While I was lost in thought, everyone else had finished collecting their rewards. Ellos clapped his hands and drew everyone’s attention.

“Good work today, everyone. Without each and every one of you, we would have failed to defeat the Orc Lord. As fellow comrades climbing the dungeon, it would be great to stay in touch.”

“Stay in touch? How?”

“You can send a friend request to whomever you want, and you’ll be able to contact each other whenever you are both in the dungeon.”

“I see.”

After hearing his explanation I realized there was still a lot for me to learn about the dungeon’s functionalities. I registered Ellos as a friend. Although I didn’t really want to register Palludia as a friend, because she sent an angry look my way, I friended her as well. I had a hunch that if I only friended Ellos, Palludia would throw a tantrum.

“Then will you be heading to the 6th floor now, Mister Kang Shin?”

“Yep. My goal is to beat the 10th floor.”

Ellos stuttered, “Uh… that…”

“…?” I gave him a questionable look.

Ellos seemed to want to say something, but dropped his head down.

“N-No, it’s nothing. Um…good luck. Call me if you ever need help. I will help you as much as I can.”

“Mmm….Got it.”

What could it be? I tilted my head in wonder, but because I felt his sincerity, I nodded.

The party disbanded. Like magic, I was sent back to the place I was before, the Floor Shop next to the stairway to the 6th floor that was beyond the boss room. I went to the Floor Shop to check if there was anything special to buy, but confirmed that there was nothing. As I walked to the stairway energetically, the shop noona cheered me on with a smile.

“Do your best! Ghosts like to suck out and consume human energy!”

“Thanks, noona! …Wait, ghosts?”

The 6th floor sounded more grim than the 5th, but I still yelled out ‘commence exploration’. In an instant, darkness surrounded me.

“…Eh?”

Shuuu

“…Eh?”

Did I hear something? I felt goosebumps running down my arm.

This is just the type of atmosphere I hate the most.

I gulped down my saliva and walked forward. The next moment, something crept up on me abruptly.

“Ugyaaaah!”

A shrill and embarrassing scream came out of my lips as I fell. If my father ever heard this scream, I’d never hear the end of it. Something had attacked me while I was flailing around.

“Hukiiiiiii!”

“Ugyaaaah!” I screamed again.

Ghosts are scary! I thrashed out with my fists, but they passed through the apparition easily. I knew in that instant that it hadn’t been defeated as I instinctively knew that my attempts at hurting it had failed.

[A Wraith has tainted your soul! Because you have no MP, your HP will decrease continuously.]

“Hukiiiii!”

“Ugyaaaah!”

There was more than one! Several ghosts appeared and attacked me. In my panic, I didn't even think of using my spear as I screamed at the top of my lungs and thrashed around with my arms and legs. Unfortunately, they had no effect whatsoever, and my HP continued to drain. In the end, my HP had reached 0 and I was kicked out of the dungeon. It was a rather embarrassing exit.

“Father!”

“Woah! What are you yelling for!?”

I indignantly exclaimed, “You lied to me!”

“About what?”

“I haven’t seen a single mana stone this entire time. There are wraiths on the 6th floor. Without qi, you can’t defeat them at all! Tell me honestly, what floor are you on?”

“…Well, you see, son.” My father hemmed and hawed.

“What floor are you on?”

When I glared at him intently, my father finally told me the truth.

“T-The 6th.”

“Faaaaatheeeeer!”

When I shouted, my father flinched.

“Ehem. What’s wrong, Shin? You can earn a lot of gold just by defeating orcs on the 5th floor. That’s where I got the money to buy this house, car, and your mother’s bag. See, your father makes good money.”

I grumbled, “For someone who’s only been to the 5th floor, you sure talk big…!”

“Hmph, you won’t be much different. You’ll be hunting orcs forever.”

“Fatheeer!”

Instead of trying to make me feel better, my father was actually making fun of me! I suddenly really wanted to grab him by the collar but I noticed my mother and Yua staring at us through the door crack, so I pushed down my desire. 

“Sigh. I didn’t become a dungeon explorer just to hunt orcs…”

“Shin, this is not a chance everyone can have. Orcs give 10 gold, which can be exchanged for 20,000 won. Three orcs for 20,000 won. Do you realize how rich this mine is?”

“But father…”

“What’s wrong?”

“I want to have qi!”

“You…!”

Father looked at me with a touched expression. His body was trembling. Suddenly, he embraced me. No, it was more like a wrestling move.

“As if you can obtain qi when even I can’t! You better not get it before I do!”

“We’re done, father! DONE!”

In the end, I went back to the 5th floor. But I didn’t want to just hunt orcs all day. After I had  experienced the thrill of fighting the Orc Lord, ordinary orcs were no longer enough to satisfy me. Now that things had come to this, I decided to obtain more Muscle Compressing Elixirs. I chose to enter a party and fight the Orc Lord again.

Of course, there were many hurdles in my quest to get Muscle Compressing Elixirs. First, it turned out that I could only fight the floor master once a day. Even if I succeeded, I could only try again the next day. Of course, if I failed, I couldn’t enter the dungeon for a whole week. Since the Orc Lord was no pushover, I ended up having a fifty percent chance of being kicked out of the dungeon no matter what party I had joined.

Another limiting factor was that the Muscle Compressing Elixir did not always come out as a prize option. Furthermore, I wasn’t guaranteed to get the 1st place contribution either. Sometimes, I was left with just power potions, which temporarily granted a strength bonus, and low-grade healing potions.

There was good news as well. There were two reasons why my physique resembled the Hulk’s. Not only were my muscles overinflated compared to a normal person’s, but my bones were also larger than average. Simply put, I had the bones of a dragon. About half a year after I succeeded in my first Orc Lord hunt, a new compressing elixir had appeared on the fourteenth time I defeated the Orc Lord.

[Bone Compressing Elixir (Rare)

When consumed, the body’s bones will be compressed to be smaller and stronger. However, if one’s bones are already compressed to the maximum, consuming it may have no effect or may even kill the user in the worst case scenario.]

“Whoopee!”

Similar to when I first obtained the Muscle Compressing Elixir, I jumped with joy when this new item dropped. I immediately consumed the Bone Compressing Elixir, and this time, my constitution went up by 1 permanently.

Consuming compressing elixirs didn’t always increase my stats, but they did increase them from time to time. Consequently, it wasn’t really a bad thing that I was stuck repeatedly hunting the Orc Lord. Most importantly, fighting a strong opponent like the Orc Lord played a vital role in quickly increasing my low-rank martial arts skill.

After I spent a whole year grinding like this, I discovered that it was becoming easier and easier to kill the Orc Lord.  In addition, it seemed like an unknown network had appeared amongst the other dungeon explorers because whenever I created a party, the people who joined would ask if I was the ‘Crown Prince’. When I asked them what they meant by Crown Prince, they answered it was the nickname given to the person who specialized in hunting the 5th Floor Master. The official title was the Crown Prince of 5F.

“C-Crown Prince…”

Unbeknownst to me, I had somehow gained a humiliating nickname. Of course, I knew it was a way of acknowledging my strength. After battling the Orc Lord for a year, I had grown strong enough to defeat the Orc Lord without losing a single party member.

Naturally, my increase in stats from consuming the elixirs was one reason why I was getting stronger, but there was a more important reason: my stronger martial art skill. It had grown to the same level as my spear technique. With it, I could quickly read and react to the orcs’ every move.

Someone had also contacted me after a year. It was Ellos. He had told me he was now going through the 9th floor.

[Sorry. If only I could teach you my mana cultivation method…]

“It’s fine. I know it’s your family secret. I also heard you can’t trade things bought from the Floor Shop either. That’s my luck, I guess.”

[In other dungeons, ghosts don’t appear until after the 10th floor. It’s unfortunate you became an explorer of the First Dungeon…what a shame.]

“Like I said, that’s just my luck.”

I could feel Ellos’ concern for me. It was then that I also realized that this was what Ellos was about to tell me a year ago before he decided not to.

Three months after Ellos contacted me, someone unexpected had also contacted me. It was Palludia. I honestly thought that I would never see or talk to her again.

[…I heard you’re still on the 5th floor.]

“Tsk, where are you?”

[H-Hmph, I’m already on the 13th floor. I’m different from you.]

“Good for you…”

It wasn’t sarcasm. I really was jealous of her. After all, I didn’t become a dungeon explorer just to make money. Treasures, monsters, exploration! I wanted to experience new things. I wanted to fight with more diverse, stronger monsters.

Although I knew Palludia would make fun of me, I didn’t really care much about it now that a whole year had passed.

[I-If…If it angers you that much, hurry up and climb up! There’s no point in dawdling on the 5th floor!]

“But I have no mana.”

[Eek, do something about that with your spirit! You saved me twice, so you should be able to do at least that!]

“…Heh.”

What? Is she trying to cheer me up? Although I could only hear her voice, I knew she wasn’t making fun of me. I felt like I had received an unexpected gift.

[W-What…]

“Thanks.”

[Ehhh!? I didn’t do anything you should be thankful for!]

“I’m just grateful. You cheered me up. I’ll try harder.”

[Uhhhh…do what you want! Next time, you contact me first, stupid!]

Then she hung up. After my conversation with her, I kept my eyes closed for a while, then slapped my cheeks and got up.

“Alright, let today’s hunt begin!”