Chapter 51: Weapon Enhancement (3)

TL: Hanguk

I thought that dad joke was a unique greeting style of dwarves like Toreph, so I laughed a bit excessively to make a good first impression as I returned the greeting.

“Haha, you’re a funny one. Nice to meet you. I’m Seo Baek-ho.”

In response to my reaction, he gave a satisfied smile and replied.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Toreph.”

It seems I left a good first impression.

We shook hands.

Then he approached me and said in a secretive tone.

“Hey, do you know how an orc laughs?”

“Pardon?”

"Keu-keu-keu-keu-keu. Five keus make an orc."

Cut it out, you crazy bastard.

I was thinking about building favorability with this blacksmith, but now I’m hesitating whether I should just head to Seongnam.

Still, maybe because I’ve spent a long time in the athletic world, I was perfect at handling situations like this.

“Hahaha!”

A laugh I forced out.

But in response to this, Toreph suddenly teared up a bit.

“Yeah, you have no idea how much I wished for a moment like this. Thank you for coming. My friend.”

[Toreph’s favorability has increased by 10%.]

I was taken aback.

Because of Willia, I’ve come to treat NPCs like regular people.

So I figured a good first impression would be important for building favorability and accepted his joke, but I didn’t expect it would actually raise the favorability level.

‘And it increased by 10% at once? Choi Do-gyeom’s group in Seongnam said they barely hit 20% after offering tons of alcohol.’

All I did was laugh and got 10% favorability for free.

Just like how department heads like subordinates who laugh at their jokes, it seems this dwarf in front of me is that type of person.

“I’m also relieved that the blacksmith I’ll be seeing often from now on is someone as cheerful as Manager To. It’s enjoyable to work with someone who shares your sense of humor.”

“Haha! Is that so?”

[Toreph’s favorability has increased by 3%.]

Maybe I got the easiest dwarf for building favorability.

This feels like winning the lottery.

I even started imagining making this blacksmith my ally and setting up a private forge for myself right on Wolgwang Island.

“Ah, you had a companion, didn’t you?”

Feeling good, Toreph shifted his gaze behind me and greeted Willia.

“Nice... to meet you.”

“Yes, nice to meet you.”

“What’s the best medicine for a chick?”

“Peep.”

Unfailingly tossing a high-level pun at Willia too.

But Willia instantly gave the correct answer, cutting off any unnecessary follow-up jokes.

‘Peep, how cute.’

Embarrassed, Toreph scratched the back of his head and quietly stepped back.

But seriously, doesn’t this NPC seem like he’s got a perfect Korean localization patch?

“Haha!”

For some reason, the two of them were fun to watch.

Maybe because I kept laughing from earlier, Toreph, who had seemed a little uneasy, now turned his gaze back to me and gave a kindly expression.

“So, what brings you here?”

“I came to enhance my equipment.”

“For the first enhancement, a Black Iron Ingot is used, and for the second, a Mithril Ingot is required. Did you bring the materials?”

Of course.

I completely cleared out the boss room and even cleaned out the other areas, so I have plenty to spare.

[Black Iron Ingot x93]

[Mithril Ingot x18]

These were minerals I gathered by going in and out of the Forgotten Mine for nearly ten hours.

Dungeon minerals respawn after a certain amount of time, but unfortunately, the minerals in the boss room didn’t respawn.

If the minerals in the boss room had continued to spawn, the quantity would’ve been much greater than now.

‘In other words, other people can’t collect as many minerals at once as we did. I guess you could call it a kind of clear bonus.’

Toreph nodded at our preparedness and added further explanation about enhancement.

“Enhancement is only possible for weapons and armor, not accessories, and you can enhance up to five times in total. Up to +2 enhancement has a 100% success rate, but +3 has a 40% success rate, +4 is 20%, and +5 is 10%. From +3 and above, failure will destroy the equipment, so keep that in mind.”

That’s something I didn’t know.

I hadn’t heard this kind of info in Seongnam.

Is it possible that the standard for disclosing information differs even among the same type of NPC?

‘Anyway, from +3 and up, failing enhancement destroys the gear....’

This confirms it.

Whoever caused this catastrophe, whether god or alien, definitely referenced a 100% K-game system.

Toreph continued his explanation.

“Each time an enhancement succeeds, one stat, Strength, Agility, or Magic Power, is randomly increased. So if you enhance to +5, that’s +5 to your stats. Isn’t that amazing?”

It is.

As long as the gear doesn’t break.

In the end, the safe limit is up to +2, which means each gear part gets +2 to stats.

But even just that results in a significant stat boost.

When you level up, you only get one stat point, but with each successful enhancement, it’s the same as gaining a level.

And it’s not like you only wear one or two pieces of gear.

Enhancing equipment is the best method to drastically increase combat power in a short time.

“Additionally, when enhancement succeeds, weapons become sharper and deadlier, and armor becomes sturdier and more durable. Once you hit +3, it’s similar in performance to unenhanced gear from a higher tier.”

Meaning the base functions of the gear are also properly upgraded.

But then he grinned, saying the highlight was still left.

“And the highlight of enhancement is that the power of the equipment’s unique skill increases.”

“Oh…”

“Ah, and by unique skill, I don’t mean the half-baked built-in skills with usage limits. I mean skills like the Mighty Slash on your sword.”

Is it because he has an appraisal skill?

He immediately read the information on my gear.

“The enhancement boost for unique skills is 120% at +1, 150% at +2, 200% at +3, 300% at +4, and 500% at +5. At +5, the skill’s power becomes five times what it was.”

“That’s insane.”

“But gear with unique skills is hard to come by. And since gear can be destroyed from +3 and above, you need to be cautious.”

That’s true.

If my main weapon, Zerka’s Sword, were to break during enhancement, I’d cry.

Still, even just +2 increases the skill power to 1.5 times, which is nothing to scoff at.

“It’s better to see it yourself. Let’s enhance that sword of yours.”

He took my Zerka’s Sword along with the required materials.

[Zerka’s Sword / Grade: Special]

-Strength +2, Agility +2

-Unique Skill: Mighty Slash

Then the sword changed to:

[Zerka’s Sword / Grade: Special / Enhancement: +2]

-Strength +3, Agility +2, Magic Power +1

-Unique Skill: Mighty Slash (Power 150%)

It changed like this.

“This is amazing.”

“Right? Even just +2 is hard to ignore.”

-Whoosh! Whoosh!

Not only did the options improve, but when I swung the sword, even the sound of it slicing through the air felt different.

And this is only +2.

Thrilled, I handed over the rest of my gear.

“Please enhance everything.”

“Alright. The cost for enhancement is 1,000 coins for +1, and 3,000 coins for +2. That sword enhancement was a special service.”

The cost of enhancement was far higher than expected.

Even if others know about enhancement, enhancing all their gear at once would be tough.

But I’m different.

I’ve got enough wealth.

So, I enhanced all 9 of my equipment pieces and all 7 of Willia’s up to +2.

The cost came out to a whopping 64,000 coins.

Even while calculating it, I kept flinching in surprise.

This system seems clearly intended for high-level players.

In any case, I gained 18 stat points, and Willia gained 14.

In my case, I had more gear slots because I was also wearing gauntlets and greaves.

‘I should make cloth gauntlets and greaves for Willia too. That’ll be four free stat points for her.’

After gaining 18 additional stats through enhancement, here’s my current status:

[Status Window]

-Level: 47

-Title: Awakened (All stats +1)

-Stats

Strength: 26 (+14)

Agility: 24 (+21)

Magic Power: 22 (+22)

Remaining Stat Points: 0

-Coins: 274,212

After consuming the elixir Millennium Ginseng (Magic Power +10), my base stats are naturally ten points higher than others at the same level, and the stat boosts from gear are no less significant.

Though I’m Level 47, to others, my numbers would feel far beyond that.

‘As expected, starting with enhancement was the right call.’

Willia was also very satisfied with her greatly increased stats.

With this, our upcoming battles would become much easier.

Willia and I expressed our thanks to Toreph.

In response, Toreph puffed out his chest proudly and couldn’t help but admire our gear.

“I can’t help but think it’s amazing. I didn’t expect someone like you to show up this early.”

“I still have a long way to go.”

“Yes, but you seem like someone who’ll succeed no matter what.”

Was it because I laughed at his jokes?

His evaluation is very generous.

*

Though I wanted to head back immediately after the enhancements, I ended up handing over some food to Toreph and stayed for tea.

Perhaps because his lips had been sealed for a while, he unleashed a storm of dad jokes.

I think it was because I reacted well to them.

Thanks to that, by the time I left Toreph’s house, my favorability with him had reached 19%, nearly catching up to Seongnam team’s Choi Do-gyeom, who had worked hard to increase it by offering drinks.

“You look exhausted.”

“Yes, I really am.”

I felt completely drained.

Willia used Heal on me to help relieve at least some of the mental fatigue.

“Where are we headed now?”

Instead of heading straight back to Wolgwang Island, Willia and I took a short detour.

The reason was simple.

“I want to stop by the university.”

“Oh, the one that gave you the tteokbokki?”

Since I came to Hongseong anyway, I was planning to drop by and see Bean Sprout, one of my subscribers, but Willia remembered the Hongseong university team more for the food than the people.

“Huh?”

But as I stopped in front of the university building the Hongseong university team had used as their base, I couldn’t hide my shock.

The entrance looked violently torn apart, as if something had attacked the building.

Willia and I stepped inside the building, where we sensed no presence at all. Soon, we were greeted by the sight of corpses strewn across the place.

The bodies, now being eaten by maggots, seemed to have been dead for at least two to three days.

"This is...."

The only slightly relieving fact was that we didn’t see any members of the hunting team among the dead.

“They weren’t killed by monsters.”

“It definitely looks that way.”

The corpses had injuries consistent with having their necks cut or being pierced by blades.

That can only mean one thing.

They were killed by other humans.

If monsters had done it, the bodies wouldn’t have remained this intact.

“Judging by the slashes and stab wounds from various weapons, it looks like they were attacked by another hunting team.”

If that’s the case, it means Bean Sprout and the Hongseong university team either escaped with the survivors or were taken.

I had come with a light heart to visit someone I knew, only to come face to face with the harsh reality of this catastrophe.

“What will you do?”

When Willia asked, I paused for a moment before replying.

“Let’s look around the area first.”

“Understood. I heard there’s another safe zone south of here. Should we check that too? We can set a waypoint while we’re at it.”

A good idea.

We left the building, searched the surrounding area, and visited the safe zone just as Willia suggested, marking the waypoint as well.

“There’s no trace of them anywhere.”

But we found no sign of the Hongseong university team.

I really wanted to help Bean Sprout.

But I couldn’t afford to endlessly pour my time for them.

We conducted a brief investigation, then gave up.

-Beeeeeep!

A heavy mood settled over me.

I regretted not coming sooner.

Once again, I was reminded that in this insane world, humans are more dangerous than monsters.

-Beeep!

A small sound from the Communication Ring.

Just in time, my father contacted me, breaking the gloomy atmosphere.

“Yes, Father.”

[Your voice doesn’t sound good.]

As expected from a parent, he was sensitive to my mood.

So I honestly explained the situation.

And Father gave an unexpected reply.

[Then I’ll look into it.]

“Huh? But this area isn’t under government control. It’s basically an anarchic zone.”

[That doesn’t mean the military has zero presence here.]

“Oh!?”

As expected of my father.

Given the current situation, I consider it another stroke of luck that my father is stationed at the Gyeryong base.

And my father delivered some important news.

[You know that dungeon you asked me to look into, the one where the mummy appears?]

“Yes.”

[I think I found it.]

Isn’t he just the most reliable father?

The reason I was looking for the dungeon where the mummy appears is simple.

I heard that an item dropped there which allows others to use a waypoint without having visited the location themselves.

‘If I have that item, my father and mother could move with me even if they’ve never been to Wolgwang Island.’

That’s why I’d been diligently exploring various dungeons, hoping to obtain that item.

But in the end, I never got it, and so I decided to go directly to the dungeon where it was said to appear.

The problem was that, of all places, this dungeon was managed exclusively by the Nation Revival Agency and its existence wasn’t publicly known. But my father managed to track it down.

“Where is it?”

[Dongdaemun. There’s a dungeon there guarded by the Capital Defense Command.]

A dungeon guarded by the Capital Defense Command?

Currently, the Capital Defense Command no longer takes orders from Gyeryong base and only follows government directives, so it made sense.

If it were an ordinary dungeon, there’d be no reason for soldiers to guard it.

Looks like I really do need to go check it out.

I am worried about Bean Sprout and the Hongseong university team, but I still have my own mission to accomplish.

I’ll leave the investigation to my father, and after a quick reorganization, I’ll head straight to Dongdaemun.

***

“Ugh…”

Kang Yi-sol, the First Strategy Division Chief of the Nation Revival Agency, a department directly under the President, gagged as if he might vomit at any moment, barely peeking into the underground sewer crawling with cockroaches and silverfish.

“Are you sure about this?”

“I can’t say it’s 100% certain, but if a monster’s hiding, this place seems the most likely. Bloodstains from the missing cases all lead into the sewers.”

“I-I heard you can suffocate if you go into the wrong parts of the sewer?”

“We’ve already checked the gas levels in every section. Please take the lead.”

Kang Yi-sol had informed the Nation Revival Agency Director.

That there was a possibility an Elder Monster was hiding right in the middle of Seoul.

And beginning that very day, the number of missing persons started to spike, as if to prove him right.

So far, nearly 1,000 confirmed missing persons had been reported, prompting the Agency Director to order an investigation, which led to the conclusion that the sewers were suspicious.

Thanks to that, Kang Yi-sol now found himself about to descend into the sewage-filled underground.

“Elder Monsters are intelligent, right? Would they really be in such a disgusting place?”

“Well, they’re monsters, so their sense of aesthetics might be different from ours.”

“Damn it.”

In the end, Kang Yi-sol led his subordinates and some unlucky soldiers into the sewers to begin their investigation.