Chapter 34
Chapter 34
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 34
Chapter Title: Staying in B Class Was the Right Choice
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‘Staying in B Class was definitely the right call.’
Kim Jin-myeong had recommended that Jae-hyeok transfer to A Class.
A class’s curriculum followed the average skill level of its students.
Jin-myeong had worried that B Class lessons would hold Jae-hyeok back.
But Jae-hyeok thought differently.
‘The kids are still total newbies, so there’s plenty of room for me to profit.’
Today’s practical had proved it.
The B Class students, with almost no real combat experience, froze up against the monsters. Most of them couldn’t perform to their usual level and just floundered around.
‘Might be because I pushed them too hard, but anyway….’
Jae-hyeok had gained a whopping three levels.
Thanks to the students screaming and running around, drawing the monsters toward him, he’d effortlessly slaughtered them and gobbled up the experience points.
‘Hunting without breaking a sweat and leveling up three times? I bet I’m the first in the world.’
No joke.
Even low-level scrubs with pitiful stats would get tired from all the moving or sweat from the tension.
Jae-hyeok, on the other hand, had lounged comfortably while snapping up the monsters one by one.
It was like hiring dozens of mob-pullers.
‘There’s no way I could grow like this in A Class.’
A Class students were on another level.
Their average was over level 20, and every one of them had awakened advanced to top-tier first skills.
Especially this year’s first-year A Class—it had two National Treasure Candidates.
If he’d been dropped into the same hunting ground as them, he’d spend way more time searching for monsters than actually fighting.
“Kang Jae-hyeok.”
“The rumors were true—he snagged the Mad Dog and the freshman bench spot.”
“If they just fill that last slot right, that team might actually be pretty strong.”
After dinner.
As Jae-hyeok and his group headed to the training grounds, students’ eyes turned their way.
Most of the gazes mixed disbelief and jealousy, but some were sizing them up.
“Ugh….”
“Man, Kang Jae-hyeok’s a total superstar.”
Unlike Da-hee, who shrank under the tense atmosphere, Do-jin ignored the stares and headed straight for the weapon racks.
Gray weapons.
Magic engineering weapons that only took on color and power once infused with mana.
They were training tools used for spars at Lion’s Castle—dealing the same damage to objects as real blades, but capped so they couldn’t inflict excessive harm on human bodies.
“It’s not just Jae-hyeok—they seem really interested in our whole team. Why is that?”
“Once you form a team, you’re obligated to enter the ranking battles. A team like ours is worth watching and wary of.”
Do-jin answered Da-hee’s question.
“The ranking battles happen anytime, unrelated to specific events. You can fight whenever, so it’s super fun.”
“What do you get for climbing the ranks?”
Even Jae-hyeok, as a freshman, didn’t know much about it.
“You can skip the qualifiers for major tournaments.”
“That’s it?”
“That alone is huge, right? Say there’s an inter-school match against a foreign academy—you get to go as a rep, no question. Oh, and there are other perks too.”
Do-jin grinned mischievously.
“When you do a ranking battle, you usually bet something with the other team. Depending on what you negotiate, you can really fleece them.”
“Sometimes you act like a proper senior, Do-jin sunbae.”
Da-hee marveled at Do-jin’s steady stream of answers. She half-suspected he was a doppelganger.
A thick smile spread across Jae-hyeok’s lips as he reined in the bickering pair.
‘Winning ranking battles would make it easy to fill out the roster.’
Train the whole school in House Kang’s signature techniques to boost the family’s prestige, and clear quests too.
Talk about having your cake and eating it.
“Start with 2-on-1?”
While Jae-hyeok savored the breakthrough on his quest, Do-jin casually suggested teaming up on him with Da-hee.
He was admitting Jae-hyeok’s skills outclassed his own.
Da-hee felt the same.
But unlike Do-jin, she had some common sense.
“You want to spar with someone whose arm’s in a cast?”
“A broken arm’s no big deal. Would you go easy on a Jedi just ‘cause you broke your arm fighting a monster?”
“That’s real combat! What if overdoing it in practice causes permanent damage? Would you take responsibility, Do-jin sunbae?”
“I’ll just enjoy the thrill—you handle the responsibility. What…? Why are your eyes so wide?”
“I can’t see you in a good light at all. You need to learn some noblesse oblige, sunbae.”
“I’m not even noble—what nonsense… Ack!”
Jae-hyeok didn’t get a word in.
The two had already begun sparring.
Do-jin swung his greatsword with full power each time to compensate for his small, light frame. Da-hee weakened its momentum with precise, lightning-fast thrusts, then counterattacked.
“You little flying squirrel!”
After three thrusts threw off his greatsword’s trajectory, exposing a gap, Do-jin took a hit and immediately used Instant Step.
The way he got fired up so easily made you wonder if he was a Berserker.
Crash!!
He botched the coordinates and smashed headfirst into the wall, sliding down like a ragdoll.
“A-Are you okay?”
“Knew it!”
Do-jin sprang up from face-planting on the ground and swung his greatsword.
It was a feint he’d planned knowing her soft heart would fall for the obvious ambush.
Boom!
Da-hee’s rapier bent like it might snap.
Do-jin’s blow, loaded with his full body weight, looked too much to bear.
“Ahahaha!!”
Shifting his center of gravity to the greatsword’s tip, Do-jin spun like a windmill.
His ferocious barrage, unnaturally swift for a greatsword, battered Da-hee relentlessly.
“Entrust your body to the greatsword’s weight.”
Jae-hyeok advised Da-hee, who was quickly pushed back.
And the freshman bench spot was a genius who grasped many lessons from one.
She jammed her mana-charged rapier into the greatsword’s tip. The rebound launched her body far back.
Do-jin chased desperately, but it was too late.
Crouching on landing, she exploded her mana and shot forward like an arrow.
“Urk!”
Pierced in the solar plexus, Do-jin couldn’t even scream properly as he sprawled out spread-eagled.
“Why not use Instant Step when it matters?”
“That’s exactly when I can’t. If I whiff chasing down prey I’ve almost got, I’ll eat a real counter.”
“So you just die without it?”
“Urgh….”
“If you don’t trust your own skill, what then? You’re not always tense when using Instant Step? You have to guide mana fast and precise to the target coordinates, but you tense up and miss.”
“Me, tense…? N-No way?”
“Not trusting yourself when it counts means you lack confidence, and that makes you tense unconsciously.”
“Me?”
Baek Do-jin’s red hair flashed white for a moment as he tilted his head like a puppet with cut strings.
“D-Do-jin sunbae, did your soul just leave your body?”
“…Dunno about soul, but he’s in shock.”
Fearlessness was Do-jin’s strength.
Charging headlong at anyone earned him the Mad Dog nickname.
But deep down, a cowardly worrier every time he used a skill?
His Mad Dog pride couldn’t accept it.
“You figured out Instant Step’s coordinate principle, though. You’re improving clearly, so don’t be too down.”
“Sh-Should I give you some jelly?”
Da-hee rummaged in her pocket and pulled out some jelly.
That explained why her pants pockets were always bulging.
“Wh-What the hell did you feed me!? Poison? Is it poison!?”
“It’s ginseng jelly. The third favorite snack of Duke Kang Dae-guk.”
“Damn it! Eat that crap yourself!”
Snapping awake at the ginseng flavor, Do-jin resumed sparring with Da-hee.
Jae-hyeok stepped back, slumping wearily against a nearby bench. His arm injury looked severe to anyone watching.
***
“See you tomorrow!”
Bruised around both eyes like pandas, Do-jin and Da-hee parted with laughs.
No hard feelings despite fighting like they wanted to kill each other.
They’d probably crash asleep the second they hit the bed.
‘It’s not just simplicity….’
They were too busy getting stronger to care about petty stuff.
Do-jin, out to kill a National Treasure Candidate. Da-hee, determined to inherit the Yaksha’s will.
Kids in for struggles as tough as Jae-hyeok’s.
The wall of Necromancer was sky-high, and the true noble path was a bed of thorns.
‘Already starting, huh. The cast works great.’
After parting with his group.
Jae-hyeok chuckled to himself on a secluded path.
Fifteen paces ahead: a massive tree.
A presence clung shadow-like to its darkened trunk.
The one who’d tailed him since the training grounds.
Decent at muffling breath, but a terrible ambush spot.
‘The wind carries the pine sap smell from your clothes.’
If it were me, I’d hide in the valley three kilometers back.
‘A few more days observing my route would’ve built certainty.’
Step, step, step….
His steady strides crunched the dry dirt exactly fifteen times.
Flash!
Silver gleam erupted from the tree’s shadow.
Aiming for Jae-hyeok’s right shoulder.
Just as expected.
He raised his casted left arm to glance the dagger’s blade aside, then Quick-Drew with his right.
“Gasp…!”
The assassin groaned in shock as the pitch-black blade from his blind spot slashed him.
He’d never anticipated failure or a counter.
“A mere… level 10 punk… how… cough!”
Even charitably, if he’d used a bloodline skill, maybe.
But Jae-hyeok’s eyes didn’t gleam gold.
They held only darkness deeper than night.
Yet one strike had dealt a mortal wound—the assassin couldn’t believe it even after experiencing it.
“Level matter?”
Jae-hyeok retorted flatly.
“Get slashed, you die—same for anyone.”
The boy’s goal: vengeance, restoring his father and house’s honor.
His sword, swung over ten thousand times daily, targeted not monsters but humans.
Unlike average players, he’d honed a blade for killing people.
Worlds apart from third-rate assassins who just got an assassination first skill.