“You can exchange it at the Floor Shop.”

“Exchange? You mean you can exchange gold for won? Is there a bank?”

“At the Floor Shop, stupid.”

Although my intelligence stat was now at 10, I had a lot to gain in the areas of common sense and logic. Increasing my intelligence stat artificially still wasn’t the same as being born with a higher intelligence. 

I mindlessly argued with my father about this point as I didn’t quite understand what he meant by going to the dungeon’s Floor Shop. In the end, I had to pay for my foolishness with my body as my father ended up giving me a lesson. It was true that the body suffered if the mind was stupid.

A week later, I re-entered the dungeon as my cooldown period was finally over. Instead of immediately attempting to conquer a floor, I turned around and went to the 2nd Floor Shop.

I hadn’t visited either the 1st or 2nd Floor Shops because I had been previously told that what I really wanted was at the 10th Floor Shop. I wanted to save my gold as I felt I would waste it if I saw what was on display at the other shops.

“Yes, customer, you can exchange 2,400 won for 1 gold.”

“2,400 won!?” I gasped.

The Floor Shop owner, who was a pretty noona, replied, “Yes, customer. The exchange rate changes at 6 A.M. every morning, so I suggest you exchange it now when the rate is high.”

2,400 won!

I usually got 1 gold for every three slimes I killed on the 1st floor and it became 2 gold for every three bees on the 2nd floor. Although I had not killed many goblins yet, they dropped 4 to 5 gold at the same rate.

The amount of gold dropped would probably  increase exponentially as I went higher into the dungeon. As of now, I had 655 gold in my possession. Although my mental math skills weren’t perfect, I knew I would have well above 1,000,000 won if I exchanged all the gold I had.

1,000,000 won! This was an unimaginable amount of money for the fifteen-year-old me. Even the sight of a single Sin Saimdang[1] would make me tremble, but 1,000,000 won meant that I could have twenty Sin Saimdangs!

I was certain 1,000,000 won would be a large amount for any fifteen year old. I finally understood why my father asserted that being a dungeon explorer was the highest paying job there was.

“Wow.”

I stood there blankly in awe. Following that, I almost impulsively asked the shop noona to exchange all of the gold I had. Right before I was going to tell her, I remembered an important fact. To obtain qi, I had to buy a mana cultivation method. To do that, I had to go to the 10th Floor Shop, and I had to buy it…with gold.

“Ah.”

My shoulders drooped down. Then, the shop noona looked at me with worried eyes and asked, “What’s wrong, customer?”

“N-No, it’s nothing. Thank you.”

Although I was conflicted by my final decision, I swallowed my tears and turned back. Qi! I gave up 1,000,000 won for this thing called qi! However, my father had harped on the importance of having qi for as long as I could remember. Thus, I chose to prioritize obtaining qi rather than getting 1,000,000 won.

Once I obtained qi, I vowed to exchange all the gold I had and eat all the delicious things in the world with that money! With that, I jumped into the 3rd floor.

Naturally, because I forgot one important thing, I became paralyzed by the goblins’ darts and was beaten to death again.

“What am I supposed to do, Father!? I got kicked out because of you!”

“My son, how are you that stupid? You could have just left the dungeon.”

“Ehhh, why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“Ah...When you level up, increase your intelligence stat first, got it? I’ll tell you how to deal with the poisonous darts first…”

It was actually quite simple. All I had to do was just buy and consume the paralysis recovery potion from the 2nd Floor Shop. One potion would make me immune to paralysis for an hour. How could I have missed something so easy? I truly regretted not checking what the shop sold earlier.

On that day, I made two vows. The first was that I would visit the Floor Shop every time I cleared a floor and check what was being sold. The second was that I would increase my intelligence stat when I leveled up.

As a result of those vows, I was able to safely reach the 5th floor within only half a year.

“Grawr! Human!”

“Human, bigger than us!”

What appeared on the 5th floor were creatures that resembled pig-headed humans and they were able to speak the human language. According to the message noona that spoke to me from time to time, they were monsters called orcs. Although I felt close to them because our size was similar, they annoyed me because they only saw me as food and attacked constantly.

However, I was at a disadvantage when I faced them directly. Due to my previous vow, I had put 15 points into intelligence, and my intelligence was now at 20. Although I had gotten smarter, my other stats were low for my level. Since I didn’t know how to raise my other stats, I had to fight these orcs with subpar stats.

“Grawr! Human, weak! Weak!”

“Who’s weak!? Argh, I shouldn’t have put everything into intelligence. Argh!”

Now that my intelligence was at 20, I could finally work out the reason why I was losing against them. Of course, knowing the reason alone wasn’t enough, so I was forced out of the dungeon after being defeated.

With my enhanced intelligence, I finally began to use my brain and had figured out how to interact normally with others my age. I had stopped talking about dungeons at school after the ‘Kang Shin Dungeon Explorer Incident’, and after my intelligence reached 20, I understood that it wasn’t normal that I could enter dungeons. It also came to my attention that having family spear techniques passed down to learn was also not a part of the normal life of an ordinary kid.

After coming to the realization that I might end up a loner for the rest of my life, I started to furiously study common sense. By the time I had been kicked out of the 5th floor for the tenth time, I was finally able to interact like a normal human being. There wasn’t much I could do about my huge frame, but I had finally managed to make some friends.

Consequently, that was also how I became aware that there were online RPG games to play.

“Uh…”

“What’s wrong, Shin?”

“No, this dun…”

I almost said the word ‘dungeon’ before I realized my mistake and swallowed it back down. The RPG game character’s ‘status’ was too similar to the status I had. That being said, I couldn’t show my status window to my friends. Technically, I could open my inventory and bring out my wooden spear, but I didn’t, as I was afraid the government would come to take me away.

However, I was now certain of a few things. Although the interface was different from the one I was used to, there were many things in common, like how it also had an inventory, status windows, and monsters. Thus, I began to learn how to game with the hope that it would help me in future dungeon explorations.

There were a few marked differences between the two. In the dungeon I had access to, my ability to level up wasn’t linked to the number of monsters I killed and the amount of experience I gained from that. In fact, all I could get from them were their body parts, gold, skill experience, and the chance to obtain extremely rare equipment. By analyzing this, I found the answer to my problem.

If my stats were too low, I had to make do with skills. My attack power could also get stronger with increased skill levels. This was what I learned from playing games.

“Uraaaaaaaah!”

“Grwar, mere human!”

“Mere orc!”

I quarreled with the orcs as I stabbed at them with my spear. When I told my father about it, he treated me like a weirdo.

As I fought the orcs on the 5th floor, my mid-rank spear technique had slowly leveled up. It had started out at level 3 but by the time I entered my first year of high school, which was half a year after I entered the 5th floor, my spear technique had finally reached level 10, the master level. 

[You have mastered the Mid-rank Spear Technique! You can strike even more fiercely and sharply with your spear. You can intimidate others whose skill level is lower than yours.]

[You must possess mana to learn High-rank Spear Technique. You currently cannot learn the High-rank Spear Technique.]

Once again, my lack of mana had held me down. However, I did not give up. I knew I could gain mana once I reached the 10th floor.

To be honest I had already realized the real issue. My father had been unable to gain any mana even after being a dungeon explorer for twenty years. I finally understood what that meant after my intelligence had increased. However, I did my best to ignore the implication. I didn’t want to accept the fact that I…could not obtain mana. As I was afraid of finding out the truth, I didn’t ask my father to confirm my suspicions.

The 5th floor was different from the other floors. Unlike the first four floors where my level had gone up automatically once I reached the end of the hallway, there was a large door at the end of the 5th floor’s hallway. When I stood in front of it, the calm voice once again spoke to me.

[The Floor Master, Orc Lord, is beyond this door. Would you like to enter alone? Or would you like to request a party with players from other dimensions?]

What was beyond the door was undoubtedly the ‘boss monster’. This would be the first time I had ever faced a boss monster, so I was extremely excited. I didn’t know what the voice meant by other dimensions, but I thought that asking for help would be incongruent with my growing pride as a strong man. As expected, I slammed the door open to meet the boss alone.

“Orc Lord! Fight me!”

“…”

“… Grawwr.”

Inside the room were about fifteen orcs, and all of them were glaring at me. Further inside was a larger orc sitting on a large chair while biting down on a piece of meat. It raised its head and I realized just how big it was.

It was wearing thick steel armor and had a glaive leaning next to him. I knew right then that it was the Orc Lord. I revealed a light smile.

“Oh, I came to the wrong place.”

Although I quickly stepped back, unbeknownst to me, the door had closed behind me automatically when I had stepped in. The orcs slowly got up one by one as they picked up their weapons.

“Fudge, those things hurt like hell,” I whispered to myself as I lowered my head.

It had been a while since I was last kicked out of the dungeon.

I had been beaten to oblivion.