After the party inauguration came to a close, Yoo-ri dashed straight to her dormitory and buried her face into the pillow.

While she had tried her best not to show it in front of everyone…

“…Ah.”

Now that she was alone, she bit down hard on the embarrassment washing over her.

“Embarrassing.”

Thump! Thump!

She pounded her feet against the bed while lying face down.

“…If it was only exchanging gifts, she should have been more specific from the beginning…”

Two days ago, when Shin Se-hee suddenly contacted her, suggesting it would be a good idea to prepare Jin Yuha’s gift in advance, Yoo-ri had mistaken it for his birthday.

So, wanting to be the first to congratulate him on his birthday, she had summoned him out of the blue this morning.

“But, it wasn’t even his birthday… just an exchange of gifts…”

Yoo-ri rolled over in bed.

“No, well… actually, whether it was his birthday or not didn’t matter.”

It was simply about expressing her gratitude.

She was confident that her gratitude towards Jin Yuha was just as strong as any of the other party members’.

However…

After the time for distributing equipment to each member had passed, the party members handed their prepared gifts to Jin Yuha one by one.

Shin Se-hee presented him with a property certificate with his name on it.

Kang Do-hee gifted him a top-tier kit for maintaining swords, supposedly favored by the second-ranked hunter swordsman in Korea.

Lim Gaeul, mistakenly thinking it was his birthday, prepared a cake. She mentioned it was a rare cake that, due to a backlog of reservations, wouldn’t be available until five months later, as her family operated the bakery that made it.

“…I thought Unni was similar to me, but she’s a total betrayer.”

Regardless, everyone gave Jin Yuha reasonably impressive gifts.

Even though Shin Se-hee’s gift boasted an unusual scale compared to the others, the value of the other gifts was also significant.

But…

“…Why did I give such a gift…”

Yoo-ri bit her lips tightly.

After much consideration, she had woken up early in the morning and handwritten her present on an A4 paper, then coated it before rushing to the bookstore. Even the paper she had ended up giving Jin Yuha was crumpled and shabby from fidgeting with it.

Yoo-ri reached her hand towards the ceiling.

She noticed the geometric tattoo engraved on the back of her hand.

“If he keeps giving me stuff like this… What does he expect me to do…”

Now, she found herself owing Jin Yuha more than she did to her own family.

“In the Carmela Forest, he took care of me and my sister, and even saved my life… The spatial tattoo, the disaster kit, fine, those might be considered as items distributed as party leader, but the shield is too much. This guy…”

Honestly, when Jin Yuha handed her the shield, she had to suppress the urge to refuse right there on the spot.

Didn’t she like the gift? No, of course not. It was just her pride getting in the way.

A pathetic feeling of having done nothing for him compared to the others surged up unexpectedly.

How could she not understand the meaning behind his gift to her?

Being in the position of responsibility for the safety of their party, it made sense that he would provide good equipment.

Moreover, the shield he gave her…

It was the dream shield she had always imagined, one that allowed her to be at the forefront blocking the enemy’s attacks while still relying on ‘evading’ as her main weapon.

That meant repair costs, in the end, it all came down to money.

When she first became a hunter and started exploring dungeons, Yoo-ri, like other tanks, used shields to block enemy attacks. But the money she had to spend repairing the messed-up shields in her already tight financial situation became too much to bear.

As a result, she honed her skill in ‘evading.’

A shield that could repair its own durability using surrounding mana, allowing her to recover from attacks while still being able to see the enemy’s moves from behind.

Sighing unconsciously, a sigh filled with complex emotions escaped her lips.

“…This is driving me crazy, seriously. So, how much does this insane shield cost anyway?”

Yoo-ri scratched her head absentmindedly and pulled out her phone, tapping the search bar.

“Wasn’t the shield named something like ‘Cross Shield’…?”

She searched for [Cross Shield] on the hunter-exclusive shopping page.

The first image that popped up was a picture of the shield, identical to the one she received as a gift.

And next to it, a string of ‘0s’ made Yoo-ri’s eyes widen.

“Insane?”

The price was so high that Yoo-ri felt like cursing for a moment. She was so shocked that she sat up abruptly from where she was lying.

“W-what in the world did he give me?!”

Curious if what he gave Kang Do-hee and Lim Ga-eul was around the same price as what she received, she searched for it.

“Do-hee’s shoes are five hundred… and Ga-eul’s gloves are in the thirty million range…”

Of course, the prices of shoes reaching five hundred and auxiliary weapons hitting the thirty million range were astonishing enough, but…

“The units are different! Why am I the only one in the billions?!”

Adding another burden to her already heavy heart, and it was in the unit of ‘billions.’

“But then, what about mine…”

[☆Yoo-ri’s Monthly Pass☆]

Thinking of that meager piece of paper, Yoo-ri’s face turned pale.

“Seriously, why did I even draw stars while I’m so terrible at drawing? You stupid, idiotic idiot… Just stick to being a Soup…”

Arghhh!!!

Yoo-ri covered her face with both hands and screamed. A muffled sound filled the room.

Ha…

“I’m seriously broke.”

Yoo-ri spat out, feeling defeated.

“I just can’t deal with this…”

At this rate, it was clear that she would not sleep well and stay up all night with open eyes.

I have to go into Dungeon tomorrow.
With a shield that’s more expensive than my body.
Even failing to control my emotion……?

“Ridiculous.”

That was something she absolutely couldn’t let happen.

.

.

.

[We allow cadets and Lee Yoo-ri to enter]

Lee Yoo-ri left the room and visited a private training ground used by Velvet Academy cadets.

She had come here hoping to sweat out her worries and clear her mind for a good night’s sleep.

“Come to think of it, the monsters I’ll be facing tomorrow are said to use projectiles.”

The dungeon that Jin Yuha had prepared in advance was a B-grade gate called the “Thorn Meadow.”

Monsters resembling hedgehogs that shoot poisonous thorns from their backs, called Black Hedgehogs, were known to appear there. It was a place where B-grade monsters appeared.

“Until just before coming here, I was still hunting goblins and such. It’s really been quite a leap, Yoo-ri.”

But she knew it wasn’t because her abilities had dramatically improved. It was simply because she had been selected to match the level of Kang Do-hee and Jin Yuha, the party’s dealers.

As she briefly thought about the monsters she would face tomorrow, an emotionless voice sounded from above.

[Would you like to see your status?]

“Yes.”

Yoo-ri nodded and summoned her status window.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Name ─ Yoo-ri Gender ─ Female (20)

Attributes:

Strength ─ 30

Intelligence ─ 64

Magic Power ─ 35

Endurance ─ 55

Agility ─ 67

Charisma ─ 50

Specialization ─ Shield Technique A+

Titles ─ Dirt Spoon (土匙) ─ Soup

Skills ─ [Resonance of the Shield], [Sacrifice of the Shield]

Traits ─ [Determination]

Exclusive Weapon ─ Cross Shield

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Honestly, she didn’t think it was a bad status window.

While it might seem odd for a tanker to have higher agility than endurance, it wasn’t at a low level, and she was, after all, a tanker who relied on evasion as her basic strategy.

“Phew.”

Yoo-ri let out a sigh as she finished reading her status.

[Initiating long-range tank training. Please select your level.]

Unlike dealers, whose purpose was to defeat enemies, the goal of long-range tanker training wasn’t to kill enemies but simply to block their attacks. It was about preventing attacks from hitting the party members behind her as much as possible.

“Alright, let’s start with a warm-up at LEVEL 5.”

Yoori summoned her Cross Shield from the void.

Attaching it to her arm and pressing the switch, a translucent barrier unfolded.

[LEVEL 5. Goblin Archers. 10 creatures.]

Suddenly, ten goblins armed with crude bows and arrows vividly appeared before her.

Seeing goblins after a while, Yoo-ri couldn’t help but recall the day she first met Jin Yuha, and a slight smile tugged at her lips.

“It’s strangely nice to see these little guys again.”

Ding!

The sound of a bell rang out, and the goblins began shooting arrows at her.

Swish!

Arrows flew towards her.

“I bet training with Jin Yuha would be even more fun.”

If Jin Yuha were here, they could summon more goblins and have a lively battle together.

‘Ah, what am I doing, giving a freedom pass as a gift.’

With that thought, she raised her shield to block the incoming arrows.

“Yeah, I think so too.”

Once again, a voice that seemed to come from nowhere sounded beside her.

Just like before.

Yoo-ri turned her head with a blank expression.

“Did you call me?”

Swish!

He swiftly sliced through the arrows flying towards her with his sword.

“You did this last time too. Why do you always get lost in thought when I’m around? It’s dangerous. Those are arrows.”

Jin Yuha stood beside her, wearing the same expression as before.