Flame Burst

I walked up to the skill merchant.

The Hispanic skill merchant looked at me, a strange glint flickering in his eyes.

"Your growth's awfully steep."

A few hunters' gazes pinned themselves on me. There was no great reaction, but I could feel them taking notice, and the reason wasn't hard to guess. Climbing the Tower was how a hunter enlarged their vessel, and that was territory where another person could hardly help you. The Labyrinth was different. Points, experience, and a flood of items and resources that turned into money—team up with a capable companion, and you could produce fine results whenever you pleased.

"......"

But the interest went dull almost at once. I didn't have so much as decent gear, only an old wooden doll in my hand. Taking me for a capable hunter was a stretch.

I didn't care. I'd had no thought of joining anyone either. I fixed my attention on the shop window that rose before my eyes.

There it was.

Flame Burst. Burning, Explosion, Expansion, Purification, Melting—the skill that governed Explosion, second of the five attributes.

There was no reason not to learn it.

My heart pounded at the message. The hunger to grow filled my chest.

It was astonishing. When I had first arrived in the lobby, simply being able to move had been happiness enough, and yet somewhere along the way I had started wanting more. I wanted to get stronger. I wanted to move forward. I could never reclaim the time I had lost, but the time I had left—I wanted to spend every bit of it by my own will.

"......"

Even so, I knew it by instinct. I couldn't rush. One calm step at a time would be enough.

Transcendence. If I trusted this absurd ability and kept walking, I didn't need to hurry. Sooner or later I would have no choice but to stand somewhere high.

Fwoosh!

I used Flame Burst. Crimson flame surged up over my palm. Unlike a Fireball, which took a clean spherical shape the instant it was summoned, this was a sphere of fire wrought by flame that kept boiling upward like erupting lava.

Something about it was strange. Even after it had achieved a perfect form, flame continued to roll inward into the sphere, and only after it had devoured a great deal more mana did the movement of that heat finally stop.

"...Incredible."

A tremendous mass of thermal energy had condensed inside the sphere. Unlike a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Fireball's aura, which spread outward, this one shuddered as if it might burst at any moment. I nodded at that thick, clinging heat. Of course. No wonder it was the skill mages themselves—and even their party members—favored most. Judging by this absurd compression, once it blew it would make a tremendous explosion. A goblin scouting party, I figured, would be wiped out in a single blast.

Might as well test it.

I headed straight for the Labyrinth.

"Thank you for your devotion to the nation."

Today the officer on duty was a man. I dipped my head and passed him, and the stare drilling into the back of my skull was blatantly obvious. I tilted my head.

'...What?'

Someone's gaze, out of nowhere. It wasn't as if I had eyes in the back of my head, and I hadn't been toying with the man through threads of mana. And yet I had suddenly felt his attention.

Me. Had I turned into some kind of alien?

"Ah."

I realized the reason at once. Clearing the third floor of the Tower had raised my level to sixty, and thanks to that the efficiency of Detection had climbed.

'So this is why the Awakened climb the Tower.'

The reason hunters staked their lives on the ascent. Every floor cleared raised one's highest achieved level by twenty. Setting points aside, the effect was to enlarge the vessel itself. Grow the vessel first, then focus on leveling, and it became possible to improve the body and even drag the efficiency of one's skills upward. From a hunter's perspective, there was no choice but to bet your life on the Tower.

...Hold on. Why had that officer been staring at me so intently in the first place? Because of what happened in Chuncheon?

'Not likely.'

I had been monitoring the news every day from the motel computer. There had been nothing at all about the fire on the Chuncheon side. In a way, that was only natural. If things had gone according to my plan, Lee Tae-sik's side would sooner be suspecting Vice Chairman Choi Han-sung. Imagining that a quadriplegic nephew had walked out on his own was beyond common sense.

"...No idea."

Maybe it was only routine hunter monitoring. From the state's perspective, a newly registered Awakened was bound to draw interest. The thought ended there. It was time to focus.

I spread my senses wide through Detection. In an instant the darkness in my mind lifted, and the surroundings grew bright.

Whether from the level-up or not, the area of the black board had widened, and the white region had widened ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with it. What had been roughly a one-kilometer radius seemed to have grown to about one and a half.

'This is basically a map hack.'

Above the white region, dots of several colors. I moved toward one of them.

A single green dot, with three red dots ringing it. It felt as if monsters were guarding the green one. The distance was about eight hundred meters. To the naked eye there was nothing but darkness, but that didn't matter. I pinned their positions with Detection and raised my palm.

Fwoosh!

The surging flame formed a sphere, and then thermal energy was sucked into it for all it was worth. A drained weakness, as if the mana in my body had been yanked out. Meditation pushed mana in to fill the gap. Even so, a light dizziness washed over me. Unlike Fireball, I couldn't even ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠dream of increasing Flame Burst's size. I hurled the crimson sphere in my hand into the dark.

——!!

Light split the darkness, far faster than when I had first thrown a Fireball. The level gap, no doubt. I had been level one then. I was level sixty now.

The result was different, too. A huge blaze flashed in the dark, and then the roar of the blast rolled out.

BOOOOOOM!!!!

The three red dots vanished. The mana cost was monstrous, but the destructive power was outstanding. It was every bit the incredible skill I had heard about.

Which was exactly why I grew worried instead. If a level-one Flame Burst hit this hard, then just how powerful was a level-twenty Flame Burst?

Step. Step.

For now I approached the green dot. A small plant had grown in a spot that had barely escaped the blast, and I reached out and set my hand on it.

Spirit Grass. The most common plant in the Labyrinth. Eating it raw was terribly inefficient, so people often sold it back in the real world. The price ran to about a hundred thousand won.

Two full nights at the motel.

Rustle.

I put the Spirit Grass into my bag, a cheap five-point sack bought from the equipment merchant. The grass was crushed without mercy, but I didn't care. I was only going to toss it in a pot, boil it, and draw the mana out. The shape hardly mattered.

I checked the board. Beyond a kilometer, a brown dot—brown meant minerals. I nearly went straight over, then hesitated.

"The dot's a little big."

A dot large enough to stack ten of the Spirit Grass's green dots together. I was curious. What could possibly be there, to make a mark that huge?

I walked slowly, turning over what I remembered.

Minerals were dangerous. An Awakened was fine, since mana protected the body, but the outside world was different. In some countries there had been incidents in which hundreds of ordinary people died. Take a mineral out of a place without the perfect control of a state agency, and you were arrested on the spot.

Still, they had their uses. The blacksmith in the lobby bought ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠them, and a decent mineral was said to pay out a fair number of points.

"...Hm?"

But before long I stopped. There were two reasons.

"Did someone find the mineral?"

A single gray dot that had been drifting aimlessly around the mineral suddenly turned toward it, on a precise straight line. No question—they had confirmed the mineral.

"Hm."

That in itself was no problem. A mineral belonged to whichever hunter found it first. They could dig to their heart's content for all I cared.

The red dot that had quietly surfaced beside the mineral was another story. Red meant a monster. It hadn't been visible at all until now; the moment an Awakened drew near, it had risen into view.

The problem was that the hunter approaching the mineral had no idea. The gait itself had been identical from the start until now. They didn't know the monster existed at all.

'Should I go take a look?'

The mineral marked by that oversized dot, and the red dot that had slipped into view once a hunter approached—just watching ought to be a good lesson. My level was high, but my experience was hopelessly thin. If I wanted to improve, I needed more information. Information about a level-twenty Detection, above all, was something I couldn't get from anyone. I had no choice but to learn it myself, one piece at a time.

In the end I decided to go. I approached slowly, watching the board.

A hunter drawing near without a shred of suspicion. A red dot trembling lightly, as if in answer. The single red dot split into five in an instant. Definitely not ordinary monsters.

That was when it happened.

"Aaaaaaaah!"

With a tearing scream, the gray dot stopped dead. Not an ordinary cry—a scream tangled with pain and bewilderment. They clearly hadn't expected an ambush.

Fwoosh.

No time to think. This was a beginner zone anyway, where hunters could not harm one another. There was no need to worry about injuring the other person.

I threw the flame condensed over my palm as it was.

My first use of Flame Burst at maximum level. Crimson fire left a thick afterimage as it split the dark.

I caught a glimpse. The mineral. A woman. And a massive vine split into five strands. I thought I saw blood flash across her body. In that instant, a huge burst of light erupted.

BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!

Then a savage shockwave blanketed the area and slammed into me. I had no time to gauge the scale of the blast before I spun around. I hunched down and held on with everything I had so I wouldn't be thrown back.

"What the hell..."

Creak. Grind.

The whipping gale shoved at my crouched body. I had to plant both hands on the ground to endure it. About ten seconds passed like that before the wind subsided.

Slowly, I turned my head.

My mouth fell open.

Patter... patter...

In the darkness, thousands—tens of thousands—of sparks danced and lit the surroundings.

The crater carved into the ground was so huge it hardly felt real. Let's see. The gouge alone looked a good five meters in radius, easily. If I pictured that mark completed into a sphere, it looked closer to eight.

"Uh...?"

And there, at the very center of that enormous crater, wrapped in sparks drifting softly down, a woman stared blankly into empty air.

"Wh... what is this...?"

She glanced around, and her eyes met mine. Surprise, maybe. Her eyes, already large, grew even larger.

"You s—"

The woman came to her senses, and her mouth opened.

I nodded, dazed. If I was honest, I was every bit as stunned as she was.

What kind of spell was this?

It was a natural disaster.

© DomeYellowTea#1ylk2