Transcension Academy

C33 – Dungeon Sweeping Contest (3)

Since then, Seo-joon ran from dungeon to dungeon with Man-cheol.

Seo-joon took about 10 minutes to raid a dungeon. Considering that other participants usually spent 30 minutes, Seo-joon raid speed was overwhelming.

On top of that, Man-cheol's driving skills and sense of finding directions were unrivaled, and he was able to arrive 15 minutes faster on average than the expected arrival time indicated by the GPS.

When these synergies were combined, Seo-joon literally ran around the dungeons.

When Seo-joon swung the spear, a skeleton collapsed helplessly. Then, when Seo-joon raised his head, skeletons filled his gaze.

“Dda-dda. Dda-dda-dda-dda.”

At the same time, the crackling sound of teeth was heard in Seo-joon's ear.

"Phew! That's a lot."

Seo-joon looked at the slowly approaching group of skeletons. Even if he counted roughly, the number easily passed three digits, but Seo-joon was not very nervous.

Skeleton was a one-star monster, and it was so weak that even ordinary people could beat it with a club. Of course, it was impossible in reality because of the mana shield, but if he were to consider their combat power, he wondered if it was really a monster.

Seo-joon jumped up, hitting the ground as if he had stepped forward, then he landed in the middle of the skeleton group and swung his spear wide.

The skeletons were swept away in a long semicircle since they couldn’t stand Seo-joon's blow and broke lightly.

"It's definitely easier with the new weapon."

Seo-joon checked the spear he was holding and was already looking forward to the Longinus' spear, which was sold at the Transcension Academy.

As he was thinking, skeletons appeared again.

"Let's get it over with."

It took Seo-joon less than 10 minutes to clean up hundreds of skeletons and left the dungeon after.

"One!"

While doing squats without fail.

Seo-joon put his bones down in front of Man-cheol, who shakes his head.

"I'll put it down here."

Man-cheol immediately sat down and started working.

The dismantling required for the skeletons was the bone marrow extraction. In the first place, nothing could be gained from a skeleton with only bones.

If it were Lich, the bones would have been worth a lot, but these were a one-star skeleton's bones.

Literally, what could be obtained was bone marrow. Still, skeleton bone marrow could be used as a potion material.

However, the amount of it came out was insignificant and the work was difficult, so it was common to just throw them away.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

The official supervising the contest was bound to be dumbfounded by the two's actions. No, he was dumbfounded since Seo-joon came out of the dungeon with the skeletons.

"Oh, you don't have to worry about it."

But Seo-joon waved his hand telling him to not pay attention.

The civil servant wanted to do so more than anyone else, but he couldn't help but care about the sight. However, Seo-joon and Man-cheol were busy continuing their conversation, not knowing how he felt.

"Old man, 20 seconds is enough, right?”

"What do you mean 20 seconds? Ten seconds will do."

Man-cheol skillfully picked a bone marrow collector and the bone marrow was sucked into the collector.

Seo-joon was well aware that it seemed like a simple task of inserting a collector into a bone, but it was not.

A skeleton has hundreds of bones but only a few of them contained bone marrow and their positions were different for each skeleton.

It was a difficult task that required a good eye and a delicate sense of discrimination even if it looked simple but they would not even be able to collect the bone marrow if the collector was not accurately stabbed in the bone.

It was easy for Seo-joon because he had Chiron’s sense but Man-cheol was an ordinary person.

"Old man, you're better at finding than I thought. I thought you'd have a hard time with this."

"How long have I been working in this field? Ugh, it's empty here.”

Nevertheless, Man-cheol accurately separated the bones with and without bone marrow while talking.

"One!"

"Oh, this bone has a lot of bone marrow."

And the civil servant was watching the whole scene.

‘What am I looking at right now?’

His spirit ascended to heaven and in addition to him numerous government officials in charge of the contest also ascended.

The dungeon sweep contest was organized by the central government, precisely by the dungeon management team, which is a part of the Ministry of Public Administration and Security.

The Dungeon management team must also manage and supervise dungeons that appear in Korea.

In addition, they have to calculate the break time of the dungeons that weren’t raided and ask the hunter team from the same Ministry of Public Administration and Security to cooperate.

They were also in charge of commissioning the job to a guild or attack team that cooperated with the government.

In short, it could be said that dungeons that occur in Korea must go through the hands of the dungeon management team.

"Manager Kim, the Dungeon sweep contest held today. Did you finish writing the report?"

And Shin Young-seok was none other than the head of the dungeon management team.

Kim replied to Shin Young-seok's words.

"Yes. I organized it and put it on the team leader's desk.”

"Really? You did a great job."

Shin Young-seok nodded and went to his desk, where a few reports were neatly placed there.

"Let's see…"

Shin Young-seok sat down and slowly scanned the report.

<Dungeon notice list>

[Dungeon list: 541]

[The number of dungeons processed: 522]

"As expected, they couldn't take care of everything."

The purpose of the Dungeon Sweep contest was to deal with dungeons that no one would raid.

Therefore, the dungeons that had to be dealt with first, i.e., dungeons where a dungeon break was about to occur, needed to be dealt with first, and on the first day, such dungeons were announced first.

Nevertheless, not all of them were dealt with, but there was no big worry because the Dungeon Sweep contest was held for a week anyway.

"But it's been dealt with quite a bit this time. I thought there would be 100 left."

Shin Young-seok turned over the pages of the report one after another.

Procedures for disposing of the remaining dead bodies, where various budgets are used, etc.

Miscellaneous contents related to the contest were written and at the end was the number of dungeons every contestant dealt with.

"Oh, 16. That's quite a lot."

Shin Young-seok exclaimed at the first number.

Although the monsters in low-level dungeons were one to two-stars, it takes an average of 30 minutes to raid at the student level. In addition, considering the travel time between dungeons, it takes about 1 hour to 1 hour and 30 minutes to raid a dungeon.

On top of that, considering the time to eat and rest, they could raid only six to eight on average a day so 16 was considered a lot.

"Somehow, the number of dungeons handled was high. If it's 16 raids, it’d be first place as of now."

Shin Young-seok passed a report to check the ranking of participants.

[2nd place: Lee So-yeon (16)]

"What?"

2nd place? 16?

"Who made 17 raids?"

Shin Young-seok slightly looked up and confirmed the name above.

[1st place: Kim Seo-joon – 32]

"What? 32?"

Shin Young-seok jumped up from his seat and shouted without realizing it. His sudden action drew attention from people in the office, but Shin Young-seok had no time to care.

"How can he…in just one day…"

Shin Young-seok turned his head and gestured to Kim Da-ri, who was staring at him.

"Manager Kim! Wait a minute."

Then, Assistant Manager Kim slowly approaches.

"Is there a problem?"

"What's this?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Isn't this report wrong?"

Shin Young-seok said, pointing his finger at ‘[No.1: Kim Seo-joon – 32]' written in the report.

"Look at this. First place 32 raids. It can't be possible in a day.”

"Oh… that."

Kim replied with a nod as if he understood now.

"I was so suspicious so I checked everywhere, and there was no problem."

"He really did 32 raids?"

"Yes. Everything was as clean as ever, and most of all, according to the dungeon's supervisors, he took only 10 minutes for a raid."

"What? 10 minutes? Does that make sense?”

"I've checked it several times and it's not just one or two places, but all 32 places have said that."

Shin Young-seok looked blank for a moment at Kim Da-ri's words.

"What if he's not a student? Or did someone help him?"

"Of course, I checked it, but there was no problem with the regulations."

"No cheating? What academy is he from?"

"Dream Academy is a small academy in Eunpyeong-gu, Seoul."

"Dream Academy?"

Shin Young-seok tilted his head a few times and said,

"Wait. Wasn't it the academy run by the granddaughter of the Sword Saint?"

"The granddaughter of the Sword Saint?"

This time, Assistant Manager Kim tilted his head a few times and said.

"Oh! No wonder! I thought it was a name I've heard before, so that was it.”

The two faced each other in silence.

“…”

“…”

"Did the Sword Saint intervene?"

"…Let me check."

Assistant Manager Kim quickly returned to his seat with a pale complexion while Shin Young-seok looked at him then turned to the report again.

[1st place: Kim Seo-joon – 32]

"What did he do?"

Shin Young-seok couldn't figure out what to think about this.

A building located in Noryangjin, Seoul.

The sign of the building said ‘East Academy' but the whole building seemed to be the East Academy.

As if to prove the fact, there were many aspiring hunters inside the large building, and training and classes for each subject were being conducted on each floor.

Lee So-yeon was a student at the East Academy and now, Lee So-yeon was heading to the top of the East Academy.

Lee So-yeon is a promising member of the East Academy and Lee Seok-man, the director of the East Academy daughter.

However, So-yeon knew better than anyone else that the path she was walking now was not just for that reason.

So-yeon opened the door on the top floor of the academy.

"You missed the first place."

Lee Seok-man's words were heard immediately.

Lee Seok-man, former A-list hunter and current director of East Academy.

"I'm sorry."

So-yeon just bowed her head at his cold words.

"Do you think it's going to end just because you're sorry?"

“…”

Lee So-yeon closed her mouth tightly.

So-yeon did the best she could. She split her sleeping time, eliminated her break time, and even skipped meals for the raids, that’s how she managed to do 16 raids but she was at her limit.

"If you miss the first place this time, the East Academy image will suffer a lot of damage."

"…I'll try harder."

Lee Seok-man looked at So-yeon and said,

"32. Do you think that's possible?"

“…”

So-yeon didn't answer, but she was actually thinking it didn't make sense.

It is physically impossible, in the first place because of the time constraints and So-yeon, who did 16 raids, was keenly aware of it.

However, Lee Seok-man nodded and said,

"I think it's possible…..If someone helped.”

"That means…"

"So-yeon, do as you always do. I'll take care of the rest."

So-yeon closed her mouth at the cold words of Shin Seok-mal. It was because she knew well that that meant cheating.

In a word, it meant that since the other side cheated first, they would also cheat on this side.

So-yeon could not know in detail what the method was, but judging from Lee Seok-man's behavior, it would not have been simple. But before that, it was a priority to make sure that the other side cheated.

So-yeon could only think that Lee Seok-man was mindful of cheating in the first place.

"Are you reluctant?"

"…."

"Don't be afraid. In the end, it is the law of the world to move according to profit. As a result, it's important who wins and what benefits they take, but the process doesn't matter."

So-yeon neither nodded nor shook her head.

"You're not still thinking about Jin-soo, are you?"

"…No.

"Jin-soo was stupid. I don't think you're stupid enough to do such a stupid thing."

"Of course, don't worry."

So-yeon nodded resolutely and left the room.

After leaving the room, So-yeon trudged and walked. However, whenever she took a step, certain memories passed through So-yeon's head one by one.

‘So-yeon, if you want to become a professional hunter, you should never compromise your heart.’

‘That's funny. Who in the world thinks like that these days? They became pro-hunters to make money.’

‘Please don't say that anywhere, I'm begging you, okay? I'm ashamed of myself when people laugh at me.’

‘What? You are embarrassed?’

‘Uh. Very.'

Those eyes. The eyes that she couldn’t see anymore.

"If you're dead, don't show up in front of me anymore."

So-yeon walked coldly as if she were shaking off the memories that came to bother her.