Chapter 24

“For now, we’ll leave it as is and upload the video.”

<The one you sent me?>

“Yes. I’m planning to do a bit of editing and post it on my MuTube channel. That should make it an issue. My channel currently has just over 4 million subscribers. And the average views per video are almost 20 million.”

<Good. That’ll work for advertising. And if you get reporters to spread it around, that should be enough promotion.>

“And I’m also planning to talk about it on the broadcast.”

<I saw yesterday that you had about 3,000 viewers.>

“Yes. So you don’t need to worry.”

<Alright, understood. You go ahead and upload the video.>

“Yes. Well then.”

<Oh, and.>

“Yes?”

<About going to meet the Blue Dragon Guild Master.>

“Yes. Is something the matter?”

<I’ve decided to postpone it a bit.>

“Why is that? Wasn’t it urgent?”

<It is urgent. But he’s recovered his strength to some degree.>

“How?”

<I didn’t know either. But it turns out he got a bit better after taking those pills you made.>

“Pills?”

<Yeah. The ones you first sold for 15 million won each.>

“Ah, yes.”

<Apparently he bought some of those. He said he managed to hold on by taking them. Fortunately, his mind came back and his body recovered to a decent extent.>

“So that’s why you postponed it a bit?”

<No, no. After he collapsed, he never properly regained his senses.>

“Yes…….”

<But once he came to, he started thinking things over and found it strange too.>

“Yes.”

<So he said he looked into it this way and that. In the end, he said he’d caught a bit of a trail, so he asked to push it back a little. He said if we went after him after he finished treatment, the guy might completely flee. So we decided to do it that way. He asked for a few of the remaining pills, so I gave him some. He said he’d hold on with those and sort out his work first. So once things are settled a bit later, we’ll set up a meeting then.>

“Hmm, understood for now.”

<Keep that in mind. I’ll let you know once the exact date is set.>

“Understood. I’ll proceed as you said. It just so happens tomorrow is broadcast day, so I’ll upload the video today and reveal it on tomorrow’s broadcast.”

<Got it.>

After hanging up the phone like that, Jaeha went straight to Seungho’s room and told him to do a rough edit and upload it. Seungho nodded and uploaded the video not long after.

About 2 hours after the video went up, views surpassed 5,000. Jaeha, who had been checking the video’s view count, widened his eyes and spoke.

‘Come to think of it, I had skill points.’

With that thought, Jaeha checked his skill points.

[Skill Points: 255]

“Hmm. So that means total views are around 250 million.”

After thinking for a moment, Jaeha shook his head once the view count settled.

‘Still a long way to go.’

Jaeha wasn’t satisfied that the views and peak viewer count hadn’t reached the hundred-million mark yet. And to try using his skill points, he organized the skills that lacked proficiency.

‘Among my skills, the ones worth investing points in to raise proficiency are…… Enchant and Clone Art, I guess.’

The rest of the skills were mostly converging at 100% or were skills that didn’t need to be raised anyway.

‘Clone Art proficiency is 3%. Enchant is 75%. Does 1 skill point raise it by 1%?’

With that, Jaeha immediately invested 25 points into Enchant.

[Enchant]

[Proficiency: 80%]

“……80%?”

Since he couldn’t confirm exactly how the investment worked, Jaeha invested 10 more points to test it.

[Enchant]

[Proficiency: 81%]

‘So it’s 1% per 10 points. Then before, it went up 2.5%. The other 2.5% must have come from usage.’

Organizing that in his head, Jaeha nodded.

‘I have 220 skill points left now.’

‘That means I can raise it by 22% total. Let’s use 190 to master Enchant first.’

Clone Art was a useless skill anyway. It was hard to use in combat, and there was no real need to raise its proficiency. Besides, the number of clones increased based on Total Ability through its mechanism anyway.

‘Well, maybe higher proficiency could make it usable in battle. But there’s no real need.’

After all, he used guns or bows from a distance. Sure, it would be nice to have clones shoot alongside him, but there didn’t seem to be any real need for it.

Nodding, Jaeha immediately used 190 points to raise his Enchant skill proficiency to 100%. Then he checked what else he could create. Quite a few things had been added, but there was almost nothing he could make right now. The newly enchantable items involved enchanting magic, which wasn’t really relevant at the moment.

‘Hold off.’

With that, Jaeha set aside his thoughts on Enchant.

‘There’s still about a week left in the month.’

At least a week remained before the peak live viewer count was tallied and his Total Ability increased.

‘This month’s peak viewers are around 50 million. If I draw attention with the arrows, I can probably break that record. Though the only new skill I have is Enchant, so my Total Ability won’t rise that much. Still, it should go up by about 100 to 200.’

Considering that A-Rank spanned from 300 to 500, Jaeha figured he could definitely secure A-Rank next month no matter what.

Then Jaeha began calculating how much Total Ability he’d gain based on peak viewers.

‘100 per 100 million. Right now I have 50 million, so that’s 50. If I’m being greedy, I’d like to hit 100 million.’

Resolving to do his absolute best to reach 100 million within a week, Jaeha sprang into action.

‘I should make some arrows for tomorrow’s broadcast.’

With that, Jaeha checked how many arrows he had left.

‘About 2,000.’

Realizing it was time to buy more arrows, Jaeha got up and headed to the Hunter Shop.

* * *

Arriving at the Hunter Shop, Jaeha wandered around looking for various arrows. He bought steel arrows, of course, but also wooden ones, and even plastic arrows—except for the arrowheads.

‘Plastic isn’t commercialized, so there aren’t many.’

Surprised that plastic arrows even existed, Jaeha bought every single one available.

In total, he purchased 200 plastic arrows. The problem was that the arrowheads were made of metal.

‘Well, plastic arrows are pretty much useless anyway. They’re obviously bad for Hunters, and they’re not great for hunting ordinary wild animals either.’

Even if the arrowheads were metal, the plastic itself wouldn’t be all that effective.

‘I should try making all kinds of things with plastic arrows too.’

As long as they could pierce monster bone, plastic arrows were far cheaper than steel ones and much easier to mass-produce.

‘Let’s try everything.’

With that, Jaeha purchased several thousand arrows, packed them up, and headed home. Once home, he went with Seungho to the dungeon location.

“Welcome, everyone.”

Jaeha turned on the broadcast and smiled. Then he looked at the chat window. Watching the chat scroll at an incredible speed, Jaeha gave an awkward laugh.

—What was that video?

—What was that video?

—Do you have it on you right now?

Catching glimpses of the chat, Jaeha realized it was all the same question and smiled as he spoke.

“Please calm down a bit. I’ll explain.”

After waiting a moment, Jaeha began.

“First of all, the person who made those things in the video is Unknown.”

—As expected.

—Well, who else would make it?

—Saw that coming.

“Let me explain in detail. Everything in the video is true. And I have them on me right now.”

With that, Jaeha began explaining slowly.

“The arrows in the video have the attributes of water, fire, wind, earth, and flame, ice, storm, explosion, and penetration. Nine types in total. All nine have lethal capability, and while it wasn’t shown properly in the video, the bow I used back then wasn’t my usual item—it was an ordinary bow. Not even a Hunter-exclusive bow.”

—So that means even civilians who aren’t Hunters could hunt?

—But wouldn’t that make terrorism way too serious?

“That could be possible, but according to Unknown, since all of this was made through the system, it can be restricted from being used in certain places. It can also be restricted so that only approved people can use them.”

—Oh ho. That’s awesome.

—Then there’s no need to worry that much.

“First, I’ll show you all nine types of arrows. I’ll explain them slowly while demonstrating each one.”

—Ooh.

“And since you might think that’s only possible because of my Total Ability, this time I’m bringing a friend inside, and he’ll be the one doing the hunting.”

—For real?

—Isn’t that too dangerous?

“For now, I’ll keep it within a range where I can protect him. And the dungeon I’m heading to right now is the Temple.”

—The Temple?!

—Oh.

“Most of you probably know this, but for those who aren’t Hunters, let me briefly explain. The Temple’s official name is the Monster Temple. Unlike other dungeons, this one has two unique features. One is that it doesn’t spawn just a single type of monster. The other is that a safe zone exists inside the dungeon. Those are the two.”

—Ooh.

—Hype hype.

“As you know, if you’re capable of ranged attacks, you can attack from within the safe zone. Magic excluded.”

—That’s why most Mages don’t go to this dungeon.

—Other melee Hunters also deliberately bring bows and arrows to pull monster aggro and hunt them one by one.

“Also, this dungeon—the Monster Temple—has no concept of clearing it. The temple at the center of the dungeon lets you exit at any time, and monsters keep respawning endlessly. That’s the kind of dungeon it is.”

As Jaeha was saying that, the car came to a stop at some point. Jaeha looked outside, then turned to Seungho beside him.

“We here?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Let’s head in right away.”

Seungho nodded and started moving.

Episode 22

Having entered the dungeon, Jaeha looked around. Then he used Shadow Eye.

“Hey, follow me.”

“Uh…… Okay.”

Seungho carefully followed Jaeha. Jaeha took out his bow from his Inventory and headed toward the temple at the center of the dungeon.

As he walked forward, Jaeha kept scanning his surroundings and occasionally fired arrows. After moving in one direction for about ten minutes, he soon arrived near the temple.

“That’s it?”

“Yeah.”

Jaeha nodded at Seungho’s question. Then he kept moving. And at that moment, Jaeha felt something and spoke.

“Seungho, run.”

“Huh?”

“I said run.”