The man now wore a green trench coat that reached past his knees, its collar raised. He also now had some boots meant for walking through the forest terrain, something he'd found during his raid of a nearby PinPoint retail, and they piqued his interest.
Along with the boots, he wore thick, baggy leather pants and a warm high-collar sweater to ward off the occasional cold breeze passing through the forest.
Thankfully, with the barrier he'd conjured around himself, any monsters that did attack him would be blocked and promptly dealt with in a way inspired by Vlad III. He took a glance at his phone, checking on his "dungeon stream", as he called it. The viewing was actually quite high, with many viewers sending messages asking if he knew of any helpful information.
'Don't know why the fuck these people are asking me for help though. Just gonna act nonchalant and act like I'm not paying attention to them.' He spoke in his mind, not imagining for a second that he'd actually be able to help these people at the moment, when he himself did not have an absolute chance for survival.
Unfortunately, while he was thinking, he had wandered into the boss area and already killed it, having become extremely proficient in automatically defending himself over the past couple of days. It was now August 29th, 12:19 PM EST, and the man was already tired of everything. He was always tired of everything, but this day especially.
For some reason, Mother Nature decided to be bipolar and go from the quiet, comfortable cold weather to hot early summer weather during the morning. Now, normally, the man would stay inside and refuse to even entertain the thought of going outside, but the building he was previously camping in had collapsed, and he promptly fell into a dungeon gate.
To keep himself entertained, he had begun streaming the dungeon as he wandered, and the more he did it, the more people began asking for help from him, promising many things he honestly did not want.
Women? He had social anxiety.
Money? How could that help in their current situation?
Power? What power? Who the fuck was going to listen to him in any circumstances?
However, the chat kept blowing up with some donations and mostly comments from people who were able to watch. A new thing he also learned is that Wifi wasn't affected in the slightest, nor was his phone losing any battery for the past six days.
The most important thing in what most call an apocalypse is communication, after all.
With the main group, Kimsung was leading them through the forest. Five days inside the dungeon had already passed. Far too many for his liking. They'd have to find the dungeon boss now, or it would result in a dungeon break. When dungeon breaks occurred, they always ejected those inside, including all of the monsters in it, which was why it was expected to rush during a dungeon expedition.
Kimsung couldn't remember how far they had walked or run, but they were nowhere closer to the boss's area. The dungeon was such a large space that it made the situation far more complicated than it should have been, yet he expected it.
After all, dungeons always operated on fairness and took into account how many people would enter the dungeon, using that to increase the size of the dungeon and the number of monsters it would hold.
A typical dungeon with only one hunter would have an average of fifteen monsters, the boss included. But this dungeon, for some reason, was around the size of what ten people would generate!
Kimsung had always been suspicious of why the forest area was so large, but now he knew. Not to mention, if those siblings couldn't run any faster, the dungeon would break, and their whole goal of saving the people in the museum wouldn't matter. Kimsung himself always had a rule he stood by, to never protect the truly weak. This was something all who survived the disasters stood by, after all.
To protect someone who could not become stronger themselves and let their strength stagnate was not someone to keep alive. This is a common logic of any animal group, but unfortunately, it's harder to accomplish with humans, who can manipulate others into helping them even when they themselves are the greatest burden.
While he was thinking to himself, the siblings also had similar thoughts. Keido himself was trying his best to catch up, even circulating mana through his legs to strengthen them. Remembering the method from the novel, he had to move his mana down into his legs continuously for hours when they were at the camp until he had finally figured it out.
The method was extremely helpful, and anybody could use it themselves. Heidi herself was also using it as they kept pace with Kimsung, only a couple of steps behind him, while they ran.
Keido also shared Kimsung's earlier concerns about the dungeon boss's location. It didn't make sense that after running for nearly half an hour straight, they were still unable to find any clues to the boss. He always wondered what a dungeon looked like, because he was always reading a description of it.
But in honesty, descriptions were never the same as the real appearance of something.
He was also keeping a watchful eye on his mana reserves as they travelled. Before, he had about one-hundred and fifty-three mana in reserve, which had dropped to ninety-two mana over time.
It wasn't the best at the moment, and he'd certainly need more time to train his mana to last much longer over time, especially for drawn-out battles. The trio heard a loud howl in the distance, louder than any before, as a powerful gust blew through the forest, stopping their run.
For the past few days, Kimsung had gone through the forest, the Song siblings joining him a few times, but rarely did they actually find any wolves, most usually being loners. It made Keido suspicious that something was happening, and Kimsung shared the idea, believing they could simply be waiting for the trio.
After all, a dungeon boss was always a High Tier, and sometimes would have consciousness, allowing it to control its minions more efficiently. So far, Kimsung had only killed about four Mid Tiers, two of them were loners, and the other two were in packs, including the Mid Tier that led the attack in the museum, and the Mid Tier Kimsung killed the second day they were here.
If math was correct, and basing it on the average monster count, there would be six Mid Tiers, twenty-four Low Tiers, and the leader, a single High Tier.