33 – #033 Nogada (4)
Thinking about how to bring this up to Vivian, I calculated the time it took to defeat the black dog 8 times.
The time it took was about 3 hours, and once I got used to the fight, it was greatly shortened in the middle, so if I were to catch 8 again, it would take about 2 hours.
The number of times you have to catch it is 90, so it is about 25 hours, even if you subtract 5 hours considering that you are getting used to fighting the black dog in the middle, it is 20 hours.
Since there are 24 hours in a day, 20 hours doesn’t seem like a lot at first glance, but if you use all of them in battle, the story changes.
It’s so obvious that there’s nothing to say again, but it’s much more tiring to move your body without rest than to sit still.
In particular, combat consumes not only stamina but also prayers, so the fatigue was several times that of ordinary exercise.
Aside from whether I could endure it, I wondered if Vivian would be with me for 90 catches.
“Why? What?!”
As I stared at the quest window for a while, bruising, Vivian, who became impatient, asked urgently.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“It’s not wrong… that… I guess I need to go back a bit more.”
“What? How many times?”
“…… No. 90.”
When the number came in much higher than he had imagined, Vivian tilted her head, wondering what she had heard wrong.
“…… What?”
“… No. 90.”
“… It’s ridiculous.”
“… Neither do I.”
My father said that this place was a world of amusement called a game. Then, in his hometown, did he enjoy this torture-like act of his own will?
A person who claims to suffer even while consuming his time for entertainment cannot be normal.
It was at the time when I was making a very reasonable inference that there were only lunatics in the other world that was my father’s hometown.
“I will do it with you.”
“Yes?”
When Vivian, who seemed very distraught after hearing the number 90 just before her, said she would gladly join her, I asked her back without realizing it.
“You really want to be with me? If possible, I plan to finish it within today, so it will take quite a while….”
“When I heard the word 90, I felt a bit ridiculous, but there’s no point in going back now anyway, and tomorrow is my day off, so let’s go as far as we can go today.”
With Vivian’s consent, the penance in the name of hunting began.
Although he was an opponent he had defeated 10 times, he was well aware of the strength of the black dog, so he tried not to let go of his tension, but there was a limit to that.
When the number of catches exceeded 20, I started to hunt black dogs in various ways to get a little pleasure because I couldn’t stand the boredom.
“Professor, please don’t deal with the monsters this time. This time, I’m going to catch you.”
He also pierced the body of a black dog with a pair of spears obtained by hunting small rodents and achieving an achievement.
“Before, I caught it only by hitting, so this time I will try to catch it only by strangulation.”
From noble mtl dot com
The striker was sealed with restrictions on the technique used, and he strangled a black dog using only strangulation.
Even that wasn’t enough, so I tried to get a little bit of pleasure somehow, such as killing only with a javelin or killing by attacking a specific part.
“No, I have to catch it, but why did the professor kill it?”
“I was bored just watching, so I killed myself once. It reminds me of the old days and it’s fun!”
There was even a case where Vivian was bored and ran to a black dog and beheaded her, so she reset the dungeon without any profit.
We were both mad with boredom.
That’s why, in order to get even a little bit of pleasure, I grabbed the tail, treated the black dog like a weapon, and beat monsters to death.
“Disciple pass!!”
He even used the black dog as a ball and kicked it around as if he were playing ball with Vivian.
So, in fact, around the time I started to think that I might not be a student, but a shopkeeper… We have finally reached our target number.
“It’s finally over….”
“Yes, it was a really long fight.”
Was it about an hour or two instead of the expected 20 hours?
Every time I went outside to reset the dungeon, I could roughly infer the time by looking at the shifted guard and the sky, but I don’t know exactly how long it took.
I could have finished a little faster if I didn’t have time to eat and rest, but I couldn’t skip this.
“I was surprised that the dog meat was more edible than I thought. Is your father wrong? I’ve never eaten it because it was said to be food that people eat.”
“Right? It’s worth eating once you get used to it.”
I had nothing to eat in the middle of the meal, so I had no choice but to grill and eat black dog meat.
“So now can you show me why you did this crap?”
“… Of course.”
If he said he couldn’t show it, I desperately nodded my head because he was ready to punch me.
As I turned my back on Vivian and opened the quest window, I could feel Vivian’s blatant stare at me from behind, spying on me.
However, Vivian only tilted her head as the quest window was not visible even though she could see what she was doing with her hands.
[You have cleared the crafting quest!]
[Success Reward Black Dog’s Fang Necklace will be given to your inventory!]
I immediately opened my inventory and checked the performance of the necklace. Fortunately, the performance was good enough that I did not hear scoldings about how I had suffered with something like this.
[Black Dog’s Fang Necklace] [Rating: Artifact]
[A necklace made of black dog fangs. When worn, increases strength and stamina by 3, automatically regenerates wounds, and gains resistance to poison and bleeding.
Also, by consuming energy, you can summon up to 10 Black Dogs of the same level as yourself or 10 Black Dogs that are 10 lower than your level.
If the summoned black dog is not defeated, it can be re-summoned any number of times without a cooldown, but if the black dog is defeated, it can be re-summoned after 24 hours.]
“Wow….”
To be honest, I didn’t expect much.
Of course, at first, I thought it must be an item with great performance because it is an item made through such a crazy process.
However, the more I caught the black dog, the more I saw the black dog being cut like weeds, so my expectations naturally lowered.
“What!! What are you smirking at yourself?!”
“Oh, no. I’ll show you right away.”
The black dog’s canine necklace was a shabby design made by weaving 3 canine teeth with a string, compared to 10 canine teeth, as if the material was cheap.
Maybe that’s why Vivian frowned when she saw the necklace, but it certainly looked like something cheap that would be sold at a tourist spot.
“… Is this the only thing you got from all that hard work?”
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew the performance of this necklace.”
First of all, I put on the necklace and opened the status window before summoning the black dog.
[Name: Han Yujin] [Lv: 50]
[Strength: 83+3]
[Agility: 86]
[Skill: 88]
[Stamina: 81+3]
[Qi : 84]
The increased number is displayed separately next to it. I didn’t really feel it right away, but it would be different once I got into battle.
“You said it as if you were going to show me something, but why do you keep pointing your finger in the air?”
“I’ll show you now, so don’t be impatient. First of all, this!!”
When he cut his arm with energy in his fingernails, blood flowed out from a wound like a beast’s claw.
“Mi, you madman, what are you doing… ?!”
Vivian was startled for a moment, and as soon as new skin sprouted from her wound and it began to heal, she forgot to press her and stared blankly at me.
“It automatically regenerates even if it gets hurt. Also, you get poison and bleeding resistance, but if you have any poison, borrow it for a while….”
“You bastard!!”
He hadn’t finished his explanation yet, but Vivian suddenly raised his fist and shouted.
“I was surprised to suddenly hurt myself!! Don’t do anything like this again!!”
“It’s not self-injury, it’s a performance experiment.”
“Experiment is a plague… So what other abilities do you have?”
“There are things that increase strength and stamina… And the main thing is this.”
After securing space, activate the necklace’s power, and a larger black dog than the ones you’ve defeated so far appears and bows its head as if to show respect.
Seeing the black dog that I had been playing with like a toy a while ago lowered its head and waggled its tail, I felt guilty for some reason.
“As you can see, I can summon a black dog with similar strength to mine. Also, although the strength is somewhat lower, you can summon many small black dogs.”
“Um… It’s bigger than the ones I’ve caught so far, but does the size fluctuate according to the wearer’s strength? Let me try it.”
When I took off the necklace and handed it to Vivian, the black dog I summoned disappeared in an instant, as if it had never existed in the first place.
Soon after, Vivian wearing a necklace summoned a black dog, and a huge black dog appeared that was incomparable to the black dog I summoned a moment ago.
‘It’s big….’
The huge black dog that Vivian summoned was almost twice as big as mine.
Since the wearer’s strength is directly reflected in the black dog, this must be the current gap between Vivian and me.
“I knew, but the professor is strong.”
“Yes, strong. Don’t be too intimidated. You can be as strong as me.”
“Yes, this should take about a year.”
Despite my arrogant remark that I would catch up with her in a year, Vivian, instead of getting angry, smiled cheerfully and patted me on the back.
“Do it if you can!! Me too, the sooner the better!!”
Seeing that he blushes again, it seems that the conversation is mixed up, but it’s not particularly important.
Right now, I just closed my eyes, intoxicated with the sense of accomplishment that I finally did it.
*****
[Black Dog’s Fang Necklace]
[It has excellent performance and above all, it is an item endowed with a very excellent ability of level-proportional summoning, so make sure to get it.
It takes several months with normal methods, but in fact, you can make it in one go with a trick.
First of all, defeat 10 black dogs to unlock the crafting quest, then take the fangs from the black dog’s corpses and put them in your inventory.
Then, the fangs will be recognized as those of a black dog, so you will be able to craft them right away without having to foolishly kill 90 of them.
You can put the black dog in front of you and if you think you’re going to die, you can reverse summon it and summon it again, so use it usefully!!]
[Strategy, list of useful items-13p]
The strategy really got me damn. Poor soul