Hunting

After waking up, Kaizen felt revitalized as he checked to see that most marks of his wounds were gone. That is other than his tattered clothes.

In the night before, he had agreed to meet Areum and Kyong at a restaurant near the center of the city so that they could discuss their findings while eating breakfast.

Arriving there early, Kaizen took a sit in a table for three near the edge of the place as he waited for the other two to arrive.

Seeing Kaizen sitting there for a minute, the waitress approached him as she said, "Good morning Sir, have you chosen what you want?"

Looking at her, Kaizen could clearly see that she had brown hair and brown eyes with a cute face and a modest chest. Then, taking a louder breath, Kaizen replied, "Well, I am waiting for my companions to come, but I think I will take a cup of ginger tea."

Nodding her head, she quickly wrote it down as she turned around and left.

Fifteen minutes later, just as Kaizen had finished his tea, both girls arrived together a bit later than their agreed time.

As both sat down near Kaizen, Areum said, "Good morning, it seems that this town has lot of ruffians."

"Good morning. Yes, were you girls also attacked?" Asked Kaizen with a calm expression on his face.

"Some runts attempted to attack us as we were heading here, sadly for them, they are all in critical conditions now." Said Kyong with a smile on her face.

Feeling a shiver down his spine as both girls seemed to be without any injuries despite facing multiple opponents, Kaizen decided not to try to mess with them. He also realized that even for this floor, he was still not strong enough. Something that motivated him to train harder later on.

Changing topics, Areum said, "So, let's ask for some food before we continue our conversation."

Agreeing to her proposal, Kaizen called for the waitress as all three of them asked for something to eat.

Starting before the other three, Kyong shared what she had learned as she said, "It is a good thing that we chose to gather information before we went hunting. Apparently, to gain points we need to sell the monster corpses to the various centers in the city dedicated for it."

Then raising her index finger, she said, "But, to be able to sell them we need to buy licenses for it, these get pricier the stronger the monster is. Each monster lives in different habitats, and I was able to gather information about a few of them. I will send it to you after we finish eating via the pocket."

"Still, to be able to pass this floor, we have to each gather twenty thousand points in three months to buy the pass available at the center. But, after we buy them, we will be forced to leave this floor. So, for now, it would be best if we focus on gathering as many points as we can within those three months so that we can use them in the later ones." Finished Kyong as she looked towards Areum and Kaizen to see both nod at the last sentence.

Seeing that Kyong had finished, Areum started talking as she said, "After looking through most inns and asking around, I was able to find this inn here which is near the west gate of the city which costs only fifty points per night. It has good rooms, and they provide both breakfast and dinner if you pay them an extra ten points per day."

Then, taking a breath, Areum continued, "I have also asked around and found a few places suitable for eating and training. I will send both the location of the restaurants and training areas to you later. Also, it seems that it is possible for regulars to transfer points between each other, thus, some regulars try to force others to give them points by beating them. So, be careful."

Seeing that both had finished their pieces, and the food had arrived, Kaizen started to talk as both started to eat, "I was not able to find cheaper places than Areum, but, before attacking me, the ruffians yesterday said that they were underlings of Ha Hayoon."

Then, as Kaizen started to eat, he continued, "I tried to ask from the manager in the hotel I slept yesterday about her, and it turns out that she is a member of the Ha family, one of the ten great families. She was able to beat a great number of regulars and make them into her underlings in the previous two months. She also has been trying to extort points from others during this time."

Replying to his words, Areum and Kyong both said that the ruffians they saw today also said that the were under Ha Hayoon. They also decided to go buy three licenses, each of which would cost one thousand points.

So, after all three had finished eating and paid the restaurant, they started to walk toward the nearest center as they bought licenses to sell the corpses of fanged wolves, horned snakes, and black leopards.

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Fanged wolves are wolf like shineuh, each is larger than two meters and each of them has huge fangs protruding out of their mouth. Their fur color ranges from white to black and their eyes are large and sharp. Most wolves look like each other with only small differences between them other than their color. But the most distinguishable about them is the wolf leader who is more than five meters wide. It is much stronger than the other wolves and all wolves listen to its orders.

Moreover, these wolves only walk in packs of at least five individuals and any pack which contains a leader will have at least twenty other wolves with them. This makes it one of the harder monsters to hunt in this floor. But, in respect to how hard it is to hunt them, each corpse is worth fifty points. While the corpse of a leader is worth five hundred points due to the difficulty of encountering and subduing it.

Thus, if one hunts eight of them a day, he would have more than enough points for lodgings, food and to pass the exam at the end. Moreover, hunting a pack containing a leader can possibly yield at least one thousand five hundred points.

Meanwhile, horned snakes are snake like shineuh which different than the wolves, live alone. Each is at least three meters long and half a meter wide. It can move faster than most E-rank regulars and its strength is nothing to laugh at. But what makes it more dangerous is that it can use its horn to gather shinsu in the air and transform it into poison. Thus, it is recommended to attack it before it realizes the existence of opponents.

Each snake is worth two hundred points due to danger of its poison, something which if not treated within two hours will eventually lead to the death of the poisoned individual.

Among these horned snakes, a snake three times bigger than them is rumored to live in the northernmost forest. It is extremely dangerous to hunt it as no regular other than princesses of Jahad were ever able to escape alive from it. Where, only three of them have ever been hunted by these princesses. It is said that each of these larger snakes are worth five thousand points. But no one has hunted it in the last three hundred years.

Lastly, black leopards are one of the fastest shineuh present on the third floor. Each looks like normal black leopards where the size of one of them doesn't exceed two meters. It is said to be as fast as a D-rank regular and it is rare to encounter one of them. They are as strong as the fanged wolves and they tend to live in packs of three to four individuals. This makes it very hard to hunt them.

Thus, due to its speed and rarity, each black leopard is worth five hundred points. This makes it so that hunting one pack of them sufficient for a team of five to not have to hunt anything else for the day.

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After reading the information on all ten types of shineuh present, the three agreed to each buy a license to an animal they want to try to hunt. Thus, Kaizen who wanted to know the limits of his own skill adapting body chose to buy the license for the horned snakes.

Meanwhile, Kyong who wanted to test her speed after learning scout techniques that could make her faster chose the license of the black leopards. And Areum who wanted to have a good number of targets to practice her shinsu control on, chose to buy the license of the fanged wolves.

Since they were still in the morning, the group of three chose to go hunt the fanged wolves. The leopards only appeared at night while the snakes only appeared at evenings, thus, with the wolves individually being easier targets, it was not hard to choose so.

Passing through the Western gate, the group headed towards the Western forest. Upon reaching there, they entered a formation that they had discussed before. Kyong being the fastest and the best at hiding started to move through the trees and bushes in front of the group to scout the path for monsters.

Meanwhile, Kaizen being the fisherman of the party moved in the middle in the open so that Kyong and Areum would have more opportunities to kill the enemy which would be concentrating on him.

Lastly, Areum, the wave controller, moved two meters behind Kaizen as she watched the back and attacked any enemies from far away.

After walking for ten minutes, Kaizen received a message in his pocket from Kyong saying that a pack of six fanged wolves were a few meters in front of them near the river shore.

Thus, looking to the back to see tha Areum had also received the same message, Kaizen reinforced his body with shinsu as he grabbed his needle and charged into the plaace.

Seeing Kaizen charging in, the wolves quickly reacted as they attempted to surround him while the two frontmost moved to attack him.

Although the wolves were slightly faster than him even when he was reinforcing his body, due to the effects of his shinsu, Kaizen was able to jump out of the way of the two wolves as two dark blue baangs managed to hit the heads of both wolves killing them.

Seeing the death of the two in the front, two of the other wolves charged at Kaizen who managed to dodge the attack of the first and block the attack of the second with his needle.

Meanwhile, two of the other wolves headed for Areum, but just as they started to approach them, Kyong jumped down from a tree as she used her needle to slash the back of the head of the first wolf and then moved to the second that quickly dodged her attack at its neck. Still, that moment was enough for Areum to gather and shoot a baang at the other one.

Back at Kaizen's location, he was barely able to keep evading and blocking the attacks of the two wolves till Kyong appeared behind one of them and slashed off its head. This allowed Kaizen the opportunity to counterattack the remaining wolf after he dodged its attack and stabbed his needle into the head of the last wolf killing him.

Being from the Lo Po Bia family, which was famous to have many anima, those who can tame shineuh, both Areum and Kyong each possessed special handbags that had the ability to compress and store items and shineuh. Apparently, it was given to them by their parents and it was a common item between those of the Lo Po Bia family to store tamed shineuh.

Thus, by using her bag, Kyong stored all the corpses inside before they all moved to another position to avoid having to face the shineuh that will come to this place due to the stench of blood. Something that allowed their team to continue hunting for much longer times compared to most regulars.

Sitting in a small clearing, the three of them rested for ten minutes before they continued their hunt.

Using similar tactics, they were able to hunt more ten packs of wolves before they were tired out and had to return. Also, with some packs being larger than others, they had managed to hunt about seventy-two fanged wolves. Thus, each member of the group would be able to gain about one thousand two hundred points.

Returning to the city at evening, Kaizen and the girls quickly exchanged the corpses before dividing the point between themselves. Then, they went to the inn Areum had suggested they stay in as they each paid for their own rooms.

Then, to commemorate a successful first day, all three of them headed to one of the more expensive restaurants as they ate till they became full.

After doing that, they each separated as Kaizen headed to the gym to work out for two hours before he rented a training room for himself which he used to train his shinsu control for another two hours.

Finally, Kaizen return to his room in the hotel as he went to sleep after this tiring day.

Alternative Titles: Wasting Points After Choosing to Save Them – Where Are the Cliches? - Poor Ruffians, Poor Wolves