VSP 12

While Sejun was being bound, his pants got caught on the plant’s tendril and ended up half pulled down.

Sejun swore to himself that if anyone saw this, he would have to bite his tongue and die on the spot.

The problem was that the plant monster was too sturdy to shake off with brute strength, and with his lack of mana he couldn’t even use his skills.

Right now he was nothing more than an ordinary person with a slightly tougher body.

Because he was hanging upside down, blood rushed to his head, and he groaned.

“How many mana potions do I have left?”

[Should I give you one?]

“Yeah, hurry, give it.”

Mana potions were expensive, but it was cheaper than being caught dangling half-naked by a mob. Sejun took the potion.

The mana potion he used was a mid-rank potion. Considering Sejun’s mana cap was only 120, a potion that restored over 200 mana was like a pearl necklace on a pig. But because drinking too many potions caused addiction, he had to drink the most efficient kind each time.

That was one of the reasons Sejun was inevitably weak. He couldn’t endlessly resupply his lacking mana with potions.

But how was he supposed to drink this? Because he was hanging upside down, drinking was difficult.

“Oof, oof.”

In the end, Sejun had to practically wash his face with the potion, splashing it over himself. The soda-flavored potion dribbled away about half, and he barely managed to swallow the other half. His body filled back up with mana.

Before it got drained again, he had to deal with this quickly! Sejun shouted.

“Summon!”

[Summoning summon beast ‘Hoya’.]

Hoya.

Sejun’s trademark summon, his strongest, and his only summon.

Blue light flashed before his eyes. The mana that had just filled his body drained away instantly, making him feel a bit dizzy.

Or maybe it was just because he had been hanging upside down for so long and blood was rushing to his head.

As he thought that, a massive blue tiger with smooth fur appeared and landed on the ground.

Sejun’s summon. In some ways, more famous than Sejun himself, the one that upheld his name.

Summon beast Hoya.

The giant tiger, who had just been licking its paw, looked around lazily. Then it saw its master dangling in the air and stopped moving.

“……”

「……」

Sejun saw it in real time. His summon’s entire face spelled out the word “pathetic.”

“D-don’t look at me like that, Hoya……”

「Grrr.」

[He says you’re pathetic to death.]

The system pointlessly translated. But Sejun knew that was bullshit. Nobody could translate Hoya’s words.

But this time there was no need for translation. His expression said everything.

But Hoya looking at him like that wasn’t anything new. Sejun wasn’t hurt much by it. Besides, he himself had to admit he looked pathetic right now.

“Hoya… help me out.”

Blood was rushing to his head, his leg hurt where it was tied. Sejun whined at Hoya.

From long experience, he knew that unless he whined like he was in pain, Hoya almost never followed orders properly.

Even though Sejun was the summoner, even though he was the master, this damn summon acted precious and never listened right away.

Hoya didn’t say anything. But if he had refused, he would have turned away with a loud snort. The fact that he didn’t meant this was a positive stance. Sejun, who had spent years with him, could see that.

The massive tiger swayed its tail lazily, then raised its claw to slice through the thick tendril binding Sejun’s leg.

Chchch!

The plant monster, driven by survival instinct, realized the summon was about to attack it and rushed to refill itself with mana.

It began draining the life force it was binding. It sucked away Sejun’s mana in an instant.

[Insufficient mana!]

The familiar alert popped up to torment Sejun again.

[Required mana for summon is insufficient! Summon will be canceled.]

With that, Hoya’s body blurred and then disappeared with a pop sound.

“Ugh.”

It wasn’t just that the summon was canceled. A forced unsummon due to lack of mana dealt damage to the summoner. Sejun coughed blood. Because he was hanging upside down, the blood ran down and drenched his face.

[Sejun-nim!]

“Ugh.”

Sejun groaned. The first time he experienced a forced unsummon it had hurt so much that he rolled around on the ground screaming he was going to die. But now it had happened so often that, he had gotten a little used to the pain. Sadly, that was the case.

Sejun asked miserably.

“Do I have more mana potions…?”

[I do, but only the small ones that refill about thirty percent, not the mid-grade ones. Since you haven’t been fighting lately, I didn’t restock. And right now, even those are almost gone. You’d have to drink all of them to the point just before potion addiction to barely resummon. Are you sure you want to?]

“I have to. No one’s going to come save me anyway.”

[Sejun-nim…….]

The system called his name in pity, but Sejun was indifferent. Because it was true.

Neither Cha Dogyeong nor Dohun had any reason to come looking for him just because he was missing. They would never imagine that an S-rank hunter like him was on the verge of death, caught by a mob in an A-rank dungeon.

And if someone did see him caught like this, half undressed, he really would have to bite his tongue.

The situation was so humiliating that even the system, which normally would laugh itself sick at Sejun dangling upside down half naked, wasn’t laughing.

If this got any more humiliating, he might become the first person in the world to literally die of shame.

Just then, with a refreshing chime, a cool breeze swept through the dungeon. Any hunter would know what that meant. The dungeon had been cleared.

He hadn’t even laid eyes on the boss, hadn’t gone anywhere near, and here he was dangling helplessly at the jungle’s entrance. The ridiculous situation left him speechless.

Worried that the other two might see him on their way out, Sejun hurriedly gulped down the thirty-percent mana potion the system had given him.

But he never managed to summon Hoya again.

Perhaps because it felt threatened by Hoya earlier, the plant monster immediately drained his mana whenever it started to recover.

It took 100 mana to summon Hoya. But before he could even reach 100, whenever his mana started to refill, the plant monster kept sucking it away.

If his total mana pool were larger, he might have filled it faster than the monster could drain it. But unfortunately, Sejun’s total mana was even lower than some A-rank hunters, so whatever he drank was stolen right away.

As a result, the binding only grew tighter. The cycle repeated several times.

“Shiiit……”

Drink potion, lose mana. Drink potion, lose mana. After about five rounds, Sejun went limp, completely exhausted.

“No more mana potions?”

[If you drink any more, you’ll hit potion addiction.]

“Ah.”

Damn potion addiction. That was one of the reasons Sejun was weak, even though his biggest flaw was low mana and even though he had enough money to buy as many potions as he wanted. He couldn’t drink freely.

Potion addiction. Once afflicted, no matter how much potion you drank, it only caused side effects, never proper effects. Sejun sighed.

At this point, he didn’t care if his lower half was exposed or it was humiliating or whatever, he just wanted someone to save him.

Shame would pass in an instant. Well, maybe the rumors would spread, but even if it was Dohun, as terrible as that would be, he would still save Sejun in the end.

Anything was better than this state, blood rushing to his head like it was about to explode.

He thought sadly that this wouldn’t even be the first time he was dragged into humiliating rumors.

But then, something happened.

[Activating Lucky Love Mode!]

“…Eh?”

Sejun’s eyes, which had been drooping, flew open wide at the sudden announcement that Lucky Love Mode had activated.

He knew what this was. He had experienced it before. That day when he had, through a ridiculous accident, stumbled and fallen straight toward Cha Dogyeong’s crotch.