I Became a Father - Chapter 6

Translator: Ayana
Editor: Effefille

—–

“That’s right, just play, just play.”

I brought her here to do that anyway. I also brought extra clothes just in case. After washing and changing her clothes on the side of the stream, I put her on the grass.

“Pahaha!”

Dododo, degureureu, dododo.

Sehwa crawled, rolled, and crawled again with a bright smile. Every time she moved, my heart was filled with joy. Sehwa touched the soil, smelled the flowers, plucked the weeds, and tasted it …..

“No, no! Don’t eat that! No, spit it out! Spit it out!”

I ran to her and took the weeds she was trying to put in her mouth.

“Boooohooo—”

Sehwa looked at me with a dissatisfied gaze for a moment, but fortunately, she quickly shifted her interest to other things. Her whole body was coated with a very thin mana, so there was no need for me to worry about her getting injured, infected, or upset her stomach, but I still had to look after her.

If I did this outside, my brain would burn out and burst because of insufficient mana. But it wasn’t that difficult in the Mirage.

“Huuu—.”

Now, take a deep breath! The mana I used up a few minutes ago was recovering….. no, it was restored all at once.

If the mana concentration on the basic level was this much, I was looking forward to the 50th floor. The level of the mana concentration in the Mirage was the same from the 1st floor to the 49th floor, but it would change at the 50th floor. Then, it would be the same again from the 51st floor.

I didn’t need any support from the audience, so the 50th floor was my goal. I decided to let Sehwa play a little longer, then I would finish climbing the Mirage today.

But I was worried.

The 71st floor.

“……Should I go or not?”

There were dozens of hunters who entered before me, but no one was visible right now. The reason for that was the ‘Save Point’, a service that allows one to move to the last floor one conquered. It meant that there may be no one who started from the first floor after awakening, like I did.

In particular, if I took the ‘Save Point’ on the 71st floor, it would be possible for me to just roll around at the house without having to go through the entrance and come to the Mirage. It would reduce time and cost of transportation.

But……

The level after the 71st floor was the level that the audience can see, watch, and cast their likes to the hunters.

“…….Hick!”

I suddenly fell in a bad mood. It felt unpleasant and disgusting. So we should just stay until the 50th floor. More than that, I could just find a house in Hapjeong Village. I turned my head after making such a big decision.

-Kwakakakak!

“Kieeek—haaah—kieeek—come on!”, one of the goblins said.

Not far away, I heard a ‘friendly’ conversation between a group of goblins and a man.

“Kieeek—Why so many—kieeek—go away!”

Why were they so loud?

Someone might think that the first floor was filled with just Goblins.

Oh, come to think of it.

Did the goblins come over after hearing that there was a dragon here?

[<The First Barrier> has been completed.]

[Effect: Unrecognizable, inaccessible, sound blocked, magical reaction completely blocked]

[Exception target: The First Wizard]

Those who approached could not see Sehwa, and Sehwa could not see those who approached, but I made the barrier visible to me. It was also made with a defense function.

“Hoo, hoo. Hey, newbie hyung!”

Soon, a smallman, who seemed to be 10 years older than me, came to me. I was going to wait a bit and see him later but, why did we meet this soon?

Kim Sapal. What is this guy doing on the first floor?

Sapal was wearing his hood and pressing it deeply, then gently took it off and pointed at himself with his thumb.

“I’m a level 48 hunter. Level 48. You know what that means?”

“Oh, I’ll answer that for you! You haven’t received a patronage yet!”

“…….Damn it.”

Sapal’s nose twitched at my piercing answer.

“Now you’ve awakened, you act like you’re the best, huh! What I mean is I’ll give you a ride on the bus.”

“But I came by taxi.”

Does he also work as a bus driver? Our Sapal was more diligent than I thought…..

“What bullshit are you trying to say? Anyway, 15 million won to the 20th floor! You know it’s a good price, right?”

Ah! That was what he meant by ‘bus’. I forgot about it for a moment, since no one gave me a ‘bus ride’ in The Initial Dungeon. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t train on a floor that was 20 levels above me. However, if I caught the boss monster, the token would fall.

The ‘bus’ was the popular nickname for when a higher ranked hunter carried beginners through the early floors.

“I’m a total pushover. Did you know that?”

The 20th floor ‘bus’ cost was usually around 20 million won. Sapal’s offer price was definitely unbeatable. Well, since I was aware of a great dimensional unit, his offer didn’t really tempt me. He said he was a pushover, though, so I might as well check if he really is.

“150,000 won?”

“Are you crazy?”

He wasn’t a pushover. That was a lot of money.

“Don’t you know that there are active skills on the 10th floor?”

Of course I knew. Everyone knew about that. Active skills were the reason why a hunter paid for the ‘bus’. The hunter, after awakening, only had passive skills. Do you remember how the difficulty and content of the tutorial determine the basic qualities of a hunter? The same applied here.

If a hunter broke out of the B-Rank tutorial with his sword as his main weapon, he would get a B-Rank swordsmanship as a passive skill. And when he goes up to the 10th floor of the Mirage, he would gain an active skill related to swordsmanship, and he could get a total of five active skills by climbing up to the 50th floor.

After that, it was case by case. This lengthy explanation only applied up to the S-Rank tutorial. Why did he bring out Passive Skills? It was because he completed the tutorial with only his passive skills. The EX-Rank tutorial was different.

I already have Barriers and Dragon Language as my skills.

[Passive skill]

-Initial Magic Power (Rank: EX)

[Active Skill]

-The Initial Language (Rank: EX)

-The Initial Barrier (Rank: A)

So my list of skills were like this. The Initial Language would mean the Dragon Language. With Magic Power, Dragon Language, and the Barrier, I completed the Initial Dungeon and awakened with these three skills alone. Still, I didn’t have enough power to bring out the skill engraved in the soul. More than that, it was because my Barrier skill was rank A.

Let’s cheer up! Small Citizen A!
(T/N: Small Citizen as in ‘financially and literally his figure on small side’)

Wait. What should I call myself if I exceeded the Small Citizen A-level? I wasn’t a big citizen, and I was also not a Small Citizen B. Was I a Small Citizen EX? Should I call myself the maker of that term? I kept thinking about Pellet Town which reminded me of a lightning rat spouting a million volts.
(T/N: Pikachu, get it? XD)

“Follow me. You can pay half the money on the 10th floor and the rest on the 20th floor.”

Sapal must have felt good. He had a groundless belief that things would go his way. Unfortunately, I had no intention of taking Sapal’s unconventional sale bus. It wasn’t because I don’t have money. Well, it was true that I didn’t have money, but I wouldn’t ride it even if it was 10,000 won.

“Uahh, what, what is that!”

“Kekek—Don’t be scared! No matter what comes out on the first floor, you’re safe with me…”

In the middle of that ruckus, I moved a distance to him and turned his head away.

“Yap.”

Dismissing delicacy, I moved my magic power roughly.

-Ppatteutteutteutteuk!

Like the goblin friend from a while ago, Sapal also fell down with his neck rotated 720 degrees.

“The monsters will not be a threat. But a hunter on the first floor can be a threat,”, I whispered to Sapal, who was already unable to hear anything.

It’s true that I killed him, but it wasn’t murder. ……Ah, was it the reverse? I murdered him, but I didn’t kill him.

I wasn’t saying this under the influence of alcohol; I don’t drink. I did say I completed the tutorial in 1587 years, but I wasn’t a psychopath. I didn’t murder him because he laughed at me earlier nor because his talk annoyed me.

Hunters who died in the Mirage have a curse to resurrect even if they die, like in the EX-Rank tutorial. Look, even now, Sapal’s dead body already disappeared. He would resurrect in an hour. He couldn’t even argue with me because he wouldn’t know why he died.

[You committed a murder.]

[The chaos level increases.]

[Chaos Level: 10]

Well? Oh my.

Even if I didn’t know if it was me, could I know that it was me?

“Ppa?”

“Yes, have you finished playing? Shall we go now?”

Since Sehwa hadn’t seen it, it should be okay, right? Now, let’s start climbing!

—-

I went straight up to the 10th floor.

It was easy to find the stairs, although they said that the location would change every hour and the mana structure was also different.

It was also easy to find the boss monster. The proud feeling of knowing that he is the best in the world and the unique feeling of excitement were also reflected in his mana. Ah! Most of the monsters could not move between the floors, so it was not his only misunderstanding.

Even if I died thousands of times as a Hunter, those sad memories disappeared with the resurrection. After all, wasn’t unlimited resurrection more of a curse? Rather, it was more bothersome to keep Sehwa from seeing it each and every time. Since she was a dragon, it doesn’t pose a problem for her to witness many deaths, but still I don’t want her to.

“Ppa~ah~”

I didn’t want my daughter, who smiled brightly at the flying butterflies and shook her hands, to become familiar with death.

-Etching!

-Ppacheucheut—!

-Jooong!

Huu huu.

Thanks to the dense mana, I was able to protect the life of the butterfly and Sehwa’s heart without any blood or internal injury.

“Ayaya.”

However, my stomach felt sore because of it. Wouldn’t it have been like this if my daughter was not the daughter of the dragon, but the daughter of the devil? No way. It was just because I was a good man! Our cute and kind Sehwa is due to me.

[You committed a serial murder.]

[The chaos level is greatly increased.]

[Chaos Level: 70]

But how did this happen?

“This is it, I won.”

If anything bad happens, I decided to do it instead of Sehwa. But I was still a law-abiding spirit who was said to be a serial murderer! I wouldn’t talk too much. I decided I wouldn’t do anything else that could be problematic.

“Ppa?”

“That’s right? Nothing happened, right?”

“Ppa~”

When I rubbed her face with my cheek, Sehwa smiled and patted me.

-Splash, slop!

My daughter, your love is so tough. Now, let’s look back on what went wrong.

—-

“Ppa! Ppa?”

During the climb, I encountered various forests. The bamboo forest where the panda lived, the forest lush with baobab trees, the forest of the little prince, the pine forest and so on. Thanks to the rice paddies on the first floor, Sehwa did not try to climb down and walk on her own even after seeing the new forest.

Thanks to that, the climb took less than an hour. It was several times faster and more stable than a climb with other bus drivers, including Sapal. With this, I could decorate the cover of ‘Monthly Hunter’, published by the International Hunter Association, and appear in the history as “Hunter of the Year”.

It was my job to tell them about this. However, I decided not to inform them.

“Yap~”

-Quaddeuk!

The secret was to catch only boss monsters that drop marks, a really efficient and life-critical hunting method! There were some people who shouted very great logic that the ethics of life should be applied to monsters, but when they learned the room, they would give me a title…

[You are the disaster of the <Slugs>.]

[You are the disaster of the <Oaks>.]

[You are the disaster of <Skeleton>.]

[You are the disaster of the <Augers>.]

[You are the plague of the <Slimes>.]

[You are the disaster of <Ghost Force>.]

[You are the disaster of the <Lizards>.]

[You are the disaster of the <Golem Legion>.]

……Won’t they give it to me?

It was a natural result when I confirmed the tutorial achievement that I was recognized as I became <The Goblin Disaster>.

It feels so good to treat people as walking disasters, hmmm. Not bad, right?

“It’s more convenient if the dragon language works well!”

I was starting to like it. When you feel better, your mind relaxes too, doesn’t it?

———————————-

Notes :
– 태초 (Taecho) as initial and apparently there a place named 태초마을 (Taecho maeul) aka pellet town in Pokemon which is Ash hometown.