Chapter 38
Let's see.
Four D-rank Mana Stones, one C-rank Mana Stone...
Click.
I searched for D-rank Mana Stones and checked the market prices.
The cheaper ones were listed at a little under two million won.
The expensive ones went for almost three million.
After debating the price for a moment, I listed ours for around 2.5 million won each.
If you listed something too high, it usually wouldn't sell.
Next is the C-rank Mana Stone.
Click. Click.
My eyes widened as I searched and scrolled down.
Whoa...
I knew C-rank Mana Stones were expensive.
I hadn't realized they were this expensive.
Even the cheapest listings started at more than ten million won.
The expensive ones reached twenty million.
We hit the jackpot.
With my heart pounding, I listed ours for around sixteen million won.
Since I was already looking through the auction site, I decided to check items similar to the staff I had given Lee Junhyuk earlier.
Of course, I wasn't petty enough to take back something I had already given him.
I was just curious.
Scroll.
My hand suddenly stopped.
Whoa...
I shouldn't have given it to him.
Why did one staff cost thirty million won?
If we had split that evenly between four people, I could have taken 7.5 million won.
Realizing how much I had given away made my stomach hurt.
I sighed and closed the laptop.
Forget it.
It's already his. What can I do now?
I spun my chair around and rested my legs on the bed.
Then I reopened the quest windows I hadn't properly checked earlier.
[Congratulations! Quest 'Work together with your party members and clear the dungeon before the Dome phenomenon occurs!' completed.]
Several windows appeared at once.
But one reward immediately caught my attention.
Indestructible Immortal Body?
From the name alone, I had absolutely no idea what kind of item it was.
[Would you like to receive the item 'Indestructible Immortal Body'?]
[Y/N]
There was no reason to hesitate.
I selected Y.
['Indestructible Immortal Body' acquired.]
[The acquired item has been stored in your Inventory.]
I immediately opened my Inventory.
A new silver-colored item shaped somewhat like ginseng had appeared.
I reached toward it and checked the description.
[Indestructible Immortal Body]
[Item Effect: When used, Health cannot fall below 1% for one minute.]
In other words...
If I used this item, I couldn't die for one minute no matter what happened.
Health was basically the same thing as life.
Isn't this insanely overpowered?
No matter what happened inside a dungeon, one minute in combat was actually a very long time.
A person's life could change completely within a minute.
Especially in a desperate situation, even a single second could determine everything.
Would there be something like this on the auction site?
I searched for it.
But no matter how much I looked, there wasn't even a similar item.
How much could I sell this for...?
The thought crossed my mind.
But I quickly shook my head.
“Forget it.”
I lay down on the bed and reviewed everything that had happened today.
I definitely went back in time.
With the help of a quest.
Without that quest, neither I nor my teammates would have survived.
I had no idea why these quests appeared specifically for me.
But one thing was clear.
At the very least, these quests weren't trying to harm me.
Indestructible Immortal Body...
The first actual item the quest had ever given me.
Maybe this item would become important someday.
I couldn't know yet.
Even if it didn't, there was no harm in keeping something like this.
Still, the item itself wasn't what really mattered right now.
Only after I was alone did the problems I had been pushing aside slowly rise back to the surface.
How do I avoid dying?
Death had always felt impossibly distant.
But in reality...
It had been right beside me.
Like an idiot, I had only realized that now.
I can't put myself in danger.
Becoming stronger was secondary.
I needed to stay aware of everything around me at all times.
Yes.
If I stopped my reckless teammates whenever they tried to do something stupid...
If I just paid attention to that...
Something like this wouldn't happen again.
At least there was one good thing.
I had realized my mistake.
And I had been given another chance to reflect and move forward.
A few days later, the Center apologized to us.
They had sent us into a dungeon that they believed would be safe, only for something like that to happen.
That was clearly a mistake on their side.
We had survived, so the situation ended without disaster.
But if we had been wiped out because of a measurement error, it would have seriously damaged the Center's reputation.
People trusted the Center deeply.
During the process, we received a small compensation payment.
To be exact, it was probably closer to hush money.
Still, unexpected money was unexpected money.
Everyone in our party was happy about it.
Around ten days after we cleared the raid, I started feeling something was strange.
They should've contacted me by now.
Normally, the Center contacted the party leader about raids once every week.
But even though more than ten days had passed, the only contact I had received from the Center was their apology.
Are they giving us some kind of vacation because of what happened?
I decided to wait a little longer.
But after more than two weeks passed without contact, I started getting nervous.
The message finally arrived several days later.
[Hello, this is the Hunter Management Center. We should have contacted you sooner, but due to an internal review process, our response has unfortunately been delayed. Regarding the recent rank evaluation...]
The long message explained that the Center had held an extended meeting about fairness surrounding our recent rank evaluation.
In the end, they had decided to raise our party's average raid capability to D-rank.
It also contained information about the first raid our newly promoted party would participate in.
A D-rank dungeon.
That was the rank of the dungeon we were being sent to.
The words 'D-rank dungeon' made me nervous.
Still, the message said another D-rank party would be participating with us.
That reassured me a little.
“Are you the party we're supposed to raid with today?”
A sleepy-looking man asked.
I stepped forward.
“Yes. I'm Kim Jia.”
“Oh. You're the party leader?”
The man widened his eyes, apparently not expecting me to be the leader.
“Yes. Are you the leader on your side too?”
“No, no. Our party leader is a woman too.”
He waved his hands and looked behind him.
A woman with her hair tied tightly up was chewing gum while staring at me.
She frowned and glared at the man.
“You got a problem with that?”
“Of course not, noona.”
The woman let out a short sigh, rested a massive scythe over her shoulder, and walked toward me.
People said not to judge someone by their appearance...
But she looked extremely strong-willed.
Up close, she was definitely over 170 centimeters tall.
Maybe around ten centimeters taller than me.
The way she looked down at me made her confidence obvious.
“I heard this is your first dungeon after your rank evaluation?”
“That's right.”
“Haa. What a pain. Don't get in our way and drag us down. Just stay far away and watch.”
She waved her hand dismissively without even bothering to hide how annoyed she was.
Her openly insulting attitude bothered me.
Still, if I thought about it rationally...
What she was saying wasn't actually that bad.
For a party to continue receiving government support money, it needed to clear at least four raids every month.
In other words, according to her, we could simply watch and still have one raid counted.
Besides, our party had never properly cleared a D-rank dungeon on our own.
The Center had probably considered that and recommended a joint raid so we could learn while observing another party.
Watching how another D-rank party cleared dungeons could be useful too.
Unfortunately, my teammates seemed to have a different opinion.
“Hey. You've been talking for a while, but aren't you being a little rude?”
“Acting arrogant when you're the same rank as us...”
“We received an official mission from the Center to clear this dungeon and...”
Why were they all so stubborn?!
I hurriedly covered Han Siwoo's mouth before he could finish.
Then I laughed toward the other party.
“Of course we'll stay back. We're beginners. How could we properly raid a D-rank dungeon from the start?”
The woman's frown relaxed slightly.
Well...
'Relaxed' might not be the right word.
It looked more like she was sneering.
“Must be hard being the party leader with teammates who don't understand their place. Right, unni? Why are you making that face?”
“No reason. I'm just saying I look forward to working with you. But why have you been speaking casually to me this entire time?”
I wasn't saying this because she insulted my party members.
It simply annoyed me that she had been talking down to me from the beginning.
The woman let out a small laugh.
“Then you can talk casually too.”
“Fine.”
“You've got a cute side.”
The woman smirked and turned toward the gate.
Only after she walked away did I realize what I'd done.
I bit my lip.
Damn this temper of mine.
Why couldn't I just ignore something once?
“Hey, don't you have any pride?”
Why indeed?
Because I shared genes with that idiot.
I looked at my sulking brother and shook my head.
“Oppa. We're not some warrior race. Do we really have to fight over everything?”
“Hah. They're the ones who started it.”
“So what? If we don't react, they'll eventually ignore us too. Why do you always have to...”
“E-Excuse me...”
A strange voice interrupted us.
My brother and I stopped arguing and turned around.
It was a woman with her hair braided into twin braids.
She was one of the members of the other party.
Her thick bangs covered her eyes, so I couldn't clearly see her expression.
She stared at us for a moment.
Then she lowered her head.
