Chapter 84

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The perfect conditions.

"I will accept. And if you would allow me to do so, I would like to make some suggestions about the composition of the Demon Cave Clearing Squad. After experiencing it once, I feel like I have a good idea about the team composition that would have the highest success rate."

"We would be thankful if you did that. Please discuss that with priest Shione."

"I understand."

The bishop left the area first.

"Please come this way."

I moved to a different location with priest Shione.

The majority of priests do not talk much. Although, I can"t say that with certainty since I have not met too many priests, however, all of the priests that I have met until now were that way.

They were especially quiet to outsiders like me. In fact, if it was not something they absolutely needed to say, they just kept their mouths shut most of the time.

But Shione was different. She started to talk to me first.

"I heard that Kang Hwi Ram-nim is from the Batoru Kingdom."

Her voice that settles down like a fog. I could feel some unknown type of charm.

"Yes. I am from t.i.tan Valley."

"I am from Batoru Kingdom as well. But I don"t know about t.i.tan Valley. Where is it located?"

"To the south of Avanguarde……"

This feels like a date for some reason. We even made eye contact every so often, as we talked about all sorts of things.

It was mostly Shione asking the questions and I answering with short responses.

I couldn"t do anything else. It would be complicated if people started to say I was trying to hit on female priests of a temple.

Shione walked really slowly. Almost like she was walking slowly on purpose, just to chat with me a bit longer.

Thanks to that, the short distance of 200 meters that we were walking took us very long time to traverse.

We discussed the composition of the Demon Cave Clearing Squad with the administrative team.

I did the majority of talking. I was the only one with experience clearing a Demon Cave in this group.

"Swordsmen do not help much. Please focus on people who can use shields and fire arrows at the same time, and please increase the ratio of magicians. You can even raise it to about 30%."

"That much?"

"In narrow areas like Demon Caves, that is more advantageous. In addition……"

I continued to make suggestions. I wanted them to create the best team to support me.

But it is really weird. Why is my heart beating like this? Why is that guy down there acting up like this so much?

It was because of Shione.

Shione only stared at me the entire time. Although it made sense, since I was the only one making suggestions.

But I felt like Shione"s eyes were sucking me in. Even though I was calming myself down, I kept having some l.u.s.tful thoughts.

I felt like I was possessed by a ghost. I was pretty confident that I could control my emotions around any woman, no matter how beautiful they were, but I was helpless in front of Shione.

It was true that Shione was extremely beautiful, but still, why can"t I control myself at all?

I still managed to successfully finish the discussion. Now I just need to wait for the Demon Cave Clearing Squad to be formed.

"Then I will be training in Golan Park. Please let me know once the squad has been formed."

"If it is somewhere that divine power can reach, we will contact you through the Divine Tower. We will contact you soon."

"I understand."

I headed back to Golan Park.

But I still had some longing, even after I left the Athena Temple. Almost like Shione had taken a place deep in my heart.

"Why am I like this? It"s really weird!"

Everybody has a turning point in their life. And that turning point does not end at once, but continues to visit frequently.

It was the same way for me as well. Royal Roader was one turning point, and the Chaos Battle was another. To be specific, losing in the Chaos Battle and getting the time restriction.

Tap! Roooooooooooll-

Until that happened, I was sleeping close to 10 hours a day. I even wore myself out physically with swimming and working out to sleep as much as possible.

But since the Chaos Battle, I have been living the opposite life.

I had no reason to sleep a lot. If I slept 10 hours, I would need to wait 5 days to re-enter Royal Roader, and if I slept 8 hours, I needed to wait 4 days.

So the decision I came to was sleeping exactly 6 hours a day. And a 30 minute nap.

That was enough. I don"t know whether it was because I"ve been sleeping a lot until now or because of the vitamins I was taking, but I never really felt tired.

Tap! Roooooooooooll-

"This is really weird. It feels like it"ll work, but it doesn"t."

My day changed since the amount of time I was sleeping had gone down.

2 hours swimming and working out, 4 hours studying English and current events. Even then, I still had enough time to practice golf 7 hours a day.

The majority of golf practice was putter practice. Of course, I swung the driver and iron from time to time, but over 50% of the time was spent on putter.

I stared endlessly at the screen. To be specific, I was looking at the gridlines and the speed and slope.

I was researching how the ball will roll, and in which direction I needed to send it in with what strength to send it directly into the hole.

"3 b.a.l.l.s distance to the left of the cup."

[Putting 10 Skill: Intermediate level 3, 25%]

Tap! Rooooooooooll-

"Ah, another fail!"

I missed just barely each time.

The more frustrating thing was that a skill was not created. I even used a jewel with a creation index of 89, but it still failed to create a skill.

"Sigh, is it really not possible?"

Riiiiing-

While I was sighing, I got a text from Kang Sung Ho.

[I have sent the results of the Shione search.]

It was late at night anyways. If I go home and read a book for a bit, it"ll be midnight.

I went home and opened my e-mail.

I didn"t have too much expectations. It was a priest of a temple after all. And one that was a.s.sociated with the Ameri Kingdom. There was pretty much no chance we would be connected.

But my thoughts changed completely once I read through the file. I found an unexpected name from it.

[Morris]

Morris was the name I heard from the guardians of the Warrior"s Storage Room not too long ago.

The Magic Swordsman who used the Bladestorm skill. The one who was imprisoned in the underground prison for declining the emperor"s request.

The more surprising fact was the relationship between Morris and Shione.

"Shione is Morris"s granddaughter?"

The content was pretty specific. The creators of Royal Roader seemed to have created quite a lot of stories revolving around Shione.

The more I saw it, the more surprised I got.

She was not just a priest. She was a priest and a magician. A level 146 support magician at that.

But it was too soon to be surprised. The more shocking information was behind it.

[Is a genius level talent both as a magician and a priest]
[Specialties: Communicating with all things, mind control]

"Mind control!"

I could finally understand the reason why I was so drawn to Shione in the Athena Temple. Shione had used mind control magic on me.

"I knew it was weird."

The information about Shione continued past that. There was so much information.

I was completely absorbed in reading Shione"s file and didn"t realize the time going by.

"You"re here!"

As soon as I entered the Athena Temple, Shione approached me with a welcoming expression as if she had been waiting for me.

It was a different reaction than the reactions most priests had.

The majority of priests do not show their emotions on their faces. Especially against the opposite gender.

But Shione was the exception. She felt like a new wife greeting her husband who had just returned home from work. An especially beautiful new wife at that. Almost to the point that I wanted to lift her right up and lay her down on a bed.

Thump. Thump.

My heart was beating loudly.

But I was not nervous. I knew the reason now.

"The Demon Cave Clearing Squad has been formed?"

"Yes. It is exactly 100 people including the two of us. The composition……"

This type of thing is something the administrative team can explain to me.

But Shione stuck right next to me and personally explained it to me. Almost like she didn"t want to miss an opportunity to chat with me.

Everytime she did that, l.u.s.t was peeking its head up again.

"When will the Demon Cave finish its synchronization?"

"Around five days later. We plan on entering as soon as it finishes the synchronization. But there is one problem."

"What is it?"

"It is a level 171, extremely large Demon Cave, but the boss monster seems to be a Midnight Black Alligator."

My eyes instantly opened wide.

Even Shione had a worried expression after seeing my response. But that was only for an instant.

"It is probably going to be difficult……hmm?"

Shione had a slightly confused expression.

Her mind control ability is very strong. She accurately read my emotion.

Right. The reason I was surprised was not because of a fear of the Midnight Black Alligator. The Midnight Black Alligator isn"t that large, but it"s level is close to 330.

If you throw one aspect away, you"re bound to gain another. If the level is high even though it is small, it means that it has a different strength.

The Midnight Black Alligator has extremely strong defense. Any average attack cannot cut through its leather. In addition, the Midnight Black Alligator"s Black Scales have reflective abilities that cause weak attacks to just bounce right off.

Which means I can be hurt by my own attack.

But the most dangerous aspect is that it is extremely fast and good at camouflaging, so much so that it was hard to see.

Especially in a dark area like a cave. You lose track of them when you blink, and before you know it, they"ll approach you from behind and rip you into pieces with its teeth.

But the reason I am happy about it?

"I can gain some Black Scales. If I am lucky, I can also earn a Fairy"s Tear."

The Black Scales are the reason for the Midnight Black Alligator"s defense and reflective abilities, as well as its camouflaging abilities. If I use it on my armor, I can use the strengths of its scales for myself.

The Fairy"s Tear is pretty much a treasure for the Peria tribe. If I bring it to them, they will gift me some magic stats in return.

"So are you planning on changing Demon Caves?"

"Depending on the situation, we thought we may have to. However ……Kang Hwi Ram-nim does not seem to be that scared."

I had no reason to be afraid. No matter how strong a monster was, if you know it"s weakness, it was not hard to hunt it.

Thankfully, I read a lot of information related to the Midnight Black Alligator in the draft plan. There was even a record of the dwarf Chubach solo hunting a Midnight Black Alligator when he was barely level 200.

It was a record that was considered a legend in the dwarf world.

It may be impossible in the computer game, but there was a method we can use in reality. If I used that method, I would be able to hunt it as well.

Although, I do need to prepare for it.

I smiled brightly toward Shione.

"I do not fear much in general. But five days is not enough time. Can you give me about 10 more days worth of time?"

"Are you planning on raising your level?"

I must absolutely not do that.

My level was already 171. In fact, I was pretty close to leveling up as well. If I accidentally leveled up, the Demon Cave clearing goes up in smokes.

Which would mean that I would not be able to gain any Black Scales.

"No. I need to go get a weapon to take care of the Midnight Black Alligator."

Shione still had a confused expression.

Since she wouldn"t have much information about the Midnight Black Alligator, there is no way she would know.
But since it was a request from me, the core of the Demon Cave Clearing Squad, she happily answered.

" understand. We will enter the Demon Cave as soon as Kang Hwi Ram-nim is ready to go."

"Then I will return soon."

Huksen may be a small city, but it still had a pretty large Volca.n.u.s Temple.

That was because this was the base of Golan Park, the mecca of leveling up.

I immediately headed to the Volca.n.u.s Temple.

"What kind of weapon would you like?"

The priest was taking orders for the dwarves. The dwarves have a lot of issues with humans so they don"t even like to talk to humans.

"I wish to personally meet with the dwarves."

"They do not want to meet with anyone."

"They will meet with me if you show them this."

I handed over the letter of introduction that Bachu wrote for me. Since it was folded, unless you purposefully opened it up, you will not be able to tell what was written on it.

I also gave the priest a 100,000 won coin as well. Just because they are priests doesn"t mean they hate money.

It wasn"t that large of an amount, but he quickly hid it in his chest pocket, and took the letter with him as he disappeared.

A moment later.

"Please enter."

I followed the priest to the smithy. I could clearly hear the sound of the hammers.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

The priest had low fire affinity, and could not enter past the entrance. I walked into the smithy alone.

"Wow, this heat! It"s been a while."

There were three dwarves in the smithy. They all looked toward me with a frown.

"Are you Kang Hwi Ram?"

"It said you were a human blacksmith. Amazing. You are the first human to visit us in here."

I didn"t want to talk to them for a long time. The dwarves probably don"t want a long discussion with a human either. Even if it was a human blacksmith.

"Make me a shield. A pretty large one."

"A shield?"

I returned to the Volca.n.u.s Temple one week later. I thought it would take at least 15 days, but they finished it in just one week.

I checked the completed shield.

It was exactly the style I wanted. You really have to give them credit for their attention to detail.

"How much is it?"

"It used quite a bit of t.i.tanium and mithril. Normally, we should be charging at least 300,000,000 won, but we will only charge you 230 million won."

It was cheaper than I had expected. It will definitely be worth more than the cost.

I put the money on a coin and handed it to them.

"Let"s meet again, human blacksmith."

I lightly shook hands with them and headed back to the Athena Temple. We pulled up our start date and decided to head in tomorrow morning.

I first met with the bishop. There was something he promised me.

"Please let me borrow the Gaia Armor Set."

The bishop still didn"t look like he wanted to do it.

But he could not go against our promise. He personally headed into the storage room and brought the Gaia Armor Set with him.

The Gaia Armor Set was finally in my hands.

[Gaia"s Mithril Armor Set]
It is made of mithril, and the full set is made of the helmet, armor, pants, gloves, boots, and a ring.
Durability 358/358
Defense: 254
Restriction: Level 150+
*Attack Strength 10% Increased
*Magic Resistance +75
*Strength +11
*Poison Resistance +38
*Special Ability: Stamina Reduction Speed 17% Decreased

The options are as good as I thought. I like each of these options.

Plus, it was a set that the emperor personally handed to them. It makes sense that the bishop is careful with it.

"You must return it."

"Of course. Then, I will be heading out now."

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