Kim Song-cheol woke up and grimaced as hard as he could.
A zombie-like groan escaped his throat.
There wasn’t a single spot on his body that didn’t ache.
It felt as if someone had beaten him to a pulp with a club while he slept.
‘It would probably feel better even if I actually got hit…’
Kim Song-cheol tried to raise his arm to loosen his shoulders but gave up.
He hadn’t even used his arms that much, so why did they ache so much?
In the end, he had climbed the ridge on all fours because he was so exhausted, but the muscle pain shouldn’t have been this severe.
‘Could this be Tension-induced Mana Congestion Syndrome…?’
He had read about the theory.
Occasionally, cases are reported where Mana users suffer from abnormal muscle pain after experiencing high-stress situations.
The probability increases especially the higher one’s Mana Affinity is.
When tension rises, one unconsciously gathers the Mana within the body toward the core, which causes even the Mana maintaining the body to be pulled away, resulting in minor physical damage.
The probability of onset drops sharply as the amount of possessed Mana increases, but Kim Song-cheol wasn’t at that level yet.
“I thought I held up reasonably well, but… tsk.”
It seemed what happened in the Dungeon had indeed been stressful.
Kim Song-cheol thought he was managing his stress in his own way, but after facing such an event in his first Dungeon, even if his mind endured, his body couldn’t.
“Huu.”
He felt like calling for a caregiver or a wheelchair, but first, he had to urinate.
‘Ugh!’
Kim Song-cheol took a deep breath, stood up, and waddled toward the bathroom.
“Uaaa…”
‘Too far. It’s too far.’
Why did the bathroom feel so distant today?
After walking for a long time, Kim Song-cheol arrived at the bathroom, fought another battle with the toilet seat cover, and finally returned to the living room after doing his business.
“Ack!”
A scream burst out as he sat on the sofa.
“I can’t move anymore. I’m staying fixed right here today…”
However, the world did not permit Kim Song-cheol’s rest.
Ring-a-ling!
The phone rang.
And it was in the master bedroom.
Today was the weekend.
Furthermore, at this hour, it was definitely his mother.
Should he become a disobedient son and preserve his body, or be a filial son and endure the pain?
Faced with that crossroad, Kim Song-cheol chose the path of a filial son, a consequence of being born in the Land of Courtesy in the East.
Kim Song-cheol stood up again and slowly walked toward the master bedroom.
He looked no different from a 90-year-old man.
“Ugh, Mother.”
As expected, the two words ‘Mom’ were on the phone screen.
Kim Song-cheol barely managed to sit on the bed and answered the call.
“Hello?”
[Son, are you up?]
“I’m up.”
[What’s wrong with your voice? It sounds hoarse. Did you catch a cold?]
“What do you mean, a cold? It’s a warm spring day. It’s just because I haven’t been awake for long.”
[You woke up late. I told you to wake up early.]
“…I usually wake up early.”
[Well, that’s a relief. You aren’t too busy with work lately, are you? The beginning of the year has passed.]
“Yes, the busy work is all finished.”
That’s right.
Kim Song-cheol hadn’t told his parents about his current situation yet.
His parents still believed Kim Song-cheol was working very well as an Accountant.
To be honest, he had tried to tell them several times. But what could he do when the words wouldn’t come out?
A son who was doing perfectly well as an Accountant suddenly becoming a Hunter?
There was no bolt from the blue like that.
Wailing would be fortunate; they might even faint.
[Then come down once this month. Take some side dishes, too. Oh, and you know Mi-young’s aunt’s brother-in-law?]
“Who on earth is Mi-young’s aunt’s brother-in-law?”
[I told you before, didn’t I? The one who reads fortunes.]
“I didn’t hear about that.”
[What do you mean you didn’t? He’s staying down here these days. When you come down, let’s go get your fortune read. We need to ask when you’ll get married.]
“No, why… I don’t believe in that stuff. In a world where Dungeons and Gates are appearing, what are you talking about fortunes for?”
[Oh, stop it. That’s one thing, and this is another. No, let’s just go see him once. I don’t believe in it either. But you can’t say it’s completely nonexistent, right?]
“What are you saying, Mother? Just pick one side.”
[Anyway, just know that. You can come down, right?]
“No, I don’t think I can go.”
[Why?]
“Different things, well… I have some stuff I’ve started.”
[Really? Do you have a girlfriend?]
“No, it’s not like that…”
[Hoho, then it can’t be helped. See how things go, and come down if you have time.]
“Anyway, I can’t go.”
[We’ll see.]
“Yes, alright.”
[I’ll call you again, son.]
His mother hung up just like that.
“Who on earth is Mi-young’s aunt’s brother-in-law…”
Kim Song-cheol tilted his head as if he couldn’t figure it out no matter how much he thought, and painfully lay back down on the bed.
Now that his phone was nearby, it seemed he could rest peacefully for the day.
However.
Ding-dong.
This time, the doorbell rang.
Someone had come to visit.
“Ah, what now…”
‘There’s nobody who would visit except Mi-young’s aunt’s brother-in-law…’
Kim Song-cheol painfully stood up once more.
As he waddled to check the intercom, he saw Kim Myung-joo’s face.
As always, he had a bright expression.
‘I’ll make him look miserable in an instant.’
Feeling annoyed by his visit, Kim Song-cheol felt a bit mischievous.
He hunched his back further and amped up his pained expression to the maximum before opening the front door.
“Good morning… Wait, what…? What’s wrong?”
Just as Kim Song-cheol expected, Kim Myung-joo looked surprised and helped support him.
However, his support actually doubled Kim Song-cheol’s pain.
He had been standing in a position that was at least somewhat painless, but when his body was forced upright, the pain rushed in.
“Ack…!”
Kim Song-cheol couldn’t help but let out a short scream.
“What on earth is happening!?”
Kim Myung-joo shouted in surprise. Kim Song-cheol was the most important talent in the Training Academy. Nothing was more terrifying than something going wrong with his body.
“I think it’s Tension-induced Mana Congestion Syndrome. For now… please, to the sofa…”
“Ah, I see…”
Kim Myung-joo carefully supported the patient and laid him down on the sofa.
He was so worried that in that short time, beads of sweat had formed on his forehead.
‘The aftereffects are quite something…’
Kim Myung-joo thought as he looked at the weakly slumped Kim Song-cheol.
“How is your condition?”
“I feel like I’ve been beaten to a pulp…”
“Beaten to a pulp… That’s serious. Why didn’t you say so sooner? Please wait a moment.”
In his flustered state, Kim Myung-joo set down the briefcase he was still holding and rushed out of the house.
He left so suddenly that there was no time to say anything.
A moment later, Kim Myung-joo returned with a trail of people.
There was a doctor, a male nurse with a wheelchair, and even a Magic Instructor Kim Song-cheol had never had lessons with before.
Kim Song-cheol received a diagnosis from the doctor, was prescribed painkillers, and received focused Mana treatment from the Magic Instructor.
For Mana Congestion Syndrome, the subject is forbidden from using Mana.
Instead, they had to use a method where someone else infused Mana into the body to aid recovery.
After receiving treatment for nearly 30 minutes, Kim Song-cheol felt his body significantly improve.
The painkillers were also starting to take effect.
He sent back the male nurse who offered to stay as a personal assistant, as it felt burdensome.
With this level of pain, it seemed he would have no trouble living on his own.
“Now I feel like I can live.”
Kim Song-cheol said while half-lying on the sofa. His posture was more natural than before, and his expression looked much better.
“From now on, if there’s anything wrong with your body, please tell me immediately. All medical support is on standby at all times.”
“I just thought it was some severe muscle pain…”
“Even that is a major issue. Your condition must always be maintained at its best.”
Kim Myung-joo spoke quite seriously. Song-cheol had wondered if he was making too much of a fuss over his physical state. But since he was being so serious, it was difficult to add anything.
“Ah, by the way, what brings you here on a weekend morning…?”
Kim Song-cheol belatedly asked for the purpose of Kim Myung-joo’s visit.
No matter how busy Kim Myung-joo was, he usually rested on weekends.
A visit on a weekend morning could be called a quite unusual event.
“Well, one moment.”
Kim Myung-joo brought over the briefcase he had set on the floor.
It was still lying exactly where he had dropped it.
“I brought a list of several items. I originally intended to give them as a surprise gift. But I couldn’t decide what would be best, haha.”
Kim Song-cheol received the thin file with a bewildered expression.
Inside the file were four or five sheets of paper.
They were pages printed with photos and effects of items.
“Items, all of a sudden?”
“Yes. I thought some slight support from the Training Academy’s side might be necessary.”
“Aren’t items usually not provided to Trainees?”
“There’s no such rule, haha. And… this is still a part being researched, but there’s a possibility that if your activity level is high, the Dungeon Placement Algorithm might get slightly twisted.”
“That… is the first I’ve heard of that.”
Dungeon difficulty is the only thing that can be set on the Portal Tablet.
And even that has only 7 stages from 1 to 7.
These were the stages commonly named from S to F-rank.
The public just accepted it as it was, but in fact, if one looked closely, it was a bit strange.
Considering the combat power of various Hunters, the classification was too crude for there to be ‘only 7 stages.’
“A powerful Hunter has a fairly high probability of experiencing strange things. Especially in the early stages.”
“Strange things?”
“To put it simply, events with low probability. Actually, the Quesha ambush can also be considered a bit suspicious. A Dungeon might not influence a Hunter’s mind, but the fact that a Quesha of that caliber was deployed in the same Dungeon suggests that we cannot say the Dungeon’s intervention was completely absent. Though, of course, nothing has been proven.”
Meeting a Quesha in an F-rank Dungeon is a very rare occurrence.
That event happened to happen to Kim Song-cheol.
Could it really be called a coincidence?
Kim Myung-joo knew of many similar cases.
Though he didn’t expect it to apply starting from the very first Dungeon.
“Are you telling me to endure the weight of the crown? It’s a bit cringy saying it with my own mouth. With great power comes…”
“Great responsibility, perhaps?”
“Something like that. And… as they say, many hands make light work, right? Haha. In that sense, I’ve prepared a little something.”
Kim Myung-joo tapped the file Kim Song-cheol was holding.
“Even if I wanted to give you an outstanding item, I couldn’t. Setting aside the Point issue, the Dungeon Algorithm would become even more distorted. I’ve selected things in the sense of providing supplementation. Which one do you like?”
Kim Song-cheol only then examined the items with a somewhat serious expression.
As Kim Myung-joo said, there were no particularly amazing items.
They were things that slightly assisted in Magic activation or allowed for simple Magic demonstrations through Mana charging.
It was a list mainly focused on Magic.
“Hmm.”
Kim Song-cheol tilted his head.
To be honest, there wasn’t anything he particularly needed.
His Mana amount was sufficient, and his casting speed was fast enough that he didn’t feel any lack.
If that was the case, the defensive Magic stored in items was the same.
Even in a truly urgent situation, it wouldn’t be any different from casting it himself.
“Perhaps…”
Kim Song-cheol shifted his gaze from the list to Kim Myung-joo.
“Are there no items that support physical stamina? I think that would be better. Wouldn’t that also interfere less with the Algorithm?”
“Physical stamina?”
“Yes. I’m afraid that if something attacks me when I’m exhausted from moving, it’ll be more dangerous. My Magic casting wavered a bit when I was out of breath.”
“Ah… I didn’t think of that. I’ll go print out a new list. Please wait a moment.”
Kim Myung-joo left in a flash with only those words.
—