Chapter 23

Chapter 23

I Installed a Dating App and Girls from Another World Became Obsessed with Me.

Episode 23: Underground Dungeon (4).

“Ugh…!”

Thwack, I pulled out the arrow stuck in my thigh with my clothes clenched in my mouth.

A searing pain followed, as if I had been subjected to the sizzling torture of a Joseon Dynasty search agency.

If the arrow had simply pierced my flesh, I could have just carefully pulled it out, but if the arrowhead had pierced through my body, it was a different story.

I had to break the arrow in half and then pull out only the arrowhead part by passing it through.

Thanks to that, I even felt like my mind was getting blurry.

“…Is it poison?”

The wound was getting more and more sore, and I wondered if this was what happened when an arrow pierced the flesh, but it didn’t seem right.

Anyway, if I left the wound like this, I might have to forcibly choose one of poisoning, excessive bleeding, or tetanus.

I had no choice but to turn on the app and go to the store.

I just desperately hoped that they were selling something useful.

[Store items are reset]

[Lowest Grade Antidote: 200 coins]

[Sweet Apple: 250 coins]

[Imperial Army Mana Sword: 400 coins]

[Cultured Books for Glamorous Ladies: 540 coins]

[Superior Random Scroll: 600 coins]

·

·

·

Fortunately, the store was reset and an antidote was available.

I didn’t know when it was reset, but it was a very good thing.

‘By the way, the lowest-grade stamina potion and mana potion were 600 coins each, but this is only 200 coins. Isn’t it too cheap?’

I was puzzled for a moment, but I could understand the pricing by reading the item description.

[Lowest Grade Antidote]

[Grade: Normal]

[Relieves simple poisoning symptoms]

It wasn’t a potion that completely cured simple poisoning symptoms, it only relieved them.

Looking at it this way, 200 coins seemed expensive.

I sighed, but I had no choice but to buy it because I was the one in a hurry.

[You have purchased the Lowest Grade Antidote]

I roughly drank the antidote and checked the remaining balance.

I had 400 coins left.

I thought I wouldn’t get any rewards for the two Kobold Warriors I just dealt with because they weren’t first kills, but surprisingly, they gave me 50 coins each.

‘Still, it’s too lacking.’

There’s a limit to killing demonic beasts. The first kill of a D+ grade was 100 coins, and the duplicate kill reward was 50 coins.

Of course, if the day came when I could just catch D+ grade like catching ants, the coins given as a reward were generous.

However, there was no guarantee that the value of the current 50 coins and 100 coins would be the same at that time.

“As expected, the settlement I received after matching with Iris gave me the most.”

If we excluded the starter pack, which was a special situation, the matching gave me 300 coins in just over half a day.

Maybe when I went back after this matching, they’d give me more coins.

Thinking so, the answer came quickly.

When this matching is over, I should try a new matching.

It wasn’t just coins that were the reason. Just as I became a mage in this world, I could get knowledge or items that would help me grow in other worlds.

“It’s decided.”

While I was sitting and worrying, the poison seemed to have subsided quite a bit.

My body was still heavy, but my mana had recovered to some extent, so it was time to explore the dungeon again.

“Let’s aim for exactly 1,000 coins, no more, no less.”

There were 8 hours left.

The goal was to collect 1,000 coins by combining the first kill reward and duplicate kill reward within that time and return.

And with a sweet settlement reward, the framework of the plan for the time being was set.

The dungeon was still wide, and there were as many demonic beasts and traps as I could get tired of.

[Defeated Skeleton Warrior]

[First kill reward: 100 coins]

[Defeated Skeleton Warrior]

[Duplicate kill reward: 50 coins]

[Defeated Skeleton Archer]

[First kill reward: 100 coins]

Three skeletons appeared at the same time.

[Defeated Death Ghoul]

[First kill reward: 100 coins]

I also faced a giant ghoul that was as big as a C-grade.

[Defeated Tentaclipper]

[First kill reward: 100 coins]

A bizarre creature with multiple tentacles that seemed to come out of an eroge game also appeared, and Weakness Detection was very useful at this time.

I was struggling for a while because it recovered quickly no matter where I attacked, but thanks to Weakness Detection, I was able to find the core in its solar plexus.

[Defeated Devil Snake]

[First kill reward: 100 coins]

When a snake the size of a mid-sized sedan with a length of 10m appeared, I just laughed.

[Defeated Blade Wolf]

[First kill reward: 100 coins]

To sum up this bastard in one word, it was just fucking annoying.

As a wolf, it was faster than a Kobold Warrior, and its steel claws were more powerful than the front legs of a Poison Spider, so the mana consumed by the barrier was at least 2.5 times more than when catching other guys.

Fortunately, it had a weakness of very low magic resistance, so I pretended to make a mistake and blew a thunderbolt into its mouth and made it an electric roast.

They make all dog meat into soup, but this guy was an electric roast.

If I sold it at a food truck, a certain group would foam at the mouth.

[Defeated Kobold Warrior]

[Duplicate kill reward: 50 coins]

[Defeated Poison Spider x2]

[Duplicate kill reward: 100 coins]

[Defeated Skeleton Warrior]

[Duplicate kill reward: 50 coins]

Demonic beasts I had already defeated often appeared and aimed for my neck.

The barrier was broken dozens of times, and I moved forward while burning the demonic beasts with fire and blowing them up with lightning.

Now, I couldn’t even tell if the blood stains all over my body were mine or the demonic beasts’.

“Haa…”

I was out of breath, and my heart was showing its bottom, so I was on the verge of collapsing from mana exhaustion.

After drinking the antidote, I fought by minimizing the mana consumption of magic at every moment to reduce time waste as much as possible.

In particular, to reduce the mana consumption of the barrier, I continued the battle by actively adopting the transformation barrier I learned while fighting the two Kobold Warriors.

Thanks to this, I was able to drastically reduce mana consumption by reducing the number of meditations, but the fatigue of my brain continued to accumulate. Creating a barrier with the exact minimum size only at the point of impact was insane that even a mage, a rear-line job, couldn’t imagine.

If I had miscalculated the point of impact even a little, a sword or arrow would have pierced my body. Thinking about it now, it wasn’t something I could do with a clear mind. Why did I do that?

Still, as I got used to it, I was able to block it almost without error later on.

Although my whole body was covered in lacerations and one ear was half cut off, this was a pretty good result. If I go to church and pay a donation later, they’ll fix it for me.

I was able to learn dual casting, which uses two magics at the same time, so this level of injury was a cheap price to pay.

“Finally, I’ve collected everything.”

[Remaining Coins: 1,250 Coins]

With this, I could buy the most expensive item in the store.

Of course, the items currently on sale weren’t very good, so I’d have to wait for the next time, but it was still a good thing.

In addition, I also collected the magic stones from the bodies of the 15 demonic beasts I had caught so far. Since it was a D+ grade demonic beast’s magic stone, it should sell for quite a bit, right?

Except that the process of collecting them was so dirty and miserable that I wanted to vomit.

[Remaining Matching Time: 01:15:49]

There’s not much time left, but fortunately, I reached the target before that.

“Should I say goodbye to Iris and go back?”

It was a difficult decision to make easily.

But in the end, I leaned towards not saying goodbye.

From this point to where Iris was, an hour wasn’t enough time.

There was no guarantee that demonic beasts wouldn’t appear on the way back.

Since the time in this world stopped when I returned to Earth, there was no need to obsess over saying goodbye.

“Should I look for the door to the second floor during the remaining time?”

And collect coins along the way.

Even if I had reached the target, the more coins, the better.

Besides, if it seemed like I really couldn’t fight, I could just end the matching.

With that decision, I first entered meditation for 30 minutes to solve the depleted mana. I absorbed and refined the mana that rushed in as soon as I allowed it and stored it in my heart.

Feeling the mana gradually filling up, I took out and ate the last remaining chicken breast salad.

‘I bought this to give to Iris too, but I couldn’t give her anything but medicine.’

Leaving the regret behind, I decided to set off.

Considering the time left, I didn’t have time to dawdle.

The way I went was still a familiar passage.

The only difference was that the forks in the road that used to appear every now and then didn’t appear as much as I thought.

Thanks to this, mapping became much easier, but I felt strange at the sudden change.

Besides, no demonic beasts or traps appeared.

Of course, only 30 minutes had passed, so it was understandable that there were no demonic beasts. It was also okay that there were no traps… Well, I could just think I was lucky.

The sense of incongruity made me feel uneasy, but there were only 15 minutes left.

There was not enough time to worry or explore anymore.

Was it too greedy to find the door to the second floor from the first exploration?

I thought I should end the matching around here, but then.

Whoosh!

“?!”

In the distance, something was flying quickly from beyond the darkness.

It was incomparably faster than the Kobold Warrior’s arrow I had faced before.

Thinking that a barrier covering my entire body wouldn’t make it in time, I calculated the impact point and deployed a transformation barrier on that part.

Kwaang!!!

“Kuk?!”

It was a barrier that I invested half of my remaining mana in, in case of an emergency.

Nevertheless, the barrier shattered as soon as it blocked the attack.

Fortunately, the attack trajectory was off, so I wasn’t injured, but the impact was so great that my body flew back several meters.

I barely managed to stand up.

What was stuck on the floor in front of me was a spear.

“Such power from a javelin throw at a distance of over 50m…”

I had a bad feeling.

The heaviness of the approaching mana made my survival instinct scream to end the matching right now.

I remembered what the World Tree told me before entering this place.

[Be careful, for there is a guardian who protects the door to the next floor.]

“…Even if I’m careful, that’s…”

What appeared from the darkness was a Lizardman with scales covering his entire body and muscles as hard as a Kobold Warrior could not compare.

Moreover, it was a Lizard Warrior, called an elite individual among the Lizardmen known as C-grade.

It was a different level of opponent than the Kobold Warrior.

Unlike the Kobold Warrior, who simply fills the front line, that guy is the strongest warrior of the tribe, recognized among the Lizardmen who live in tribes.

His intelligence was also famous for being incomparably higher than that of a Kobold.

‘Was the javelin throw because he had two spears?’

I couldn’t find even a small gap in the guy who was exuding a terrifying sense of pressure and taking a stance with the spear he was carrying on his back.

Weakness Detection sometimes told me the opponent’s defensive gap, but I couldn’t see anything now.

He wasn’t a stupid demonic beast who just relied on his physical strength, but a real warrior.

Krrr…

That was at least C+.

I could somehow catch up to C-, but that was really not it.

“Still, it’s a bargain just knowing you’re the guardian.”

I flipped my middle finger at the guy who was growling lowly and emitting infinite hostility and murderous intent towards me.

“I’ll be back soon, so wait for me.”

[End Matching?]

[Y/N]

[Y]