Chapter 305. Tower of a Hundred People (3)
Even as I'm struggling at this very mont, the person beside suddenly adjusts their grip on the weapon—without even staggering—and takes a couple of steps forward to throw the spear.
What is this? The real problem isn't the gatekeeper of the Tower of a Hundred People.
Isn't the real monster actually that person over there?
—Gurrrrrrr...!
When the fellow hunter to his left successfully landed a directional attack, Haseong opened his lips and held his breath for a mont.
In reality, all the other person did was draw a sword and throw it. But to Haseong, the act perford by the hunter nad Kim Giryeo looked like that of a master who had overco the dungeon's curse and adapted to the warped senses within re seconds.
Even thinking back on it, it's still hard to believe.
The sky had beco the ground. And yet, in this cursed state where even turning your head toward a sound reveals nothing—he still managed to throw his weapon and hit the target!
With sharp, piercing eyes, he clearly distinguished up, down, left, and right. I couldn't help but wonder what on earth was going on in that hunter's brain.
I still... can't even take a proper step because of this nausea...!
Haseong panted heavily, trying to suppress the overwhelming sense of disorientation. But no matter how much ti he gave himself, he couldn't even begin to adjust to the inverted vision. In this state, it was nearly impossible to accurately perceive the true layout of the space.
As a result, even soone's light attack took on an increasingly grand significance with every passing mont.
"H, Hunter... Hunter-nim. Don't tell , does Hunter Kim actually know how to protect himself from a dungeon curse...?"
Of course, the top-ranked hunter here was a thinking being—so by the ti the [Iron Toad] flipped onto its back and was neutralized, a reasonable question finally surfaced from him as well.
"...No?"
An alien denied it without even breathing...
"...You're saying no?"
"Ah, even I can't repel an effect granted by the dungeon. Haseong, you know there's no such case in the world, right?"
It's only natural for attention to gather when soone achieves sothing that no one else on Earth has ever done. That's why Kim Giryeo felt the need to hide his absolute immunity to status effects. But when his disciple—who had entered the gate with him—suddenly started getting beaten up by that frog-necked beast, he panicked and accidentally revealed that he was completely unaffected.
"Well, I already made up an "awakening attribute" story for Kang Changho, who's also Korean, so the information about my resistance will probably spread everywhere anyway."
But even in the face of a crisis like this, revealing the whole truth... No matter how many tis he thought about it, explaining an ability that clearly surpassed the limits of modern humanity on Earth still seed far too dangerous.
So Giryeo hastily made up a reason to explain why he hadn't lost his balance.
"Jung Haseong. The curse cast by a gate is sothing you have to endure on your own."
If you start vomiting blood, use a healing potion. And if you lose your hearing, just accept the condition as it is and carry on.
Kim Giryeo claid that he too was currently suffering from the effects of reversed vision. Upon hearing his firm voice, telling them to push forward without complaints despite the condition, Haseong finally responded.
"What did you say?"
The young man known as a hero furrowed his brows into a deep scowl beneath his forehead.
A year ago, Jung Haseong wore the sa hardened expression he had when he drew the Sunset Sword behind the Hunter Association building and lashed out in anger.
"Huh? Is he about to break into another sword dance?"
Giryeo suddenly stiffened his shoulders as a mory from the past surfaced. But contrary to his worries, Haseong wasn't making that face out of anger or irritation.
"My vision is spinning too much. Just facing you right now is already exhausting... How could anyone possibly endure and overco sothing like this...?"
Everything felt uncertain. Thanks to Giryeo's intervention, the boss was currently neutralized.
But what if that first-floor toad didn't die from just the [Hydra]? No, what if it did die? Then the trial on the next floor would imdiately begin, and there was no way he could adapt to the reversed vision in such a short ti.
"Keugh..."
Jung Haseong rose to his feet, clutching one side above his eye. And then, sohow, he tried to activate his skill properly and hit the enemy.
But.
"Greuk!"
Swoosh.
The flas that were finally completed flew far beyond the place where the monster was lying down.
The image imprinted on his eyes was flipped upside down as an aftereffect. Although his mind clearly recognized that the toad was lying on the ground, the human brain can be quite naive—once the eyeballs recorded the ceiling, it was easily decided like this.
"Jung Haseong!"
It was just as the black-haired man writhed in pain that the Archmage, quietly observing him, spoke.
"If it's really that hard to adjust to the visual distortion, I told you—just close your eyes."
But to a mammal that had lived for hundreds of millions of years without ever knowing miracle-mana, those words sounded cruel.
"If I close my eyes completely, it'll be hard to determine the enemy's location."
"Sense them with magic power."
"That kind of thod only works when you're trying to avoid an Awakened walking around a corner in a bent hallway. It's almost impossible to use against an opponent moving at A-rank speed right in front of you..."
"Then how about sensing the attack when it hits your body and using that to determine the direction to cast your spell?"
"That sounds like the sa thing to ."
Tremble tremble.
Jung Haseong gritted his teeth against the overwhelming dizziness and forced himself to lift his head. Clutching tightly the only weapon capable of withstanding his flas—the Sunset Sword—he spoke firmly.
"I'm not like Hunter Kim—I don't have senses that sharp. My reactions are incredibly slow. Honestly, I didn't expect to be this disoriented just because one of my eyes got ssed up."
"Hmm."
"If I try to counterattack recklessly right now, I'll definitely ss up the skill's range..."
He trailed off at the end of his sentence, but it wasn't hard to guess what he had originally ant to say.
"In short, are you afraid that the challenger you ca with will be roasted?"
However, since this one is still just an F-rank body with nothing special, even if he wants to help, there are limits to his role.
"Didn't I clearly say I'd only be supporting when I entered this gate?"
"Ah...!"
There was no point in suddenly revealing himself as a fraud here—nothing good would co of it. So, after quickly running the calculations in his head, Giryeo offered a more practical solution.
"Jung Haseong."
This gate is rated overall as an A-rank difficulty. Therefore, it's unlikely that a top-tier 5-rank hunter would die here. Honestly, as long as Jung Haseong—the strong one—avoids any internal conflict with his comrades, this is a fight worth taking on.
"You know that skill I've been explaining to death in every class lately?"
"...Yes."
"The one where you ignite the flas as close to your body as possible so they also serve as a kind of armor."
"Yes."
"Then how about taking this chance to practice that? I know it's sudden, but co to think of it, the Tower of a Hundred People format actually makes for decent field training."
In Jung Haseong's vision, the blond man—who appeared to be hanging upside down from the ceiling—offered further explanation.
"With an A-rank boss appearing, at least you're getting an opponent intense enough to keep you on edge. Plus, the structure forces you into constant, uninterrupted combat."
"Yes?"
"This should be easy to get the feel of."
Using the Tower of a Hundred People—sothing others regarded as a symbol of fear—as nothing more than a training ground for skill practice...
"Jung Haseong, you're hesitating like this right now because you're afraid of burning , aren't you?"
"..."
"But if you can just properly master the skill I taught you, you'll be able to control its effective range down to within 1 centiter of your body. This is all part of getting there."
No longer would this overflowing mana overwhelm the weak; instead, it could simply lt the blades of all the reckless scoundrels approaching to harm him—this was the perfected form of one attribute. Giryeo had recently predicted in class that the mammal before him would find it difficult to achieve this. Yet, on the other hand, he did not consider it completely impossible.
"In tis when disasters are common, it feels a bit odd to be saying this to soone born around the sa ti as , but..."
Jung Haseong had once, in the past, briefly glimpsed a fragnt of possibility.
"It's true that to awaken sothing, you often have to go through hardship and stress."
More precisely, it was around the ti he got into a scuffle with an awakened one on a sandy beach in Incheon. That black-haired primitive mage had already managed to ignite his flas even when the distance to his opponent had shrunk to nearly zero.
"Rember when you fought Hunter Kang Changho?"
"Yes."
"I've said this over and over, but I'm not telling you to do exactly what you did back then. If you throw yourself entirely into the attack range like that again, you'll just end up roasting yourself."
Crawl.
At that mont, the otherworldly monster, intoxicated and grotesque, swelled its vocal sac while still lying upside down. Recognizing that the enemy was preparing to attack, Giryeo gave an order to Jung Haseong.
"What I'm trying to say is to try using your skills as close to your body as possible. So just take it down by brutally closing in on the enemy! Can you do that?"
Can he do it? With a high-level magical beast growling right in front of him, isn't this a situation where he has to force himself to do it, no matter what?
"I, I'll try."
The top-ranked Hunter, despite sensing the unfairness in the tutor's request, decided to follow through with it for now. Like the crazed alien sorcerers who lit fire underwater, he cloaked himself in flas. Then, maintaining this spell—a weapon and armor in one—he charged at the enemy. As expected, trying to grab hold of a monster with both eyes closed was no easy feat.
"Ugh!"
Of course, even with his eyes open, the disadvantage remained the sa.
— Jump.
When a true powerhouse with S-rank magic power began to move, the iron toad hastily abandoned its prepared sonic attack, flipped itself over in a panic, and fled.
Ti has passed. Prolonged exposure to the relentless poison emitted from [Hydra]'s blade finally overwheld the Trial on the first floor, and fortunately, it perished and vanished.
Swoosh.
Judging by the sound, it seed the wielder of the epic weapon had retrieved it by pulling the blade out of the monster's corpse.
"Sohow, it feels like spatial teleportation is about to start."
But so what if it is?
"Ah, so it wasn't just a feeling."
The battle on the second floor had begun. Jung Haseong briefly opened his shut eyelids. However, the newly appeared trial of the next floor proved to be even more troubleso.
"That color looks familiar... Art Damn it! It's another monster I've encountered before. That's a [Servant of Evil], the kind that usually appears in island regions..."
At most, a small monster the size of an adult's palm appeared.
"And three more?"
Jung Haseong stepped into the center of the room and attempted a wide-area attack. Of course, expecting the opening strike to go well after everything had gone so wrong was wishful thinking. Soon enough, the hunter once hailed as the best in South Korea found himself helplessly tossed around by the sweat, nimble movents of three small monsters.
"It's no use. Whether I open these damn eyes or keep them shut!"
After all that training, how could this happen...? And how could he be struggling so much—in a gate he had already cleared alone once before?
Grand Prize, Excellence Award, First Priority, First Place.
Jung Haseong had constantly been praised as outstanding throughout his life. So, the current situation felt all the more humiliating.
"Before entering the tower, I even boasted that I could handle it all on my own now."
Even though he was a fully grown adult now, he felt so ashad that he wanted to crawl into a hole and hide.
Yet whether he understood such emotions or not, the teacher standing sowhere in the room began advising him to use his skill properly—or else he'd get hit by the enemy. Perhaps because his eyes were closed, the hunter's voice sounded colder than usual today.
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