Chapter 136 – Experience Dungeon (3)
She managed to attack the wolf successfully after the fifth try.
[Critical Hit! You’ve received 204 damage!]
The moment the wolf’s claws hit Louise…
[Critical Hit! You’ve dealt 7183 damage!]
Louise punched the wolf.
Boom-! The wolf became stuck in the wall, and Louise breathed heavily.
「It isn’t over yet! Finish it!」
「O-okay…!」
Pang-!
At that moment, a body of mana flew…
The blue wolf’s attack.
Hyun considered dodging that attack as an exception, but he was surprised.
Louise moved before him.
Pang-! Pang!
Louise’s body drew a V-shape. The wolf’s attack brushed past her clothes.
Louise bent her back and then smashed the air with the palm of her hand.
Crack-!
The wind destroyed both the wall and the wolf.
Louise’s first hunt was unreasonably violent.
After the broken wall regenerated, she mumbled in a low voice.
「Did… It die…?」
「Yes.」
Hyun, unconsciously, began smiling.
「We still need to practice more.」
The ninth try.
“Are you a new recruit? T…”
While ignoring the NPC, each moved and took their places in different passageways.
Louise had already eliminated three wolves and was about to face the fourth one.
As the mental blocks began disappearing, Louise began growing at an astonishing rate.
The wind was, from the beginning, just like her hands and feet.
Moving while using the principle of reaction was probably difficult for some people, but for Louise, it was the most familiar way to move.
Pang-!
Louise, who jumped to the ceiling… stepped on it and landed again.
She moved behind the blue wolf in two movements.
She had learned by herself that the opponent’s back was the safest place.
Hyun, who was «Assimilating» into her, slightly nodded.
‘She’s getting the grasp of it!’
She immediately used the palm of her hands to smash the wolf.
Before Louise’s hands could touch the wolf, Hyun covered her body with magic.
Boom-! Dark energy was mixed with the wind.
As the wind swept away through the front, only traces of destruction were left.
The blue wolf’s body was completely torn apart.
“Ah…?”
Louise let out a small exclamation.
She realized it was destruction created by her skill.
That technique that made magic blow away was called «Black Wind».
It was the real strength that level 200 Louise had.
[The core has been destroyed!]
[15.1% bonus experience will be applied to what each person has earned!]
That time, the group returned to the magic circle through a portal that appeared.
TarrTarr was scratching his head in the middle of the dark hall.
“I’m sorry… I lost them.”
‘Oh, yeah, there was another guy I needed to take care of.’
Hyun sighed after seeing the gold in his inventory go down again.
He thought of how he would keep losing quite a bit of money for a while.
‘I think that we should take a break.’
It had been four hours since they’d arrived at the experience dungeon. Louise was visibly tired.
Since Louise was an NPC, most sensory filters didn’t apply to her.
She had probably been mentally and physically taxed a hundred times more than a player.
“Let’s continue tomorrow. Everyone has time, right?”
It was dawn in Korea, so the other party members were also quite tired.
Before the party was disbanded, TarrTarr spoke with a worried voice.
“Uhm, Hyeong… should I edit today’s footage…?”
“Who will watch a video of people struggling to kill level 100 monsters?”
“Right?”
Color returned to TarrTarr’s face; then he logged out.
“Speaking frankly… I made a mistake and lost track because I was sleepy.”
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Ain complained.
It seemed like she was still thinking about the blue wolf she’d let attack.
“Well, you don’t have multiple bodies, after all… you could make a mistake like that while helping another person.”
“No, but I wouldn’t usually lose track like that!”
“O-okay… Anyway, let’s try again tomorrow.”
After Ain and Louise logged out, only Hyun and Louise were left behind.
Luise was sticking to him, so he smirked.
He had to take her to the private room before logging out.
If he wanted her to be ready for the time they’d arranged to meet the next day, it would be better if she took a rest as soon as possible.
It was at that moment…
“Did you rent this place? For how long are you going to use it?”
Hyun heard someone’s angry voice when he was about to leave with Louise.
‘Huh? What?’
Hyun looked at the voice’s owner while Louise hid behind him.
A man holding a spear and wearing luxurious armor was complaining.
“You lack manners.”
“What…?”
“If someone is waiting, the correct thing is to leave after one try. Since you reactivated the circle, the four of us had to wait 15 more minutes.
“Were you waiting for your turn?”
“It seems like you’re finally catching on.”
Hyun couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
It was true that he had activated the magic circle consecutively, but he never thought that was a mistake.
The NPC that administrated the place didn’t restrict usage time in the first place, and there wasn’t a rule that said that you should leave if another party was waiting.
Usually, the usage time of magic circles was decided by a discussion between party leaders.
Not only that, but there were 10 more magic circles nearby, so why was he trying to pick up a fight with Hyun?
“Are you saying this because you just waited 15 minutes? I’m done, so use it as much as you want.”
Hyun didn’t like how the other person talked, so he spoke casually as well.
Not only was he tired, but he also had to hear the complaints of a weird guy, so he didn’t reply in a friendly manner.
Translator – Daniel Shin
Proofreader – ilafy
* * *
He didn’t want to get involved with him anymore, so he was about to leave the place when he heard the man with the spear snorting and talking.
“Just 15 minutes? It seems like you don’t know that 15 minutes of our time can buy a month of your life.”
Since he kept trying to pick up a fight, Hyun took a closer look at him; then he realized who he was.
The man wielding the spear was Pias.
He was one of the Darkness Guild’s executives. He was a player who had never fallen out of the top 20.
‘What, so it’s this guy?’
Hyun remembered what he’d heard from Ain.
She had met Pias in the duel arena one day.
He’d invited her to join Darkness, but she’d refused and taught him a lesson after that.
‘Just like she said, he’s a weird guy.’
It was common sense that getting involved with people like that would just make things tiresome.
Hyun just replied, “okay,” and left the hall without even looking back.
He ignored the voice coming from behind.
“Th-that bastard…! Until the end…!”
“Hey, Pias. Stop it.”
His partner, Bear Shield, shook his head from Pias’s side.
Bear Shield was watching carefully so he would be able to stop Pias as soon as he tried to cause trouble.
Thankfully, nothing happened.
“Your biggest issue is that big mouth…!”
The other members nodded at Bear Shield’s words.
Pias’s biggest weak point was that he didn’t have a filter.
He especially couldn’t let a comment that spoke in a negative sense about Darkness pass.
He just got angrier because the other person had looked down on them despite realizing they were members of Darkness.
“That guy definitely recognized us. He frowned after looking at our guild’s logo…!”
The other members clicked their tongues at Pias’s attitude.
Loving the guild was good, but in Pias’s case, it was a bit too much.
“Don’t get too angry. It’s obvious that not everyone is going to like us. You can’t react like this every single time.”
“Yes. Didn’t you burn the bridge with Ain because of your character?”
Pias was about to say something, but after hearing someone’s remark, he immediately calmed down.
Anger soon became guilt.
“I… did… right?”
“We also need to calm down. Things could get troublesome if we get into a fight with a ranker guild.”
“Now, everyone, let’s stop talking nonsense, and let’s go hunt.”
Tap tap- Bear Shield hit the floor with his shield and tried to change the atmosphere.
Their party, which was one of the most elite, even among Darkness, could clear the dungeon at even level 180.
They were thinking of challenging level 190 for the first time.
They were walking through a path no other user had been able to.
* * *
Level 190 experience dungeon.
The Darkness party had tried to do it many times, but they’d failed every single time by a narrow margin.
But although they’d failed, the atmosphere improved after hunting.
They returned to the private room after gaining quite a bit of experience.
The atmosphere in Darkness’s private room was serious because of a piece of information they’d obtained from Mayday, the best ranker in the guild.
The six executives were gathered in a separate, private place.
Mayday had told everyone something based on numerous videos and information as a basis. Surprisingly, that information was related to the existence of ‘Hyun.’
“Really? You found Hyun…?” Keiji, who was a ranker from the previous game, exclaimed in surprise.
He knew Hyun very well, so his reaction was more serious than the others.
“And to say there’s a chance he was with Ain from the beginning… How could that…?”
There were many videos of Ain on the internet, and there were way more people talking about seeing her than that…
But Hyun had never been mentioned in those videos.
Then how?
How had Mayday realized that Hyun and Ain were moving together?
“It’s «Assimilation»!”
Mayday played on a certain video.
“I was once «Assimilated» into the body of a monster!”
An underground city filled with lava appeared.
A video of Mayday being «Assimilated» into a monster called Betty appeared in front of everyone.
She still didn’t understand why she’d received that quest, but she still couldn’t forget the weird experience of using «Assimilation».
“Just like I experienced «Assimilation», I’m sure Hyun is using a skill similar to that!”
Mayday’s explanation kept going on.
The difference in strength that Ain showed at times was simply too much.
Most of the time, she was strong, like a top ranker… But sometimes, Ain showed specs similar to a named boss.
Even while fighting against Betty, the damage she’d done was just unbelievable.
For her to defeat a named boss with high defense in such an easy way, she should have had three times the stats of the boss or a very unique and special skill.
“Her ability to multitask can also be explained with «Assimilation»!”
During the Count’s quest…
Ain showed movements that were comparable to an AI. She’d dodged all the long-range attacks while engaging in close-range combat.
But in the duel arena or while fighting against Lattice, although she was strong, she wasn’t as overwhelmingly strong as she had been then.
Did she pretend to be weak sometimes while fighting seriously other times?
Rather than concluding that, Hyun using «Assimilation» on her was a more reasonable answer.
“And this is the biggest piece of evidence!”
The video Mayday showed was one taken during the beginning of Asrian. It was a video where two people hunted the named Leopard.
A snowstorm and ice covered the screen, so only Ain’s face could be seen.
But it was definitely true that Ain had formed a party with another person.
“That was Hyun?” Bear Shield asked while looking at the figure wearing a black robe.
“Yes. There’s a huge chance that’s him. I heard that they often moved together in the previous game, so if Hyun plays Asrian, he’s definitely doing it with Ain.”
“I understood your points,” XL, the leader of Darkness, said while nodding.
While she was talking, he more or less guessed what she would talk about.
It was as if his doubts and questions were being answered.
“I’m glad.”
XL quickly thought of a plan because he’d investigated a lot about Hyun.
According to the information, unlike Ain, he was someone who was very cold and rational.
He thought that he was probably the most cold-minded person in Asrian.
“If he’s just like what the information says, it will probably be impossible to make him join us… He isn’t the type of person who would be under someone’s command.”
Rather than an ideal one, Darkness tried to achieve a realistic outcome.
“Rather than making him join us, building a positive relationship with him is more important. If that’s not possible, we should at least be neutral… but we should never become his opponent.”
Hyun’s existence could have an influence as big as Lattice’s… No, maybe an even bigger one than his.
Since Hyun hadn’t shown himself, he didn’t know what he was planning, which was why he was so afraid of him.
