HSF 6

“No! If you’re going to keep me alive, just fill my HP completely!”

“When I was fully healing you before, why didn’t you try this hard?”

“Wow, the ore is definitely piling up faster!”

Capybara obliviously remarked with cheerful admiration.

“Don’t Dark Assassin have something where they are able to deal more damage lower their health is? Is that why?”

Jimni shocked Cheong-hyeon with this innocent question. In this type of situation, Cheong-hyeon was the only one suffering. Darkness attribute assassins had a passive skill called Survival Instinct that increased hit and ambush rates when health dropped below half.

‘Hit’ was a game-wide system that gave all classes a chance to deal higher damage on attacks. ‘Ambush’ was a technique unique to darkness assassins that activated with a certain probability when attacking an enemy ‘from behind’ with a ‘hit’, dealing even higher damage than a regular hit.

This was information Cheong-hyeon absolutely didn’t want to share with Seohee1 while already suffering without heals, but before Seohee1 could learn incorrect information and become even more twisted, he quickly added an explanation.

“It doesn’t increase damage itself, but when health is below half, the hit and ambush probabilities increase a bit.”

“A bit? It’s more than that.”

Seohee1 responded in a thoroughly malicious tone.

“Don’t you see you’re getting successful ambushes on marked targets almost every other hit?”

“Yes. I’m a bit too preoccupied right now.”

On the verge of death, Cheong-hyeon was in no position to speak politely. Because of someone who was deliberately withholding healing, he was too busy trying to stay alive in the game to maintain a courteous attitude. Contrary to his expectation of more trouble ahead, he heard what sounded like a low chuckle through his earphones.

“Is it something to brag about that a DPS can’t even check their own damage output?”

“I’m busy. Don’t talk to me.”

“Do it as comfortably as you did before.”

The content was considerate, but the tone was still completely thuggish. Thoroughly irritated by now, Cheong-hyeon focused solely on hunting without asking for heals, his pride at stake. Fortunately, Seohee1 didn’t seem intent on letting him die, providing just enough healing after single hits to keep him alive. At the same time, if he was about to get hit by two or more attacks, Seohee1 would use other skills along with the heal, instantly filling his health bar and adjusting the healing amount so he could survive even after taking two hits.

Despite their unpleasant personality, Seohee1 demonstrated skills befitting a BioGod PVP content ranker. Cheong-hyeon continued hunting, careful not to take more than three hits at once.

No matter how miraculously Seohee1 kept him alive, one mistake meant instant death. Furthermore, a priest’s healing wasn’t automatic upon pressing a key. The skill required precise targeting of the desired teammate, so there was always the possibility of missing the target.

Cheong-hyeon, who had been silently hunting, broke down when he spotted Jimni returning from the 7 o’clock direction. Jimni was casually bringing twice as many mobs as before. Finally, Cheong-hyeon had to lower his tail and plead in an exhausted voice.

“I’m really sorry, but could you please give me some healing…”

“Hmm…if I fill your health, will you keep working this hard?”

“Yes…”

In less than 10 minutes of running the dungeon, Cheong-hyeon had become completely docile. Seeing this, Seohee1 openly laughed before generously providing healing. His precariously low health rose steadily before stopping just below half.

Psycho bastard…

Cheong-hyeon wanted to cry but had no time for tears at the moment, as Jimni had just completed the next mob delivery. Still, having some health restored made him feel more at ease than before. At half health, he could survive one hit without being reduced to critical health.

“Ittorang-nim, hang in there~”

Jimni offered encouragement in a bright voice before promptly leaving to deliver the next batch of mobs. Capybara, who was following behind, seemed to feel sorry for Cheong-hyeon and used a skill in the central area. Flames rose across a considerable range, setting the mobs on fire and gradually reducing their health through damage over time.

Surrounded by numerous mobs, Cheong-hyeon used the “Curtain of Darkness” skill from the ring he had equipped for the first time today. A dim area formed around him as if night had fallen, and anyone inside this area received buff effects. When Cheong-hyeon used his Blade Dance skill on the monsters, even those attacked from the front occasionally triggered ambushes.

“Is this an assassin’s special ring skill?”

Seohee1, who had been observing Cheong-hyeon’s monster hunting, casually asked. 

Cheong-hyeon almost replied “Give me healing if you’re so curious” but simply affirmed instead. After all, maintaining his health below half was beneficial for him too, and he sensed that saying something unnecessary might result in being denied healing again.

“Yes. It’s my first time using it too.”

“Ambushes are triggering even from the front…I’ll mark targets. Try hitting them from the front.”

As Seohee1 suggested, Cheong-hyeon attacked marked mobs from the front and succeeded with ambushes about once every three attempts. Though the success rate was lower than attacking from behind, it was still a significant help for hunting. Fighting in the Curtain of Darkness and prioritizing mobs with Seohee1’s debuffs, the monsters were cleared faster than expected.

“Why are you only using this now? If you’d used it right when we entered, you could have used the skill twice.”

“This has a 10-minute cooldown. It’s only hero-grade…”

These rings with special skills had a 7-minute cooldown when legendary-grade, but Cheong-hyeon’s was only hero-grade. Despite having nearly all his other equipment at legendary-grade, the reason Cheong-hyeon carried a hero-grade ring was simply because darkness assassins typically didn’t use special rings.

The standard for darkness assassins was to use Giant Jackson’s Guardian Ring in one of the two ring slots due to its substantial defense boost, and for the remaining slot, it was common to use a ring with permanent effects rather than a special ring with a cooldown.

Cheong-hyeon had obtained this special ring by chance and kept it in his inventory because it seemed too valuable to discard, but this was his first time actually using it. It was natural that Cheong-hyeon didn’t have a legendary-grade special ring. However, feeling somewhat embarrassed, he answered in a shrinking voice, which was met with Seohee1’s momentary silence.

“Darkness assassins don’t usually wear special rings, so…”

Feeling as if he was being scolded, Cheong-hyeon hurriedly made excuses. He worried that Seohee1 might decide there was no healing for DPS who wore hero-grade rings and leave him at critical health again.

“Get a legendary-grade by tomorrow.”

“…Are you out of your mind?”

Special rings weren’t items you could simply obtain because you wanted them. Occasionally while exploring fields, special mobs would spawn that were larger than normal field mobs and surrounded by an aura matching their elemental color. These mobs had a low chance of dropping special rings when defeated, and among these, legendary-grade special rings had an extremely low drop rate.

Furthermore, once obtained, these items immediately became character-bound and couldn’t be traded, so they couldn’t be purchased from the auction house either. Being asked to acquire such a difficult-to-obtain legendary special ring by tomorrow was so absurd that Cheong-hyeon dismissed it as utter nonsense.

“Let’s prepare for Grack. He’ll appear soon.”

“Capi-nim, let’s help in the center while waiting for the spawn.”

“Yes! This is my first time seeing Grack twice in one run~”

Capybara spoke with an excited voice. It had been a while since Cheong-hyeon had seen a second Grack spawn as well, but Seohee1 and Jimni seemed calm, as if this was routine for them.

[The master of the Mystic Mine is greatly enraged at losing his slaves!]

[Greedy Grack is being summoned.]

As soon as Grack spawned, he roared and struck the ground twice with both arms. The screen shook as if an earthquake had occurred, and chunks of ore began falling from the ceiling all over the map. While dodging between them and dealing damage, Jimni held aggro just like before.

The second Grack had more health than the first, but they still had about a minute left after defeating him. It was enough time to earn 8 million gold, just as Jimni had predicted.

“It took about 3 minutes for Grack to appear this time.”

“3 minutes? That fast?”

“Yeah. The darkness assassin and priest combo works quite well.”

“Ye-es. It looks like the critical-health darkness assassin and priest combo works well.”

Cheong-hyeon deliberately emphasized the words “critical health.” He consciously omitted the word “asshole” before “priest.”

“If the critical-health darkness assassin gets a legendary special ring, we could probably see Grack three times. What do you think?”

“Really? Three times?”

“Legendary grade special ring” was abbreviated as “legendring.” Seohee1 was seriously telling Cheong-hyeon to get that difficult-to-obtain ring. All just for running Mystic Mine.

“No…Do you know some special mob or something? How am I supposed to get that by tomorrow?”

“Yeah, tomorrow is a bit tight. I think it would take about 3 days, what do you think?”

Jimni, blinded by the prospect of seeing Grack three times, sided with Seohee1. Even with incredibly good luck, it would take 3 days—with bad luck, one could spend a week of hard work and still not obtain a legendary special ring.

Only extremely lucky people or those who had completed all BioGod content and had nothing else to do would spend days circling fields to obtain a legendary special ring. Most users gratefully used hero-grade special rings if they dropped. Moreover, even if a darkness assassin obtained such a ring, it couldn’t be used in other dungeons.