I Stole the Number One Ranker’s Soul - Chapter 3

I might be able to do

episode 003 .

You might be able to get out alive.

My cold body became hot with excitement.

I tried hard to stay calm.

If you move rashly and waste the long-awaited opportunity, it will be the end.

You only get one chance.

As far as I know, there are three ways to get out of the dungeon.

One is to kill the dungeon’s boss and escape using the simultaneous gates that appear when the dungeon collapses.

This is a method you can’t even dream of, so pass.

Many hunters have formed teams to take on the challenge, but so far there has only been one dungeon where they have successfully conquered the boss.

At least it was achieved after the sacrifice of half of the attack team dying.

Flying meat crawling was impossible even with a group of experienced hunters.

A gathering hunter like me takes on the challenge alone? Also just awakened?

This is not a method worth rethinking.

The second was the most commonly used method.

Using an item called an escape stone made from magic stones.

Escape stones are made by crafting hunters with related skills using materials such as magic stones.

If processed well, one magic stone can create escape stones for dozens of people.

Of course, since you do not have an escape stone and do not have the escape stone crafting skill, this method is not applicable.

The last one is to destroy the magic stone itself, which is consumed as an escape stone material.

In fact, the magic stone was recognized as just a material for escape stones.

No one knew that breaking the magic stone creates an escape gate.

If you break it for no reason and only the magic stone flies, you will lose tens of billions of dollars.

But there was one person who did such a crazy thing.

The first person to break the magic stone and escape through the gate.

This story was a hot topic at the time, like a heroic tale, and there were few people who didn’t know about it.

Well, he is also a very famous hunter.

Anyway, thanks to that incident, it was discovered that breaking a magic stone creates a gate that a certain number of people can use depending on their level.

However, it was a method not used unless it was extremely urgent.

This is because it is a very inefficient method.

If you process a magic stone that can help one person escape into an escape stone, you can make it usable by dozens of people, so why would you do such a wasteful thing?

That person would never have done it if he hadn’t been isolated in a dungeon alone like me.

However, he is different from me in that he did not get caught up in an irregular rift, but entered officially to attack it, and that he is a very strong combat hunter.

All hunters entering the dungeon needed an escape seat.

And the magic stone, which is the material for the escape stone, can only be obtained in extremely limited quantities.

Processing magic stones into escape stones increased the number of gates that could be used, but the supply was far from enough to keep up with demand.

Thanks to this, the price of escape stones became so high that even wealthy hunters could not easily use them.

Sometimes there were no properties for sale at all, so there were frequent cases where even if you had the money, you couldn’t get it.

As a result, fraudulent listings were rampant.

Nowadays, methods for distinguishing between fake and real escape stones are widely known, so the number of people who suffer from them has become rare, but in the early days, there were many tragic incidents.

There was a story going around like a ghost story that I was lucky enough to get an escape seat that was cheaper than the market price, but it turned out to be a fake escape seat.

Moreover, there were many hunters who had just awakened and jumped into the dungeon blindly, believing that ‘I am the one who can succeed’.

There were many people who tried to escape by stealing another hunter’s escape stone or jumping into a gate opened by someone else after a moderate attack.

There were even people who entered the dungeon just thinking, ‘It’ll work out somehow.’

This is a way of thinking that people like me who knock on stone bridges, pour cement, and then cross over can never understand.

Anyway, there were quite a few people like that.

Still, the safest way was to enter through the guild.

A type of fund became popular in which a wealthy businessman who wanted dungeon items would buy and invest in ‘multi-player escape stones’ in a guild with the ability to attack, then the hunters would tour the dungeon and the profits would be distributed to the investors.

In the end, many hunters jumped into the dungeon relying on this multi-person escape seat.

This was still the most stable method, so after a while, most of the dungeons were conquered in this way.

However, in a dungeon where you never know what will happen, something unfortunate is always going to happen.

For example, a hunter who wanders around with too much motivation and ends up getting left behind.

The fate of the hunter left alone without a magic stone is decided.

death.

However, there is the first person who denied it and finally came back alive.

Seo Ji-han, currently ranked 1st.

The person who killed the most dungeon monsters on Earth.

He didn’t eat or sleep for three days and nights, catching whatever monsters he could find, and finally managed to obtain a magic stone.

I was happy at first, but I thought it was useless if I couldn’t get out of the dungeon anyway, so I destroyed it, but coincidentally, a gate was created.

This is also something that came out of an interview.

Back to the main point.

I don’t have the power to defeat thousands of monsters like Seo Ji-han.

But there’s no need to kill thousands of them.

Ordinary hunters would have to kill dozens or hundreds of monsters in the dungeon until the magic stone appears.

With my hidden skill ‘I didn’t have it, but I had it’, I can get a magic stone by catching just one fish.

Just one.

The plan is simple.

Chungwangryu has just passed by, so there is some time left before the next one patrols.

In the meantime, collect as many plants as possible, eat the core, increase your stats, and defeat the Chungwang.

And after acquiring the magic stone, use it to escape from here.

can i do it?

Can I fight and win against a monster five times my size?

no.

It’s not a matter of whether you can do it.

You have to do it.

There is no other way than this.

I tried to suppress my fear.

Even if you’re scared, you have to do it.

You have to do it even if you don’t think you can do it.

If you actually try it, it might be worth it.

Calming my trembling heart, I diligently moved my hands and tried to collect as many plants as possible.

Perhaps thanks to a slight increase in agility, the speed of gathering plants seemed to have slightly increased compared to before.

Miscellaneous by-products of plants that I had heard of somewhere, such as Evitanis phymtopis raniad, and other plants that were unfamiliar to me, were piled up in my inventory.

At first, I thought I would only eat Evitanis, but even if I ate the nuclear weapon and my abilities increased, it didn’t change the fact that I was a bare body without any weapons.

If you can’t do any damage even if you go fast, it’s a waste of time.

I decided to hang on to all the odds I could.

If a hack increases your stats, it would be a good idea to try all the hacks you can and get as much help as possible.

I took out a Pymtopis core.

It is a cloudy purple fruit with a very unpleasant feeling.

What if it’s poisonous?

No, there won’t be.

If it’s poisonous, there’s no way it’s being traded so commonly that I know its name.

While trying to think positively, I carefully chewed the core of Pimtopis.

Consumed Pymtopis core temporarily increases strength by 1.

done!

If Evitanis increases agility and Pimtopis increases strength, the basics are now in place.

Encouraged by the good news, I threw the next nucleus into my mouth without hesitation.

The ingested Laniad core caused poisoning.

“Kueek!”

Don’t misunderstand, this is not a sound made by Chungwangryu. It’s my scream.

The moment I chewed, the juice that came out of the core hurt everywhere it touched.

From the throat, tongue, palate, and lips.

I can almost feel the juice from the core flowing down my intestines.

It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.

Ugh.

“Keu…”

It was so painful that a strange sound came out of my mouth.

I rolled over, clutching my stomach and neck without even thinking about my surroundings.

The poisonous plant I was looking for earlier is here…”

Ah, ugh!

Is there anything that can help?

I thought the name was unfamiliar, but I never thought it was poison.

I opened my inventory and frantically threw whatever hacks I could into my mouth.

Fortunately, one of them seemed to be effective and the addiction was lifted at some point.

It seems like the addiction continued to stack until the addiction state was lifted.

I don’t know which one was the poison because I was so sick that I was out of my mind.

Apparently, many of them except Evitanis and Pymtopis were poisonous.

I need to eat just these two.

I barely took a breath and was about to collect Evitanis again when I heard a sound.

Click, click, click.

It seemed like quite a bit of time had passed while I was frantically collecting.

The patrolling monster has returned.

I hid behind a rock.

As the sound got closer, ominous thoughts swept through my mind.

Can you really do it?

I don’t know how it fights and I don’t have any combat skills or weapons, so can I really do it?

What if it screams and attracts a lot of insect kings in the area?

What if that monster is much stronger than I thought?

Should we just skip it this time?

Wouldn’t it be better to collect as many Evitanis cores as possible?

With fear gnawing at my nerves, I couldn’t come forward again.

I’d better collect some more cores.

okay.

No matter how you look at it, fighting with as much strength as possible is a better way.

Click, click, click.

Chungwangryu slowly passed before my eyes as I held my breath.

Long, reed-like antennae continuously trace the walls and ceiling.

I was holding my breath the entire time, afraid that those antennae would pick up the slightest vibration of my breathing.

However, it is not possible to control every body at will.

After starving for a long time, my stomach suddenly gave out after swallowing a fruit the size of a fingernail.

Growling.

I think it means give me more.