Chapter 16. Status Window
Chapter 16. Status Window
The night on the sea was long and silent.
Right after setting sail, my head was a mess with all sorts of thoughts and worries, but after just sitting on the boat with nothing to do, even that intense tension slowly dulled.
Occasionally, there were monsters that had mutated from fish or squid leaping above the surface, but they were nothing more than a nuisance, turning into a handful of ash with a single bolt of lightning.
The crew quietly steered the ship, only glancing at me cautiously.
I leaned against the deck railing and stared blankly at the black sea.
It was a night where, ironically, the stars twinkled exceptionally clearly amidst the curtain of aurora-like light.
'So this is the night of the sea.'
Standing in the middle of the vast, open ocean without a single light, the night sky was, if anything, painfully beautiful.
Han-byeol approached and sat down beside me, cautious.
"Oppa. Not sleeping?"
"...Can't really sleep."
For a while, we just listened to the sound of the waves, looking up at the sky without a word.
Cheol-sseok, cheol-sseok.
The sound of the waves rhythmically hitting the boat strangely calmed my churning heart.
Breaking the silence, Han-byeol spoke first.
She began to quietly share her past, which I hadn't even asked about, as if it were a secret that could only be confessed in the stillness of this night sea.
"That day, my whole family was in the city. We went to buy souvenirs. But suddenly, the sky split open, light fell, and people started going crazy. Bizarrely mutated beasts started popping out from everywhere too... The streets turned into chaos in an instant."
Han-byeol's voice was so calm.
A child who lost her family.
It was a voice too calm to believe it was the hell a seventeen-year-old had endured.
Seeing Han-byeol, I felt my heart ache even more because I could see my past self in her.
"Mom pushed me away hard. Told me to run. Dad blocked the monsters from behind. I... I ran without even looking back. I was too scared. That was the last time. Later, when I looked from afar... they had been... taken by a pack of Mutated Wild Dogs."
A faint tremor lingered in Han-byeol's voice as she recalled her parents' final moments.
The short word "pack of wild dogs" was enough to vividly paint the tragedy.
She had escaped frantically and survived somehow, but the terrible guilt and self-reproach of being the only survivor must have gnawed at the child's soul.
'Just like me....'
It felt like a heavy thorn that had been stuck in a corner of my heart for a long time was finally being pulled out.
I had noticed it last time, but I had been harboring a secret fear—what if her parents had been caught in that massive vortex of slaughter I had committed in Okinawa?
Once I was certain they hadn't been caught in my lightning, a shameful sense of relief washed over me. It was unavoidable human selfishness.
"I wandered alone and happened to join a group of survivors. They welcomed me with open arms once they found out I had a healing ability. Thanks to that, I survived."
"...Then why did you follow me? Staying with that group would have been safer, with more numbers."
Han-byeol smirked.
It was a bitter, mocking laugh, mature beyond her seventeen years.
"Safe? It looked harmonious on the outside, but people were disappearing day by day there too. Naturally, the weak ones first. They'd say food was scarce, and then the elderly or weak would disappear one by one. And yet, the strong men would still have their eyes on the young women, trying to keep them for themselves... it was so disgusting."
It was a cliché situation that inevitably comes in a world where laws and rules have vanished.
One could say it was unavoidable, but from this child's perspective, nothing could have been more disgusting.
"I wasn't treated poorly because I had the clear utility of a healing ability, but if not for that, who knows what would have happened. Besides... there were plenty of middle-aged men who would give me dirty looks just because of the 'Korean high school girl' title."
Han-byeol looked up at me intently.
The starlight was twinkling in her black eyes.
She fell into reminiscence, thinking of that time, and continued.
"But nobody can touch anyone next to you, Oppa. Honestly, I was terrified at first. Because there were so many rumors about you being a Slaughterer or a monster. But seeing you not kill that lady and her daughter, and seeing you stay calm even though I approached you. I got a feeling. Instead of staying there and suffering a terrible fate, becoming a plaything for dirty old men, I decided to follow this scary Oppa."
Han-byeol wrinkled her nose playfully, but I knew the blood-soaked desperation hidden within that light complaint.
"So I secretly followed you and observed you. And while I was following you, you actually didn't lay a hand on the weak."
That was because we met after some time had passed.
"Then I saw you standing blankly in front of a grave with the saddest, most depressed expression in the world. That's when I was sure. Ah, there was a reason that person became a Slaughterer."
"......."
"If I lost my lover and had the power, I think I would have become a Slaughterer too. And, in the end, my gut feeling was right. Thanks to that, I was able to return to Korea like this."
"You're smart."
"You have to be clever to survive. Otherwise, how would a girl survive alone in a world like this?"
At that bold statement, a light laugh escaped me before I knew it.
She was completely different from So-hee, but Han-byeol was blowing warm heat into my hollow chest in her own way.
The sadness settled in the deep abyss of my heart wasn't completely filled, but it felt as if a warm breeze had gently blown over its desolate surface.
"Get some sleep for now. You should rest when you can."
"Okay. Oppa, you get some sleep too."
Anyway, she was a sharp kid.
She accurately read that sliver of humanity remaining behind the rumors of the Slaughterer.
That sliver I had once forgotten myself.
I gently picked up Han-byeol, who had fallen asleep leaning against the wall, carried her to the bed in the inner cabin, and covered her with a blanket.
Whether it was because of my increased physical stats or because she was so thin, she felt as light as a feather.
After making sure the cabin door was securely locked, I went back out to the silent deck.
And closing my eyes, I opened the status window in the air.
For the first time since gaining my abilities, I calmly examined my status window.
[ Name : Seo Ji-han ]
[ Attribute : Electric Shock ]
[ Lv. 127 ]
---------Stats---------
Intelligence | 203 | 3 Tier
Strength | 115 | 2 Tier
Agility | 101 | 2 Tier
Stamina | 70 | 1 Tier
Durability | 50 | 1 Tier
Resistance | 31 | 1 Tier
[ You can distribute stats. (Free Points : 100) ]
The numbers I couldn't properly look at when I was fighting Dogo for my life.
Level 127.
After defeating Dogo and catching a few more sea monsters targeting the ship, my level had gone up even more.
It was, as expected, an abnormal growth rate.
Even listening to the Korean tourists on the ship, they said they had barely even seen anyone who had passed level 40.
'The growth doesn't make sense... What on earth is happening to me.'
I scanned the stats in front of me precisely, one by one.
There were tiers attached next to stats like Intelligence and Strength, and the actual numbers were written separately next to them.
I had never raised my stats until now. In fact, I barely remembered opening the status window itself.
'But what are these numbers...?'
I was staring blankly, wondering if I should ask Han-byeol when she woke up because I had no idea what these numbers meant, when the explanation floated up smoothly.
The stats on the left were the same as in a game.
Raising Intelligence makes magic stronger, raising Strength makes you stronger....
The automatic distribution system for stats was simple.
Every time you level up, 5 points are automatically distributed, and the standard was 'the action taken most frequently while gaining experience.'
An intuitive mechanism where Intelligence rises if you pour out 'Electric Shock' abilities classified as magic, and Strength and Agility rise if you roll around with your body.
In the end, mindless leveling up wasn't the key; the core was how you fight according to your abilities.
"I should avoid using my body if possible from now on...."
On top of this, the fraudulent effect of the 'Tier' attached to each stat was added.
A bizarre structure where the actual power of the corresponding stat doubles every time the tier rises by one level.
Tier 1 is as the number says, Tier 2 is 2 times the number, and Tier 3 showed a whopping 4 times the power.
However, the points required to raise the corresponding stat also increased honestly by 1 per tier.
The electrification? Current transformation? I used improvisationally in the battle with Dogo?
...Damn it. I need to decide on a name.
Anyway, thinking that I might not have been able to use it if it were Tier 2, goosebumps rose all over my body at the thought that I had been playing a game of recklessness, gambling with my life while intoxicated by a shallow sense of strength without knowing it.
But the real core was the special item listed at the bottom.
[ Free Points : 100 ]
"What is this."
As I stared at it, the explanation floated up as expected.
An explanation that every time you level up 100 times, 100 'Free Points' are temporarily provided, which can be distributed directly according to one's will.
The memory of catching a glimpse of the level 100 breakthrough text one day while I was intoxicated by madness and carrying out slaughter flashed through my mind.
At that time, I was just crazy about the destruction in front of me and ignored the stats, leaving them alone, but that neglected card was shining in my grasp now.
'To think I had been hoarding this huge card all this time.'
A bitter laugh escaped along with hollow self-mockery.
The price of not being in my right mind almost sent me to the grave.
There was no reason to hesitate.
I invested the 100 Free Points I possessed into 'Intelligence', my main stat, without sparing them.
A more powerful and unapproachable ultra-high voltage lightning.
That was the most certain insurance policy to protect me and Han-byeol.
I dumped everything into Intelligence without hesitation. My main was Electric Shock, and stronger lightning. That was the power to protect me and Han-byeol.
Since the tier was high, the consumption of points was enormous.
[ Intelligence 203 → 236 ]
[ Free Points : 1 ]
Since Intelligence was already in the 3rd Tier realm, it ate up a whopping 3 points just to raise the stat by 1.
In the end, I consumed 99 points to raise Intelligence by a mere 33, and 1 point was left ambiguously.
I invested the remaining 1 point into 'Durability' for physical survival, just in case.
[ Durability 50 → 51 ]
[ Free Points : 0 ]
I finished analyzing the status window.
Now I could see what my true weapon was.
Although it was a late realization, it was enough since I had taken my share even now.
With a lighter heart, I returned to the cabin and had a deep sleep.
The next morning, I talked to Han-byeol, who had woken up.
"I took a detailed look at my status window yesterday."
"Oppa's status window? How was it? How strong are you?"
"...Stronger than I thought."
Han-byeol burst into a scoff as if it were ridiculous.
"You only realized that now? Good grief, it's totally ridiculous that you're only realizing now a fact that even a dog passing by in the neighborhood would know."
"...Be quiet."
"I am curious, though. How flashy it must be~"
Beyond our playful bickering, the horizon was spreading out wide.