I Just Subscribed and It’s the Best Hunter of All Time - Chapter 48
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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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#Episode 48.
Jung Han-sung gazed at the cascade of messages flooding his vision with practiced ease.
At first, the sudden deluge of notifications had startled me, but now I’d grown so accustomed to them that their absence would feel strange.
[You have completed Floor 40’s objective in record time]
[You have defeated all enemies flawlessly]
[You have achieved a Clear Rank of ‘SSS’]
[You receive 3 Gold Boxes as additional rewards]
[You have achieved the Hidden Objective ‘Defeat Arachne’s Progenitor’]
[You receive 1 Platinum Box as an additional reward]
Yet as I continued reading the messages, one particular line gave me pause, and my expression shifted to one of bewilderment.
‘Defeat Arachne’s Progenitor?’
I had no recollection of deliberately hunting down and defeating a progenitor, so naturally I found myself utterly confused.
Then, my gaze fell upon the corpse of Arachne lying crumpled to one side.
‘Wait… could it be?’
Just as I began to grasp something, Elion’s voice rang out beside me.
“Good heavens!”
I reflexively turned to look at Elion, and he spoke with the expression of someone who had just realized something.
“This was Arachne’s Progenitor!”
As he said this, Elion pointed to the very corpse of Arachne that I had just examined.
Hank chimed in from beside us.
“No wonder it was far too strong for a mature specimen… It was the progenitor all along.”
Unable to hold back, I opened my mouth in response to their words.
“So you’re saying this wasn’t just an ordinary Arachne?”
“It was written in The Tower’s proclamation, was it not? Arachne’s Progenitor.”
Hank spoke in a measured tone.
The proclamation he mentioned seemed to refer to the messages, but that wasn’t the crucial point.
“Then what about the Arachne we were supposed to eliminate?”
“It appears those creatures we initially thought were somewhere between larvae and mature specimens were simply ordinary mature Arachne specimens.”
“Exactly! It seems we could have achieved The Tower’s objective simply by eliminating those creatures discreetly!”
“Ah.”
Only then did I fully grasp the situation.
‘Now that I think about it, the difficulty was quite formidable even without being on the Hidden Floor.’
Typically, a Floor Master is stronger than ordinary monsters of that tier, but not to the point of vastly exceeding the floor’s standard difficulty.
Yet the Arachne we had just faced—the Progenitor—had proven challenging even with my strength, combined with the considerable prowess of Elion and Hank.
Considering how effortlessly I had breezed through the 30s floors previously, this difficulty level was frankly absurd.
“Had I been alone, I likely would have realized it sooner, but our coordination was so seamless that I became careless!”
Elion laughed as he said this.
Well, I agreed to some extent.
This was my first time fighting alongside individuals whose strength matched mine so closely, so the difficulty had felt surprisingly manageable.
We had progressed almost without obstruction until we faced Arachne’s Progenitor.
“Anyway, we even got bonus rewards from the hidden objective, so it’s a win.”
“That’s right! An unexpected windfall indeed.”
After exchanging those words, Elion spoke up again.
“Everyone worked hard! But since we cleared this floor so quickly, and meeting like this must be fate—how about we chat a bit before heading to the next floor?”
Elion, speaking at a rapid pace, added a few more words to persuade them.
“Besides, we need to divide up the spoils!”
As he said this, Elion pointed to the corpse of the Arachne matriarch.
Now that I thought about it, the ordinary Arachnes had turned into particles of light and vanished after we achieved our objective, but only the matriarch’s body remained intact.
Which meant we could claim it as well.
Hank, who had been about to leave without acknowledging Elion’s words, paused upon hearing that.
“Hmm. If we’re dividing things up, how exactly would we split it?”
“Why don’t we start by mentioning what we need? Personally, I’m quite interested in the Arachne’s poison sac!”
“A poison sac?”
“Indeed! If it’s not an ordinary Arachne but a matriarch, it must have a poison sac. Since she died without properly utilizing the poison, it should be perfectly intact! If you yield it to me, I’ll give you this in exchange.”
As he spoke, Elion produced a small pouch.
“Fairy dust—a secret technique of our people. It’s commonly known by that name!”
Hank, who had been listening quietly, opened his mouth as soon as Elion finished speaking.
“I want the Arachne’s web. If you yield it, I’ll offer a bundle of enchanted arrows I crafted myself.”
After that, both of them looked at me.
I glanced at the corpse once before speaking.
“Well, I just want to take the body itself. What am I supposed to offer?”
“That can’t be! The poison sac and web are the most valuable parts of an Arachne! So please accept these.”
“Take this too.”
With those words, they both produced the pouch of fairy dust and the arrows.
I accepted them somewhat reluctantly, then fell silent for a moment before speaking.
“Is this how loot is always divided?”
“Hmm? Yes. If someone wants the same item, whoever offers something more valuable gets it.”
“In this case, since there were two valuable items, you—who chose nothing—receive our goods instead.”
“Ah, well, rather than that…”
I scratched my chin and continued.
“I don’t know much about Arachnes. I don’t even know what’s valuable. And honestly, it looks exactly like what you described—so couldn’t you two have just kept quiet and taken it without me knowing?”
I didn’t harbor particularly bad memories of the people I’d met in The Tower so far.
But I’d witnessed plenty of unfortunate examples.
‘People backstabbing each other, using one another unilaterally. Some even betray others just to covet their items.’
Of course, not everyone was like that.
But such cases definitely existed.
So I threw out that question directly to gauge what values these people from another world held.
Hank was the first to speak.
“Well, some people might do that. But I have no intention of it.”
“Why?”
“I swore an oath to the God of Honesty.”
Hank spoke with measured calm.
“Speaking falsehoods is sacrilege, yes, but so is holding one’s tongue with the intention to deceive. Therefore, I do neither.”
“I see.”
Jung Han-sung nodded in acknowledgment.
Gods, then. It made sense that they would have their own deities in that world.
Curiosity stirred within me at the thought, but I refrained from pressing further. It might have been considered rude.
Elion then spoke up.
“It’s best to avoid breaking trust whenever possible.”
“Trust?”
“Indeed! The Tower is vast and towering, but who knows when you’ll encounter someone again? And even if you don’t, word of your deeds could spread, could it not?”
Elion smiled as he spoke.
“Especially someone as formidable as yourself—I have a strong premonition we’ll meet again. So there’s no need to leave a poor impression through lies.”
“I suppose so.”
This was an unexpectedly pragmatic answer.
There was something calculating about it, I’d say. I’d suspected from the start that his light, cheerful demeanor wasn’t the whole picture.
He seemed quite seasoned.
Jung Han-sung nodded.
“Fine then. I’ll make good use of this. You two take the poison sacs and the webbing.”
“Splendid!”
“Understood.”
The two immediately began gathering the items mentioned.
Elion used a sharp dagger to cleanly extract the poison sacs from Arachne’s corpse, while Hank collected all the webbing scattered about the area.
Jung Han-sung asked Hank a question.
“Do we need to harvest what’s inside her body?”
“No need. What’s inside is merely raw material, not Arachne’s silk itself.”
“I see.”
After hearing the answer, Jung Han-sung collected Arachne’s corpse as a final matter.
I wondered how to carry it, but fortunately it fit into my inventory as well.
Then Elion spoke again.
“We coordinated quite well! I’d be delighted to meet again next time. If you’re willing, perhaps we could stay in touch occasionally? What do you say?”
As he spoke, Elion produced a crimson orb from his pocket.
“Behold! I happen to have a communication stone ready!”
“A communication stone?”
“Indeed! You’ve never used one before?”
“No. Though I’ve heard of them.”
It was an artifact that functioned exclusively within The Tower, its purpose exactly as its name suggested—allowing registered users to converse with one another.
“Well then.”
Jung Han-sung accepted the communication stone without hesitation. I still had many questions about the other world, after all.
Besides, a communication stone was something one had to purchase. Accepting it meant I could use it to communicate with others as well.
Meanwhile, Hank shook his head.
“I have no intention of staying in contact.”
“Then how about this! Instead of me, the two of you keep in touch! And if we ever encounter a floor that requires multiple people, we can join forces. How does that sound?”
As he spoke, Elion handed another communication device to Jung Han-sung.
Jung Han-sung looked at Hank with an expression asking what he would do.
Hank stared at Jung Han-sung for a moment, then nodded and accepted the communication device.
“I tend to spend quite a long time in The Tower, so feel free to contact me anytime! Don’t hesitate to reach out whenever it’s convenient!”
Elion said this with a cheerful smile.
“Well then, I should be going. Perhaps we’ll meet again next time!”
“I’ll be heading out too.”
“Oh, then I suppose I will as well.”
Since Jung Han-sung had nothing more to do here, he exchanged final farewells with them before departing the floor.
Whoosh!
Soon, the spatial transition ended, and Jung Han-sung arrived at a familiar space.
“Welcome back!”
Baek-seol’s cheerful voice greeted him immediately.
Jung Han-sung smiled and nodded, then spoke.
“Nothing happened while I was gone?”
“Nope! I was just resting since you left!”
In reality, less than an hour had passed since Jung Han-sung departed.
The tension from clearing the floor alongside beings from another dimension had simply made the subjective passage of time feel much longer.
“Did anything happen on your end?”
“Well, I just met some people from another dimension on that floor… or rather, a person and an elf.”
“Already?”
Baek-seol asked with a surprised expression.
She had known it was about time to meet them, but she hadn’t expected it to happen this quickly.
“Yeah. They weren’t bad.”
To be honest, I had worried that beings from another dimension might have thought processes so alien that I couldn’t understand them at all.
But surprisingly, both of them communicated quite well and seemed like reasonable people.
‘I suppose I was just lucky.’
Considering what they said, there must be both wicked and virtuous people in their world too. Even if I was fortunate this time, I should remain vigilant.
But what left the strongest impression was something else entirely.
“And their abilities were better than I expected.”
Specifically, their combat prowess.
Both of them seemed to be recognized in their respective worlds, but they didn’t appear to be at a completely dominant level either.
It was more that the overall standard seemed quite high.
Baek-seol then spoke.
“Usually, the longer The Tower has existed in a world, the higher the average level of its inhabitants tends to be.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. They’ve had more time to temper themselves.”
At Baek-seol’s words, Jung Han-sung stroked his chin thoughtfully.
Suddenly, he recalled the mention of monsters existing in their world.
Judging by the tone of their earlier conversation, those monsters seemed to be connected to The Tower in some way.
He hadn’t learned the exact nature of that connection due to The Tower’s restrictions on information.
“It seems I’ll need to climb higher to understand more.”
“That’s right! As you ascend, the restrictions will lift one by one.”
“I see.”
Jung Han-sung nodded in agreement.
In the end, there was only one objective: to continue climbing The Tower.
“Alright then. I’ll be heading out again.”
“Right now?”
“Yes. There’s something I couldn’t finish earlier.”
Something left undone because of those interdimensional beings.
The debut match of my newly created undead.
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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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