The Regressed EX-Class Martial God Decided to Become a Thousand-Star Hunter - Chapter 8

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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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Chapter 8
Episode 8.
『Mana Rank increased: F+ ⇒ E-』
『You may acquire the Cannibal’s Characteristic, Contempt for the Weak. Y/N』
Ju Do-gyeom’s eyes gleamed.
The long-awaited rank increase, and now an additional trait offer on top of it?
It certainly felt like the effect of a Special Mana Stone.
The wonder was brief.
Ju Do-gyeom’s gaze fixed on the trait—Contempt for the Weak.
The reason the system asked a question when acquiring a trait, unlike skill or stat rank growth, was straightforward.
Generally, there was a limit to how many traits a hunter could acquire.
Fundamentally, the maximum was three.
There were cases where this number could increase through special equipment, other traits, or skills, but that was the baseline.
That’s why the Hunter Community always emphasized that trait selection required careful consideration.
They weren’t easy to obtain, either.
Later on, there were cases where traits hastily acquired early became a liability instead.
Ju Do-gyeom didn’t hesitate.
“I’ll acquire Contempt for the Weak.”
『The user Ju Do-gyeom has acquired the trait Contempt for the Weak.』
As a Returner, he had multiple ways to easily expand the maximum trait capacity.
More than anything, Contempt for the Weak.
This was a trait he couldn’t refuse.
The effect was simple.
When fighting an opponent weaker than himself, all his stat ranks upgrade by one tier.
In other words, Ju Do-gyeom’s current Mana stat at E- rank would become E when fighting the weak.
What mattered.
Was that this improvement applied—as stated—to all stats.
And that there was no ceiling.
Even in this age, when humanity’s limit was called S rank, one could reach S+ rank.
With just the single trait of Contempt for the Weak.
Some might wonder if this mattered when fighting those weaker than him.
‘Of course it does.’
There was never just one weak opponent.
Ju Do-gyeom spoke, a smile crossing his face unbidden.
“With this, I could go straight to ‘that place.'”
Again, his plans had shifted.
But there was no sense of burden.
As he said, he was smiling—it felt that good.
* * *
The next day.
Ju Do-gyeom returned to Yong Dungeon once more, sold the remaining Mana Stones, and purchased several items.
First was Dungeon-Origin Clothing.
Plain, but with good mobility—long sleeves and long pants.
They were better for warmth and protection than short sleeves and shorts.
And most importantly, they were cheap, so there was no burden in buying them.
The second item he purchased was a Dungeon-Origin War Hammer.
It was quite long, with a large, heavy head.
In an inventory that held only twenty slots, it alone took up a full eight.
The seller said the official name was War Hammer, but to Ju Do-gyeom, this wasn’t a war hammer at all.
A true war hammer was far lighter and more efficient, designed for anti-personnel combat.
Yet the reason Ju Do-gyeom bought this fake war hammer—this heavy maul—was simple.
‘It’ll be useful in the dungeon I’m planning to enter next.’
Besides, this item was very cheap.
The reason was the same.
It was heavy and cumbersome.
Dungeon-origin weapons typically commanded steep prices, but this maul was hard to sell, so he could buy it at a discount.
After purchasing clothing and weapon, Ju Do-gyeom’s next stop in Yong Dungeon was the Magical Items shop.
As the name alone suggested.
Everything sold here was expensive.
But it was worth every bit of it.
It was here that Ju Do-gyeom purchased the third, fourth, and fifth items all at once.
One was the Rope of Infinity.
To the eye it appeared an ordinary cord, but this belt-form magical item’s effect was straightforward.
It extended infinitely.
Even if severed, it regenerated.
Beyond that, it had no special functions.
Its durability wasn’t exceptional, nor could it change form.
So it had its limitations for combat use, but it was invaluable nonetheless.
Dungeon work presented terrain so bizarre that you’d find yourself wondering how you were supposed to get past it—not often, but far more frequently than you’d expect.
The next item was the Purification Water Jug.
Its effect was exactly what the name suggested.
It purified contaminated water.
It even neutralized poison.
Though admittedly, only up to a certain toxicity threshold.
In any case, it was the thing responsible for meeting the vital hydration needs that humans required in most situations.
The last thing he purchased was the Mental Strength Enhancement Ring.
Truth be told, this one was the most expensive.
The first two items were so sought after they qualified as hunter basics, and consequently had substantial stock.
With cheap materials and easy production, hunter craftspeople were churning them out like factories.
But the Mental Strength Enhancement Ring was different.
Few people could make it, and the materials were costly.
Fundamentally, you needed to process and melt down several low-grade Mana Stones just to begin, or so he’d heard.
Despite all that, Ju Do-gyeom emptied his pockets to buy this ring.
Was it because he, a solo player, needed to resist mental status-effect magic that could occur in dungeons?
No.
The more pressing concern was the madness from the Heavenly Killing Nature.
‘It’s only at the level of swinging a fish around right now.’
But it had manifested.
If it manifested, he couldn’t predict where that madness would strike.
With this ring, he could manage it to some degree.
At the very least, he could catch any abnormal sensation in his mind before the madness even manifested.
Having finished his magical item shopping, Ju Do-gyeom
used his remaining change to buy some Dried Rations he could eat inside dungeons and packed them into his inventory.
The so-called War Hammer—the Mana Stone alone took up eight slots, leaving his hunter-exclusive inventory completely full.
‘I need to expand my inventory soon.’
With his shopping complete and a new objective added to his list, Ju Do-gyeom returned home.
* * *
Back in his room, Ju Do-gyeom first opened his smartphone’s banking app and checked the stock market.
His initial capital of one million won had, with reinvestment in between, grown to tens of millions.
A few days ago.
Ardent Bioscience had received FDA approval for its emergency mana recovery serum.
Ju Do-gyeom watched the numbers climb with an unmoved expression.
It was only natural.
If the future unfolded as he remembered it before his regression, this money would soon become hundreds of millions.
If he cashed out around the peak as he was planning to do?
It would have reached over a billion won.
Against that standard, tens of millions was still a pittance.
No, if he was being blunt, he’d feel just as unmoved when hitting a billion.
Because he could earn far more money afterward, exploiting future knowledge?
That wasn’t nothing, certainly, but the more fundamental reason lay elsewhere.
Capital became meaningless scraps of paper once he reached the future he knew awaited him.
He had lived through that.
That said, it didn’t mean he was indifferent to money.
This was still an era when society functioned.
Cash had its uses, so he checked the news and kept his banking app ready, just in case.
The Oh Jin-seok incident had taught him the future could change.
He’d already set it to sell automatically once the target price was reached.
With that done, Ju Do-gyeom let go of his thoughts about money that hadn’t yet reached his hands.
Instead, he crossed his legs and examined the internal injuries he’d sustained in the Cannibal’s Mansion.
They hadn’t fully healed yet.
Still.
‘This should be enough to move on.’
The decision was made.
He headed straight for his next destination.
Ju Do-gyeom opened his mouth.
“Dungeon entry. Destination locked: Zombie Burst.”
His body vanished from the Earth.
* * *
Zombie Burst.
This dungeon was a world teeming with zombies, just as its name suggested.
One of its defining features was an open-world design.
In other words, it was a dungeon where multiple hunters could explore a vast map simultaneously.
The clear condition was fairly straightforward.
『Eliminate 1,000 zombies within the time limit.』
『Entry time limit: 72 hours』
The daunting numbers and strict time restriction made it clear this was no easy dungeon.
On top of that, there were entry restrictions.
Hunters with overall stats exceeding D-Rank could not enter.
However, unlike Cannibal’s Mansion, it wasn’t among the Hunter Community’s fifty worst dungeons.
Rather, it consistently ranked among the Hunter Community’s hundred greatest dungeons to exploit.
The reason was simple.
The world inside Zombie Burst mirrored the twenty-first century Earth.
Here, you could find not just weaponry like electric chainsaws that ran on power, but with luck, firearms and explosives as well.
Though broken, they could be repaired and used once brought outside.
Even expensive electronic devices had resale value.
That’s why it was such a lucrative dungeon.
Danger?
That was inevitable for hunters.
And that requirement of eliminating 1,000 zombies.
You didn’t have to rack up the kills alone.
You could clear the dungeon quest together with party members.
For reference, the standard maximum party size was three.
While solo might be daunting, with three members, even 1,000 zombies became manageable.
In fact, considering the twenty-first century dungeon items available inside, anyone at a lower rank who hadn’t visited at least once was a fool.
That was the reputation Zombie Burst had earned.
Ju Do-gyeom entered Zombie Burst alone.
This was when all his stats still hovered between E-Rank and E-Rank.
Honestly, even for a returner like Ju Do-gyeom, it should have been reckless.
After all, he was no longer a first-time dungeon entrant, so the tutorial protection no longer applied.
‘But that’s only if I didn’t have Contempt for the Weak.’
The zombies in Zombie Burst were numerous, but each individual was far from strong.
To put it bluntly, even an F-Rank hunter wielding a weapon could easily defeat ten zombies solo, as long as they didn’t panic and fought properly.
Which meant.
For Ju Do-gyeom, now with all stats at E-Rank or higher, every monster in Zombie Burst was prey for Contempt for the Weak.
Incidentally, the starting point upon dungeon entry was random.
In Ju Do-gyeom’s case, he had landed on an apartment rooftop.
By dungeon standards, it was an optimal starting point—a rare spot with decent high ground in this otherwise dim, urban setting where moonlight was the only reliable light source.
Ju Do-gyeom spoke without thinking.
“My luck is good.”
He never imagined he’d find himself quoting lines from the web novels he used to read.
The current situation pleased him immensely.
His reason for entering Zombie Burst was fundamentally rooted in confidence and a clear objective to obtain certain things here.
But there was another purpose as well.
Training martial arts skills that yielded better results inside dungeons.
For instance, things like the Ground-Binding Internal Cultivation Method and the Heavenly-Binding Internal Cultivation Method.
As mentioned before, these internal cultivation techniques produced minimal mana growth on Earth, making training yields negligible.
Inside a dungeon, however, it was different.
Since a dungeon the size of one Seoul district—like Mapo-gu, Gangnam-gu, or Dobong-gu—would characterize Zombie Burst’s interior, finding a peaceful place to cultivate such internal methods would be effortless.
‘And my starting point happens to be an apartment rooftop.’
A high-rise apartment rooftop at around twenty stories.
Of course, even in a place like this, Zombie Burst brought the undead crawling out.
As Ju Do-gyeom glanced around the rooftop, he saw it at once.
Screeeeee—!
A zombie lying motionless on one edge of the roof lurched upright, shrieking an inhuman cry.
Ju Do-gyeom drew his War Hammer from his inventory without a word.
Normally, even wielding it with both hands, he’d feel its considerable weight.
But now it felt almost effortless.
Crackle—!
His entire body thrummed with the power of his Characteristic: Contempt for the Weak.
All ability ranks raised by one tier.
Ju Do-gyeom could feel the effect viscerally now.
The zombie sprang to its feet and hurled itself at him with a howl.
The undead in Zombie Burst weren’t sluggish relics from some bygone era—they were MZ-Generation Zombies, quick and vicious.
Ju Do-gyeom regarded it calmly, then swung the War Hammer with casual ease.
Crack—!
The satisfying sound of impact rang out as the hammer’s head connected cleanly, and the zombie spun through the air like a top, plummeting from the twentieth-story rooftop.
Its inevitable pulped finish was no surprise.
He didn’t bother watching it fall.
The first zombie’s movement had been a signal.
All across the rooftop, the sprawled corpses stirred and rose in unison; the ones lurking in shadows emerged and began their charge toward him.
Not a bad situation at all.
As he’d said, his purpose here wasn’t a matter of a few kills.
First came martial cultivation; second was restoring his combat instincts, which may have dulled slightly after the Regression.
Zombie Burst—a dungeon where he’d need to fell a thousand of the undead—was perfectly suited to the task.
And finally, he could seriously test the capabilities of his Heavenly Killing Nature.
His eyes filled with crimson dots.
Each one blazed on the bodies of the charging zombie horde.
A smile spread unbidden across his face.
And why shouldn’t it?
Zombies were already the ‘dead,’ weren’t they?
Yet he could see the points where those dead things could die.
Paradoxical as it sounded, it was all the clearer for it.
The Heavenly Killing Nature’s ability to slay anything was manifesting properly.
Ju Do-gyeom moved forward in silence, a single thought crystallizing.
‘That’s right—might as well rack up the Madness gauge.’

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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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