“Shin-nim, why are you taking something like that?” Shina asked curiously.

The fight had ended. I, of course, had the highest contribution. Because three people had died, there were only seven rewards to choose from. Out of all the options, I ended up choosing the ‘Thunder Crystal’.

On the outside, it looked just like a transparent crystal, but black sparks filled in the inside, making it look like a plasma globe. The moment I laid my eyes on it, I became sure it was a medicine just like the Compressing Elixirs or the Soul Tempering Elixir. However, in Shina’s eyes, I had refused to take the best item.

“I’m going to hunt a lot of Dark Ratman, so don’t worry about it,” I explained.

“Oh? So there was a reason why you hunted the 5th Floor Master for three years?”

Mm…there was, but at the same time, there wasn’t. I debated whether or not to tell her the real reason why. In the end, I simply nodded.

“Yep. You know about it, right? That Floor Masters drop items that increase stats.”

“I do, but I heard the chances are low and that there are limits to how many a person can consume. I even heard that they weren’t guaranteed to raise your stats, so I didn’t think anyone would challenge the Floor Masters for them. Not to mention, Floor Masters are dangerous. If you die, you won't be able to enter the dungeon for a week.”

I countered, “Muscle, Bone, and Skin Compressing Elixirs all have pretty high drop rates, though you have to meet certain conditions to consume them. What’s important is how high your contribution is in the boss battle. If they really don’t drop, you can always lower the number of people in the party.”

“Also, it’s not that they don’t work sometimes. It’s just that after the first one, you have to consume several of them to have the same effect. Whoever told you must have been confused. Ah, of course, there is a limit. Each stat can only go up by 10 at most.”

“Wow…”

Shina gasped. Staring at me, she asked, “Could Shin-nim have…for all the Floor Masters…?”

“It’s only the 5th and 10th Floor Master, but yeah, I consumed all the stat increasing elixirs to the limit,” I explained.

“As expected, my eyes weren’t wrong…Unni’s[1] too…”

“Unni?”

“I-It’s nothing, Shin-nim.”

Shina shook her head, then said with a sigh, “I don’t have the confidence to fight the Floor Master dozens of times….I can’t even imagine doing it. After dying, being unable to re-enter the dungeon for a week is…like hell. I know how strong you are, but to think you could take the risk to continually challenge the Floor Master. Tee hee, knowing this, your current strength makes sense. I’m not just talking about your physical strength; in fact, it’s more your mental strength that I’m astounded by.”

“You’re praising me too much,” I humbly replied.

All explorers had their own reasons for entering the dungeon. Although his reasons were slightly different from the others, it was the same for my father. He could not afford to be careless because the dungeon was the source of income for our family.

Prior to his awakening, he put himself at risk for the sake of obtaining mana. However, once he became an ability user, he never re-challenged the Orc Lord again. Explorers from other continents were under even more dire circumstances, and thus could not act carelessly. Of course, there were still those who acted arrogantly and caused their parties to be annihilated.

In any case, I was in a much better situation compared to them. Although a crisis had stricken the world I lived in, the situation was not that serious yet. At first I had wondered what would happen and if I needed to do anything, but the situation was never bad enough to threaten my family.

This was why I could be bold in exploring the dungeon. I was in a position where I could slowly and leisurely allow myself to get stronger.

In the end, I believe that I was just lucky. If Earth was in a desperate situation like the Luka or Edias continents, I would not have been able to spend several months just fighting the same boss over and over again. By not doing that, I would have never figured out that I could increase my stats by grinding the same boss. After all, I would have entered the dungeons with a mana cultivation in hand if Earth was in the same state as those other continents.

Regardless, it was hard to convince this girl, who was staring at me with eyes shining with admiration, that I was lucky. As such, I kept silent. Shina seemed to be drawing her own conclusions about my actions.

At any rate, I had successfully defeated the Dark Ratman and obtained the qualification to advance to the 16th floor.

[You have consumed a Thunder Crystal. Your resistance to lightning has increased slightly. Your affinity with lightning has increased.]

“… ehhh?”

I had gotten an unexpected result from the Thunder Crystal that I had just swallowed. I had expected a stat increase, so I wasn’t sure if I was happy or sad by its actual effects. On one hand, increasing my affinity to lightning seemed useless as I wasn’t a magician and didn’t have any lightning based attacks.

On the other hand, I did like the increased resistance to lightning. From my limited experiences, I knew that effects from consumable items could stack up to ten times max, so it was likely my resistance to lightning could increase nine more times. When that happened, I would not need to worry so much about lightning magic.

What a shame.

Compared to the sweet fruits that the 5th and 10th Floor Masters gave, the Thunder Crystal felt disappointing. I could only look forward to the Dark Ratman Set and the Dark Ratman Slayer title. I didn’t know whether to be happy about having a shorter grind or sad about not having the chance to increase my stats.

With a sigh, I stood in front of the stairs to the 16th floor. I could not repeat the same mistake forever.

“Alright, I’m ready.”

With a serious expression, I opened the window to view my friends’ information. Including Shina, I had only friended three people. I looked for Palludia’s name. It was active, which meant that she was inside the dungeon.

I clicked on her name and sent her a message.

“Palludia, it’s me.”

[…]

“Sorry, Palludia, for not replying to your messages earlier. I was in a dangerous situation, so I meant to contact you later, but…”

[Who is this?]

“It’s me, Kang Shin.”

[I don’t know anyone with that name.]

“No, I…sorry.”

[I don’t know what you’re sorry about. Like I said, I don’t know an orc like you.]

You do remember! Also, I’m not an orc!

“Whew, I was wrong. Forgive me.”

[That’s what you have to say after ignoring me for so long? That’s it?]

What else would I do? I felt the urge to complain and snark back, but I calmed myself down by thinking of Yua’s smiling face. Yep, I calmed down right away.

“Sorry, if there’s anything you want me to do, tell me.”

[Hmph, like you could do anything to heal my wounded pride. Don’t be stupid.]

“Don’t be like that. A chance like this doesn’t come often.”

[You don’t sound sorry at all! Do you know how much I…urk.]

“Hm? What?”

[Don’t ask!]

Palludia. She was like a thick medical book. I couldn’t understand her from start to end.

[…You’ll do anything?]

“If it’s within my ability.”

[Fine, you cowardly Orc.]

“Go on.”

[…]

Palludia was silent for a moment. Just when I was wondering if she was fed up and about to delete me from her friend list, she sent me another message.

[Hurry up.]

“Hm?”

[Climb up quickly! To the 25th Floor Master!]

“Eh?”

[I’m saying I’ll wait for you! So hurry to the 25th floor! We can defeat the Floor Master together!]

“Uh, let’s make that 30th floor.”

[Hey!]

It would take me several months to grind the 15th and 20th floor bosses. However, Palludia seemed uninterested by my alternative offer.

[I’ll give you three months, so you better reach the 25th floor by then! Otherwise, I won’t see you ever again!]

“H-Hey!”

[No buts!]

After that last message from her, the conversation had ended. I tried contacting her again but she did not respond. Did this girl even know what floor I was on? And what did she mean by threatening that she wouldn’t see me in person ever again if I didn’t reach the 25th floor in three months? Wasn’t the last time we saw each other almost four years ago?

I didn’t know how to react to any of this.

“Three months? That’s impossible. What an unreasonable girl…”

I murmured to myself and sighed. Although she called me ‘Orc’, I knew she considered me to be her friend. Since I knew I was in the wrong for accidentally ignoring her this long, I wanted to make it up to her, but that did not mean I would ruin my dungeon pacing for it. If she didn’t want to see me, then she wouldn’t. I became resolved in my final decision.

However, Loretta from the 15th Floor Shop suddenly smiled at me in a vaguely scary way.

“Customer, you had a girlfriend?” she sneered.

“No, she’s just a friend. Can you stop smiling like that? It’s creepy.”

“You made fun of me before, customer, so it’s only fair that I do the same.”

I protested, “Don’t be absurd. Besides, Palludia is really just a friend. One that easily gets angry, treats me like an orc, is short, and has a small chest.”

“She’s your friend? That sounds more like a mortal enemy.”

Loretta made a rare serious expression and advised me.

“You should sever all ties with her immediately. From what I see, she’ll do something perverted to you. Like kidnapping you and using you as a sex slave.”

“What did you say?”

I gave Loretta the coldest look I had ever made in my entire life.

“…”

“D-Don’t look at me like that! I just happened to read a novel like that recently!”

“…”

“Ah, your eyes got colder! My heart’s going to freeze, please look away!”

Loretta spent the next ten seconds pretending to ‘unfreeze’ herself, then took something out from her pocket as I was heading up to the 16th floor.

“Customer, here’s a special offer from the Floor Shop!” she said in a taunting voice.

“You’re trying to sell me something again?”

“This here is a very special item. It’s a ticket that ignores the once a day limit for battling the Floor Master and allows one to challenge it again! It’s the ‘Floor Master Battle Voucher’!”

“If you had something like that, why didn’t you tell me sooner!?” I exclaimed indignantly.

“It’s being sold at the cheap price of 3,000 gold!”

“6 million won!?”

I almost passed out from the sticker shock. I understood why she only told me about it now. After all, I only got 3,000 each time I defeated the Wraith Queen alone. The Dark Ratman, on the other hand, gave 5,000 gold, and I only received around 700 gold from my first victory as I had to split the reward with my party members. With a full party of ten, I would be losing 2,500 gold every time I used it.

“That’s crazy expensive,” I groused.

“But customer, isn’t it enticing? In truth, I’m selling it at the manufacturing cost because no one has bought any in the past 300 years. They aren’t normally this cheap!”

“If it’s so unpopular that no one has bought any in 300 years, can’t you make it cheaper?”

Loretta didn’t bat an eye at my attempts to negotiate.

“I have to at least break even on this! Customer, I’m already being generous with my offer. Not to mention, this isn’t something anyone can buy. Ah, by the way, you can only use up to two per day. So, in total, you would be able to fight the Floor Master three times a day!”

When I saw the sincere look in her eyes, I knew she wasn’t lying. It was true that I had a lot of gold stockpiled. But if I continued to buy those things to fight the Dark Ratman, I would eventually blow through all my gold.

That being said, if I used them, I would be able to finish grinding the 15th and 20th Floor Masters faster and likely reach the 25th floor in 3 months. I was certain about this. Besides keeping my promise with Palludia, just the prospect of quickening my growth tempted me. In that case…

“…Fine.”

“Oh! So you’ll buy them!?” Loretta perked up.

I countered, “I’ll buy them after I reach the 20th floor.”

“Aww.”

Loretta made a disappointed expression. I smiled and waved my hand at her. Then, I continued on my way to the 16th floor. Three months, huh. I wonder why she was so bent on meeting me in three months.

Well, Palludia, I’ll see you then. Don’t be too surprised after seeing my changed appearance.

1. Unni literally means ‘older sister’, it’s also used by younger females to call older female acquaintances ☜