The Gray Troll (1)
The party stepped into yet another empty gate.
“Wow, thanks to the guild members this time, we shook them off pretty well.”
“Kyahahat! The humans couldn’t follow us!”
“It was really thrilling.”
“Still, they might track us by the car’s license plate. We’ll need to think of another method next time.”
Snickering among themselves, they passed through the black rift and entered a lush, green forest thick with undergrowth.
“Serina, you can come out now.”
Ooong—
Deep within the dense woodland.
The moment they stepped inside, Park Jihun opened his subspace and called out Serina.
“Huu… So we’ve arrived.”
Having been alone in the subspace, Serina’s expression looked rather gloomy, perhaps from the loneliness.
“I’ll let you come out and move around freely soon. Just hold on a little longer.”
“No, it’s not like I have any real complaints.”
When Park Jihun spoke with an apologetic look, Serina simply shook her head as if it were nothing.
Being alone in the subspace was a bit lonely, but it was undeniably comfortable for her body.
Besides, the interior adjusted the environment to suit each familiar that entered.
And since anything that wasn’t a living creature could be stored inside, the subspace was actually a far more pleasant and familiar space for the familiars.
Anyway.
The five of them had entered the gate as a complete party.
They carefully scanned their surroundings.
A lush forest.
It didn’t seem to have anything particularly special like the Lizardman’s Swamp.
“It’s a standard forest field. A straightforward linear map.”
Based on the information brought by the information hunters and what she observed herself, Shin Jiyeon reached her conclusion.
“Let’s move for now. Since they’re trolls, there probably won’t be any traps or anything.”
Monsters with weak physical abilities relative to their rank.
And highly intelligent monsters were the ones that usually set up lots of traps.
Fortunately, trolls fell into neither category.
So it seemed they could proceed smoothly without worrying about traps.
“So, Sunbae, as an expert, what’s your professional opinion?”
At that moment, Shin Jiyeon asked Park Jihun with a sharp glint in her eyes.
And Park Jihun put on a serious expression and nodded.
“It smells good. The scent of a very beautiful female.”
“Oho… So that means…”
“Hehehe, a true masochist troll lady whose outstanding regenerative power makes her feel good no matter how much she gets beaten…!! I can smell her!!”
“Uwooooh! This is too good!!”
Watching Park Jihun and Shin Jiyeon getting all hyped up and playing around like that,
“Kyarung! Kar is excited too! Trolls are tough! Hitting them feels great!”
“…Here we go again.”
“U-um, let’s head inside quickly. We need to clear the gate, right?”
Only Kar was excited, while Serina and Briana let out deep sighs as if to say ‘not this again.’
“Gweeeeh!”
“Keeeek!”
Gray Troll / ♂
Gray Troll / ♀
Gray Troll / ♀
Facing female monsters.
Alpha Male has been activated.
Stats are increasing.
This effect lasts as long as the targets remain alive during battle.
Of course, the gray trolls that appeared before them were, unfortunately, trolls through and through.
Dull gray skin, bumpy and uneven.
Huge noses, pointed ears, and patchy hair on their heads.
Rags that barely covered their lower bodies and blunt wooden clubs.
They were perfect trolls in every sense.
“......”
“......”
“How unfortunate, Master.”
“W-well, since it’s come to this, let’s fight properly!”
Park Jihun and Shin Jiyeon stared at them with expressions that went beyond disappointment and straight into despair.
Maybe their expectations had been too high.
Or maybe it was because the female trolls had those saggy, ugly breasts that only made them angrier.
“Fuck, cover up those hideous tits!”
“Ughhh, My Different Race Ladies aren’t supposed to look like this!”
The enraged Park Jihun charged forward.
The enemy is temporarily stiffened and intimidated.
“Kek?!”
“Kiek!”
Against an opponent with C-rank level stats and a cheat skill that even inflicted stiffness, the trolls were completely helpless.
Swish!
Park Jihun swung his sword at one of the stiffened trolls.
Thanks to not neglecting sword training while practicing mana control, his movements were much cleaner than before.
“Kraaaagh!”
He had intended to completely sever its neck, but the surprisingly tough hide and muscles only left a sword wound on its nape.
Even so, it was a considerably large wound that would normally threaten its life, yet after a brief moment—
Sluuurp—
The visibly sliced flesh began to regenerate and close right before their eyes.
‘As expected of a troll.’
He knew it in his head, but seeing the wound heal almost instantly still felt both fascinating and grotesque.
‘Either attack so fast they don’t have time to regenerate, or one-shot them. Those are the only ways.’
To deal with that regenerative power, those were the only options.
Either slice the head clean off in one blow, or unleash a rapid barrage of attacks without giving them a chance to heal.
The latter consumed a lot of stamina, while the former required more power than he currently had to sever the neck in a single strike.
However, Park Jihun now possessed the strength to make up for that lack of power.
Hadn’t he obtained it through recent training?
Ooong—
A blue aura wrapped around his blade.
It wasn’t perfect yet, but it was far smoother than when he had first manifested Mana Materialization.
Anyway, with his sword coated in materialized mana, Park Jihun swung again and sliced through the troll’s neck.
Slash—!
◈ Strength +1
◈ Stamina +1
Unlike when he had simply swung his sword earlier, this time the tough hide and muscles were sliced through like tofu in a single clean cut.
“Nice, Sunbae! That’s the true power of ‘Aura’!”
“Ooh…”
An overwhelming cutting force that ordinary metal could never produce—one that could even split solid rock.
Park Jihun once again felt the incredible power of mana.
The two females were finished.
And the remaining male was quickly dealt with by Briana’s whip flying in from mid-range—
“Haa!”
Whaaack!
—and Kar’s fist smashing into it at point-blank range with her swift movements.
“Krung!”
Baaam!
“Kweeeeh!!”
With two D-rank familiars working together, a mere D-rank troll monster stood no chance at all.
‘They’ve all gotten a lot stronger, huh.’
Briana, the mid-range support dealer.
Kar, the close-combat brawler.
Serina, who could fight in melee while providing magical long-range support.
And Park Jihun, who inflicted stiffness debuffs on enemies.
With this party composition, even ten D-rank monsters probably wouldn’t require Shin Jiyeon’s help.
‘We could probably handle a C-rank gate too, right?’
With this much firepower, they should be able to manage even in C-rank gates, which were considered the start of the upper ranks.
That was what Park Jihun thought.
With B-rank Shin Jiyeon also present, their stability was perfect.
‘Maybe I should ask for a C-rank gate next time.’
That way, the familiars could grow faster, and Shin Jiyeon could also gain real combat experience and aim for her own growth.
“Uhehehe, their asses and tits are jiggling all over… Fight even harder…”
Well, just watching the fight seemed to give her maximum job satisfaction.
Still, she was a hunter too.
It was only natural for her to aim for higher heights.
And above all—
‘The higher the gate rank, the higher the chance of encountering female-type monsters.’
In upper-rank gates, even regular monsters sometimes appeared in humanoid forms.
If that happened…
‘Gate harem…!!’
It was already a harem, but the fantasy of gathering over a dozen female-type monsters living inside a gate and enjoying them was another one of Park Jihun’s dreams.
‘Someday I want to be surrounded by succubi with huge tits and get sucked dry.’
Of course, he had no intention of actually dying from it—he planned to subdue them all.
Still, wasn’t it something every man thought about at least once?
The fantasy of having your life force sucked out by succubi.
Anyway.
For the sake of those grand(?) goals,
Park Jihun had to keep moving forward.
“Alright, alright! Bring on the next monsters!”
As Park Jihun strode forward with overflowing motivation, his harem party began to follow him.
Swish!
◈ Stamina +1
After they had swept away roughly twenty trolls or so,
“Huh?”
The atmosphere of the forest suddenly changed.
Until now it had felt like a calm, quiet forest, but—
Whooooosh—
A sudden wind blew in from somewhere,
and an unknown flow of mana began to stir.
“What the…?”
Park Jihun hadn’t been able to sense mana before, but now he could feel it clearly.
The mana inside the gate was flowing strangely.
“It’s a mid-boss.”
At that moment, Shin Jiyeon spoke in a casual, familiar tone.
“Mid-boss?”
“Yes. It happens sometimes. Instead of the final boss, an elite or named monster appears in the middle. When that happens, there’s a slight distortion in the mana flow, making the gate’s mana behave abnormally.”
A mid-boss.
Since it was his first time seeing one in a gate, Park Jihun walked forward with a hint of anticipation.
And sure enough, a room-like space appeared ahead, its walls formed by densely packed trees just like a boss room.
“This is the mid-boss room.”
Of course, with the current party’s strength, clearing a D-rank gate’s mid-boss shouldn’t be too difficult.
If it really got dangerous, Shin Jiyeon could step in.
There was no real need to be nervous.
But since it was his first time experiencing it, Park Jihun unconsciously tensed up as he stepped inside.
And then—
Unlike the other trolls with their patchy hair, this one had short brown bob-cut hair.
Though gray, her skin was smooth, and her figure was sleek and well-proportioned.
She was only about 160cm tall—small for a troll.
Unlike the other female trolls, she had smooth, perky breasts modestly covered by leather clothing.
“Ksha. Utaka.”
Round, clear brown eyes.
A small, straight nose.
And lips that stood out vividly red against her gray skin.
Aside from her gray skin, she was truly deserving of the word “beauty.”
A female-type gray troll had appeared.
“…Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I fucking tell you?! Fuck, what did everyone say about trolls? That they’re all ugly as shit?”
“Oh my god. I believe you, Dr. Park Jihun, my senior.”
Upon seeing her, both Park Jihun and Shin Jiyeon were so moved that tears welled up in their eyes.