When I stepped into the tent, the state of the bastards who’d spent half a day tied up straight through caught my eye. They looked like they’d gone through a decent amount of shit.
Instead of looking over each of them one by one, I just stated the facts shortly.
“Gi Cheongmin is dead.”
“.......”
“It’s kind of like an unfortunate accident that happened along the way, so try not to take it too personally.”
I added that to ease their minds a bit, but the reaction I got back was even less pleasant.
‘Whatever. I don’t care.’
I really had no interest in what they thought.
“While I was at it, Ahn Jinha died too. In his case, he literally died fucking around by himself, so mourn him however you want.”
Then suddenly one of them blurted out in a panic.
“A-are you going to kill us too?”
“No.”
Of course, if I changed my mind I might kill them, but I didn’t bother explaining that.
For now, the desire not to waste any more stamina or mana doing anything was stronger than the desire to kill.
I glanced outside and stated the bare minimum.
“If there were fewer people, I was going to kill you off, but there are more than I thought, so I’m just going to ditch you.”
“...What?”
Telling them Gi Cheongmin was dead wasn’t the only reason I’d co all the way here. No, that was part of it, but it wasn’t everything.
I rolled my eyes and quickly picked one bastard out.
Na: Yang Dokyeong
Age: 22
Rank: D
Title: -
Main Skills: Chain Binding (D), Restraint (D)
Growth Limit: D
He was the lunatic at the very end, shaking like crazy in his seat, which left a strong impression. He was also the first bastard I’d t when I ca here.
‘Hm.’
The highest-ranked one among them, but treated like a neighborhood punching bag.
The reason I picked him was simple.
‘He’s the only one who’s useful.’
Before Gi Cheongmin and Ahn Jinha arrived, when I’d been interrogating them, that was what I’d felt. The ones with intact minds tried their best to spit out information, but most of the actually useful stuff ca from this crazy bastard’s muttering.
On top of that, according to Ahn Jinha, it was clear this guy had t that “god.”
‘The others don’t have that kind of conviction in their faith.’
And judging from the fact he’d lost his mind, it was obvious the god had granted his wish, too.
‘Worst case, I can use him as a spare life.’
And I’d already confird that despite his high rank, his offensive power was low, which made him perfect to drag along.
I quickly reached a conclusion, undid his bindings, and dragged him outside more or less by force.
“Y-you really shouldn’t do this....”
Even as he was being dragged, he kept mumbling nonsense under his breath.
I wrapped an arm around his shoulders like I was supporting him and asked,
“Dokyeong.”
“H-how do you know my na....”
“Good question.”
Even with his scrambled brain, he kept on mumbling, but he didn’t seem particularly more afraid of .
‘Considering how much I pulled out of him, that’s kind of admirable.’
I «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» ca to a stop and pointed toward the dim path in the distance.
“See that?”
“.......”
“I went that way to look for an exit. Think the god is sowhere around there too?”
“God? I don’t know.... It’ll probably be wherever it wants to be, but it’s also kind of everywhere.... S-still, I’m grateful you ca all the way to look for when I was just alone until now....”
Yeah, he was definitely gone. A clearly insane bastard like this was way easier to handle than so borderline case.
“It’ll be fine if we go out at night, right?”
“N-no, you can’t! Night is dangerous... then you might et the god, or you might et monsters, and at night people keep changing, so....”
“What, are they werewolves? How do people suddenly change at night?”
“S-still....”
Even so, it didn’t make change my mind about heading out at night. I knew where that “danger” ca from, and right now, that danger was exactly what I wanted.
I let the arm on his shoulder dangle loosely, then grabbed his jaw and turned his face toward .
“Sorry about the tooth. You should’ve acted more suspicious if you didn’t want that.”
“...Tooth?”
“Well, if you don’t get it, I don’t need to apologize.”
Still, I did have so intention of being “kind.” The way his cheek was puffed up from having the tooth yanked out looked pretty shitty.
I shoved him into the tent where Ryu Taejun was, more or less tossed him down, and put him to sleep. Ryu Taejun, eyes wide open, watched what I was doing for a mont, but since I didn’t start talking, no questions followed.
‘When he wakes up later, I can just heal him.’
After tossing out a half-assed “sleep well,” I stepped out of the tent, and silence settled in for the first ti in a while.
I quietly looked up at the sky, then started walking slowly. In this big open clearing, there wasn’t any particular destination, so it was basically just walking for its own sake.
I’d nearly died just a few hours ago, and now here I was, walking around alive.
‘Not exactly moved by it.’
There wasn’t anything to get sentintal about, so my thoughts flowed straight into sothing else.
‘Do Yehyun....’
I started wondering whether Do Yehyun’s rank increase would still apply outside this dungeon.
‘Judging from the fact his status window itself changed, it seems like it will.’
I thought back over Do Yehyun’s status window once more.
In general, a hunter’s rank and their skill ranks follow the sa track. If a hunter’s rank is low, their skills’ ranks are low, and vice versa.
Of course, there were exceptions. The most representative were Appraisal skills and Enchant. Those were skills specialized in identification or enhancent, so even if the hunter’s rank was low, the skill could stand out as overwhelmingly strong.
‘Not that either of those is common to begin with.’
Also, more rarely, healers sotis had a mismatch in their stats, but that usually showed up as skills being tied to their hunter rank.
To put it simply, the skill itself was excellent, so compared to others of the sa hunter rank who had low-rank skills, the performance was noticeably better, but there were almost always penalties attached—like long cast tis, or long cooldowns between heals. Since the body couldn’t keep up, the actual implentation was weaker than a high-rank healer.
Do Yehyun also had absurd skills, but his healing before this had been a bit weak for sothing you’d call an S-rank skill in terms of actual implentation. That was why this Awakening felt so dramatic.
Unless it was one of those three cases, it had to be considered an extrely rare exception... or treated as a completely different category.
‘Plunder.’
The ability to take soone else’s skill as-is. Depending on the user’s physical implentation, the skill rank might drop by one or two ranks, but if you killed a high-rank hunter, getting high-rank skills along with it was inevitable.
Most likely, the current Jin Haedo’s skill “Fate-Link” was also sothing he’d obtained through Plunder.
Of course, the premise of a low-rank Awakened killing a high-rank Awakened was almost impossible, so you could say this kind of case basically didn’t exist.
And once you excluded even that, there were barely any cases left.
‘Except for .’
The fact that a shitty body like this could implent up to S-rank skills was definitely a huge advantage. Even if there was the drawback that my mana hit zero with a 100 percent probability every ti I cast.
Thanks to slapping on artifacts thick enough to boost my physical reinforcent and refill my mana, I’d been able to go up against Gi Cheongmin at all. Originally, I’d have been completely outmatched and died right away.
‘And he wasn’t really a true B-rank Awakened anyway.’
In any case, all that thinking led to one conclusion.
If the “god” living here really could raise ranks, then it was absolutely right for to seize that chance.
‘The downside is I don’t know how.’
That was when it happened.
Rustle.
A soft sound, like wind brushing through grass, rippled quietly across the clearing. Normally, I would’ve ignored it and kept walking, but this ti I couldn’t.
‘There’s no wind here.’
I turned my head toward where the sound had co from.
I couldn’t see anyone, but that wasn’t enough to set at ease. I’d done stealthy recon with concealnt items myself more tis than I could count.
‘A person.’
It was a gut certainty.
So who the hell was it?
Everyone here was soone I’d already tied up, so none of them could be walking around this place under concealnt.
There was only one answer.
‘The new arrival.’
The siren that had gone off as soon as night fell echoed in my ears again like a hallucination.
As soon as I landed on that conclusion, I did what I was used to by now and opened my status window. I shifted my gaze and closed the distance between us several tis.
And finally, the status window I caught sight of belonged to a very familiar opponent.
Na: Im Haekyung
Age: 32
Rank: S
Title: -
Main Skills: Brainwashing (S), ntal Suppression (S), ntal Domination (S), Dispel (B)
I didn’t hesitate to speak.
“You really have no talent for timing, do you.”
Then, along with a soft chuckle, a familiar face appeared.
“Really? I thought I ca at just the right mont.”
Spouting that ridiculous bullshit, Im Haekyung smiled, looking completely unhard.
“It’s been a while, Jehyun.”
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