The Mannequin Levels Up
Leveling up my unique skill was only natural. What I had never heard of, though, was an object influenced by the skill growing like an independent entity. It was almost like…
‘It can level up like a game character?’
Hunters only raised the levels of their skills. There was no such thing as the level-up system from games that improved your personal specs. You grew stronger through unique skill awakenings, acquiring general skills, and the quirks you gained after every escape. But if something could level up like this?
‘Just how strong could it become?’
Out of habit I raised my phone like I was scanning it.
EX Mannequin Lv.2
“Wait, what?! It doesn’t just have a level, it has its own grade too?”
This was even more unexpected. The mannequin wasn’t even an item to begin with—just ordinary junk—yet it had received an EX-grade evaluation.
‘Is it affected by the Puppetry grade? Is that why its durability is so insane?!’
It was shocking on every level.
‘This skill is even more broken than I thought.’
Little by little, the true nature of Puppetry was revealing itself.
“Jaeha, what’s going on?”
“Puppetry leveled up.”
“Whoa, already? That’s awesome. Congrats!”
“Thanks.”
Sia clapped with pure, childlike delight.
“But it’s not just Puppetry’s level that went up. Scan the mannequin for me?”
“The mannequin?”
She tilted her head in confusion but scanned it anyway. A second later her eyes flew wide.
“Ahh! The mannequin’s level went up! And its grade?!”
“It was given its own level. The grade seems to be influenced by my Puppetry.”
“Its own level?! On a regular mannequin? Wait—your Puppetry skill is EX-grade?!”
“That’s right.”
I tried to sound calm as I explained, but I was just as stunned. Come to think of it…
“Sia, what grade is your Adrenaline?”
I realized I had never asked.
“Hmm…”
She thought for a moment, then gave me a serious look.
“It’s a secret, so you can’t tell anyone, okay?”
“Obviously.”
“It’s A-grade.”
“What?”
For a second I thought I’d heard wrong. Adrenaline was an A-grade unique skill? The highest grade anyone had announced until now was B-grade.
‘No wonder it was ridiculously overpowered…’
Even with conditions attached, its strength had no equal.
“What exactly happened during your first run?”
Until now I had assumed unique skill awakenings were pure luck. But there was no way my awakening of Puppetry had been a coincidence.
‘It must have been influenced by what I did inside the tower.’
If that was the case, awakening Puppetry made perfect sense. I had used the mannequin so aggressively, after all. Maybe it wasn’t just that. Giving orders to I Junseong and using distraction tactics might have been factored in too.
‘Even the fact that I helped Sia obtain her skill?’
Well, they probably hadn’t gone into that much detail.
“The truth is… during my first entry, I got surrounded by zombies and nearly died.”
“What?!”
Sia spoke calmly, as if she were talking about the weather.
“My reason for entering was exactly what you already know.”
Her mother’s stage-three stomach cancer diagnosis.
“I didn’t charge in blindly. I only went after reading reviews that said it wasn’t that dangerous. I just didn’t realize those reviews were written by special forces operatives.”
Maybe she had been too desperate to check properly. Honestly, I might have done the same.
“At first it was fine. Like the reviews said, I luckily found a weapon near the starting point, and as long as I moved quietly I wouldn’t run into any fights.”
That was fortunate.
“But things were going so well that I let my guard down. I opened the pharmacy door without thinking and woke up the zombie hiding behind it.”
I could picture it clearly. The zombie snapping awake. The desperate slam of the glass door. The shattering glass. The horde that came after.
“At first I thought I could just kill it quickly. The reviews said fighting zombies wasn’t that hard.”
She must have fought with everything she had.
“But it quickly got out of control. I was getting bitten and beaten, and I realized I was going to die.”
It wasn’t just bites you had to worry about. They swung their arms, tackled, and the charging attack of a running zombie could incapacitate a hunter in one hit.
“Then I thought—if I die, what happens to Mom? So I fought like my life depended on it. Even when chunks of my flesh were torn away, my fingers were broken, and my nose was so swollen I could barely breathe.”
Just listening to it was heartbreaking. I couldn’t imagine the kind of resolve it took to fight that desperately.
“Thank god the first weapon I found was a kitchen knife. I must have gone half-crazy and just kept stabbing their necks. Somehow, I managed to kill them all right before I lost consciousness.”
Her hands were trembling just from remembering it.
“But that fight actually gave me hope. The medicine I farmed from the tower worked unbelievably well.”
Looking at her now, with no scars left, I could see just how incredible it was. If we could only get the anticancer drug, her mother might…
“I hid in the corner of the pharmacy for three days, treating my wounds, and barely managed to escape. That’s what triggered my Adrenaline awakening.”
I didn’t know what to say. To awaken a skill at the cost of surviving something so brutal…
“Hey, don’t make that face. Thanks to that experience I gained a skill that lets me protect myself and found hope again, didn’t I?”
And with that skill, she had saved me too.
“All right! If it’s come to this, I have no choice.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“I’ll get that anticancer drug for you no matter what.”
It didn’t even seem impossible anymore. In fact, the odds of success felt much higher.
“Wait! I never said I’d go with you!”
She hadn’t… yet. But it sounded like she would soon.
My mannequin would only keep getting stronger.
“Then I’ll just go alone.”
“Ugh! Why does it always end up like this?!”
“I don’t know. I just feel like it now.”
I didn’t fully understand it myself. I had acted like I would never set foot in the tower again, yet here I was. Still, after she had risked her life to awaken that skill and used it to help me, I couldn’t just pretend I didn’t know.
“By the way.”
“Yeah?”
“What quirk did you get this time?”
Unique skills could only be obtained on the first escape. After that, you gained a quirk with a certain probability on every subsequent run. Quirks had both positive and negative effects. The more positive ones the better, but even a single negative quirk could be fatal. It could completely change your personality, make you lose control of your impulses, turn you excessively aggressive, or lower your physical abilities.
“Well…”
Watching Sia hesitate made anxiety swell in my chest.
“I got a quirk called Vivid Presence.”
“What does it do? Is it negative?”
“Luckily it’s not purely negative. It’s a mixed-type quirk.”
A quirk that combined both positive and negative traits.
“It slightly boosts physical stats, but it makes your presence much stronger.”
Stronger presence… So that was why she had worn sunglasses when she came out. That was why I couldn’t stop staring at her.
“Then does that mean…”
“Yeah. It’ll draw a lot more zombie aggro.”
It wasn’t just a higher chance of waking them up. The range of monsters that would notice her would widen too. It was literally the worst possible quirk for a hunter.
“Sia, how about you take a break from being a hunter and focus on modeling and influencing? I’ll get the anticancer drug somehow.”
A strong presence would be a huge advantage for a model or influencer. But for a hunter, it was the worst possible weakness.
“Jaeha. You already know what I’m going to say, don’t you?”
Even so, this wasn’t acceptable.
“It’s too dangerous.”
She had to know. Crossing the roads on the second floor would require risking her life now.
“It’s fine. I made my peace with it back then.”
Her small, quiet smile looked unbearably sad. It seemed like she had left something important behind during her first escape.
‘Anyway, if we just get the anticancer drug, everything will be solved.’
The answer was simple. For now, it was better to let it go.
“Let’s think about that later. We still have three days.”
“Okay.”
“How about we test Puppetry some more right now? It might help when we farm the big hospital.”
“Sounds good.”
I needed to distract her for the moment.
‘The number of entities I can control is three now, right?’
When I checked, the numbers had changed.
Current Operable Entities: 3
Currently Active Entities: 1
‘What? It increased? Must be from the level-up.’
But the entity count wasn’t the only thing that had changed.
EX Puppetry Lv.2
・Bestows temporary will upon targets with human shape.
・Targets that receive will move independently and carry out the caster’s commands.
・Current operable entities: 3
・Currently active entities: 1
[Additional Option]
・Puppets can use the caster’s general skills.
‘Even an additional option! And they can use my skills?’
My total number of controllable entities was currently four. If every single one of those puppets could grow and use my skills?
‘This might actually work!’
All sorts of plans were already forming in my head.
‘Testing first!’
I walked over to an intact dummy, placed my hand on it, and thought the command.
‘Bestow will.’
Kiiiiiiiiing——!
This time, unlike with the mannequin, the process finished in an instant. The dummy already had proper joints, after all.
“Whoa! What’s that light? Did the mannequin go through the same thing?”
“Yeah. The mannequin took longer because it didn’t have any joints.”
I first ordered the dummy to put on the equipment.
“So what are we testing this time?”
“I want to check the difference in combat strength between two entities.”
The gap between level one and two. The difference between a mannequin without joints and a more complete dummy. And the difference between objects taken from inside the tower versus ones obtained outside. I intended to learn all of it.