Nightmare Forest (4)

Nightmare Forest, the deepest part.

With the final destination Kang-hoo had pictured from the start right in front of them, the team went into their last round of maintenance.

They had taken a few rests along the way, but Ayane and Park Dong-jae’s stamina didn’t recover easily.

That was because the frequency of acetic-acid bats appearing in Nightmare Forest was beyond imagination.

That was also why Kang-hoo could funnel the magic stones to the two companions without hesitation as rewards.

If he had come alone, he would have spent several times more time just avoiding the acetic-acid bats’ attacks and self-destructions.

On the other hand, he also thought that even with only the minimum number of three, there weren’t many places they couldn’t handle.

Of course, if they also had Jung Yuri, who was skilled at spatial utilization, or An Yeong-ho, whose healing was nothing to worry about, it would be icing on the cake.

Anyway, before the final entry, Kang-hoo gave enough time for his companions to build their stamina back up.

It wasn’t a time-limited dungeon, and there wasn’t another team to compete with, so there was no need to push themselves.

‘Since I’m out in Australia anyway, if I liquidate all the items I’ve gathered here…… it’ll probably get close to one trillion won.’

If he sold all the items he had taken from Vincent and Yun Cheol, his balance would probably be around that.

Right now, 689.5 billion won was in his account, and it was calculated that close to 300 billion won would be added.

Some might say that.

Isn’t inflation too severe? Isn’t money in the trillions coming too easily?

Kang-hoo thought they were half right and half wrong.

It was true that he was making money as if scooping it up. But it was absolutely not a case that applied to every hunter.

It was only a phenomenon created because lately, Kang-hoo had been catching big shots one after another, leaping over the gap between skill and level.

In the normal case—meaning hunters who lived within their means—getting such huge money was rare.

Even if you went to a dungeon, you went as a team with many mouths to feed, so the spoils you received shrank drastically.

And if the team happened to lack an essential bleeding class, and you weren’t a bleeding dealer yourself…… you also needed to pay the cost of hiring a bleeding dealer as a mercenary. And that cost was enormous.

On top of that, the ongoing maintenance costs were enormous as well, so saving money wasn’t easy.

And when you finally saved a bit, your eyes would drift to higher-grade items and you’d spend it all as if possessed.

‘It’s not even that much money. It’s money that disappears if you buy one properly made zero-grade item.’

Putting it that way made the value of one trillion won feel trivial. But this was the reality of the hunter world.

A lot of money made you look at items that matched that eye level, and in the end it was consumed and vanished.

For a hunter who always looked upward, money was always a lacking element, not an abundant one.

The only ones who felt it as abundance were hunters who had lost the will to grow and settled into reality.

Meanwhile, Kang-hoo was looking with satisfaction at the two “Sorrow Tree’s Shells” he had obtained as spoils from killing Sorrow Tree.

Even this alone was worth 20 Shells of Blackwood. Since the drop rate was low, he had let go of hope, so he was really lucky.

If you processed one full Sorrow Tree’s Shell, it produced an additional increase effect of Toughness +1,000 and Magic Resistance +500.

Since it wasn’t something where you had to worry about overlap like item slots, you could raise the effect even further if you wanted.

‘The hidden skill Black Cross Fire Lotus. A skill I’ve wanted so badly from the moment I first thought of Western Australia.’

Kang-hoo recalled the hidden skill he absolutely wanted to plunder: Black Cross Fire Lotus. In the original work, it was often shortened to Fire Lotus, or Black Fire Lotus.

Until he plundered it, he had to fight the hybrid that used Black Cross Fire Lotus as an enemy.

So he would have to think about how to avoid the hidden skill cleverly. The moment he made a mistake, it was a crisis.

“Phew.”

Kang-hoo exhaled briefly and alternated his gaze between two rings he had taken out of subspace.

He planned to fuse two grade-1 rings using Aesthetics of Healing. The probability was 100%, so there was nothing to worry about.

He considered saving the fusion opportunity, but the thought that saving it would turn it into crap felt stronger.

Even if he didn’t strike gold this time, Aesthetics of Healing could be used twice, so there would be another chance next time.

Then the fusion proceeded.

Pressing the confirmation buttons that popped up one after another without hesitation, Kang-hoo increased the speed of the ring fusion.

Several messages printed in a dizzying way, but he ignored them all and silently pressed only Confirm, Agree, and Fuse.

Because for large-scale fusions, the system asked for consent twice, three times.

Since he had no intention of backing out, Kang-hoo went straight to the end and saw the result.

Despite the immense value of the process of creating a zero-grade ring through fusion, the fusion ended with a small “pop!” sound effect.

Of course.

The value of the ring newly born into the world through fusion was by no means low.

The stats were divided neatly into three fields, and rose in ways useful to Kang-hoo.

Because Vincent, who had been a mage, used a ring that raised the stats most important to him—HP, Toughness, and Dark Energy— the new ring, the fusion product, also appeared with amplified stats aligned with the existing direction.

His ring slots were already fully occupied. So he had already decided which one ring he would remove.

A ring he had obtained early on and used for quite a long time. It was also the one that gave him the inspiration for set items.

As you could see, Calypse’s ring set effect, if you wore both, was only adding Strength +25 each.

So he didn’t regret swapping it out for the new ring. Now the increase was embarrassing to even call a set effect.

‘Is it the main dish from here?’

Kang-hoo’s gaze went downward.

The stats that obviously had to be attached as a zero-grade ring were the basics of basics. They were so obvious there was nothing to be surprised about.

But additional options were a different story. Even with the same fusion, options were often implemented differently.

In other words, only some selected parts among several internal option tables were applied to the item.

So even for a zero-grade item, there were plenty of cases where the additional options were terribly attached.

Those items sold much cheaper than even grade-1 items in the market. Because if you excluded the stats, they had no value.

Among five additional options, the first option revealed itself.

Ignore. The attached Hanja explanation showed it was connected to the Sight (視) written in the ring information earlier.

‘In a group fight, I can ignore the most troublesome guy and reduce the headcount by killing the weaker ones first.’

It was a conditional option, but it seemed there was a lot of strategic room to use it.

A big advantage was that it let him ignore the strongest target’s attack damage, not the weakest.

It was an option that ignored only damage, but even that alone fully served the meaning of neutralization.

‘My level is 440 now, and 25% is 110. So hunters level 110 or below are scarecrows now.’

To hunters level 110 or below, Kang-hoo now became an invincible existence they couldn’t approach.

As for status abnormality infliction—at the level of what hunters like that used, Kang-hoo could resist it as much as he wanted.

Thanks to how steadily he had raised Toughness and Magic Resistance. This was the picture of an egg striking a rock made complete.

‘Skill proficiency level maxes at 20. Even 10 isn’t easy unless it’s a main skill.’

Contempt would cause the opponent’s calculations to go wrong.

Among the Dimension Plunderer’s privileges, what Kang-hoo valued even more than skill plunder was max skill proficiency.

Because reaching the max proficiency level of 20 was a long process that took years no matter how fast you were.

Even Jang Si-hwan now only had a number of max-proficiency skills you could count on both hands.

And that was despite having all kinds of protagonist correction maximized.

If you inferred from the fact that the hardest skills to raise proficiency on were hidden skills……

the more you fought high-level hunters, the more you would feel Contempt’s damage-halving effect as far larger.

Two options still remained.

He could feel exactly why people lit their eyes on fire for zero-grade items.

Not just one, but multiple options lined up in a row that didn’t feel bad to call fraudulent.

If Arrogance triggered even once, a mental-type hunter set as an enemy would become an idiot who only filled headcount.

Even the last option was perfect.

With Gaze, it became easier to deal with assassin-type enemies like Kang-hoo himself. No—very easy.

Making the unseen “unconditionally” visible couldn’t be anything but good.

Because it suppressed the opponent’s plays and strategies to the extreme.

‘As expected, zero-grade is…….’

The more, the better.

After using the remaining one chance, which slot would be best for the next fusion?

If he bought a zero-grade item with the money he had gathered, which slot would be best then?

Kang-hoo’s shoulders were already bouncing at the thought of equipping a zero-grade item with clear gains.

“I should’ve fused earlier. I was out of it.”

Recalling that he could have done the fusion even before entering the forest, Kang-hoo gave an awkward smile.

Once again, he realized it was better to do it first and regret it later than to save it and have it turn into crap.

Before long, the end of the end.

Entering the final area, Kang-hoo’s party hunted acetic-acid bats and Ash Mantises as they had before.

Perhaps because it was now familiar repetition, there was no sense of crisis at all compared to the explosively pouring experience.

A time of soaring unfolded.

Not only Ayane and Park Dong-jae’s growth, but Kang-hoo’s level as well rose from 425 all the way to 440.

An experience harvest that far surpassed the levels he had gained while clearing the forest earlier.

Since these hybrids were in such a deep part even within Nightmare Forest, the experience was beyond imagination.

Like the huge first-clear privilege of a dungeon, the hybrids that were being killed by hunters for the first time spat out massive accumulated experience.

“Finally.”

Recognizing the figure of a special “being” coming clearly into view, Kang-hoo swallowed dryly.

The surrounding scenery was the same as what they had been seeing all along in Nightmare Forest, but—

a figure dressed in clothing that didn’t fit the forest was slowly strolling with his hands shoved into both pockets.

Time had passed and the color had faded, but he wore a suit that fit his body perfectly.

Unlike his neat appearance, he wore glasses with a cracked lens.

Along with bloodstains whose origin was impossible to know.