Owner of the S-Rank Dungeon Campsite - Chapter 40

“Underground? Do you mean root vegetables like potatoes or carrots?”

“Similar, but a bit different. In your world, Boss, vegetables like potatoes and carrots have stems that grow upwards. These don’t have stems. They survive solely on the nutrients in the soil.”

“Oh, I see.”

Usually, plants are organisms that have cell walls and chlorophyll for photosynthesis, but it seems the definition of plants in the dungeon is somewhat different.

“But if there’s no stem, how do you find them?”

If they’re only underground, how can one locate them? We can’t dig up the entire campsite with a shovel…

“I have a treasure detection skill. It’s originally for detecting magic stones or rare items, but occasionally it picks up plants as miscellaneous items.”

“That’s a really useful skill!”

They say Gold likes shiny and valuable things, and it turns out he has a related skill.

“I’ll try using it here now.”

“Okay!”

[Gold(A) uses ‘Treasure Hunting(B)’.]

A green radar-like pattern appeared on the ground. It rotated a few times, then made a ‘ding’ sound as a notification rang out.

[Gold(A) has detected something.]

“It’s here!”

Gold’s black hand dug into the ground. The surface undulated following the movement of his hand.

[Gold(A) has obtained ‘Horn of an Enraged Minotaur(E)’.]

When he pulled out his hand, instead of a plant, he was holding a monster’s horn. And it was an extremely low-grade item.

“Hehe. It’s not just plants that get picked up as miscellaneous items!”

Gold laughed sheepishly, as if it had been just for show. He continued to examine other areas of the ground.

[Gold(A) has obtained ‘Wind Dragon’s Essence(C)’.] [Gold(A) has obtained ‘Ancient Golem Fragment(D)’.] [Gold(A) has obtained ‘Sculpture made by a Cyclops(D)’.]

The campsite’s location was said to be between the Dragon’s Forest and the Giant’s Forest, and indeed, traces of various monsters could be found.

Even if they were miscellaneous items, they might be useful somewhere, but without crafting knowledge, they just looked like ordinary stones to me.

[Gold(A) has obtained ‘Shrunken Giant’s Pebble Bracelet(C)’.]

Then, for the first time, a piece of equipment appeared.

[Shrunken Giant’s Old Pebble Necklace(C)

− Negates one threatening attack.]

It was an accessory with an effect. Although it’s a consumable item, the effect was good.

Especially for me, who has little use for percentage-based stat increases due to my low base stats, this was a suitable item.

I immediately took the bracelet out of my inventory and put it on. Each pebble was intricately inscribed with ancient characters, and what looked like monster teeth were embedded here and there.

While I hadn’t obtained an amazing item, this was still quite a haul.

Gold digger isn’t all bad after all! I’m sorry for calling you a magic stone eating machine!

“Go, Gold!”

“Yeeaah!”

I enthusiastically cheered Gold on from the side. Riding the momentum, Gold intensified his detection efforts.

[Gold(A) has obtained ‘Leroro Fruit(D)’.] [Gold(A) has obtained ‘Akasari Berry(E)’.]

…

[Gold(A) has obtained ‘Akasari Berry(D)’.]

Soon after digging up a few plants with potato-like clusters, a quest completion window appeared.

[You have completed the quest.] [You have acquired ‘Grade Up’ as a quest reward.] [‘Yu Bom(F)’ has been promoted from F->D.]

W-What…?

[‘Pitching a Tent(F)’ has changed to ‘Pitching a Tent(D)’.]

I thought the ‘Grade Up’ reward would apply to a sub-skill, but it suddenly upgraded my exclusive skill.

And by two levels, no less.

“Is this for real…?”

“Boss! Grade up! Congrats congrats!”

“Master, you’ve been promoted! Congratulations!”

Gold, who had received the shared system window, was the first to congratulate me. Teddy, who seemed to have received the notification as well, came running to offer his congratulations.

“Th-Thank you all…”

I was dazed by the unexpected reward. Even in large guilds, there might be only one hunter who had experienced a grade up.

And I had broken through such slim odds.

‘System. Is it really okay to be this generous with me?’

With this, the stat limit also increased, and my stats were redistributed. F-grade had a stat cap of 10, while D-grade was 21-40.

[Name: Yu Bom

Class: Campsite Owner

Level: 5

Exclusive Skill: Pitching a Tent(D)

Stats: Health 25 Dexterity 28 Constitution 21 Charm 40 Luck 32]

‘Charm is overwhelmingly high again? What exactly is charm used for?’

At first, I naturally thought it was a stat that affected people. I guessed it might make people suddenly appear more handsome or pretty.

But apart from Teddy quickly finding me by detecting my charm at the beginning, I’m not sure what effect it’s supposed to have.

People’s attitudes towards me were similar to before I awakened.

‘Or was it because even at its highest, it was only 10 back then, so the effect was too subtle to notice?’

At 40, it’s quite a high value now, so the changes might be more noticeable.

Anyway, I had thought the system was looking down on me because the skill descriptions were a bit offensive, but it seems that wasn’t the case.

Looking at its actions so far, it felt more like it was desperately trying to guide someone with only a rat’s tail of talent.

‘I’m sorry for doubting your love! Semen!’

So, my exclusive skill, Pitching a Tent, became D-grade. The tents I had set up before still maintained their F-grade effects, so it seemed best to tear them all down and pitch them again to apply the D-grade effect.

“Since my grade has gone up, I think I need to pitch the tents anew. Can you help me?”

“Yes, Boss!”

“Yes, Master!”

I took them to the center of the campsite.

‘One, two, three, four small tents. Add the medium and large tents… Why are there so many?’

Thinking about tearing them down and rebuilding, they suddenly seemed exceptionally numerous.

“Teddy and Gold, can you start with the demolition? I’ll pitch the tents. Ah. Let’s keep small tent No.1 and medium tent No.1 as they are. I think it’s better to leave those two because their buff effects are good.”

“Yes, understood!”

“Okay!”

I distributed the tasks and started pitching the small tents. When I first pitched tents, I was overwhelmed reading the complicated instructions, but now I could do it smoothly.

With the extra room to think, I could even make comparisons.

The small A-frame tent takes a bit of time to stand up on its own but is easy to assemble, while the medium dome-shaped tent has more parts to assemble but can maintain its shape without packing down.

However, it’s not easy to make a dome structure for an extra-large tent accommodating more than 10 people. For groups of 5 or more, tents tend to get longer.

That’s called a tunnel tent.

‘For long-term camping, a tunnel tent is definitely more stable.’

[Small Tent – Increases evasion rate by 5% per 6 hours] [Small Tent – Increases critical hit by 5% per 6 hours] [Medium Tent – Increases starlight resistance by 5% per 6 hours] [Medium Tent – Increases attack power against nature-attribute monsters by 5% per 6 hours]

For now, I pitched two each of the small and medium tents.

Previously, the effects were per 24 hours, so guests who only stayed at night essentially couldn’t benefit from the tent buffs. But with the newly applied tents set for 6 hours, they should be able to gain the effects while sleeping.

Moreover, percentage-based attack power buffs were the most popular. Especially since nature-attribute monsters are the most common in jungle-type dungeons.

“Wow. My ability has really become useful.”

In this situation, I was starting to look forward to pitching the large tent that I hadn’t set up yet.

“But I’m not sure how I installed the large tent before. I should look at the instructions again.”

[Large Tent

– Accommodates 8 people

– Installation method (Expand▼)

1. Spread out the tent skin and attach each pole to the corresponding sleeve according to color.

2. Lay the poles in one direction and peg down at position B.

3. Pull the skin taut at position A and peg down.

4. Pull up the laid-down poles in the order of the arrows to stand them up and shape the tent. Pull the skin taut and peg down at position F.

5. Hook the edge poles on both sides.

6. Peg down at positions C, D, and E.

7. Install the inner tent according to the entrance direction.

8. Hook the string loops to the holes beside the edge poles, pull taut, and secure.]

The large tent is much more challenging to pitch.

“Ugh… I feel like I’m going to be sick.”

Even looking at it again, the instructions made me dizzy. When I first read it, I couldn’t understand and had to read it over and over.

Unlike other tents, it had so many things to peg down that it was organized with alphabets and colors.

“I’ve done this once before. I can do it.”

Steeling my resolve, I started by centering the second pole from the entrance. This would be the first peg-down position.

Next, I pulled both ends taut to shape the overall form. Once you balance the weight of the front and back like this, you’re halfway there.

Now, I just needed to shape it and peg it down in the remaining order. When it came to standing up the three middle poles, they were all out of reach, so I had to get Teddy’s help.

“I’ll lift on three. One, two, three!”

“Heave-ho!”

[‘Yu Bom(D)’ has succeeded in ‘Pitching a Tent(D)’.] [I’m a model student in the tent world! An incredible magical power surrounds ‘Large Tent ‘!] [Large Tent – Increases mana recovery rate by 10% per hour]

“Wow! This is insane!”

Another amazing effect was triggered. This time it was a mana recovery speed buff.

“This is totally worth it. I definitely can’t take this one down for a while either.”

Most hunters use mana. Hunters familiar with dungeons rarely get injured, so mana recovery might be even more important than health recovery.

I had been disappointed that only small and medium tents had good buff effects when large groups of guests came, but this worked out perfectly.