Growth (5): Shared Ascension
Flap! Seven giant bats appeared. The creatures charged straight at Shin Jiyeon, who stood at the very front of the group, attacking her from every possible angle.
This was exactly why monster swarms were so terrifying. They didn’t need elaborate strategies or special attack patterns. The simple fact that they came at you from all directions, leaving nowhere to dodge, was enough to make your blood run cold.
But Shin Jiyeon was on another level.
“In moments like this, the most important thing is to avoid wasting movement. You focus on dodging while staying as still as possible.”
Even as she spoke, she began evading the bats’ claw strikes and wing slashes by the thinnest margin imaginable, like slipping through the gap between sheets of paper.
“That saves time for your next action. Of course, you’ll get hit or grazed a little at first. But it’s still better than dodging too dramatically and eating a clean follow-up hit.”
Her calm, almost lecture-like explanation while effortlessly dodging the giant bats’ attacks from every direction was… spine-tinglingly cool.
“...Wow. What a fucking legend.”
“Kiiik…”
At Park Jihun’s admiration, Briana nodded in firm agreement.
Come to think of it, Briana was a warrior too.
Goblin female warrior Briana. She used a whip, but she was still a mid-range fighter. No wonder Jiyeon’s movements looked so fascinating to her.
As for Kar…
“......”
Kar was staring so hard at Shin Jiyeon’s movements that she seemed to have forgotten to breathe. As a close-quarters martial artist who fought even more intimately than Jiyeon, those movements had to be incredibly valuable to her.
Kar was already plenty strong anyway.
Even back when Park Jihun’s stats were lower than they were now, she had fought both him and Briana remarkably well.
I would’ve lost if I’d been alone.
That was how strong she was.
Then, suddenly, a new thought struck Park Jihun.
But… don’t the familiars grow?
Familiar growth. He himself grew thanks to the Female Hunter effect. Shin Jiyeon wouldn’t grow without consuming something like an elixir, but what about the monsters?
Of course, research into monster ecology was severely lacking, largely for the same reasons there were almost no tamed monsters. As a result, countless things remained unknown—how monsters lived, how they evolved, how they reproduced, and so on.
Still… they can evolve into humanoid forms, and there are higher species like hobgoblins and red orcs. So doesn’t that mean there’s at least some potential for growth?
While he was lost in thought—
“How was that, Sunbae? Did you watch carefully?”
“Huh?!”
At some point, Shin Jiyeon had sliced apart all seven giant bats and returned to the party. She was asking whether he had properly observed her swordsmanship demonstration.
Unfortunately, Jihun had been too busy thinking and hadn’t actually seen it.
“...Sorry. Could you show me one more time?”
He smiled awkwardly and requested an encore.
#
“Hoo. How about now? Getting the feel for it?”
Shin Jiyeon had cleanly exterminated yet another swarm of giant bats before asking him again.
“Hmm…”
If she was asking whether he now understood how to kill enemies using practical swordsmanship, then—
“I think I get the general idea.”
Her movements had been beginner-friendly, and her explanations were clear, so his head could fully understand it. The fact that he had desperately reacted to her motions during their intense training in the training room earlier helped too.
But if the question was whether he could reproduce it with his own body…
It still feels pretty difficult.
Honestly, martial arts wasn’t something you could master after watching one spar. Jihun had a foundation in combat techniques, but this was still hard.
“I’ll try it myself on the next group.”
When Jihun answered, Shin Jiyeon’s expression suddenly looked strange.
“Huh? What’s wrong? Eh?”
She wasn’t listening to him at all. She was staring into empty space with her head tilted, exactly like someone reading a notification window.
“What is it?”
Worried that something might have happened, Jihun asked in a concerned voice.
But her answer was completely unexpected.
“It says… my stats went up. Strength by 1.”
“Huh? Stats?”
If her stats increased, that was good news, wasn’t it? So why was she making such a weird face?
But why suddenly? Did she unlock some kind of achievement?
There was no way E-rank giant bats carried stat elixirs, so the only possibility was an achievement.
Maybe something like “Low-Level Bus Driver”…?
As he was thinking that, Shin Jiyeon dropped an even bigger bomb.
“It says it’s the… familiar growth effect?”
“What?”
Familiar growth effect? The moment he heard those words, Park Jihun felt his mind go blank for a second.
Shin Jiyeon was his familiar. Yet her stats had gone up because of the familiar growth effect? Just from hunting monsters?
Is this another effect of Alpha Male?
Or maybe it was an ability granted to the familiars themselves. Either way, what that meant was—
“My familiars can grow?”
She didn’t even have a skill that raised stats. Hunters like Shin Jiyeon were supposed to have fixed stats with virtually no growth, yet even her abilities were increasing.
“Then…”
Park Jihun slowly turned his head toward Kar and Briana.
Does that mean these two can grow too?
Even hunters, whose stats were supposedly fixed, could raise them by hunting monsters. Since Kar and Briana were also his familiars, they would receive the same benefits.
That meant he could raise his familiars just like himself. They could reach higher realms and enter high-rank gates together.
Fuck… just how broken is Alpha Male?
The deeper he looked, the more insane abilities this skill revealed. It truly deserved the name Alpha Male.
Honestly, I was worried that once I got stronger, girls like Kar and Briana would end up feeling like nothing more than monster sex friends…
But if they grew alongside him, the story changed completely. Given enough time, they could reach A-rank or even S-rank just like him.
“Wow, Sunbae… I, I…”
From behind came Shin Jiyeon’s trembling voice.
“I can get stronger?! I can even reach A-rank?!”
Her voice was filled with excitement. As expected of a hunter, the possibility of becoming even stronger seemed to thrill her to no end.
“Yeah, looks like it. Doesn’t seem like a one-time thing… As long as you stay my familiar…”
“Then I’ll keep growing. Haaaa~”
Shin Jiyeon had already declared she would remain his familiar for life. That meant she would permanently benefit from the growth effect.
She was as delighted as a little kid at the thought of becoming stronger.
“Kyaaa! I get to see the succubus sister, the demon sister, and the dragon sister toooo!”
“......”
The “little kid” comparison was officially retracted.
#
“Haaht…!”
Slash!
Recalling Shin Jiyeon’s movements, Park Jihun dodged the giant bats’ attacks by the narrowest possible margins and swung his sword.
It was still a little awkward compared to her, but he followed along quite well.
“Ooh, as expected of Sunbae. Your learning speed is amazing.”
“Hoo… What learning speed? The gate’s almost over and I only just started copying it properly.”
Plus, she had demonstrated it in a slowed-down version. It made sense that Jihun lacked confidence.
“Even so, this is genuinely fast. Alright, shall we keep this momentum and head straight to the boss room?”
They had been progressing while diligently practicing swordsmanship, and before long a space that was clearly the boss room appeared ahead.
A wide cave suddenly ended in a wall with a narrow hole just big enough for two people to pass through side by side. Beyond it stretched an incredibly vast cavern.
That had to be the boss room.
“Boss, huh.”
“Boss…”
At the word “boss,” both Park Jihun and Shin Jiyeon began to feel a quiet surge of anticipation.
After all, both Kar and Briana had been bosses.
A bat beastman. I wonder if it has wings like a succubus?
Since it’s a boss, maybe it has special abilities? Like ultrasound stimulation or something…
Bursting with expectation, they entered the boss room.
However…
“Kiiiieeeeeeek!”
What appeared was a super-giant bat roughly three times larger than the others, with an utterly repulsive appearance.
“...You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”
“It said queen… it said queen…”
The moment they saw it, Park Jihun spat out a rage-filled curse while Shin Jiyeon stared with hollow eyes, repeatedly muttering the same words as if she had lost everything.
“Kieeee… kuek?!”
“Shut up, you disgusting thing!”
Fueled by pure anger, Jihun unleashed his sword and literally beat the Queen Bat with everything he had.
Alpha Male
Stats have risen.
This effect lasts as long as the female remains alive during battle.
The female monster is temporarily stiffened and intimidated.
“Fuck, I get it already, so stop saying ‘female’ over and over. It’s only making me angrier.”
Even seeing the “female monster” notification pissed him off.
“Kieeeeeeek~!!”
Unlike the majestic roar it had let out upon appearing, a desperate, survival-driven shriek tore from the Queen Bat’s throat.
In the end, the Queen Bat—overwhelmed by the massive stat difference and the stiffness effect—couldn’t even show its true strength before it was executed by Park Jihun’s blade.
Female monster defeated. Female Hunter effect activated.
Strength has increased by 1.
Agility has increased by 1.
E-rank Gate ‘Giant Bat Cave’ has been cleared.
“Hoo…”
“...Let’s head back.”
And just like that, the gate was cleared with zero excitement whatsoever.
“Kiiik…”
Kar and Briana looked at the miserably slaughtered Queen Bat and felt goosebumps rise across their entire bodies. Especially Kar. The thought that, had the rune stone not evolved her into a beastwoman, she would have met the exact same fate made her tremble even harder.