Chapter 29: Dungeons and Hunters
Just like that, Ian enjoyed two months of rest. After everything that happened, he deserves leisure time. The death of his captain was too painful for him. But time fixes everything, the pain gradually becomes tolerable and Ian manages to get back to himself once more. During the first month, Ian was always in a daze most of the days, replaying the tragedy in his mind. He wept every night, blaming himself for being powerless. He knew that he couldn't stay in such a mental state for a long time. He needs to be in an optimal state once he receives his next mission.
As for leisure time? Most composed of nature therapy, roaming the street of Blood City, talking with vampire adventurers, and those vampires that hunt human hunters. Interestingly, Ian discovered that the most popular profession in the Blood Realm was Adventurer and Hunters. With Hunter being the number one!
What is the role of hunters? They go outside of the Curtained Imperium, in short, to the human world where there are dungeons located everywhere, every country. They look like massive black cracks in the sky. Dungeons are divided by ranks from rank 9 to 1, with rank 1 being the most difficult dungeon with rank 9 for beginners. Yup, there are no dungeons in the Curtained Imperium. For the reason that every living being in the Curtain Imperium is all dark races; Bloodsucking vampires, terrifying ghoals, undeads, big bad werewolves, liches famous for dark magic, and meta-lizardmen.
The question is, what are inside the dungeons? Demonic Beasts and Monsters that pray upon human and dark races alike. They do not distinguish between the two. It could be said that although the Curtained Imperium are wary of each other and had big conflict here and there. The dungeons are a far bigger problem, a far more dangerous common enemy that they had. There are a lot of collaborations and treaties between Human Hunter Forces and Dark Races in the Curtained Imperium in terms of; Prevention of Dungeons Breaks, Economy, Agriculture, etc...
It's a game of check and balance. The dark races and the human world cooperate whilst also trying to sabotage each other behind the scenes. Yes, they do not do it on the surface but there are a lot of small skirmishes like the assassination of geniuses on both sides in the dark.
As for Dungeon Break? When first Ian heard about it, he was quite surprised. After all, he only read about them in Korean Light Novels. There's no need for an explanation about Dungeon Breaks, right?
It was worth mentioning that every body part of the monster inside the dungeons is useful for infrastructure, equipment, alchemy, medicine, etc... The applications and value are so wide-ranging that the value of the dungeon has become deeply rooted in the society of the Human World and Curtain Imperium!
Most importantly, the monster cores had been used for clean energy. A hundred times more efficient than electricity and oil. More importantly, it is cleaner and doesn't pollute the environment. In essence, the existence of Dungeons is both a bane and a blessing. A game-changer for energy science and material science.
"Time to eat these shits." Ian woke up in his daydream. All of that information, he had learned from the taverns after hearing hunters and vampire adventurers blabber at each other. Some are pure nonsense while some enriched Ian's understanding of the Human World and Curtained Imperium.