'This young man,'

The old man excitedly thought.

'He might be the perfect person I need.'

He continued thinking about the man in front of him having a big smile on his wrinkled face. The old man finally felt he had lady luck on his side.

"I need information about this place."

Sung-jin answered the older man's question getting right into the action without introductions. For him, he had already spent hours asking around for information, so he just wanted to get going.

"Well, before that, why don't we introduce each other?"

The older man insisted on getting to know each other before discussing, which gave Sung-jin a sour expression.

"Sure, my name is Sung-jin."

He depressingly introduced himself.

"Hello Sung-jin, my name is Dal. It's nice to meet you."

He reached over the small round table to give him his hand. Sung-jin accepted it immediately, and he quickly continued the discussion afterward.

"Let's not waste any time here. After getting to this Underground City, I have noti ced that people don't really squander around with information about this place. So I don't expect you to give me the information for free, why don't you name your price, and we can be on our merry way?"

Sung-jin wasted no time and got to the root of his problems fast. He looked at Dal with impatient eyes.

'This young man is very clever; he can be of good use.'

He thought, examining Sung-jin very closely.

"Okay. You have correctly figured out that people who live here or know the Underground City don't talk with strangers. The fact that this city exists must be kept a secret, the reason I can't tell you."

He stopped for a second to get a breath before continuing.

"Unless you can do something for me, if you can, I will tell you everything I know."

His trembling voice stopped, and he eagerly awaited Sung-jin's answer.

'I know where this is going. The way he said that makes me believe that he will give me a quest, which will not be a bad thing. And since I'm the first discoverer of this city, I might be able to get some decent loot out of this.'

Sung-jin had made up his mind. Even though he couldn't get information about the Underground City yet, at least he got a quest which is a lot better than any information about an old city.

"Sure, I will do anything."

He cockily replied with his usual smirk.

"I like that attitude of yours. But I don't think it will be that easy for you."

Dal belittled his abilities.

"Yeah, whatever."

Sung-jin rolled his eye at his reply. He didn't really care about the remark since he was the only one who knew how strong he was. So for him, people underestimating him was quite good since no one would bat an eyelid and disturb him.

"Okay, if you are so confident in your abilities, don't come back and cry if you can't complete it. If you ever come back."

Ding-!

-System: Quest obtained 'A broken promise.'

'So it was a quest.'

Sung-jin had guessed correctly, and he continued to see what it was about.

-Quest(s)

Demon King's Quest (incomplete):

Information restricted until LVL 15.

A broken promise (Incomplete):

Search the Sorrowful Forest and find a blossoming tree.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

'The Sorrowful Forest. It's been really long since I’ve been there. However, does it even contain anything?'

He questioned the reasoning to go there, but it didn't matter. This quest was new, and he might find an undiscovered dungeon there if he followed the quest.

'I don’t think there is anything there, but since it's based on my previous experiences, I might be wrong. In fact, I know I'm wrong, which makes this very exciting.'

He showed a big grin to Dal, and he accepted his quest.

"I will go now."

He quickly stood up and walked toward the exit showing no signs of hesitation.

"Good luck."

Dal wished him the best on his journey. It didn't take long before the young man he just talked with was no longer there.

"I hope you can right my wrongs."

His excited self from before turned somber. He stood up as well and sauntered with his unsteady feet towards a rack on the wall. The rack was surrounded by the countless trophies that he had achieved through the years as a hunter.

"I should have protected you…"

His voice trembled more than usual, and tears began to stream down his cheek. His hand reached towards a picture that stood on the rack; his hand quivered as he touched the person's face on the picture.

"I'm sorry."

…

'A blossoming tree? Where do I find that in a dead and desolate forest?'

Sung-jin reread the quest's description after he had left the Underground City to make sure he hadn't read it wrong. He walked out of the alley and rejoined the town square again.

'It still very busy even though I been gone for a few hours. But this time, it seems the new players had settled into their new environment.'

He looked at passersby, who looked like they were about to go into the wild and farm some monsters.

'They are probably going to the Grass Lands; the first zone new players will be introduced to. I should go there and check it out too.'

He had made up his mind, and he had a clear plan as he advanced.

'There is a dungeon in the Grass Lands, and I will be able to get a better weapon than this.'

He looked at the Goblin's Knife in his inventory. It was the only weapon he had left because he may have forgotten to take his sword back before going through the portal.

'So I definitely need a better weapon… I probably won't get another rebirth. And I don't know about this quest I got; it might be difficult, so I need to prepare.'

He joked around a bit before he left for the Grass Lands.

…

'Ahh, here we are!'

He took a deep breath after walking out of the big gate that led to the first zone, Grass Lands. He scouted around the area, making sure it was still the same as he remembered it.

'Yep, still the same.'

He sighed. For some reason, he had expected it to have changed while he had been doing dungeons, but nothing had changed at all.

'That's good. It means I won't get any surprises!'

He smiled and walked down the dirt path that connected with the cities cobblestone road at the gate.

Ding-!

-System: Discovered 'Grass Lands'

The familiar sound rang out as he had just left Kintroies city. And after walking for a bit, he noticed something right away; he could see countless people to his side fight against monsters.

'This surely brings back memories.'

He felt nostalgic as he saw the players fight against the weak monsters surrounding the city walls. Small slimes and Horned Rabbits were the monsters nearest the walls, which were great for beginners since you had to be very weak to die to them. But if you walked a bit further away from the walls, you could begin to encounter packs of wolves, which you didn't want to face unless you knew what you were doing.

'But these monsters won't help me level up; I'm too high of a level.'

He began to think about the system's way to make players leave zones when they hit a specific level.

'This was what happened in the tutorial too. When you reach a level higher than the zone you are in, you begin to get less and less exp until you get nothing from the monsters. So let's say a slime gives ten exp to a level two-player; to a level ten-player, it might only give one or even nothing. The system effectively forces players to go to another zone to get higher levels.'

Sung-jin had deeply thought about the system and how it pushed people to more dangers. But to him, it wasn't a bad thing.

'It does mean I won't get much out of this Grass Lands zone which is between LVL 1-5. But there should be some useful items here.'

He thought as he stepped out from the dirt path and crossed over the grass. He could begin to see a little forest not far away and a narrow trail that led to an ominous hole in a hill.

'This should be the place.'

He neared the hill, and as he had thought that nothing could surprise him, something did manage too.

'Wow! Why are there so many people here?'

He scouted the area, and a mass of players had crammed up the area around the hill.

"A party of four in search of a support!"

"Any tanks?!"

"We need some mages!"

Many people yelled for different reasons, and some had set up small booths to sell the items they had gotten.

'There is so much activity. It's so different than the last time I was here. I guess it's because this is the first dungeon, so the risk of dying is not high.'

Ding-!

-System: Discovered 'Spider Hill'

'But I have heard cases about well-organized raid teams getting annihilated here. So there is maybe a hidden boss inside the Spider Hill. I have never encountered one, but then again, I have only raided it once before. So who knows?'

Sung-jin ignored the system notification and swiped it away. He walked through the mass of players pushing the ones aside that were in his way.

"What is this guy doing?"

Some people began to question the man who seemingly was going to enter Spider Hill alone.

"Does he want to die?"

They began to laugh at his stupidity. Usually, a successful raid with players in the level five range consists of a party with at least four players. But this guy was going in alone.

"Has he completely gone mad? Or could he be of a higher level?"

Some began to suspect that he could be a high-level player, but they were discouraged by that thought when looking at his items.

"Surely, a high-level player wouldn't walk in the starter gear. This guy just overestimates himself."

Ding-!

-System: Do you want to enter 'Spider Hill'? Yes or No.

"Yes!"

The already proclaimed dead man confidently exclaimed. No one could see his smile, but they would think he was utterly insane if they could. As he disappeared into the dungeon, the players had already forgotten about him, just thinking that it was another waste of a life.

Ding-!

System: Entered dungeon. Clear objective: Kill the Spider Queen.

"Now, let the fun begin!"

Sung-jin exclaimed aloud, and with his cocky smile, he took out his weapon and prepared to clear the dungeon.