I searched the dead medium-sized Graf as the dagger I had thrown was stuck deep inside its intestine. I muttered that I was in the first place, just in case. 

[You have completed the quest ‘Graf Extermination.’]

[You have obtained 1,500 points.]

[You have obtained a ‘silver box’ for being the first one to complete the quest.]

I responded to the System messages where Woo Yeon-Hee couldn’t see me. When the silver box popped up, my heart began to beat harder as I could upgrade The Man Who Overcomes Adversity with points from a silver box, even though those points only came out of a gold box. 

What if I get something like that again?

It was impossible, but I was looking forward to it.

[The Earthquake has increased by 12.]

[Earthquake: F (12)]

My heart continued pounding, but I was very disappointed since it only increased by twelve. Theoretically, I could get an increase between eleven and forty. Furthermore, I would need to abandon the Earthquake skill at one point. This silver box was meaningless as if it was offsetting the miracle the other day. 

[Total points: 2,100]

I decided to open a bronze box to test things. 

[The bronze box will be opened.]

[Your Strength has increased by 3, but it has been cancelled.]

Since my Strength stat was already in E-class, I couldn’t receive points from a bronze box to upgrade it. Two boxes in a row had been duds, so I headed back to Woo Yeon-Hee with a rigid face. Shit. I didn’t have any ritual before opening the box, but I felt like I had to wash like Woo Yeon-Hee to get rid of misfortune. 

However, the thought didn’t last long. I used to be optimistic about rituals, so I had tried such superstitions before in the past like taking showers, praying to the absolute which I didn’t really believe in, and opening the box when the hour and second hand overlapped in a clock.

I had even ritually sacrificed a person who had betrayed me to follow a psychopath’s routine. However, none of them worked, at least to me. Well, I was quite contradictory because I had a ritual for reinforcing items, but not for opening dungeon boxes since those worked pretty often. Like anyone else, I lived by my experiences. 

I decided to use all the points.

[Your Health has increased by 7.]

[Health: F (34)]

It wasn’t too bad, and I used the remaining points to open two silver boxes. 

[Your Sense has increased by 31.]

[Sense: F (94)]

Yes! Keep it up!

[Your Strength has increased by 4.]

[Strength: E (19)]

***

Woo Yeon-Hee checked if I was injured first, and, other than a few bloodstains, I was no different from when I left. I even looked better as I had washed my face on the way back.

“It’s okay. Just focus on your own recovery,” I said.

The meal was ready, and the heated canned food was in a canteen.

“I’m fine because Revival became activated. I can move now,” she replied.

I understood that the trait enabled people to move when they were almost dead. It wouldn’t alleviate pain, but it had tremendous benefits. With the trait Regenerator on top, she would be able to even fight despite the pain. This suited an attacker more than a healer. While I answered indifferently when she received the skill Hatred, I noticed both of us were growing outside the box as hunters. We weren’t fixed on one role. I was a tanker and attacker, and Woo Yeon-Hee was a healer and attacker. Has this ever happened to anyone else?

When I sat on my butt, her fist popped into my view. There was the Ruler’s Ring and another ring shining underneath it.

“I received the completion reward for the combat quest,” she said. 

[Ring of Flames (Item)

Effect: It shoots flames. Each monster the ring kills adds to the number of stored charges in the ring by 1. It can be charged up to 5.

Class: E

Cooldown time: 5 minutes

Stored charges: 0]

“Good job. This is a good one.”

I said while putting two rings on my fingers, and that was obviously what Woo Yeon-Hee wanted to hear. She smiled brightly, then frowned as her broken cheekbone hurt whenever she used facial muscles.

“Can you eat?” I asked.

“We’re doing all this to eat as you mentioned.”

She joked around and seemed to be in a good mood. We began to have our first meal in days, and I realized how hungry I was after the first bite. It felt like the starving demons inside me had finally got released from my body. We continued eating without a word, and empty cans piled up as we even ate unheated cans. 

Woo Yeon-Hee widened her eyes in surprise and she said with embarrassment, “We’re going to eat everything at this pace.”

“This is enough. We will fish for food from now on,” I responded.

We only had the boss fight left, but we had not encountered any turning points. This dungeon may be structured in a straight line, but there was a high possibility that it wasn’t. We didn’t know how much longer it was to the end of this dungeon. 

“Fishing?” Woo Yeon-Hee questioned. 

She had faced a weird creature a few days after she fully recovered near the place I had killed the medium-sized Graf. I caught the creature from a large pond where I could even swim. Since the System had not rewarded us any points, it wasn’t a dangerous monster. Rather than considering it as an alien, it was better to think of it as a deep-sea creature if we wanted to eat it without being nauseous. 

“We’re lucky that this place has food and water,” I said.

Of course, Woo Yeon-Hee couldn’t eat it right away. Although I boiled the flesh after removing the bones, she looked at it with disgust because she knew where it had come from.

“We can’t eat monsters, but these are edible,” I said.

She made the most disgusting expression ever and asked me with her eyes if I had tried one before.

“Animals that don’t give us points are edible, but you shouldn’t eat anything you aren’t certain of. Keep that in mind, Woo Yeon-Hee,” I emphasized.

She was debating whether to eat it or not but took a bite when I pressured her with my gaze. She looked like she was chewing feces, and her expression was interesting. In fact, the more we savored the flavor, the tastier it got.

After finishing the meal, we walked up to where the medium-sized Graf lay. The corpse was so large that Woo Yeon-Hee could see it from afar, but she took a few steps closer to see its head more clearly. She turned her sickened face toward me and looked at me with admiration. There was something else there.

“Follow me,” I said.

I led her to the dungeon box, and she readied herself. I reached my hand towards the box without hesitation.

[Would you like to open the box?]

Of course.

[You have gained an item, ‘Protective Gloves.’]

[Protective Gloves (Item)

Effect: It absorbs minor physical damage.

Class: F]

The light gathered on my palm turned into gloves, so I now had eight items, which was the maximum number of items I could possess at once. The achievement for doing so was ‘Gluttony.’

[You have completed the achievement ‘Gluttony.’]

[You have obtained the trait ‘Collector’ for being the first one to complete the achievement.]

[Collector (Trait)

Effect: Slightly reduces the probability of an item disappearing after reinforcement failure.

Class: F]

Similar to Revival, the Collector was a trait I had not seen in the past. The reward was far better than what I would have normally received, but I needed to think carefully about whether it was worth developing or not. So I held it for now and turned my attention to the remaining dungeon box. Since the first one wasn’t a curse, this one might be…

[You have obtained Phobia (Individual).]

[Phobia (Individual)

Effect: It slightly induces fear towards people.

Class: F]

Ah! Is it a curse?

However, Woo Yeon-Hee didn’t notice that I had gotten cursed, so I signaled her to heal me. I saw her looking at the rings on my right hand with eager eyes. Well, she would be stupid if she didn’t know the value of the items after going through all these. She had also worn the Ruler’s Ring, which was a B-class item from a diamond box. I could capture one monster right away with it. 

Besides that, I had seven more items, and more than half of them were handed over by Woo Yeon-Hee. She might have thought she had been wronged. Despite that, there was no chance of her attacking me since she was aware that using the skill Hatred would quicken her own death and that my stats were much higher than hers. 

Woo Yeon-Hee had never gone through Trial Tests, so she was still innocent compared to the evil humans in the past. However, I needed to be careful since humans were evil by nature. I’m sure it also lay deep inside her, so I would have to remove her before she could betray me. Not now, but…

[Woo Yeon-Hee has used ‘Phobia Healing.’]