Chapter 27

Chapter 27: Hunting a High-Grade Monster Alone
The Monster Bell had detected was more than ten minutes away from the Rift house.
With my spear equipped, I hid at a distance with Ria and observed the Monster.
“It is a rotting bear.”
“It is a Groove Bear. A Bug Bear whose body is still moving after death because of Mana.”
So it was something like a zombie.
Ria continued,
“Its attack pattern is simple and brutish, but it is powerful and agile. The Mana rising from its claws is strong as well, so be careful if you get in close.”
“All right. I will be careful.”
From Ria’s explanation, I judged that my chances of winning in close combat were low.
So I needed to weaken it from a distance before it could fight at full strength.
‘I just have to do it the way I practiced.’
I had already practiced this with Ria countless times.
As long as I did not make a mistake in actual combat, I could handle it.
I closed the distance with the Groove Bear.
Ria followed behind me at a distance.
She stayed close enough to help at once if I was in danger.
Soon, I brought the distance between myself and the Groove Bear within Acresia’s release range.
The target was about a hundred and fifty meters away.
‘I cripple it before it closes the distance.’
I just had to stay calm and follow the plan.
The moment I opened Acresia, the creature seemed to sense the Mana. It spotted me and immediately began charging at high speed.
I responded at once.
I launched a steel ball at its foreleg.
The Mana-clad steel sphere tore through the air.
Thud!
The ball struck the Groove Bear squarely in the thigh of its foreleg.
It buried itself with the force of a bullet.
Even so, it merely faltered for a moment and kept running.
‘So it does not feel pain. And it is not even trying to dodge.’
It really was a zombie.
This time, I released two steel balls at once.
My target was once again its right foreleg.
Both shots hit, and the rotten leg tore right off.
“GWOOOOAR!”
The creature let out a grotesque roar and came at me on three legs alone.
Before I knew it, it had already reached me.
Then it leaped with its hind legs and tried to rip me apart with its left forepaw, where dark crimson Mana swirled around its claws.
‘Slow!’
I sparred with Ria often during training.
Ria was extremely strict when it came to training.
Normally, she was gentle and kind, but the moment training began, she became a different person.
It was like seeing the former knight commander return to her true calling.
-Fight with everything you have and dodge! Do not make me kill you with my own hands!
Ria would hurl attacks at me while shouting such terrifying things.
There were times when I truly thought I might die during sparring.
But according to her, that was exactly how my body would learn through survival instinct and remember how to avoid danger in real combat.
‘Ria was right.’
My body reacted on its own.
In fact, the attack of a High-Grade Monster felt slow.
Boom!
When I dodged, the Groove Bear crashed straight into the ground.
Its body had pitched forward, and with one leg gone, it could not land properly.
I did not miss that opening and used the spear’s inherent skill, Spatial Thrust, on its rear thigh.
Thrust!
A hole opened in the creature’s hind leg.
It tried to rise on its back legs, but perhaps the bone had broken, because it could not stand and collapsed again.
I opened Acresia toward the Groove Bear, which could not even control its own body, and used the absorption skill.
“GWOOOOAR!!”
It tried to resist, but it was dragged in helplessly.
Soon, the absorption was complete.
“I won.”
I had hunted a High-Grade Monster by myself.
I had brought down, without taking a single hit, a High-Grade Monster that supposedly required at least an A-Rank Hunter to hunt alone.
Thinking back to the time I had nearly died helplessly against a Superior Harpy, the feeling was overwhelming.
To be honest, I had the sense that it had been easy only because it was a Groove Bear.
‘For such a huge creature, it did nothing but charge straight ahead instead of trying to dodge the release skill.’
Among High-Grade Monsters, it was probably one of the easiest to hunt.
A faster High-Grade Monster, one agile enough to avoid my release skill, would not be easy to deal with.
Then I gave Acresia a command.
“Acresia, devour it.”
There was no response.
Was it a Monster not even worth devouring?
It seemed that unless it was a high enough grade, Acresia did not react.
Or perhaps it had to be a rare Monster.
At that moment, Ria, who had been watching, approached me while clapping her hands.
“You did very well. My student fights even better in real combat.”
“That is all thanks to my teacher’s guidance.”
“Hehe! I did teach you a little harshly.”
“You did. Take it a little easier on me.”
“No. This is not even a quarter of a quarter of the intensity I used when training the knights.”
Ria refused with absolute firmness.
A quarter of a quarter.
The knights under her really must have suffered.
Maybe that was why their sense of camaraderie had become so strong.
Strong enough that they had wanted to follow her wherever she went.
Surely they were not still searching for Ria even now, after she had fled in the middle of the night and left them behind.
‘My apologies, knights.’
It seemed Ria preferred this place.
And then that memory from that day surfaced again.
The words Ria had spoken when she asked whether I knew why she had returned.
‘Because you are here, Seon-u.’
And with that, everything that had happened afterward came flooding back too.
Smack!
I slapped my own cheek.
“What is wrong, Seon-u?”
“It is nothing.”
I could hardly tell her that I had done it to drive away thoughts of that day.
I changed the subject.
“Acresia does not look like it intends to devour it. Let us take it back out, finish it off, extract the Magic Stone, and return.”
“All right.”
We pulled the Groove Bear out of Acresia, ended its life, and extracted a High-Grade Magic Stone from its heart.
When we returned to the Rift house, I stroked Bell’s head.
“Thanks to you, I got a High-Grade Magic Stone and some real combat experience.”
“Awoong?”
“Thank you. But I cannot feed you a High-Grade Magic Stone.”
A fifteen-million-won meal was too much.
“I will get you a Lowest-Grade Magic Stone instead.”
“Awoong!”
***
I went with Mr. Jang from the wine shop to a notarization office and signed a notarized supply contract.
The contract explicitly stated that the Applecherry fruit wine must be sold only to Hunters.
As for liability in the event of product-related issues, any damages would be split equally between us.
The delivery date and quantity could be decided at my discretion.
In return, I had to maintain the quality of the Applecherries, the main ingredient of the fruit wine.
The profit ratio remained as discussed before, nine to one.
I would take nine, and Mr. Jang would take one.
Payment for the deliveries would be made after revenue was generated.
Once the contract was done—
“Then I will leave this ten-liter batch I brought today in your care.”
“Yes, I will calculate it as thirty-five bottles, same as before.”
“All right.”
“By the way, what happened to those thirty-five bottles you made before?”
It was one of Mr. Jang’s sudden ambush questions.
“Well, the occasion I mentioned for opening the champagne was the celebratory dinner for finishing the house. Aside from three bottles, we drank all of it.”
“Oh, congratulations on completing the house. But thirty-two bottles? Of something that expensive… just how many people were drinking?”
“There were two of us.”
“……”
Mr. Jang stared at me in disbelief.
And understandably so. No matter how good the occasion, spending nearly one hundred million won just on alcohol was not exactly the act of a sane man.
Then Mr. Jang asked, in a meaningful tone,
“Was it with a woman, by any chance?”
“……Yes.”
“Haha! In that case, I understand.”
“……”
This was getting embarrassing for no reason.
Then he said,
“Ah, have you heard the news?”
Mr. Jang loved gossip. It seemed he was about to share another piece of Hunter-industry chatter.
“What news?”
“I hear an extraordinary mushroom was discovered inside a B-Rank Rift in Cheorwon County, Gangwon Province.”
“A mushroom? Inside a Rift?”
“Yes. A certain party recklessly entered the Cheorwon Ice Rift to clear it, but their porter slipped and fell off a cliff, and the remaining party members were suffering from hunger and frostbite with no hope of survival. In the middle of all that, they saw a white mushroom growing on the wall of a cave and, desperate for calories, ate it without knowing whether it was poisonous or not. Miraculously, their frostbite healed, their condition improved, and they were able to escape safely.”
This time, the gossip was genuinely interesting.
“If that is true, then that mushroom would make an excellent ingredient for a healing potion.”
“Exactly. If it is that effective, it could probably be used as a Highest-Grade potion ingredient worth thirty million won apiece. Once the rumor spread, several parties began challenging the Cheorwon Rift to obtain the mushroom, but they all say the cold is so severe they come back out after just two or three hours.”
“If that is the case……!”
“Exactly. It means our fruit wine is going to sell very well, haha!”
The fruit wine had resistance to all attributes.
In other words, it also granted thirty percent resistance to cold.
I thought it over carefully.
I had already been considering going through a First Floor Rift to hunt a bit and gather Lowest-Grade Magic Stones for Bell’s food.
But circling the First Floor was inefficient, so I had dropped the idea.
Still, if it was for a new premium ingredient, then I had to go.
“Mr. Jang, let us delay the fruit wine sales for a few days.”
“What? Why? This is exactly when business is about to boom.”
“I need to get to that Ice Rift first and claim it.”
***
The next day, I drove to Master Oh Cheon-seok’s workshop.
The workshop was nearly as large as a basketball court.
After telling an employee why I had come and waiting in the reception room, Master Oh Cheon-seok arrived.
“So it was you, was it? Hahaha!”
“It has been a while, sir.”
“Well then, has my spear served you well?”
“Yes. To be honest, I wondered whether it had been too expensive, but after using it, I can see it was worth every bit of the price.”
“Well, of course. Whose work do you think it is? But you… have you gotten your hands on any new materials lately?”
He was clearly referring to something like Drake hide or horns.
“Unfortunately, no.”
“Tsk! A pity. Well then, you said you came to buy equipment. What is it you need?”
“I need equipment with resistance to the cold attribute.”
“Ah, so you are going to that rumored Cheorwon Rift too? Come now, young man, do not charge in there out of youthful bravado. The cold in that place is not something a human being can endure. There is a reason it still has not been cleared.”
He was right.
Among the Rifts that still remained uncleared, the B-Rank Ice Rift in Cheorwon County and the A-Rank Flame Rift in Chilgok County, North Gyeongsang Province, were places even the Ranker Guilds had failed to conquer because of their brutal environments.
“I can do it, as long as I have equipment strong against the cold.”
“I do have something.”
“Would it be possible to rent it?”
“What, do you think this place is some ski suit rental shop? I do not rent things out.”
“If I get my hands on rare equipment materials next time, I will make you my first priority for trading.”
“……Ahem! Make sure you keep that promise.”
“Of course.”
“But the rental fee at my workshop is quite expensive. Five hundred thousand won a day.”
He had just said this was not the sort of place that rented things out, and now he was quoting a rental fee.
At five hundred thousand won a day, it did not seem too bad.
Still—
“Could you not make it four hundred thousand?”
You had to haggle first, no matter what.
***
In the end, I rented a cloak, a ring, and a necklace for four hundred and twenty thousand won a day.
A fur cloak made from a Frost Leopard, along with a ring and necklace bearing various attribute resistances.
If I were buying these outright instead of renting them, it would easily cost over one hundred million won.
‘That is about what Ria and I spent on wine.’
The cold resistance was twenty-one percent on the fur, eight percent on the ring, and twelve percent on the necklace.
‘The old master said these were nearly the best possible options.’
The limit of what equipment alone could provide in terms of resistance.
But I also had the fruit wine buff.
That brought the total to seventy-one percent.
That should be enough.
But before that, there was something I had to do first.
‘I had not planned on doing this for a while.’
That was to request a rank reassessment from the Hunter Association.
To enter a Rift alone, without a party, one had to be at least B-Rank.