Chapter 52: Dungeon Wife [R-18]

“W-We should go to the workshop.”

As we left the training grounds, Yuuna hastily let go of my hand.

Was she worried someone would see us holding hands so sweetly?

“We still have time. You don’t want to train more?”

“First, I’ll show you how to use Magical Beast Steel.”

It had been a while since my last hunter lesson from Professor Yuuna.

“You said it’s a special material, right? Does it drop occasionally?”

“Yeah, it’s a material that contains magic in its very essence. Simply put, you can use it to enhance items.”

“Ooh.”

So it’s like an enhancement stone?

“I’m telling you this just in case, but Magical Beast Steel has to be refined at an institution authorized by the government. You’ll be in big trouble otherwise.”

“An institution authorized by the government?”

“The Hunter Association, the Hero Association, and so on. Prestigious academies also have their own internal facilities for refining Magical Beast Steel.”

Right, this was a prestigious academy.

How on earth did the old Sang-hyeok even get in here? Realistically, he should have been rejected at the gate.

This must be the magic of eroge.

“So we enhance things there?”

“Yep. Some people enhance their uniforms, but it’s usually weapons.”

“Of course it’s weapons.”

A man’s all about his weapon!

“You look excited, Kim Sang-hyeok.”

“How could I not be? This is amazing content.”

I can’t resist equipment enhancement.

“Then again… a D-ranker would never get to see something like Magical Beast Steel.”

“Look at you, bragging that you’ve seen it plenty.”

“I have. Hehe. My Yukihime is an A-rank, you know.”

“What’s a Yukihime? The name of your sword?”

Yuuna showed me the sword at her hip.

“It’s my treasure. I couldn’t use it during the scarecrow test, though…”

“Is there some kind of restriction?”

“It’s against the rules to use a specially refined weapon on the scarecrows.”

I guess it’s because someone would inevitably show up with a weapon plastered with enhancements.

“A-rank is higher than your own rank.”

“It’s proof that I’ve worked harder than anyone else. This kind of equipment, a symbol of a hunter… whether it’s armor or a weapon, we call it a Masterpiece.”

A Masterpiece.

So Yuuna’s Masterpiece was the ‘Yukihime.’

My Masterpiece is… a Glock 19?

I’m not so sure about that yet.

More than anything, I was sick and tired of it malfunctioning.

I thought it would get better as my Dexterity improved, but getting screwed over at the most crucial moments…

What if I enhanced a revolver?

Lost in thought, we walked out of the training grounds and boarded a large elevator.

Was it some kind of lift that went underground?

There were dozens of other students besides us, from various school years.

“We’re going to Workshop A. The Magical Beast Steel refinery is there.”

The elevator descended smoothly.

The academy’s basement was filled with infrastructure that seemed to exist solely for refining equipment.

There were countless forges and shops.

“This is Workshop A…”

“You could call it the heart of Essol. Come on, let’s go.”

“Uh, okay.”

Yuuna took my hand and led me forward.

I was soon guided to a strange smithy where a female blacksmith was hammering away at a piece of iron.

Everything was surprisingly massive, no matter the structure.

“Leida. We’re here to request a Magical Beast Steel refinement.”

“And who’s this handsome friend?”

“I’m Kim Sang-hyeok. A member of Yuuna’s squad.”

“Squad? Yuuna, you’re doing that now?”

“It’s nothing. Just a kid from the academy I’m taking around.”

Leida stared at me intently.

The woman was nearly 180 cm tall and packed with muscle, giving off an incredibly intimidating aura.

To think that before I grew to 190 cm, I would have been shorter than her…

She had a sexy physique, with all her useless body fat burned away by hard labor, yet she still possessed large breasts that went well with her tanned skin.

The cigarette held casually between her lips and her bleached, short hair suited her perfectly.

“You use a gun?”

“Ah, yes…”

“He’s a kid you’re raising, Yuuna, and he uses a gun?”

“Looks like you’ve taken a liking to him.”

“Tsk, tsk…”

…

They were pitying me just for choosing a gun build.

“Is it really that bad?”

“Didn’t you know what you were getting into?”

“I figured… you’d know much better than I do, ma’am.”

“Ma’am?”

Leida burst out laughing, her mouth wide open in amusement.

“Ahahaha! Yeah, I do know. Well, let’s see. Guns are basically black holes for Magical Beast Steel.”

“…”

The enhancement efficiency is bad. Well, that much is…

“On top of that, firearms suffer a heavy Dexterity penalty inside dungeons, so they don’t get much stronger even if you enhance them.”

Yuuna chimed in from the side.

“What does that mean, Yuuna?”

“Firearms get weaker in dungeons, right? You know that? Swords don’t have that problem.”

“Right?”

“If a sword gets stronger by 5, 10, 15… with each piece of Magical Beast Steel, a gun only gets stronger by 8, 9, 10, 11… That’s what it means.”

Hmm…

Makes me want to re-roll my character.

Is it too late now?

“Don’t be discouraged. It just means you should think carefully before investing Magical Beast Steel.”

Still, I thought guns were a good choice.

I had an aversion to getting up close and personal with magical beasts.

Besides…

It’s not like I can’t enhance it, right?

If I enhanced a pistol until it was a monster, wouldn’t it show some unexpected performance?

“I like guns.”

“You like that? Even though it’s a weapon everyone avoids because it’s a bad investment for Magical Beast Steel?”

“That’s why I like it.”

No one else does it. It’s hip.

Isn’t that totally cool?

In RPGs, I was the type to fall head over heels for that kind of appeal.

“I’ll do what others don’t.”

“Puhahaha!”

Leida let out a gut-busting laugh.

Yuuna was practically pleading with her eyes, as if she wanted me to make a rational decision, but…

“Please make my Glock capable of using something like ‘Judgment of Light.’”

“You must have brought a lot of Magical Beast Steel, then?”

“One Goblin Magical Beast Steel.”

“Eh. What’s that going to do? If you want to shoot beams, you’ll need to bring about 30,000 B-rank monster cores.”

“I can shoot beams with 30,000?”

That’s so fucking cool!

Leida started clutching her stomach as she laughed.

“Ahahahaha! Where did you find such an interesting kid, Yuuna?”

“…”

Yuuna’s cheeks turned red.

“I-I don’t know if he’s naive… or just an idiot…”

“What’s wrong, Yuuna? She said I can shoot beams if I just slap 30,000 of them on it. That’s insane, isn’t it?”

A Personality Excretion Beam would be totally possible.

“How are you going to gather that much Magical Beast Steel… Are you the student council president?”

“Isabella? Can the student council president shoot beams?”

“Our academy president’s Masterpiece is the Devil Suit. It’s famous. They say it consumed 27,000 Magical Beast Steel.”

My god…

“Ah, Isabella? Her MP is a masterpiece, alright.”

She never showed me anything like that during our Lucky Pervert sparring session.

So the student council president was hiding her true power.

Or maybe she got caught up in my Personality Excretion and never had the chance to show it…

“The student council president is the pinnacle of Essol Academy. To build up a record that surpasses that… it’s impossible just by attending the academy.”

“Do I have to become a Hunter or a Hero?”

Hold on.

“Yuuna, Hunters get Magical Beast Steel inside dungeons, but how do Heroes get it?”

“From magical beasts that escape dungeons. But those beasts are too strong to be dealt with easily… so they usually get it as a reward for catching villains. Villains use weapons refined on the black market.”

According to Yuuna’s explanation, you could quickly acquire and enhance gear on the black market using stolen goods of unknown origin, but it was illegal.

Heroes, in the process of confiscating villains’ weapons for the state treasury, would receive some of the Magical Beast Steel as a reward and use it for enhancement.

In other words…

“Isabella is a true workaholic. They say she hasn’t slept more than two hours a night since she was eight,” Leida said.

She meant that if I wanted to collect 30,000, I’d have to grind just as hard.

“No one can use their true power without equipment. The quality of one’s MP is directly linked to a hunter’s strength. That’s why you have to choose your weapon type carefully.”

I wasn’t ignoring Yuuna’s sincere advice, but if this was content within Onahole Academy, it was safe to assume the system was actually made for the protagonist.

Even if I chose something as extreme as a wooden club, couldn’t I enhance it all the way to level 99?

Now that’s romantic.

My pursuit of romance was just an inescapable part of a man’s psychology.

“I’ll stick with guns.”

“…Sigh. Alright.”

Yuuna took a whole load of Magical Beast Steel out of her inventory.

“Yuuna?”

“Please use all of this to enhance Sang-hyeok’s weapon.”

“What…”

All of this?

Yuuna pulled out dozens of varied pieces of Magical Beast Steel, including the C-rank ones we had gotten.

Why give it to me when she didn’t even have enough for her own weapon?

“It’s because you raised my stats before. I’m repaying the favor.”

“…Yuuna.”

“You’re really going with a gun? No regrets?”

“Yuuna, thank you!!”

Overcome with joy, I hugged her.

“Kyaa!?”

“Thank you! I love you!”

“I get it, I get it, so put me down… Gosh…!”

This Magical Beast Steel must have been something Yuuna had been saving carefully.

To offer it up so readily for my growth…

I really wanted to do anything she asked.

“I’ll go with the gun!”

“Alright. Wait a moment.”

I decided to enhance my Glock 19. I had a deep attachment to it as my first weapon, and I felt I would continue to use it even if I started using a revolver.

I would probably add more firearms to my arsenal little by little.

The first investment would be the Glock.

[Glock 19 (COMPACT)][B-Grade]
[Owner: Kim Sang-hyeok]
[A compact version of the Glock 19. Holds 15 rounds of 9mm ammunition. Enhanced with Magical Beast Steel, increasing its firing precision, rate of fire, and power.]

“Here.”

“Thank you.”

I received it like a sacred relic.

“It should have some decent power inside dungeons now. Come back when you get more Magical Beast Steel.”

“Yes!”

“You’re that happy?”

Seeing my joy, Yuuna looked at me with an expression that said she couldn’t be helped.

“My Glock is B-rank now!”

“Anything else? Is there anything you need?”

“Let’s go to the gun shop.”

This time, I was the one who took Yuuna’s hand and led her.

Yuuna let out a flustered sound as she followed behind me.

It felt completely like a date.

“What’s with all the attachments?”

Yuuna, who didn’t know much about guns, looked on with curious eyes.

“You know what a dot sight is, right?”

“Yeah. What’s this thing on the muzzle?”

“It’s a muzzle brake. It vents gas to reduce recoil.”

“And this thing on the bottom?”

“A flashlight.”

It’s called a ‘SureFire.’

It was made for extreme situations, so it was durable and had a powerful beam.

I bought it so I’d be prepared even if I got dropped into an apocalypse dungeon again.

And…

“You have a gun, but you’re buying another one?”

Yuuna said, watching me pick up a revolver.

“I’m buying a revolver just in case my ammo jams.”

“Revolvers don’t jam?”

“Even if there’s a problem with the round you’re about to fire, the cylinder just rotates and you can fire the next good one. It’s great for dealing with emergencies.”

Although this wasn’t an enhanced revolver, it would be worth its price if my Glock malfunctioned.

The revolver I chose as my secondary was a Colt Python.

It was a pistol Colt had made with the goal of creating a “masterpiece” competition handgun.

“You’re not like the other students these days. To think you’d choose that one,” the man who owned the gun shop said with a smile.

“Ah, I have a pretty good eye.”

[Insight – Red activated.]

[Colt Python]
[Not a mass-produced item, but a masterpiece Colt Python with action parts hand-bent and fitted by a master craftsman. The wooden grip is made of walnut.]

My skills weren’t just for identifying masterpiece onaholes.

The glass display case held countless revolvers, but if there was a craftsman-made Colt Python, there was no other choice.

This gun, characterized by its checkered walnut grip—a crosshatch pattern engraved to prevent slipping—was basically a relic and hard to find until Colt, on the verge of bankruptcy—I don’t know how the history in this game world is set—decided to re-release it.

The advantage of a Colt Python painstakingly handcrafted by a master was its high accuracy.

“I’ll take ammo and a holster too, sir.”

“Hmm. That’ll be 1,000 Coins.”

“…I’ll pass on the ammo and holster.”

“900 Coins, then.”

Yikes, most of that is the price of the gun. I don’t have any money right now, do I?

The sudden realization made my head spin.

Just then, Yuuna subtly stepped in.

“Are you short on money?”

“Uh, yeah…”

“I have to give you your share of the profits anyway, so I’ll cover what you’re missing.”

“Really?”

Is it okay to accept this?

Technically, I had brought in more money for her, but separately, I was just grateful that she knew what I needed without me having to say anything.

“Your girlfriend isn’t just pretty, she’s got a kind heart too, eh?” the owner remarked.

“She’s not my girlfriend. Yet.”

I let the line slip out.

“…”

Yuuna shot me a sharp glare as she paid with her student ID.

“Why? Does the young lady like someone else? She hasn’t taken her eyes off your face this whole time…”

“…J-Just ring it up, please!”

“Go for it, son. Huh? From what this old man can see, she definitely has feelings…”

“Mister!”

When we left the gun shop, Yuuna’s ears were bright red.

“Phew, it’s hot. Must be because of the forges…”

“Should we head up? Now.”

My own insides were burning up from all the scheming I was doing to somehow manage this harem.

Sob… Just how many more times will I have to do these things that don’t suit me at all…?

“She’s not my girlfriend… yet☆”

Uwaaaah!!!

I’m seriously going crazy!

How do people do these cringey things that make you want to kick your blankets at night?

“By the way, I might have swiped your share of the money. Why didn’t you ask how much it was?”

Should I push it further?

First the second verse, then the third, and now I’m just beating a dead horse!

“It’s like entrusting your wallet to your wife and not worrying about it.”

“Pfft!!”

Unable to hold back, Yuuna started patting my back with her cute little fists.

“You idiot! Idiot! Die! Just die!”

Her shy reaction is truly delicious.

As expected, being handsome is all that matters.

---

Translated By: Meher (RaidenTL)

Please do consider subscribing to my Patreon for requests or to get early access to chapters