or another, it was income included in her pay.

After collecting the corpse, they waited briefly until all the gatherers who’d gone farther out returned. At the same time, as if on cue, the dungeon’s scenery began to change.

The once-clear sky turned murky, and the vegetation withered rapidly. At that moment, what crossed Hyeonseong’s mind was the gathered resources she’d stored in Infinite Corridor.

Others seemed to think the same. A few gatherers checked the grass they still held in their hands and let out sighs of relief.

Hyeonseong also checked the items stored in Infinite Corridor. The mana grass and herbs she’d gathered, the items other gatherers had collected, even the monster corpses the C-rank Awakened had slain—

All of it remained exactly as it had been when first stored. Thankfully, none of the items had deteriorated.

Hyeonseong let out a breath of relief. At least her luck hadn’t run out completely.

Next, Hyeonseong collected all the gathered materials the gatherers hadn’t yet handed over and stored them in Infinite Corridor.

Infinite Corridor was a subspace accessible solely by Hyeonseong’s will. Storing items there prevented them from being damaged by unforeseen accidents.

Soon, the ominously flickering warning message disappeared. Immediately after, the updated dungeon information was displayed.

Ye Hyeonseong doubted her eyes and checked the information again. Recommended Rank: A. No matter how many times she looked, it didn’t change.

“W-What? Rank A?”

“No way……!”

The gatherers screamed after checking the information. The dungeon’s recommended rank had jumped from D to A. A four-rank increase—no wonder they panicked. It was an almost unprecedented leap.

If the dungeon had a large personnel limit, there wouldn’t be a need to panic this much. But right now, the personnel limit was absurdly low relative to the dungeon’s size.

In such dungeons, the number of monsters was small, but those monsters were elite.

Considering that trait, now that the recommended rank had risen to A, the nature of the newly spawned monster somewhere in the dungeon could only be one of two things.

Either multiple A-rank monsters had appeared, or a single boss monster with an S-rank rating.

Either way, it was too much for just two C-rank Awakened to handle. No one present was ignorant of that fact.

“……We’ll start with reconnaissance. No one wander off—stick close.”

The C-rank Destroyer wielding an axe gave instructions in a tense voice.

In a field this wide, it was normally best to spread out to search for monsters, but now there was a chance an S-rank monster could appear. Low-rank Awakened couldn’t afford to scatter.

It was a dire situation, but fortunately, one of the E-rank gatherers possessed a life-detection skill with quite a wide range. That person used their skill first.

They maximized the detection radius from the first scan, but nothing registered. They tried the detection skill once more, but the result was the same.

Confirming that nothing could be detected from where they stood, the party decided to move together while continuing the search.

About twenty minutes passed as they cautiously roamed the field. Then, without warning, the E-rank gatherer collapsed to the ground. Anyone could tell it was an ominous reaction.

Another gatherer asked what was wrong in an anxious voice. The E-rank gatherer pointed in a certain direction with trembling fingers.

“Th-th-there’s a monster over there…….”

“That much we can tell just from how you’re acting. What exactly is it?”

Another person snapped irritably. Others didn’t say it out loud, but judging by their expressions, they agreed with that sentiment.

“At l-least B-rank or higher…….”

“The dungeon’s rank is A, so at minimum that’s only natural, right?”

“……There are three of them…….”

Ignoring the impatient gatherer, the E-rank gatherer continued speaking. The gatherer who’d been snapping shut their mouth.

“Quiet. All of you.”

The two C-rank Awakened silenced the gatherers. Once the voices died down, both focused their senses in the direction the E-rank gatherer had indicated.

“……They’re approaching.”

“Three of them, confirmed. Rank is…… all three estimated at least A-rank.”

“What?”

At the words of the two C-rank Awakened, one of the gatherers flinched in shock.

“Shh, keep it down!”

“Judging by their presence, they haven’t noticed us yet. Let’s increase the distance again before they do.”

The two C-rank Awakened gestured for the gatherers and Hyeonseong to move back. Everyone immediately followed their instructions.

Along the path they’d come was an area littered with house-sized boulders. The Awakened, including Hyeonseong, took positions behind different rocks, one or two to a spot, hiding themselves.

Once all twelve had concealed themselves in the rocky area, heavy, thudding footsteps echoed. It was from the direction where the E-rank gatherer had detected the monsters.

The monsters were approaching this way. Whether they’d caught their scent or their paths had coincidentally overlapped was still unclear. They decided to wait and see a bit longer.

With her abilities, Hyeonseong couldn’t properly sense the approaching monsters. She didn’t have such a skill, nor were her stats particularly high.

At times like this, Hyeonseong deeply resented her own lack of ability. Feeling unjustly frustrated, she reopened her status window.

No matter how many times she looked at it, the status window only made her sigh.

The only skill she had was a subspace useful for nothing more than inventory management, and her average stats barely reached D-rank. Even the titles she’d obtained were unimpressive.

By any common standard, it was impossible for her to be rated S-rank.

And yet, the only reason she’d received an S-rank must have been the trait hidden behind the question mark and the mysterious M-grade skill classification.

To become S-rank with just one skill and D-rank-level stats, there had to be something special about the trait or the skill—logically speaking.

But whatever was hidden, for now she was nothing more than an Awakened saddled with an undeservedly high rank despite her mediocre abilities.

Thanks to this miserable status window, Hyeonseong had been branded with the humiliating label of the world’s cheapest S-rank.

It made sense, really—because the most suitable job for someone with Hyeonseong’s abilities was that of a porter.

Thanks to her skill, she could store unlimited items, and her physical stats were slightly better than those of typical F- or E-rank porters.

No matter how much loot they acquired, she could take it all. She could work longer than an ordinary porter, and with her leftover stamina, she could even double as a gatherer.

Combining all those traits produced the ultimate cost-performance porter.

Given her abilities, she earned more pay than an ordinary porter. Handling the workload of several porters alone naturally warranted higher compensation.

But porter wages were famously the cheapest among all jobs an Awakened could do in dungeons. Even if you added a bit extra, how much could it really increase?

No matter how much you padded it, it was still porter pay. That was why Hyeonseong was called the cheapest S-rank.

The more she looked at her status window, the more the images of successful, high-profile S-rank Awakened came to mind, drawing another sigh from her lips.

‘Hey, now’s not the time for pointless thoughts.’

With a sigh, Hyeonseong closed the status window.

‘Anyway, those two still aren’t showing much reaction.’

Having finished her stray thoughts, Hyeonseong’s gaze shifted to the two C-rank Awakened positioned at the very front.

Their manner of speaking had been unpleasant from the start, but at least they didn’t seem lacking in skill.

In particular, Hyeonseong focused on the Destroyer wielding the man-height double-bladed axe. That person had sensed the same number of monsters as the E-rank gatherer with the life-detection skill, even from afar.

‘Once they get within visual range, we’ll know what they are anyway…… but knowing the estimate in advance lets us prepare.’

Hyeonseong continued to watch the two C-rank Awakened. If the monsters drew closer, those two would react first.

After a short wait, a message appeared on the hunter terminal. It was sent by the C-rank Awakened who were detecting the monsters’ presence from the front.

With tense eyes, Hyeonseong looked ahead. In the distance, three vague silhouettes began to appear.

Judging by their outlines, they looked like either draconic or dinosaur-type monsters. Hyeonseong frowned.

Between the two, draconic types were harder to deal with, but dinosaurs weren’t exactly easy either. Either way, it was bad news.

“Th-those…….”

One of the gatherers let out a shaken voice.

“D-Don’t tell me they’re draconic?”

The F- and E-rank gatherers had apparently made out the silhouettes as well. Once someone voiced the possibility of draconic monsters, unease spread rapidly.

The shadows closed in quickly. Though their forms still weren’t entirely clear, at this distance, it was now possible to view their information through the Interstellar Network system. Hyeonseong immediately opened the monster data.

A wingless dragon species. It was a confirmed draconic hit.

The other two monsters had identical information.

“Haa…….”

A sigh escaped Hyeonseong’s lips. It would’ve been better if they’d at least been dinosaurs, which had a slightly lower difficulty, but of all things, they were draconic.

The one small mercy was that all three were A-rank juveniles without unique names.

That meant they shouldn’t be strong enough to approach S-rank. It was a minor consolation—but a consolation nonetheless.