Chapter 21 : Sewer Dungeon (D)

Rewards should be intuitive.

This isn’t something I said, but something I heard somewhere, and it fits perfectly here, so I found it impressive and brought it here.

No matter what the reward is, no matter how good, it must be useful to the recipient for the reward to hold its value as a reward.

This applies in many cases in Farming World, and many users have discussed this. Some quests definitely provide valuable rewards.

Looking at questions in the Farming World community like “Is this good?” most of the time, even veteran players can tell the rewards are good.

If you judge only by the value of a single reward, there have been many cases where even veterans would drool over the reward.

Since the map is so vast and quests are varied, the rewards for hidden quests are inevitably designed to be very good.

But in the end, newbies don’t feel satisfied and leave.

Even if they ask because they don’t know if the rewards are good or not from their perspective.

What use is it if others say it’s good?

Of course, if you judge the value and say the rewards are good, newbies ask back,

• “Where do I use this?”
• “Can’t I exchange it for Farm points?”

Most resources in Farming World can be converted to Farm points through NPCs.

There are NPCs who exchange them for other resources as well.

But not all resources can be converted.

Some have no value on their own and must be processed or refined before their value is recognized, and most items that come as rare rewards are like that.

Items that even veterans don’t know how to process.

I heard from somewhere that you can process this to create an item with certain abilities, but the process and method are so complicated and require a lot of resources and farming skill points that the only answer you get is “Just throw it away. Keep it as decoration at home.”

So whether you’re a newbie or a veteran, no matter how valuable the reward is, that quest ends up not being worth the value.

In that sense, the D-rank sub dungeon quests were very satisfying.

At first glance, isn’t it just intuitive?

“500 Farm points. Crop growth speed 20%. And 0.5 Jump Slash.”

Sewage purification means that when you purify the sewage, you draw water flowing inside the sewage to create irrigation channels around your house, useful for farming.

That’s why the sewage is a place you must visit, and originally it wasn’t even an F-rank dungeon, just an instant dungeon to enter lightly, but here it seemed quite difficult as a D-rank dungeon.

First, the floor drops far down so you can step on it, and the foul smell and the dirty water or mud that reaches your ankles stick to your feet unpleasantly.

Still, I could bear it.

“If I can get an SSS+ skill by doing just two quests like this, not doing it would be stupid.”

Of course, just the [Jump Slash] I learned costs 10 points, and learning better skills requires more points.

But still, that’s something.

There were a few more 10-point SSS+ skills.

So even if there are as many as 51 big rats in the sewage.

Originally, the big rat would be the boss in the rat sewer, but here there’s a B-rank insane level 0 biome boss monster called Big Rat Mom, which you might curse about for putting such a monster in here.

I wasn’t afraid.

“I’m even more broken.”

Honestly, right now, the only weakness where I could die is not having armor, and if I even had that, I would wander around these D-rank dungeons picking my nose without any tension.

Well, I even came in with that kind of mindset now.

From the start, I was given an SSS-level ability, so my strength, agility, and stamina started at S rank, and the base difficulty increased, so would I even notice a D-rank dungeon?

I can’t even guess how many ranks difference that is.

D + C – CC + B – BB + A – AA + S -.

The higher the rank, the more effort and points it takes to increase stats, and just by looking at this, there is a 10-rank difference.

The armor I found was just to fill out the set, and I think even if I get bitten by the big rats a few times, just using healing potions would quickly recover naturally.

Also, even if I get bitten and die while sleeping, I have one resurrection ticket.

It’s an extremely fun dungeon exploration.

At least for 0-level or even 1~2-level biomes, if you think of it as playing a farm management game using cheat mode, you wouldn’t be too tense.

The same goes for the B-rank Big Rat Mom.

“Ah, I should have taken this.”

Once I had some breathing room, I thought of some regrets.

If I could bring Earth items through the dimensional rift, I could bring a camera or phone and record.

Even if I can’t do live streaming, I think recording and bringing it back would get a lot of attention.

Hunters often do streaming when entering dungeons.

I don’t know how it works, but satellites seem to apply inside dungeons, so there are places where real-time streaming doesn’t work, but most places have good signal and communication works well.

As an SSS-level hunter, I should show my exhibitionist side too.

Uploading this as my first video could have been a chance to make my name known to many people.

Nothing changes by regretting what I don’t have.

I take out a torch I brought and light it to brighten the darkness.

The fairly wide sewer stretched long forwards and backwards.

Since Big Rat is huge, it needs this much space to move freely.

Tss tss tss tss —

Unpleasant sounds echo in the cave-like sewer, and splashing sounds of something stepping are heard ahead and behind.

Lulu sits on my shoulder scared, clutching my clothes tightly.

“What does the ancient fairy even do? How can you be scared of the sound of a worthless rat crawling?”

“Ugh. But the rats are so big and gross.”

“Then stay here? I’ll go alone.”

“Ew. No!”

Lulu desperately shook her head and clung tightly to my collar with the determination not to let go.

It’s nice not having to carry her around with one hand anymore.

I held the torch out in front and moved forward.

The sewer didn’t seem much different from the dimensional rift anyway.

The rats, seeing an arrogant human enter their territory, appeared before and behind me to threaten me.

Just the number I could see was about a dozen or so.

I drew my wooden sword and pondered with a serious expression.

“Should I start with the front? Or the back?”

On the way to the sewer, I had roughly practiced [Jump Slash] to get used to it, and by the time I arrived,

I had gained a bit of understanding about the principle behind [Jump Slash].

To use it skillfully and adaptively, I’d need to experiment more and try using it in different ways, but for now, it was good enough to slash through this many rats.

“Here I go.”

I lowered my stance and kicked off the ground.

There was no need to put in full strength and stomp the ground with all my might.

That’s because…

[Skills] are the manifestation of will.

Chanting the skill name is just a supplement to replace a weak will.

That’s why, if my will clearly directs the action of using [Jump Slash], the skill will manifest reliably even with little force.

After all, when a skill activates, the extra power doesn’t come from my muscles or movements—it comes from ‘mana.’

The first time I used [Jump Slash], I thought I was just moving a distance close to 100 meters in an instant.

But after using it several times, I realized I could actually control it.

Instantly leap up to 100 meters and quickly slash the target.

This word “instantly” carried significant meaning at the SSS+ rank.

If I wished to move the maximum distance as quickly as possible, it would literally “blink” me there like teleportation.

It didn’t even take a full second, and even if there were trees in the way, I would just leap past them.

That’s why I believe it’s fair to interpret this as a “teleportation-like” instant movement.

I still need to do more testing, though.

Also, if I focused on swinging my sword mid-leap, the scenery would move quickly, but I could make time feel slower to myself.

Swinging the sword five times during a leap was doable without strain if done that way.

If I slowed my perception of time and swung the sword five times quickly in one spot, it would look like I attacked five times with one slash, dealing damage that way.

And if I just swung the sword once at each necessary spot, that was possible too.

“Lightning Flash Slash.”

Pa-pa-pa-pa-pat!

Even Big Rats in different locations within 100 meters had their heads fall off as if cut down in a single strike.

[Level Up!]

It was hunting time.