Ch.9797. Dungeon Backflow

Reality was a relatively peaceful series of days.

“Ogre blood? Whaaaat! A-grade…!? Boss, where on earth did you get this?”

“Curious?”

“Yes! Yes, yes, yes! I mean, where do you keep getting healing herbs and ogre blood like this every time you go? Is that place some kind of alchemist paradise?”

A place where you can wake up around noon scratching your belly.

A place with enough leisure that you don’t have to worry about mapping or farming, where you can lie on the sofa watching backed-up dramas and tell your little sister to order pizza, and she’ll automatically bring three large pizzas of various types for you to choose from.

It’s a reality I couldn’t have dreamed of before, but it’s possible when you’re a boss with your sister as an employee.

Taking a bite of the cheese-loaded pizza, I ask Ji-hyun.

“Curious? It’s not paradise. It might be hell.”

“I seriously want to go there. Is it somewhere I can go?”

“Hmm. It’s a bit difficult right now. With this one, we’re already at full capacity.”

“I really want to go there sometime.”

Ji-hyun pleaded earnestly while eating a pizza with sparkling eyes.

Kim Su-jung nodded beside her, sympathizing with her feelings.

“Unni, I felt the same way at first. I still get excited every time I go, but once you go, you have to expect to come out only once a week. If there’s overnight work, you might not be able to leave at all.”

“Is room and board provided?”

“Of course.”

“Then could I just give up my studio apartment and live there? Seoul rent is too expensive.”

“Hey, unni. You’re rich now, aren’t you?”

I wonder what kind of life Ji-hyun is living.

Well, I knew she was originally a poor alchemist, but she’s also an A-grade alchemist, and since contracting with the Farming Company, she must be making quite a lot of money now.

She gets 10% of the money from selling potions made with the healing herbs I provide without investing anything.

Just the money earned from healing potions this month must easily exceed tens of millions of won.

I did hear she’s buying various alchemy ingredients with the ambition to level up.

In that sense, I thought my offer might sound like an opportunity she wouldn’t trade for all the money in the world.

If alchemy ingredients are so abundant there, she could gain experience without having to buy them.

I thought that if I could raise my Login & Logout level next time to add more people, taking Ji-hyun along wouldn’t be a bad idea.

If she wants to go directly, from my perspective, having an A-grade alchemist come along would be a blessing.

Besides, an alchemist is essential talent right now for making hair growth tonic.

If it weren’t for Ji-hyun, I would have had to recruit an alchemist NPC in the village and then buy recipes to learn alchemy skills, but now I don’t have to do that, which is a huge win.

I need to level up my login level as soon as possible.

“Or Su-jung, you could stay home this time.”

“Huh? Would that be okay?”

Anyway, only one person can go at a time.

The cooldown is six days.

In any case, to level up Login & Logout, I need to earn farming ability points, so I do need to log in this time, but if I want to make hair growth tonic next time I log out, Ji-hyun would be much more effective than Kim Su-jung.

Of course, the downside is that without Kim Su-jung, who’s in charge of farming, I’ll have to pay attention to that myself.

In the end, I have to choose one.

“If I go this time, I need to plant healing herbs too. But if I go with Ji-hyun, we could make hair growth tonic.”

Well, even that’s not certain.

We’d need to recruit an alchemist NPC and push through quests to get the recipe.

I decided to think about that later.

For now, just confirming her firm willingness was enough of an achievement.

“Unni, but will you really be okay?”

“Why? I’m seriously living for the thrill of gaining experience these days. Ingredients are so expensive it’s tough, but if I go there, I can really keep doing alchemy continuously, right?”

“That’s true, but… it’s practically like the countryside, so phones don’t work. Oh, but you can watch dramas and movies.”

“That’s fine.”

“Well… seeing what you do here… you’re amazing.”

“My dream is to really level up hard, become the best alchemist, and get rich.”

“That’s a good attitude.”

“Then let’s have Ji-hyun unni go this time. I’ll make sure to hand everything over properly to unni before I go.”

“Sounds good.”

“Hmm… but that means unni will be alone with oppa. Is this some scheme to make a move on him? Ack!”

I kicked Kim Su-jung, who was spouting nonsense.

She screamed as she rolled off the sofa, but I ignored her and continued eating my pizza.

I hadn’t thought about it, but her comment made things awkward.

Ji-hyun also turned her head slightly awkwardly at those words, but fortunately didn’t show any aversion.

Rather, she seemed to defend me.

“Based on how the boss doesn’t pounce on me when we’re alone at home… I don’t think he’d do that to me.”

“Oh, unni. Home and there are different. There, even if you scream, no one can hear you. Ah! There is a small fairy called Lulu there, and she’s super cute…”

Since Kim Su-jung was just joking around, the conversation naturally shifted to Lulu when she mentioned her.

Sigh. I can’t even beat her up for this.

In the past, I might have actually hit her, but now I’m too strong to do that.

Anyway, somehow the atmosphere seemed to be flowing toward Ji-hyun going this time.

“Then I’ll work on YouTube content outside and set up a schedule with Hyo-ju unni. Oh, oppa. Before you go this time, you need to have dinner with Hyo-ju unni, right? You didn’t forget our promise from the other day?”

“Can’t we do it next time?”

“No. Eat with her before you go this time. She must really be in a hurry. She’s not even close to me, but she DMed me saying she really needed this favor.”

“Is she a fan?”

“Hmm… someone of your caliber isn’t just a fan.”

“That’s right, boss of your level… you’re handsome…”

Ah. I keep forgetting that my face is customized.

Ji-hyun went back inside after eating pizza and started researching the mixture for making elixirs with ogre blood, while I lounged around until evening when I went out with Ji-hyun and Kim Su-jung.

We went out to do some shopping and get groceries.

We decided to eat dinner outside.

On the way to a nearby outlet mall.

The road was blocked, and people were running toward us.

“What’s going on?”

It was chaos, like watching a zombie apocalypse.

“Huh? Is it a dungeon overflow?”

Just as Kim Su-jung finished speaking, a text message alert sounded on my phone.

Disaster warning.

[B+ grade dungeon crack occurred at the intersection near XX Outlet in Sinwol-dong, Gangseo-gu. Please evacuate the area promptly]

Kim Su-jung looked at me.

“Oppa. What should we do?”

I looked back at Kim Su-jung.

“What do you mean? It says to evacuate promptly. Turn the car around.”

“…from here?”

“Doesn’t look easy.”

People were already flooding the roads and sidewalks like a wave as they fled, making it impossible to drive.

If we want to escape, we’d have to abandon the car.

“Oppa. Let’s film this.”

Dungeon overflows aren’t typically handled by hunters who happen to be passing by saying, “Oh, a dungeon overflow!” and dealing with it.

Of course, passing hunters do have a duty to confront monsters as much as possible for civilian safety, but fundamentally, the highest priority should be the safety of both the hunter and civilians.

That means protecting civilian safety without unnecessarily putting the hunter’s life at risk.

Various guilds and hunter associations have systems in place to respond within five minutes of receiving a report.

If hunters are going to step in, they only need to ensure civilians evacuate safely during that time.

That’s why I don’t particularly want to get involved.

While a B+ grade dungeon overflow is quite dangerous, since it’s happening in the middle of Seoul, many strong hunters will be on standby.

There’s no need for me to step in.

But Kim Su-jung’s words also eliminated any reason not to get involved.

“This is perfect for YouTube. Oppa, you just got that greatsword. Try it out properly. When I told Hyun-ji about the greatsword, she went crazy.”

“Hmm. It’s troublesome. Let’s just go check it out, and if they haven’t arrived yet, we can film.”

The YouTube angle is one thing, but if there’s a delay in the dungeon overflow response and damage occurs, I should prevent any harm that might happen because I, who happened to be nearby, didn’t go.

“Unni, do you want to come too if you’re curious? Or you can run away. It probably won’t reach this far…”

Kim Su-jung quickly grabbed a camera from somewhere in the car and followed along.

After hesitating, Ji-hyun also got out of the car and followed Kim Su-jung.

I took out my greatsword as I walked.

Since everyone had already evacuated from the direction where the dungeon overflow was presumed to be, there was nothing in the way even if I dragged the massive greatsword along.

As for the roads blocked by cars, I could just step over them.

In the distance.

A large dungeon entrance that had formed at a major intersection came into view.

Monsters were pouring out like sewage water, spreading out to destroy everything around them.

The good news was that hunters in the area were fighting the monsters and preventing major spread.

But it didn’t look easy, as B+ grade monsters can’t be easily defeated by hunters of average levels.

The hunters were being pushed back.

Some hunters with serious injuries were visible.

At this rate, the line would break before reinforcements arrived.

I raised my hand.

Pure white divine light extended from my hand.

Injured hunters.

Hunters about to be attacked by monsters.

The healing light seeped into a total of 20 hunters.