Chapter 21
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n< Chapter 21 >
n‘The exoskeleton looks pretty tough…. Can my dagger even damage it?’
nQuite obviously, a dagger would have a shorter reach than a steel longsword Jin-Woo used before. So, if he wanted to cause a deep wound, he needed to strengthen his attacks.
nJin-Woo held the dagger in the reverse grip. He figured that it’d be easier to hurt the monster by holding the blade in this fashion.
n“Keuruk.”
nFinally, the spider stood before Jin-Woo. Then, it raised its two front legs up and bent them at an angle.
n‘What is it trying to do?’
nHis curiosity lasted only for a brief moment – Jin-Woo’s eyes shot open wide next.
nSLAM!!
nIf he didn’t instinctively tilt his body out of the way, the spider’s legs would’ve penetrated his chest just now. The spider’s legs stabbed into the ground behind him before rising up in the air, its joints folding back up. And from the ends of its legs, pieces of the rocky ground fell.
nJin-Woo sneaked a glance behind him.
nThe stone floor now had a pretty substantial hole in it.
n‘If I got hit by that, it wouldn’t have ended with me feeling a bit of ache in my chest, huh.’
nJin-Woo’s glare sharpened even more. Now was the time he needed to concentrate even harder.
n‘It’s coming!’
nSwish!
nThe spider’s legs that initially resembled bullets being fired could now be captured in his eyes.
nLeft.
nHe ducked his head lower to evade the spider’s left front leg.
nRight.
nHe tilted his body back and let the spider’s right leg brush past him, before he took a step closer.
nRight.
nHe evaded the spider’s leg that took aim at his head once more, and took two steps forward this time.
nLeft, right, right, left, right, right, right, left, left.
nSlam! Boom! Kwahng! Kaboom! Slam! Boom! Kwahng! Kaboom!
nThe spider’s legs stabbed and destroyed the ground so loudly that his ears actually felt numb from the pain.
nJin-Woo evaded the spider’s attacks one by one and got closer and closer to the monster.
nMeanwhile, Yu Jin-Ho couldn’t quite believe his own eyes.
n“Wha-what the hell is up with this guy?!”
nEven though he was watching from afar, those attacks were so ferocious that all the hair on the back of his head was standing up.
nHowever, that man was evading them all while standing right in front of the monster, not to mention he was actually getting closer too.
nSeeing that efficient and calm movement, Yu Jin-Woo felt a chill run down his backside.
n“And he’s supposed to be an E rank?!”
nThere was no freaking way.
nIf it was him standing there and not Seong Jin-Woo, then he’d be torn into a rag by now. He didn’t have any confidence whatsoever to dodge those attacks even once.
nHowever, Jin-Woo was evading them without making a single mistake.
nAn E rank doing something that a D rank Hunter such as himself couldn’t even dream of doing?
nThere could only be one explanation for this.
n‘……He is a fake registrant!!’
nYu Jin-Ho’s expression hardened.
nOut of those highly talented Hunters, there were a few who could freely control his or her magical energy. If they felt like it, they could easily fake the results and get a lower ranking.
nHunters who got assigned lower ranks than what they should’ve got in the first place simply by hiding a portion of their magic energy – such people were labelled as ‘fake registrants’.
nAnd perhaps more alarmingly, most of those fake registrants carried around rather sinister motives for doing so.
n‘Such as, that serial killer whose hobby was to enter low ranked dungeons and murder all the other lower ranked Hunters….’
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nAs only those who were present knew what happened inside a dungeon, there was no better place to commit crimes than the world behind the Gates.
nYu Jin-Ho nervously swallowed his saliva. Suddenly, Jin-Woo seemed far scarier than the spider.
n‘And just why did I have to insist on coming to this place….?’
nYu Jin-Ho felt like he’d break out in sobs at any moment now.
nSwish! Swish! Swish!
nIn the meantime, the spider’s attacks poured down without a break.
nJin-Woo dodged all of those attacks and grew confident of his victory. Having decreased the distance between them little by little, the head of the spider was almost within his reach now.
nThe attack pattern of the spider was rather simple so he could get close to it pretty easily.
n‘For now, I’ll aim for its eyes.’
nIt was the basics of all basic rules to attack the monster’s weak points. So, he decided to attack the eyes of the spider, which looked to be the weakest point in its defences.
n‘As soon as I stab my dagger in those eyes….!’
nJust as Jin-Woo made up his mind….
nHe suddenly sensed that the spider’s attacks had slowed down for some reason.
nSwish! Swish!
nWas it because his eyes had adjusted fully to the speed of its attacks?
nBoom!! Slam!!
nNo, that wasn’t it.
nHis eyes might’ve been misled, but his hearing could not be fooled. The loud noises coming from the exploding ground came to him a beat slower than before, since a few seconds ago.
nJin-Woo was already pretty confident of his rather excellent sense of hearing so he could feel this subtle change.
nIt was then, a certain ominous premonition flickered past in his brain.
nWhen he took a closer look, the muscles around the vicinity of the spider’s mouth were trembling quite imperceptibly.
n‘Why is it trying to open its mouth now?’
nJin-Woo had been getting ready to jump up three metres and reach the head of the spider, but he sensed something ominous was about to happen. Jin-Woo hurriedly changed the direction of his jump from forward to his rear.
nAnd then….
nSplash!!
nFrom the mouth of the spider, dirty and turbid liquid spewed out.
nJin-Woo rolled on the floor for a second before regaining his balance. He quickly took a look behind him. The spot on the floor he had been standing only until a second ago was now emitting smoke as it got scorched black.
nSizzle….
nStones on the floor melted away powerlessly.
nJin-Woo swallowed his saliva after seeing that.
n‘If I had jumped forward just now….’
nIt wouldn’t have been only the floor that was melting right now.
nPerhaps sensing that Jin-Woo had been distracted, the spider rushed towards him in no time.
nRustle!!
nJin-Woo raised his head. By then, the spider was already right in front of his eyes.
nSwish!
nJin-Woo jumped up to evade the giant spider’s legs.
nSlam!!
nThe b*stard’s attacks had recommenced.
n“D*mn it!!”
nAfter that, Jin-Woo got near the monster’s head several times more. Every time he did that, though, he had no choice but to retreat in order to evade that disgusting digestive juice.
nWhen the spider’s attack pattern had become two, it became that much harder to deal with it. If he got closer after evading all those snapping legs, the digestive juice spewed out. Its legs attacked again once he had to retreat to a distance because of the juices.
n“Sh*t!”
nFeeling frustrated now, he decided to attack the legs with his dagger.
nUnfortunately, the legs were also covered in that thick exoskeleton and no matter how many times he cut it, he couldn’t even nick it once.
nJin-Woo bit his lower lip.
n‘This isn’t going to work.’
nThe spider only needed its two front legs to attack him, but on the other hand, he needed to use his entire body to evade them. It was obvious who would tire out first here.
n‘Tiredness.’
nTiredness: 57
nAs he thought, his Tiredness Stat was rapidly rising up.
nWhen this Stat hit 70, his speed would decrease, and when it reaches 90, his breathing would become too heavy and it’d become that much harder to freely move about.
nHe was running out of time.
n‘If I want to get closer to it, then…..’
nSpeed.
nHis speed was the issue.
nBoom!! Boom!! Boom! Boom!!!
n‘Wait. Speed, is it?’
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nAs Jin-Woo continued to barely evade each of the legs raining down, a thought entered his head.
n‘Yeah, I had that, didn’t I?’
nHe indeed possessed a single active skill. He had forgotten all about it because there was no need for him to use it, until now.
n‘Dash!’
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nYou’ve activated ‘Skill: Dash’.
nYour movement speed has increased by 30%. One Mana will be spent every minute during its activation.
nAlong with those messages, Jin-Woo’s body became even faster as if a booster had been activated. Evading the spider’s legs had become even easier as a result.
nSwish! Swish! Swish!
nBoom! Boom! Boom!
nHe swiftly evaded the spider legs slamming down like lightning bolts and in the blink of an eye, arrived before the monster.
nTaken by surprise, the spider hurriedly spewed out its digestive juice.
nHowever, thanks to the increase in his speed, his movement had now this certain composure to it. Jin-Woo easily evaded the digestive juice and pounced towards the spider’s head.
nSlash!
nHis dagger slashed at the spider’s eyes.
n‘Effect: Paralysis’ has been activated.
nThe effect has been cancelled due to the high resistance of the target.
n‘Effect: Bleeding’ has been activated.
nThe target’s stamina will decrease by 1% per second.
n“Yes!”
nOne of the two special effects the Poison Fang of Kasaka possessed had activated successfully.
nRooooaaaar!!!
nThe spider roared out and staggered about.
nJin-Woo didn’t miss this opening.
nThe moment his two feet landed back on the ground, he jumped up again and climbed on the spider’s body to get to the top of its head.
nThe spider went crazy and swung its legs all over the place, but Jin-Woo wasn’t going to let those blind attacks land on him.
nSlam! Boom! Kaboom!
nHoles continued to appear on the poor, blameless ground instead.
nNow standing on top of the spider’s head, Jin-Woo began stabbing the eyes of the spider with his dagger.
nStab! Stab! Staaab!!
nROOOAAARR!!!
nStab! Stab!!
nROOAARR?!!
nThe spider rampaged around this way and that, but Jin-Woo endured till the end and continued to shove his dagger into the head of the spider.
n“Keu, keu-ru-ruk!”
nThe spider began tottering about dangerously. It was obviously getting damaged now. Seeing this, Jin-Woo’s hands picked up speed.
nAnd eventually, the huge body of the spider finally tilted to the side.
nTHUD!!!
nHowever, Jin-Woo didn’t stay his hand. No, he kept going at it, until the spider was dead for sure.
nStab! Stab!! Stab!!!
n“Keuruk. Keureureureu….”
nAlong with the final gasps from the spider, several messages popped up in his view.
nYou’ve killed the owner of this dungeon.
nLevel up!
nLevel up!
nLevel up!
n“I did it!”
nWhile covered from head to toe in the spider blood, Jin-Woo raised his hands up high. Maybe because it was a boss monster, his level jumped up by three.
n“Status Window.”
nName: Seong Jin-Woo
nLevel: 21
nClass: None
nTitle: None
nHP: 2,600
nMP: 391
nTiredness: 0
nStat
nStrength: 53
nStamina: 30
nAgility: 38
nIntelligence: 30
nPerception: 32
n(Available points to distribute: 0)
nSkills
nPassive skills:
n– (Unknown) Lv. Max
n– Tenacity Lv. 1
nActive skills:
n– Dash Lv. 1
nFrom level 18, he had jumped up to reach 21 in one go. And that wasn’t even the end. Besides the level up messages, something else also popped up as well.
nTti-ring.
n‘Store: Buy’ function is now available with your level having reached 20.
n‘Oh, so I can finally spend those Gold things now, eh?’
nThat was a nice message, for sure. However, now wasn’t the right time to relaxedly browse through the Store.
nRUMBLE…..
nThe cave began to shake just a little.
nWith the death of the dungeon’s owner, the entrance of the dungeon will be destroyed in one hour.
nRemaining time: 59 minutes 58 seconds.
nIndeed, he had to get out of this place before the Gate closed on him, after all. Browsing through the Store could be done once he was somewhere safe.
nJust as Jin-Woo was about to climb down, he spotted something gleaming brightly in the middle of the spider’s head.
n‘Is that an item?’
nHowever, unlike the monsters from the instant dungeon, there was no message about recovered items, nor could he automatically claim them.
nWhat could it be, then?
nJin-Woo pondered briefly before realising what it was.
n‘Ah, these things have magic crystals, don’t they?’
nNo matter how busy he was, how could he forget something so valuable like that?
nJin-Woo extracted the magic crystal hidden deep inside the head of the dead spider. This was a C-rank magic crystal extracted from the boss monster, so it should at least go for around ten million Won, easy.
nAs the trophy for his glamorous victory, this would do very nicely.
nJin-Woo lightly jumped down from the dead spider’s head.
nTap.
nHe landed lightly on the ground and turned around, and well, he discovered more gleaming lights, this time coming from the spider’s belly.
nNot only that, but several of them, even!
nJin-Woo was now feeling rather surprised.
nHe heard stories of some monsters possessing two, three magic crystals, but there were simply too many lights to say those could all be magic crystals.
n‘What could they be, then?’
nHe used the dagger to slice open the belly and continued on to its stomach, which resulted in half-digested remains of the insect-type monsters to pour out to the ground. And the lights were coming from those.
n“No way….?!”
nJin-Woo rummaged through the dead insects one at the time.
nAnd just as he suspected, they all possessed their magic crystals. Sure, a few of them had melted down and become smaller than before, but quite a lot of them had survived and remained as good as new.
nWhen he collected the intact ones, he counted over ten.
n“I really hit the jackpot this time!”
nHe came to earn this month’s rent, but at this rate, he’d be earning way more than that.
n“H-hyung-nim.”
nWhen Jin-Woo looked back, he saw Yu Jin-Ho there.
n“Please, put them in here.”
nYu Jin-Ho then proceeded to carefully tuck in the magic crystals belonging to Jin-Woo inside his equipment bag. Next, he reached inside the corner of the same bag and pulled out a Thermos, before pouring the flask’s content on its lid.
n“Hyung-nim, you must be feeling thirsty. Please, drink this. It’s water.”
nIndeed, it was a cold, refreshing cup of water, filled right up to the edge.
n‘Why is this kid doing something no one asked him to?’
n< Chapter 21 > Fin.
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