Aesthetics (1)

It went beyond intriguing—it was astonishing.

Lars had tried exploring too, but it hadn’t worked, and it was something even the guild itself couldn’t manage.

With the dungeon’s internal structure being so complicated, even locking down a single main route was a job in itself.

If you could look down on the entire dungeon from above and know in advance where the end was, it would be a different story.

Since the final point was fixed, you could simply take the direction and chart the main route accordingly.

But “of course,” since they knew nothing about the dungeon, every moment was a chain of choices.

Whether it was right or wrong was something you only found out after you went. The uncertainty was too great.

Worse, whenever a fire-specialized monster like Explosion of Scorching Heat appeared midway, the run was practically over.

Explosion of Scorching Heat—like living flames—was an unkillable target even for Lars.

He had to approach with a sword and fight, but the very act of closing in was difficult under that kind of firepower. That was how terrifying fire was.

So, deep down, he thought it would be fine if Kang-hoo’s group reached the dungeon’s midpoint—or, if they got a little greedy, even seventy percent.

He figured a map would be enough around there. They could fill in the remaining blank space through later exploration.

“There’s nothing to say except that it’s insane.”

No other modifier came to mind. What could you even replace this with?

“There isn’t even a sponsoring guild, and it doesn’t look like there’s a backer watching over you…… yet you’re truly incredible, Shin Kang-hoo.”

Lars shook his head in disbelief.

It wasn’t that he denied Kang-hoo—he simply couldn’t gauge his level and skill.

What kind of expression was Kang-hoo making right now?

Was it a face filled with emotion, because he’d made the impossible possible?

If Lars went by the expressions he’d seen from Kang-hoo so far, he’d be lucky if the man so much as twitched a lip.

If one corner of his mouth actually lifted, that would probably count as an intense display of emotion. You could tell without even looking.

At that time.

“Kang-hoo! Is what I’m seeing right now really a zero-grade? This…… wasn’t it something only possible through fusion?”

“That’s what people say. But you’ve seen it with your own eyes now, so it doesn’t seem that way, does it?”

“No way. This is insane! You’re telling me we get a zero-grade item like this here? I never even imagined it!”

“It’s bound, right?”

“Yeah, it’s bound. If that’s the case, even if I wanted to give it to you, I have no choice but to keep it…….”

“Hah. Who said I wanted it? Just check. What is it?”

Kang-hoo watched Ayane’s activated zero-grade reward with eyes full of curiosity.

The reward level itself was about what he’d expected, so he didn’t feel much—but Ayane’s reward was an exception.

Since it was a “windfall” anyway, he wanted it to be a huge help to her too. She was potentially a solid ally.

Of course, whether she would fight Jang Si-hwan for the same convictions as Kang-hoo was another question.

At the very least, she wasn’t someone he wanted as an enemy. If so, keeping her close was the right move.

“It’s a mana storage talisman.”

“Oh.”

What Ayane showed Kang-hoo was a small talisman, not even half the size of his palm.

And that was a zero-grade item.

Worth hundreds of billions of won—more. Losing it would be like losing the world. It could never be allowed to happen.

“It can store up to twenty thousand mana at maximum, and it can completely conceal the mana released around the talisman and its owner.”

“So it has detection-evasion?”

“Yeah.”

“It really is a talisman optimized for you, Ayane. At the final point of a snipe, you can’t help leaving traces because of mana compression, right?”

“Up until I pull the trigger, yeah.”

“Being able to hide it one step further means, from the target’s perspective, the first time they realize anything is when the mana-shot comes flying.”

“Exactly…… That’s why it feels unreal. This is practically dedicated stealth for a sniper.”

“No wonder it’s zero-grade. Storing twenty thousand mana is insane too. Two thousand already feels like a lot, and it’s twenty thousand. Hah.”

Kang-hoo laughed.

Just imagining himself in Ayane’s position and receiving a reward like this made his heart race.

In short, it gave her the foundation to snipe reliably while delaying detection to the very last moment.

Sensitive hunters felt the sense of wrongness from the instant they came under a sniper’s aim.

No matter how well you tried to hide it, a kind of “mana tether” connecting the sniper and the target activated between them.

But this talisman made it so they couldn’t even perceive that tether’s existence.

It even perfectly controlled the flow of mana that leaked right up to the final moment before the shot.

There was no greater privilege than this.

Kang-hoo could say with certainty:

With this zero-grade talisman, Ayane’s effective combat level had jumped by a hundred—no, even more.

Then—

With the exact same expression Kang-hoo had just made, Ayane asked back.

“What did you get, Kang-hoo? Don’t tell me I’m the only one who got something.”

Her hand, tightly clutching the talisman, kept trembling.

Even seeing it with her own eyes, she still couldn’t believe it.

Only when Kang-hoo finally shifted his gaze to his own activated reward did she add,

“I really hope you got something amazing too. And…… I know it’s sudden, but thank you. No—honestly, I don’t even know if ‘thank you’ is enough.”

“Ayane, don’t overthink it. We made it here because it was the two of us. One person couldn’t.”

“But…….”

“If you’re grateful, then work even harder going forward. There’s a lot I want to do. It’s just that I don’t have enough time or people.”

“Yeah. I will. I promise.”

Kang-hoo didn’t begrudge Ayane’s zero-grade reward at all.

If anything, it was the opposite.

He was genuinely glad.

She was someone who could truly make the most of her specialized sniping ability. Their teamwork was excellent, too.

And if this reward made their bond that much firmer, he considered that the greatest gain of all.

Because relationships between people were precious things money could never buy.

Shaaa.

A zero-grade reward activated before Kang-hoo as well.

With a heart trembling as much as Ayane’s, he checked the contents. Up to now, it was still unknown territory.

The next moment—

“Oh.”

“Oh!”

“It’s shoes.”

The activated reward item slot was shoes.

For Kang-hoo, it was also a refreshingly satisfying reward that scratched the itchiest(?) spot.

The reason was simple.

The shoes he was currently wearing were the ones he’d taken from Ishihara Yuji after killing him.

Back then, it had been an upgrade to the best shoes he had at the time—but the grade still felt lacking.

Now that a zero-grade pair had dropped, he wouldn’t even need to spare the Gale shoes a glance anymore.

Shoes had always been a nagging weak point.

They only provided stat boosts, and they had none of the secondary effects you got from equipping higher-grade items.

Typically, special effects started appearing from Grade 2 items onward, so if this was a zero-grade item……

There was no need to even say it.

“Having future knowledge that others don’t is such powerful motivation—I’m feeling it again. It was a guiding principle I never wanted to forget when I wrote.”

Knowing a future no one else could even predict—a future where you could pick sweet fruit for yourself— guided you naturally toward rewards like this, as if they had always been yours.

It was nothing new, and yet— that was why he was even happier.

A zero-grade item was something 99.9999% of hunters would never even see once in their lifetime.

They weren’t called imaginary beasts for nothing, and yet today, he’d seen them twice—once with Ayane’s reward, and once with his own.

“Hoo.”

A short but deep breath.

Kang-hoo examined the shoes.

“I knew stat expectations rose with grade, but zero-grade is on a whole different level of insanity.”

In particular, it raised Agility by a full thousand.

At this level, even his normal gait and mobility would become at least nearly twice as fast as before.

Even without conscious effort, his body would react faster, and his sensitivity to external stimuli would sharpen.

It wasn’t a change in thought or judgment. It was a major shift in the realm of instinct and intuition.

Even the stats alone made it feel like the item’s value was already complete—but the more frightening part was that he hadn’t even checked the special options listed below.

There was far more to read by looking down than by looking up. That was how densely it was filled.

“So that’s why the shoes are called Aesthetics.”

Aesthetics of Stillness.

Even the first special option was no joke.

If he used the earlier fight with Arcus as an example—when he’d been under a barrage of mana-shot bombardment—

it meant he could have activated Aesthetics of Stillness and simply stood there. Because it evaded all attacks.

It was a terrifying option. Used well, it could render any attack meaningless.

“Guaranteed zero-grade crafting.”

This, too, was an outrageous option.

Of course, acquiring two Grade 1 items to use as materials was itself the kind of thing that casually entered the trillion-won realm.

But if you secured the materials, the zero-grade fusion was guaranteed—there was zero risk.

It was a matter of time and money.

Solve that, and it was basically the same as holding two guaranteed zero-grade vouchers. The upside was enormous.

“At this point, I’ll need to redefine Yeong-ho’s role for me. I won’t need to rely on a healer at all.”

Aesthetics of Healing was conditional, but in practice, it was close to making a healer unnecessary.

Since it required using earth force, its effect was severely limited on asphalt or concrete ground.

But there was no dungeon without soil somewhere. Depending on the place, it might be out of sight for a bit, but it always existed.

When he tested it, it didn’t feel instantaneous, but it seemed like he could comfortably recover lost stamina in about a minute.

It would be hard to use in the middle of a chaotic fight, but the moment he had a short breather, it was worth attempting recovery right away.

Now—

Kang-hoo lowered his gaze to the last remaining option.

All the previous “Aesthetics” had been so incredible that the word “broken” fit them perfectly.

So just how strong would the effect of the one that closed it out be?

He saw the name first.