Chapter 67
Chapter 67
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 67
Chapter Title: Kim Joo-hyuk Raid
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Beep beep beep—
The alarm blared, and my eyes snapped open at the same instant.
But something felt off.
'Why isn't the 14th-day notification window appearing?'
I checked my tablet.
The clock on it read 4:55 a.m.
The alarm, set for exactly 5:00 a.m., had gone off five minutes early on its own.
'What the hell?'
The moment I sat up, Ariel dropped her invisibility and suddenly appeared inside the tent.
Before I could even react to her entrance, she shouted in a frantic voice.
"Joo-hyuk! This is bad! Get into battle formation right now!"
"What's wrong? What happened?"
Still groggy from sleep, I couldn't quite grasp what she was saying.
"Fellios is back!"
"Fellios?"
I tilted my head at her words.
"What's the big deal? She was due to return around now anyway, right?"
I brushed it off as no big issue. But Ariel's next words completely flipped my casual assumption.
"No! It's incredibly dangerous right now! Fellios has activated the 1st floor's emergency protocol...! We don't have time! Right now...!"
Before Ariel could finish, a massive attack hurtled through the air with a deafening whoosh, slamming into her.
Boom—!
She didn't even have time to scream as she was sent flying sideways. Crashing through the tent wall, Ariel tumbled across the ground several times before finally coming to a stop.
"Ariel!"
I reflexively shouted her name and jumped to my feet.
'What the hell was that attack?'
It had all happened in an instant.
Even with my agility stat nearing 70, all I could manage was to react. I couldn't even identify the form of the attack the enemy had launched. That's how fast it was.
At that moment, from the torn tent wall came the sound of clicking heels: click. click.
I turned my head to see Fellios strolling in, wearing a disheveled women's business suit and high heels, a leisurely smile on her face.
"Oh dear, Ariel. I told you to watch him, not betray me, you know?"
Fellios looked down at the fallen Ariel with a sneering gaze. Her voice dripped with mockery.
"You know if this gets reported upstairs, it won't end with just a slap on the wrist, right?"
"Ugh..."
Ariel groaned in pain, struggling repeatedly to rise from the ground, but some invisible force seemed to pin her down, leaving her unable to move.
"What are you planning to do with me?"
Fellios turned her gaze to me at my question.
"Not much, really. Believe it or not, I'm still an administrator. Directly harming a summoner would violate the rules."
"Then what was that neck-snapping stunt on day one?"
She shrugged exaggeratedly in response, her enormous breasts bouncing with the motion.
"Come on, everyone makes little mistakes now and then, right? Just let it slide with some flexibility~."
"Hypocrite much?"
"Thanks for the compliment."
"Kim Joo-hyuk. I don't know how you got abilities from outside the tower, but you've been causing way too much trouble. Now it's time to pay the price."
Fellios grinned wickedly at me. She then stretched languidly, loosening up her body.
"Ahh—! Finally, some real administrator work after so long. If you want to slack off and suck honey from the job, you gotta handle these big cases quick and clean so no one bats an eye later. Anyway, I'm just following protocol, so don't hate me too much."
The moment Fellios snapped her fingers.
An irresistible force enveloped my body.
'This sensation...?'
It was the same feeling as when using Warp.
My body was being forcibly teleported somewhere.
*
In the blink of an eye, the scenery around me changed.
I had been forcibly summoned to the center of an endless plain devoid of any terrain features.
At the same time, a special quest appeared before my eyes.
📜 NEW QUEST 📜 Special Quest: Kim Joo-hyuk Raid
Goal: Unite your strength to subjugate the vicious murderer disrupting the tower's order, 'Summoner Kim Joo-hyuk'.
Participants: All Summoners who have never killed another Summoner even once.
Reward: All points and items owned by Kim Joo-hyuk (distributed according to contribution).
Special Reward: The one who lands the final blow on 'Summoner Kim Joo-hyuk' will have one wish granted by Demon Fellios. (Message from Administrator Fellios: Want to escape the tower?)
Special Rule 1: No mid-quest withdrawals possible. Quest ends only when 'Kim Joo-hyuk' dies or all challengers perish.
Special Rule 2: During the quest, 'Summoner Kim Joo-hyuk' cannot recover injuries in any way. 'Summoner Kim Joo-hyuk' cannot leave the designated field until quest completion.
Special Rule 3: All challengers temporarily gain a random class during the quest. Additionally, all challengers receive a powerful buff increasing all stats and skill power by '395%'.
[Quest can be accepted for 1 minute.]
As the quest window popped up, footage of me slicing through summoners with my sword and massacring them played in my mind like an edited video for a few minutes.
This would ensure every summoner on the 1st floor witnessed my killing spree.
Moments later, an additional message window appeared.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [Public Announcement to All 1st Floor Summoners] [Summoner Kim Joo-hyuk's Level: 31] [Summoner Kim Joo-hyuk's Kill Count: 395] [Summoner Kim Joo-hyuk's Points: 921,200pt] 'Ha... She really went all out.'
I let out a hollow laugh.
Fellios had successfully turned me into public enemy number one for all summoners.
Proving it, pillars of light rained down from the sky like a shower, and armed summoners began appearing one by one in the distance.
Their numbers: dozens. No, hundreds.
This was the first true crisis since being summoned to the tower's 1st floor.
But strangely, I wasn't afraid. Instead, my heart pounded fiercely, growing hot.
'Kill or be killed.'
No mid-quest withdrawal. Hell, I wasn't even given a choice to begin with.
This fight ends only when one side is completely wiped out.
"There he is! He's over there!"
I watched as countless summoners spotted me and charged over, kicking up clouds of dust.
Gazing at them, I steeled my resolve deep in my heart.
'Fellios, you fucking bitch... I'm gonna survive this and fuck you no matter what.'
I tightened my grip on my sword.
Now, there was only one thing left for me to do.
Kill every bastard coming to kill me.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ "There he is! He's over there!"
At the shout, every summoner nearby turned their gazes to me.
Dozens at the front charged toward me with ferocious momentum.
'To them, I must look like a guaranteed lottery win.'
Not wrong, really.
If they could just kill me, that is.
Before engaging, I scanned my surroundings first.
Enemies everywhere. On this featureless plain, I had to face hundreds alone.
Clashing head-on would be foolish.
'One body against hundreds. No need to play in their melee scrum.'
I warped toward an empty spot in the field within my sight.
"Huh? What? Where'd Kim Joo-hyuk go?!"
"He was right there a second ago!"
The summoners looked baffled as I vanished from right in front of them. Seizing their confusion, I warped directly behind them.
"Where do you think? Right here, you idiots."
At my voice, the nearest summoners jumped in shock and spun around. But waiting for them wasn't me—it was my sharply honed blade.
Slash—
In one stroke, a summoner's head flew through the air.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ - 14th-day daily quota achieved. - Quest Reward: 50% increased point acquisition buff maintained until midnight. - Summoner 'Kyung-il' defeated. - 2,530pt acquired. Bathed in the blood spraying like a fountain, I swung my sword toward the next target.
"Argh! He's here!"
"Damn it! The bastard popped up behind us!"
To them, it probably looked like I'd teleported.
Leveraging the element of surprise, I took out three in a flash. One was a mage mid-cast toward me.
'Ranged classes are priority one for elimination.'
The summoners, enraged and shocked by their comrade's death, rushed at me.
Indeed, thanks to Fellios's buff, their movements were far too quick for ordinary summoners.
And with their enhanced strength, the whoosh of their weapons slicing the air felt genuinely threatening to me.
But that was it.
"Gahhh!"
"This psycho fights like a freaking monster!!!"
The summoners hadn't fully adapted to their suddenly empowered bodies. They were just swinging wildly on instinct.
Their motions were exaggerated, full of wasteful movements. To me, every action was crystal clear.
I effortlessly dodged their attacks while precisely and efficiently slicing their vital points with my sword.
Buffed or not, most of these were summoners who hadn't even reached level 10.
'They're stronger, sure. But still only half my stats at best. Generously, maybe 80%.'