S-Classes That I Raised to Devour - Chapter 65

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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 65. The Lottery Dungeon (1)
There was no need to ask the man before me if he was Choi Kangim.
I couldn’t sense any mana from him in the first place. He was an ordinary person.
“Do you happen to know someone named Choi Kangim?”
The man paused to think, then spoke.
“Sounds like the name of someone who lived here before.”
“When did you move in?”
“But who are you, exactly…….”
“You know Choi Kangim is a Hunter, right? I’m a fellow Hunter. He’s cut off contact and vanished, so I’m searching for him.”
I pulled back my coat slightly to show the broad sword tucked at my belt.
I wasn’t trying to threaten him—just trying to prove I was a Hunter.
“Ah, I see. W-well, if it’s about moving in, that was two months ago.”
The man’s tone seemed to have grown more formal, though unintentionally. But I’d ignore that.
“Do you have his phone number?”
“I didn’t save it, but I think we exchanged a text or two. Um, would it be all right if I got my phone?”
Here was a grown man asking me nervously. It’s bitter, but this is reality.
No matter how human a Hunter might appear, to ordinary people we’re monsters. We can only be objects of fear.
“Go ahead.”
Bitter or not, there’s work to be done.
The man returned remarkably quickly, showing me the text exchange between him and Choi Kangim.
I didn’t particularly want to see the contents, so I just extracted the contact information.
Back in the car, I touched my jaw thoughtfully.
“The location was accurate, but the timing is completely off.”
My memory couldn’t be wrong. The Akashic Record even prevents memory distortion.
But what if I had been given incorrect information from the start?
‘The timing he mentioned in the interview was a lie after all.’
There was no malice in it. Who could have predicted that someone would regress and come looking for him? Or perhaps he was confused himself.
I called the number too, but as expected, he didn’t pick up. The message said he’d left the service area.
“I know where he is now.”
Choi Kangim is in a Dungeon right now. The very one that changed the entire course of his life.
“I was trying to recruit him before entering, but I didn’t expect to miss him like this.”
In my previous life, Choi Kangim had one critical weakness. He couldn’t communicate.
Not because he’d slept through Korean class or lacked social skills—literally, communication was impossible.
It was because he’d entered the Dungeon he was likely at now: the Lottery Dungeon.
Its official name is the Mystery Dungeon, but no one calls it that.
In any case, Choi Kangim entered the Lottery Dungeon, cleared it, and received his rewards: an A-rank Skill and a Legendary-rank Shield.
But he didn’t just get rewards. He also got a Curse.
“A Curse that let him speak only twenty characters for the rest of his life.”
At least he could still communicate by writing.
“But how do you coordinate in combat through writing?”
And his position was Tank. A leader—a commander, essentially—who had to guide his allies from the front line.
In Party Play, the absence of communication is more dangerous than Solo Play—this is academic consensus, and I agree.
“There’s no room to hesitate.”
The recruitment quest for the powerful Tank I’d thought would be a freebie suddenly came with a time limit: I had to find him before he became useless.
* * *
In front of the Lottery Dungeon in Siheung, Gyeonggi Province, a peculiar commercial zone had taken root. Unmanned jjimjilbangs, unmanned dormitories, unmanned convenience stores…….
The streets were full of people shuffling about—they resembled the zombies of monsters.
Tattered clothes, gaunt bodies, eyes dull like dead neon signs.
Everyone’s limbs were intact, save for one man. An eyepatch over his right eye. His right sleeve fluttered empty in the wind.
By coincidence, a car stopped right before that man. The one who stepped out was a young man in a suit.
He bore a resemblance to how he might have looked in his youth—confident, passionate.
“I’d like to ask you one thing. Have you seen this person?”
The young man pulled out a photo and showed it.
“Yeah, I’ve seen him. Entered two weeks ago, if I’m not mistaken. Fresh blood.”
“Two weeks…. Thank you.”
As the young man turned to enter the Lottery Dungeon, the man blocked his path.
“Don’t go in. This isn’t a place for a punk like you.”
The man removed his eyepatch, revealing empty eye sockets.
“You know what this place is, don’t you? A Dungeon that promises enormous rewards but claims to be safe. But look at me. What I lost wasn’t just my eyes. I lost my Stats too—everything a Hunter needs to survive. And all my Skills.”
Despite the grim warning, the young man smiled and tried to enter.
“Wait, hold on. If you must go in, not today. Look at the sky. It’s too clear. On days like this, the Dungeon becomes vicious. Trust me. You need cloudy weather for good luck.”
“Were you trying to clear the Lottery Dungeon by luck?”
“Of course! Without luck, there’s no clearing the Lottery Dungeon. To pass the five trials, you absolutely need luck. I know you think I’m just making excuses, but I’ve made it to stage four.”
Then the young man suddenly pulled out a business card.
―Arc Hunter Management
CEO and Manager, Chae Mujin
“If you need a job, give me a call. I was looking for former Hunters to work.”
And with that, he entered the Dungeon without waiting for a response.
“A job……?”
A Hunter, but a useless one. All his Stats were maxed at 10, and he had no Skills.
Not only that—one eye, one arm missing. A cripple. Yet this man wanted to hire him?
“…Today isn’t the day for it.”
The sky is clear. It’s a day of terrible luck. He’d failed to clear even stage one three times.
But is he really unlucky now?
“The Dungeon isn’t cleared by luck, you said.”
He wanted to see with his own eyes. Was there a power stronger than luck in this world?
For some reason, he had the feeling that this young man named Chae Mujin could clear the Lottery Dungeon by sheer skill.
* * *
The first trial of the Lottery Dungeon had a simple structure.
Cliff to cliff, connected by a single bridge. The only oddity was that on one end, the Lottery Dungeon’s treasures floated like holograms.
「Equipment―World Tree Bark Shield (Legendary)」
「Skill Book―Diamond Indestructibility (A-rank)」
The options were unknown. But that itself stirred Hunters’ imaginations. A Legendary-rank piece of equipment and an A-rank Skill Book. Getting these would guarantee a life-changing reversal of fortune.
To obtain them, one had to pass five trials, and an old man was overseeing the first.
An old man with a bent back, standing at the bridge leading to stage two.
Just then, a Hunter who’d been observing the surroundings stepped before the old man, and the old man posed a question.
“What is the most common surname in South Korea?”
The Hunter who received the question answered confidently.
“Kim!”
“Correct.”
“Yes!”
There was no process of crossing the bridge. The moment the answer was marked correct, the Hunter vanished. He’d been transported to the second trial.
“Huh, that’s it? Ha-ha-ha!”
The next user stepped forward confidently. The old man posed the same type of question.
“What is my favorite color?”
Seeing another easy question, the Hunter grinned widely.
“Yellow!”
“Wrong.”
“What? I think yellow is your favorite!”
“Keke, I asked for my color, not yours.”
“You should have said it like that! You old geezer!”
“Then you should have asked.”
The Hunter who disputed the result drew his sword to strike the old man―
Whoosh.
With a single gesture from the old man, the Hunter’s body flew up and tumbled down the cliff.
“Aaaaaaahhhhh!”
The Hunter fell with a long scream.
Someone approached Chae Mujin, who was watching this.
“Don’t worry. It’s not as deep as you’d think.”
It was the one-armed, one-eyed man who’d followed from the entrance. He spoke with a self-deprecating smile.
“Just call me Bonggu. The Dungeon took my real name, so no one knows it anymore.”
“Bonggu.”
“Huh?”
“‘One-eye’ sounds too much like an extra. Why don’t you use the name I just made up?”
“Ha, haha. Bonggu? Really half-assed, isn’t it?”
“Do you dislike it?”
“No, it’s familiar and nice.”
“Then, Bonggu—are you going to try again?”
“First of all, I’m not ‘mister.’ I’m not even thirty yet. And since Party Play is allowed in this Dungeon, I came along to give you advice from the sidelines.”
At the word that Party Play was allowed, Chae Mujin snapped his fingers.
“Perfect. Then could you hold this for me?”
A Dungeon Camcorder was placed in Bonggu’s hands.
“Wait, you want me to film with this?”
“It’s not a live stream, so you don’t need to be nervous.”
“Uh, well…….”
“I’m counting this as you being hired starting now, so you need to film well for me, got it?”
With that said, Chae Mujin stood before the old man at the bridge.
The old man looked him up and down, then broke into a sinister smile.
“When a naked goblin makes a full-speed sprint, what’s its velocity?”
Bonggu, who was filming, was horrified.
“What kind of insane question is that! Does anyone even know that?!”
Clear days truly bring bad omens. No matter how exceptional Chae Mujin was, there was no way he could answer this question.
Sure enough, Chae Mujin’s brow furrowed.
“Which goblin?”
“Huh?”
“Swamp Goblin, Forest Goblin, Mountain Goblin, Sea Goblin, or River Goblin—which one are we talking about?”
The old man’s eyes darted back and forth as he scratched his head.
“W-well, even I don’t know that.”
Then the old man’s body flew up and was hurled down the cliff.
“Aaaaaaahhhhh!”
The old man who posed the question failed to answer his own and fell.
The Hunters watching from behind, and Bonggu filming, all had their jaws drop.
The old man who blocked the path to stage two had vanished.
Five years after the Lottery Dungeon’s appearance, an unprecedented event had just occurred.
Chae Mujin himself spoke casually.
“Let’s go.”
“C-CEO. You’re truly amazing. No one has ever thought of using a counter-question to eliminate the old man at the bridge!”
The word “CEO” and formal speech tumbled from Bonggu’s mouth.
It couldn’t be helped—in five years, thousands had attempted it tens of thousands of times, yet no one had ever tried this approach.
But Chae Mujin looked puzzled.
“I didn’t particularly intend that. Different goblins have different speeds. The most common Forest Goblin reaches about 36 to 38 kilometers per hour. By the way, the fastest Mountain Goblin is almost as quick as a cheetah.”
“……?”
He didn’t deliberately counter-question the old man into the abyss?
Moreover, knowing the answer to the problem—Bonggu and the other Hunters were even more baffled.
“CEO, how on earth do you know such things……?”
“I’m a Support Hunter.”

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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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