“Joon-suk! What are you going to do if that becomes a forest fire?”

“You don’t have to worry about that. Dragon Killer’s flame only burns the area that it passes by. It’s not a real fire.”

“Really? Is that possible?”

“That’s what it said on the instruction manual. It’s something that has been confirmed in the forest region so you don’t have to worry.” (J: “forest region” here could actually be referring to a forest called “The Great Forest”. Just keep that in mind.)

As Han Joon-suk had said, only the trees in the path of the flame dragon were burned pitch black and turning into ash but the rest of the area was undamaged.

It seemed we would not need to be overly worried about using our techniques just because we were in a jungle area.

I pointed at the dead Mukamuka and talked to Edward.

“Now then, go eat.”

“.... Am I some kind of dog?”

“Please go ahead and dine. Sir Edward.”

When I said so while bowing down to him, Edward’s expression crumpled up and he let out a sigh.

“I sure am not getting used to human sarcasm.”

“It’s a joke.”

“I will decline such jokes.”

He walked towards the dead Mukamuka even while grumbling. He put his mouth on the neck that was spilling blood from a cut.

Jjeub. Jjeueub. (Kyle: sfx for sucking)

Hm.... it wasn’t a pleasant scene for children to see. Soo-ah opened her mouth.

“Hm.... I don’t want to say something about someone eating but.... it feels wrong.”

“I should keep him from doing so when other people are looking.”

“How about collecting the blood in a container and carrying that around?”

Han Joon-suk proposed a solution. I nodded my head. It seemed to be the best method.

The guy that was diligently drinking the Mukamuka’s blood while getting blood all over his mouth suddenly started trembling.

“What is he doing, that guy?”

“Indeed. It’s getting increasingly unpleasant.” (J: “Kimochi warui!” ... I had to say it.)

The guy that was drinking blood while trembling for quite some time finally separated his mouth and shouted towards the sky.

“Euaaah.... the power is overflowing!” (J: The Protoss left one of their Archons here, I see.)

“Are you filming an advertisement for a health tonic?”

“Muhahaha! I am now strong! Taking orders from you is now over with this!”

Edward shouted at me as crimson light shined from his eyes.

I shook my head from side to side. (J: Yare yare.)

Soo-ah opened her mouth with a sigh.

“He’s far from sobering.”

“Indeed.”

I slowly approached Edward. He breathed heavily while looking at me with exposed canines.

“Kyaak! If you want to die don’t come close!”

“What the hell. Does that mean I should go closer if I don’t want to die?”

“Th, that’s not it. Anyway, I will not take orders from you any longer.”

“Well, that’s fine. But give me back those clothes. Those are expensive you know.”

“Hm....?”

The guy’s eyelashes suddenly trembled.

“That, that is.....”

“It was a contract. We didn’t write a contract on paper, but put your hand on your heart and say it. Or is it fine to do whatever you want with promises in your clan?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Then quickly give me the clothes. Let’s part ways here.”

At my words, Edward’s shoulders suddenly drooped down.

“It, it was a joke.”

“What did you say? I can’t hear it? Didn’t somebody say before that they would decline jokes?”

“Argh! I messed around a bit! What are you going to do about it?”

“You’re noisy, just wash your mouth. It’s disgusting to look at.”

“Mrgh. I’m definitely going to buy these clothes someday.”

“It’ll take you forever to buy it with a monthly salary of 2m won.”

“I looked into that and it violates the minimum wage law. It’s 10k won per hour.... a day is 24 hours so shouldn’t you give me more than 7m won per month?”

“How long do you think you work per day for you to ask for that much?”

“I am going to take the entire time under your command as my work hours.”

“Do you want to get just 1m won?”

“This corrupted business owner. I will report this to the Labor Office.”

“What kind of bullshit is this from a guy without even a citizen ID. You’ll only come back to your senses after getting chased out of the country as an illegal immigrant, huh?”

“Wow. Senior brother, you looked like a real corrupted business owner just now.”

“You’re going to be like that as well.”

After knocking Soo-ah on the head, I checked Edward’s status through the manual.

I have been thinking that something was off since a while ago. It’s because the energy or something similar that I feel from him seemed to have become stronger than before drinking the Mukamuka’s blood.

Vampire Baron (2) : It is a vampire baron. It can become stronger if it drinks blood.

“Oh? He really got stronger?”

“That is so. Can you feel how useful I am now? Immediately increase my salary two-fold.”

“Then I guess I should charge the money for the blood separately.”

Edward looked at me with a face that said ‘this isn’t how it was supposed to go....’.

“It’s obviously like that. If you can get stronger by drinking the blood of monsters, you are gaining that much profit, so I should receive money.”

“That.... I will act like the salary increase issue was never brought up.”

“Nah. Lets make it 1m won per level. The level 4 Mukamuka is 4m won.”

“This damn corrupted merchant!”

“If you don’t like it, just don’t eat.”

“What am I supposed to do when I don’t have any money.”

“I’ll take it from your salary. Hm. This is 4m won so that’s 2 months worth of your salary.”

“N, no way.....”

“If you don’t like it, you can refuse. As I said before.....”

“Who said I don’t like it? I will work hard to repay you.”

Edward answered while wiping the blood off his mouth.

“You suffered a loss trying to keep your pride.”

Said Soo-ah.

“Human girl, since you follow him every day, do you also owe him something?”

“Yeah, quite a bit.”

“Tut. You are pitiful as well. To think you’ve gotten tangled up with that kind of human being, my sympathies.

“I feel like that as well. Senior brother is extremely dense, and he lacks emotions and completely ignores others’ hearts on top of that.”

“Hey.... if you’re going to diss someone do it where they can’t hear it.”

The two who suddenly got along well started talking behind my back. Or wait, they’re doing so where I can hear it so talking in front of my back I suppose. (J: This sounds weird in English, but “talk behind someone’s back” is one word in Korean that contains the character for “back/behind”, and the protagonist changes that character with one meaning “front”, which becomes “talk in front of someone’s back”. This is annoying me like hell.)

“More importantly, you. Why did you suddenly get stronger like that?”

“It’s because the Friendship skill proficiency rose, or so it seems. A special ability was added.” (J: The original speech patterns make it obvious that this is Soo-ah speaking, but it is probably hard to tell with this translation.)

“Hm? Really? I should check it, then.”

I checked Soo-ah’s status using the manual.

The equipment was the same as before but I was able to confirm that there was one more thing in the skill section.

Skill Name : Friendship, increases the stats of oneself and 5 allies by 20%.

Additional Skill :

Burning Friendship, increases the stats of only 1 person by 50% for 10 minutes. It has a cooldown of 1 day.

Magical Friendship. Increases the stats of the caster by 100%. (J: The phrase here for “Friendship and Magic as One” could also be interpreted as “Magical Friendship” or something similar. Kyle thought the former sounded better. J: Changed to “Magical Friendship” following the vote so far.)

Proficiency : 41

Her proficiency passed 40 before I knew it. Looking at it now, I’m starting to think that the Friendship skill might be better than my Effort skill.

Looking at the skill effect alone, my skill is better, but her skill doesn’t require reward points or ores.

A 100% stats increase. It made me want to get a Friendship skill if I get another skill slot.

We waited for the monsters’ corpses to return to the void. There were three ores and one item. We can’t be sure with just this one time, but it did seem like the item drop rate was high regardless.

Come to think of it, Manager Kim has all the drop rate increasing items. We should’ve brought him.

“Wow. This is....?”

“Wait, I’ll check.”

The type, form, and effect of the new items are slightly different from the original.

Even if it’s the same sword, there are usually some special options attached.

And the one in my hand is an item that is beyond the norm of even such new items.

Needle Gun (4) : A gun that fires a pointed metal projectile. It is able to fire anything as long as the projectile fits the standard.

For now, it’s a gun. It isn’t a gun that uses gunpowder, but it is much easier to use than a bow.

Han Joon-suk opened his mouth.

“Could I see that for a bit?”

“Ah. Yes, go ahead.”

He held the Needle Gun in his hand.

“.... This is pretty heavy I see.”

“It’s probably about 5 kilograms.”

It looked perfect for industrial use. Han Joon-suk aimed silently and pulled the trigger.

Bang! (J: We could not think of a better onomatopoeia for firing the Needle Gun.)

Thud!

With a rather deep sound, the projectile dug into the gigantic tree in front of him.

Upon approaching the tree, I could see a small hole running through it. The fired projectile was nowhere to be seen.

It had completely penetrated a tree with a diameter of almost 50 cm.

Click. Click.

“It is bolt action, but the magazine has a large capacity. Depending on what you put in, you can deal sufficient damage. It seems like quite the useful item.

“Who would be the best person to use this?”

I act as a melee attacker and tank at the same time, so I don’t have a need for such a weapon.

It would be best for a ranged attacker to have it.

“Hm.... Considering its ease of use, I think it would be best for Manager Kim to have it, but.....”

“That seems reasonable. It does seem like a better option than having nothing to do and staying still after using his spell.”

We decided to have Han Joon-suk use it in this dungeon and test out its performance.

As we made our way through the jungle, we were able to gain some additional information about the Red Dungeon.

First off, as mentioned before, the item drop rate is considerably high. Even without drop-rate increasing items, items dropped with a probability of 10%.

The item levels were varied, ranging from level 1 ~ 4. It was something unusual thinking about how dungeons originally dropped items of the same level.

The second thing was that the monsters did not have a fixed habitat. They would frequently show up and sometimes carried out surprise attacks or ambushes.

Because they didn’t appear at a given location, it seemed this would become the main factor of the rise in difficulty.

The last point was the number of monsters that appeared.

“Wow. How many is that total?”

As I said so, Soo-ah answered.

“It looks like about a hundred in all?”

I stepped back in a hurry after realizing there was suddenly no footing while travelling through the jungle.

At the bottom of the cliff that appeared out of nowhere, there was a basin where monsters were living as a pack. It was more accurate to call it a Mukamuka village.

Thankfully, they were mostly at or below level 3.

Han Joon-suk who was inspecting the basin opened his mouth.

“They’re mostly offspring and females.”

“Females you say?”

“Yes, I can see them breastfeeding.”

“Hm.... that means this is a Mukamuka village.”

100 monsters.

I was thinking that we would be able to get a good number of items if we killed them all.

“Due to the terrain, their escape routes are limited. If we block just a few of the exits, then we can annihilate them.”

Han Joon-suk said. He was inspecting the terrain of the area using the sight boost of the Ruby Ring of Optics.

I took out a ruby ring from the manual as well. There happened to be one among the items that we plundered at the forest region so I kept it without selling it.

Ziing-

Together with some dizziness, my sight improved dramatically.

I could clearly feel that my visible range had increased significantly.

It was to the point that I even thought it would be better to keep this effect as the manual’s default passive instead of the Chinese interpretation function.

Putting that aside, the number of monsters was about 100 as mentioned before.

There were a total of three exits. Each had burly Mukamukas prowling around in standby.

They seemed to be the sentries. Further inside in a small circular area about 50 meters in radius, the Mukamukas were bustling about.