Being a Hunter Is Too Easy for a Former Necromancer - Chapter 17
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Reincarnated Necromancer Finds Being a Hunter All Too Easy – Episode 17
At Yi Ho-gyu’s words, Kim Chul-su’s face twisted into a grimace.
“E-Rank in a month? Are you serious?”
“What would I gain from lying to you?”
“Well… I suppose I should meet him first.”
Kim Chul-su stroked his chin as he spoke.
“By the way, old man. It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other—aren’t you going to offer me a cup of coffee?”
“If you promise to go easy on Park, I can spare you a cup of coffee.”
“I’ll keep it gentle. I won’t kill him, and I won’t cripple him either.”
“Tsk, tsk. You never change. Fine. Come in.”
The door hinges creaked.
The door swung open.
Yi Ho-gyu ushered Kim Chul-su inside.
It would have been nice to catch up on all manner of things, having not seen each other in so long.
* * *
Park Il-sang lived his daily life.
The Necromancer’s advantage.
As long as he had the Corpse Box, he could continuously replenish his Necro Mana—and he exploited that advantage relentlessly through Dungeon Running.
Truth be told, Dungeon Running didn’t earn much money. If it did, everyone would risk their lives in dungeons instead of doing Field Hunting.
Money was genuinely made in the field—several times over compared to dungeons.
That’s why most Hunters did Field Hunting and neglected dungeons.
But there were other reasons, too.
Firearms worked in the real world, but not inside dungeons. Gunpowder weapons simply didn’t function there.
And then there was this:
Each dungeon had its own unique mechanic.
Some dungeons had such brutal mechanics that Hunters died in droves the moment they entered.
With dungeons like that, strategy squads gave up entirely, and the dungeons erupted cyclically, spewing monsters into the world.
The Hunters who ventured into such dangerous, poorly-rewarded dungeons were mainly those seeking Rank advancement or those taking commissions to defend their districts.
Take Geumcheon-gu, for example—now one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Seoul.
There are five dungeons within Geumcheon-gu alone. One couldn’t simply leave them to burst, could one?
Before they erupted cyclically, Hunters had to enter and clear them regularly.
These dungeons were dangerous enough that several Hunters died each time a strategy operation was mounted.
Those who entered such dungeons at all costs were called members of the Dungeon Strategy Squad.
People who’d staked their lives on Rank advancement.
Those obsessed with becoming stronger.
They entered dungeons to gain Skills and push their Ranks higher.
Yet even they couldn’t recover their Mana easily.
When a Hunter exhausted their Mana completely, recovery took a week to ten days on average—or they’d have to consume Mana Recovery Potions, which were prohibitively expensive.
Higher Ranks meant more powerful, more devastating Skills, but the Mana cost scaled accordingly, making it financially impossible to sustain.
Park Il-sang was different.
As long as there were corpses, Necro Mana kept flowing!
Corpses were the best! Corpses were the best!
That was the feeling. And so, while dungeons were inefficient money-makers for others, they’d become something entirely different for Park Il-sang—an easy source of income.
That’s why he kept running the F-Rank Frog’s Nest Dungeon.
Even though his Rank no longer increased and no new Skills dropped.
He ran it over and over, chasing Boss Mana Stones.
He even started timing speedruns.
“Excellent! Forty-six-minute clear!”
Park Il-sang checked the time on his digital watch.
He’d cleared the dungeon in a mere forty-six minutes—quite the impressive feat.
“If I get one streaming Skill, maybe I could debut as a streamer and make some extra money?”
He muttered things like that.
In fact, there were public Skills. Skill Books of this type could drop as rewards from dungeons or be found in item boxes.
If one acquired Broadcasting and Internet Access, one of the public Skills, they could access the internet and broadcast from anywhere, anytime.
A remarkable world indeed!
Of course, some Hunters chose not to use this Skill and instead got implants for internet access and carried broadcasting equipment instead.
There were surprisingly many people willing to risk their lives that way.
And such broadcasts were wildly popular.
Many people made a living from them.
And that was that.
The world had fallen halfway into ruin, yet it still had streamers, just as it once did.
“Phew. Another job done today.”
Park Il-sang emerged from the dungeon.
As always, he headed to Yi Ho-gyu’s pawnshop with Mana Stones in hand.
“A commission?”
“That’s right. A commission. Someone wants to hire you, I hear.”
“Since when do you broker deals, sir?”
“Why would I do something like that? But since you never come anywhere else except my shop, that’s how they ended up contacting me.”
Suddenly, the owner Yi Ho-gyu brought up the matter of work out of nowhere.
‘What kind of job could this be?’
“You’ve become quite famous lately, Park. They say you have hundreds of summons?”
“They’re all just F-Rank, so what’s the big deal? Aren’t there plenty of people stronger than me?”
“I heard your summons number that high because of them, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, I suppose that could be it.”
“You know Broker Yu, right? This is her business. Go see her.”
“Will do.”
Park Il-sang gave his answer and turned to leave, but the owner called him back.
“Oh, by the way—has anyone from the Chul-su faction come to see you?”
“The Chul-su faction? No, sir. Is something wrong?”
“There’s been talk that they want to meet with you once.”
“I can’t imagine what business I’d have with an organization like that.”
“Be careful.”
“I will.”
Park Il-sang pocketed the money and left the pawnshop.
By now, he’d accumulated over 600 million won. He’d need to think about what to do with it.
* * *
‘Hmm, the Mafia is looking for me? My weight class must be going up.’
They used to be called gangsters back in the old days, but now they were simply called the Mafia.
Back when they were actual gangsters, killing a single person wasn’t easy, but now that the world had fallen halfway into ruin, Park Il-sang had become the kind of person for whom killing came naturally.
The fact that the Chul-su faction had taken an interest in him bothered him more than the fact that Broker Yu—or rather, Yu Yi-na—was looking for him.
Getting tangled up with criminals always ended up being one headache after another.
Not that he was particularly afraid, though.
He’d lived a long time in his past life too, bouncing from one thing to another, and he thought of his current life as a bonus.
To begin with, he didn’t have much fear of death.
That’s what Necromancers always became like. And his past life had been a complete mess of a world anyway.
‘For now, I should hear what this commission is about before making any decisions.’
Park Il-sang’s daily earnings currently amounted to roughly 100 million won.
That was what he made by running through the Frog’s Nest Dungeon round and round.
Of course, to earn 100 million, he had to run the Frog’s Nest Dungeon about ten times, and by that point, while his Necro Mana reserves weren’t depleted, his mind grew fatigued.
Still, he had the Warrior class to fall back on, and with the achievement Diligence Achievement, he didn’t tire physically.
It was just his mind that grew weary.
That’s what happened when you repeated the same actions over and over.
Others would probably call him ungrateful for complaining.
What could he do? Boredom was inevitable.
That was why he’d been mulling over whether to try another F-Rank dungeon or venture into an E-Rank one instead.
Which was why.
If this commission didn’t pay well, there was no need to bother with it.
So he needed to hear what the job actually was.
He made his way toward the market street built from the converted National Assembly building that had once stood in Yeouido.
He brought four Necro Guards with him, and had stuffed Ya-yong-i back into his bag.
“Prosthetics on sale! Used but clean repair!”
“Hey there, buddy. We got drugs that’ll knock you out—check it out!”
The market street inside the old National Assembly building in Yeouido.
It was lined with all manner of shops—mostly secondhand goods, all of them black-market merchandise. Things torn from corpses, items stolen from living people through robbery.
Every time Park Il-sang saw this sight, he found it rather amusing.
Because only ten kilometers or so away, in the Grade 3 and 4 zones, you never saw scenery like this.
Jingle.
He arrived at the bar located deeper inside—Ina Pocha. It was named after its owner, Yu Yi-na, but it was far more famous as a labor broker than as a place to drink.
The owner, Yu Yi-na, was a woman with the occupation of Witch, and her Rank was an impressive B.
However, she had a criminal record and bore several dangerous curses on her body, which kept her from entering the upper-grade zones—confined instead to this Grade 5 neighborhood.
‘And she was beautiful, too.’
That was the truth.
Yu Yi-na was a stunning woman.
But in this Zone Grade 5, she was someone no one dared to touch.
Why not?
Because she was strong.
There were rumors of countless Hunter scraps who’d tried their luck, met their end, and wound up inside her Corpse Box.
When he pushed through the door, it was still early—the place had no customers at all.
The bar went by the name of a pocha tent, but inside it was fitted out like a proper establishment, complete with an actual bartender.
The catch was that the bartender wasn’t human.
A female demon standing nearly two meters tall worked behind the counter—she was the familiar contracted to proprietor Yu Yi-na.
Objectively, she was a knockout, but with her height and the seven horns sprouting from her head, the bartender’s presence alone radiated such an oppressive force that she let out a cheerful shout at the sight of Park Il-sang.
“Welcome!”
Bright and spirited.
Judging by that attitude alone, you’d think she was anything but a demon. But you couldn’t afford to be fooled. The story of her tearing apart a rowdy C-Rank Hunter—just ripping him to shreds—had become legend.
“Good evening. I was told that proprietor Yu had a commission for me.”
“You’re Corpse Box! A Necromancer—I’ve never seen one of your kind before in this world. How fascinating! Just a moment, let me call the proprietor!”
The bartender delivered this dreadful commentary in that same cheerful, energetic tone.
At the sight of her, Park Il-sang thought to himself, ‘She hasn’t changed.’
Because that demon bartender had always been famous for this kind of sharp tongue.
One could only say she was a true demon, through and through.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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