All of these alerts and notifications made me feel incredibly confused and bewildered. The first thing that came to my mind was: ‘Yes! I’m finally a dungeon explorer!’ The next thing was: ‘Is Bronze Rank 9 high or low?’ And the last was: ‘What’s a Potion?’

There wasn’t room in my head for any more thoughts than that.

“Ugh, I’m getting dizzy. Can you say that slower?”

[Would you like to check your message log?]

“What’s a message log?”

[It contains the messages that Kang Shin-nim [1] has received.]

“Yes, show me!”

As soon as I spoke, a translucent window appeared in front of my eyes. Startled, I took a step back. I had better senses than my father, yet something like this could appear without tripping a single warning…Once I realized that it was kind of just a projection, I let my guard down and approached it. Inside the window were recordings of the voices I had been hearing earlier…It was amazing!

“Sharp Wooden Spear?”

[It is inside your inventory. Would you like to confirm?]

“How do I confirm?”

[You just have to say the word inventory.]

“Inventory…? Whoa!”

Just like before, a translucent window suddenly appeared before my eyes. Compared to the previous window, this one did not have words on it, and it was tall and skinny. There were ten fist-sized spaces next to each other inside the box. There was nothing above or below these spaces, so it looked like a 1x10 grid. In the very first space was a picture of a glass bottle filled with red liquid. The number 5 was written next to it. This had to be the potion that the voice earlier was telling me about. In the second space was a wooden spear. When I reached toward it subconsciously, my hand went into the window.

“Whoa!”

Contrary to my expectations, my hand didn’t go straight through the box. Instead, it really felt like my hand was ‘inside’ the window. I wriggled my hand in surprise, but stopped when I felt something touching me. It was thick and long. This was… a spear! I instinctively grabbed it and pulled it out of the window. A sharp wooden spear appeared in my hand. As I stared at it, a small window popped up in front of me.

[Sharp Wooden Spear (Normal)

Durability – 70/70

Attack – 10

Equipment Limit – None

Explanation – A wooden spear perfect for a beginner to use. It has no special abilities.]

“Mm.”

To be honest, I had no clue what any of this meant. I had never played a video game before in my life, so the terms ‘beginner’s weapon’ and ‘basic weapons’ were foreign to me. In any case, I knew it was a weapon I could use. That was enough.

I hung the wooden spear on my back and proceeded to check out this thing called a potion. The description said that it would restore 100 HP once consumed, but I didn’t understand what that meant. Then, the voice told me to check my status. I still had no idea exactly whose voice it was but it reminded me of a nice noona [2], so I yelled out ‘check status’.

[Name: Kang Shin 

Race: Human 

Sex: Male

Class: None Title: None Rank: Bronze 9

Level: 1

HP – 240/240 MP – 0

Strength – 18 

Dexterity – 16 

Constitution – 17

Intelligence – 5 

Magic – 0 

Charm – 7 

Luck – 10

Skill – Low-rank Martial Arts (Lv 4), Low-rank Spear Technique (Master), Mid-rank Spear

Technique (Lv 3)]

Strange. There are two zeros there. And if my strength is 18 but my intelligence is 5, does that mean my strength is high or is my intelligence low?

“What’s HP and what’s MP?”

[HP represents your life. When you get attacked and hit by monsters, your HP will decrease. When it reaches 0, you will be kicked out of the dungeon. If that happens, you will not be able to reenter the dungeon for a week.]

[MP represents your mana. It is used to cast magic or skills. It is also called qi.]

“Qi!”

[Your MP is 0. In other words, you have no qi.]

“How can I get it?”

[Those from worlds other than Earth know methods to accumulate mana in their bodies.

Also, those who already have mana can increase the amount of mana they have by clearing

the dungeon floor and leveling up.]

“Leveling up?”

[It will be explained to you soon. In conclusion, there is currently no way for Kang Shin-nim

to obtain MP.]

“What can I do to get it?”

[You need to obtain a mana cultivation method.]

“How can I obtain one?”

[You can buy a method at the Floor Shop located at the end of dungeon floors. Please note, mana cultivation methods can only be bought from Floor Shops above 10F, and they are very expensive.]

“10F! Since I’m on the 1st floor, I just have to climb to the 10th, right?”

[That is correct.]

“How much does it cost? …is it more than 50,000 won [3]?”

At that time, I was in my 3rd year of middle school, so my monthly allowance was only 10,000 won. 50,000 won was considered an enormous amount of money to me. As I was pondering this money question, the voice answered me.

[You cannot buy Floor Shop items with the won currency. You may only trade gold or monster remains dropped by the dungeon’s monsters.]

“Gold!”

Okay, there was hope after all! From the stories my father told me, I knew that there were monsters in the dungeon and they dropped gold when defeated. Furthermore, when I defeated all of the monsters on one floor, I could climb to a higher floor. The nice voice had just told me that I could buy a mana cultivation method from something called the Floor Shop at the end of the 10th floor. With a mana cultivation method, I could finally obtain qi! I could fulfill my father’s dream by doing this!

I was quite impressed with myself for figuring out all of this on my own.

However, I wasn’t able to make the logical deduction that if it were that easy to get a mana cultivation method, my father would have done so years ago. My intelligence stat was only at 5, and it was only a year later that I learned the average level 1 stat was 10. The news that learning a mana cultivation method would give me qi made me so excited that I even forgot why I wanted to become a dungeon explorer in the first place.

I wanted to begin exploring so I asked the voice where the dungeon monsters lived. She kindly told me I could begin by shouting ‘Commence Exploration.’ 

“Commence Exploration!”

Within the blink of an eye, all of the virtual windows around me had disappeared and an ominous aura began to envelop me. A few torches extinguished and only the ones closest to me remained lit, burning strongly. I wasn’t afraid of the dark because I had traveled the world and been to all sorts of weird places with my father during all my breaks. However, the prickling sensation I felt on my skin was concerning. Then, I sensed a presence that I had never encountered before.

I raised my wooden spear and got myself ready to react. This feeling reminded me of the 10 yard long anaconda I fought in the Amazonian forest…!

Sss, sss. I could sense the anacondas slithering towards me from every side, and I gulped. It would be difficult to win in a fight with an anaconda with my strength alone. In the past, my father and I had barely managed to defeat one together. During that fight, I had kept its attention while my father dealt all of the blows. But could I defeat several of them now? By myself? I really didn’t want to be kicked out when I finally became a dungeon explorer!

Thoughts flew through my mind as I tightly gripped my wooden spear. My eyes widened in surprise when I finally saw what walked out of the murky darkness.

“Waaaa…ehhh?”

The things in front of me were around a foot and a half long and a foot wide. They kind of resembled giant gelatin puddings, and they were diligently crawling towards me. I felt a bit apologetic to all of the anacondas in the world for using them as a comparison to these things…They were so odd looking that I couldn’t even tell if they were truly living creatures, so I stabbed my spear through one to check and the blade easily pierced through.

[You obtained a Slime Piece.]

[You obtained 1 gold.]

It exploded with a bang. I stood still, stupefied, but soon let out a shout of joy and jumped in glee.

“Whoo! I’m a dungeon explorer now!”

The curtains had finally lifted for the legendary stage of the dungeon explorer Kang Shin! …Or so I thought before I knew any better. It didn’t take long until harsh reality set in. I finally realized this wasn’t as easy as it seemed when I reached the third floor after finishing the second floor that had giant honey bees. Compared to the first two floors, which were relatively easy, the third floor gave me trouble as it had monsters called goblins.

On my first attempt at the third floor, my HP had mysteriously hit 0 and I was sent out of the dungeon before I had realized what had happened. Because of that, I couldn’t re-enter the dungeon for a week. The next week, I gritted my teeth and entered the dungeon to rechallenge the floor. Then, I finally figured out I had died from poisonous darts. I had been completely paralyzed by the poisonous darts the goblins had shot.

Usually, when the monsters hit me, it would hurt as much as it did when my father hit me. But because of the paralyzing poison, I couldn’t feel any pain whatsoever. Not feeling pain wasn’t a good thing as I had no warning of how bad my wounds were. Because there were so many goblins, it was hard to dodge every single poisonous dart. As a result, my HP reached 0 multiple times and I couldn’t enter the dungeon for a whole month. In the end, I asked my father for advice.

“Father, the goblins keep shooting poisonous darts at me.”

“Hm? You’re already at the 3rd floor? It hasn’t even been three months yet.”

“Am I fast?”

“It took me a whole year to reach the 2nd floor.”

Apparently, when my father first entered the dungeon, he had yet to awaken his sixth sense, so he couldn’t sense the slimes approaching. As a result, it had taken him a year to take the initiative. Since dungeon explorers couldn’t enter the dungeon for a week once they were kicked out, it wasn’t surprising it had taken my father so long. Even I was stuck on a floor for a whole month.

“So you’re level 3 now?”

“Yep.”

A dungeon explorer’s base level went up by 1 after clearing a dungeon floor. In addition, five bonus stats were also given with each level up and could be allocated to strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, and others. 

Because I was unhappy with my intelligence being at 5, I put all my stats into intelligence when I reached level 2. With that, I now had the intelligence of an average person.

Despite the fact I had increased my intelligence, I still believed I could easily reach the 10th floor because I had spent too many years out of touch with reality. I tried to raise my magic stat when I reached level 3, but I couldn’t put any points into a stat that started at 0. In the end, I put 2 into strength, 2 into dexterity, and 1 into constitution.

“You must have made some money then.”

“Money?”

I tilted my head. Money? I had gold, but no money. Just how was the gold from the dungeon related to real world money? My ears perked up when I heard what my father said next.

1.  A type of Korean honorific. It is the highest form (most polite) and is the commonplace honorific for guests, customers, clients, and unfamiliar individuals. It is often roughly translated as "Mr." or "Ms./Mrs." ☜

2.  Literally means ‘older sister’. A younger brother or a younger man will also use the word ‘noona’ to address a female friend or acquaintance who is older. ☜

3. Around $41 USD at 2022 exchange rates. Easy way of ballparking dollar amounts is taking 3 zeros off. Ex: 50,000 won ~$50. ☜