A Story Only the Person Involved Doesn't Know (1)
In Final Destiny, trolls have exactly five combat patterns.
“Uwooooooo!”
“Yeah, I got the message. Dial it down a notch.”
Boom! The first was ‘Root Slam’—a full-throated roar followed by a vicious downward strike with a tree-root club. Easy to read, but if you got careless it could flatten you in one hit. Fail to distinguish the roar and you’d end up as a human pancake.
“Suuuuuuuuuuuuck!”
“Nope. We’re not doing that one.”
GUOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
The second was ‘Bellow’—the troll sucking in air until its chest looked ready to burst, then blasting it out in one deafening burst. Far more dangerous than the slam. Without ear protection it would rupture your eardrums and destroy your balance. Since I couldn’t even use mana to recover my body temporarily, this was the pattern I feared most.
“Wu! Wu! Wu! Wu! Wu!”
“There, there. No need to throw a tantrum, good boy.”
Thud! Boom! Thud! Boom! Thud! Boom!
If you dodged Root Slam and Bellow cleanly, the troll would lose its temper and move on to the third pattern: ‘Ground Stomp.’ Watching a five-story-tall monster stamp its feet in a frenzy just to crush one tiny human was honestly a spectacle. It was easy to avoid, and if you used spider silk to climb to high ground you could even take a short breather. A honey pattern, as far as I was concerned.
“Kwaaaaaaaaah!!!”
“Ugh, there he goes again, the lunatic.”
Once the first three patterns were neutralized, the troll’s rage meter would max out. Because players usually kept their distance after the Ground Stomp, the creature would hurl its root club like a javelin to reach distant targets. Shwoooo—BOOM! Nicknamed ‘Tree Rocket,’ it was the second-most dangerous move after the Bellow. Even if you dodged the trunk itself, the splintered debris could still impale you. And with a roughly ten-percent chance it would throw a boulder instead of wood. That one you evaded with your life on the line.
“Uwaaaaaah!!!”
“No idea what you’re saying, buddy.”
I yanked on the spider silk looped around the troll’s neck and closed the distance again in an instant. Its hide couldn’t be pierced by ordinary steel weapons, so silk threads wouldn’t cut it either.
Can’t slice the skin, and even if I could, its regeneration would heal it almost instantly.
At first glance it seemed impossible to defeat, but there was always a way. I leapt from its shoulder straight up to its face and, without hesitation, drove my fist into one of those soft, squishy eyes.
“Kwoooooaaaahhh!!!”
“That’s one…”
A troll wasn’t an immortal creature that could regenerate any body part. Destroy the brain or shatter the heart and it died instantly. Even decapitation was fatal. In other words, certain parts couldn’t be healed—and the eyes were among them.
“Kwooooooo!”
It thrashed in agony and tried to swat its own face. I slipped under the palm strike and slid back down to its neck. Because the silk didn’t cut into its hide, I could move freely across its entire body. Wrapping multiple loops around its neck, shoulders, and waist, then using the threads to swing and reposition—that was the only viable strategy in this situation.
“Hup…! Once more.”
This would be the last. I repeated the maneuver, gouging out the second eye. The troll’s skin immediately flushed a violent crimson.
This is the final pattern.
‘Berserk.’ When its health dropped below a certain threshold, the troll’s entire body turned red and it became uncontrollably savage. The terrifying part was that it no longer cared about its own wounds and simply charged like a berserker.
But.
Without eyes, what exactly are you going to aim at?
Losing its vision proved fatal. It could no longer use Tree Rocket or Root Slam. All it had left were panicked Bellows and Ground Stomps. And since I wasn’t even standing on the ground, the stomps were meaningless.
“Kwaaaaaaaaahhh!!!”
“Shut up already!”
Even in its berserk state, when the situation refused to improve the troll began rampaging like a mad bull. It sprinted in every direction as if its tail were on fire. I clung desperately to the silk so I wouldn’t be thrown off. The bulging muscles stretched the threads so tight I had to re-wrap them several times.
If I fall, I die.
The only thing I could do now was wait for the berserk state to end. If I lost my grip and fell, I’d be crushed flat before I could even climb back up.
“Uwo! Uwo! Uwooooo!”
“Yeah, you’re getting tired, huh?”
Having exhausted itself with all that running, it could no longer even manage a proper Bellow. The troll’s skin returned to its original color as the berserk wore off. It stood there, panting.
And that moment—
—was exactly what I’d been waiting for.
I used the silk around its neck to shoot straight into the empty eye socket. The troll’s toughness was only skin-deep; inside, it was as soft as a tender steak.
“Gok…! Urk…!”
I’ll finish this quick.
I shredded everything in my path with the razor-sharp silk, heading straight for the brain. Slice—crunch.
Without hesitation I pulverized the gray matter. The sudden sensation of falling was like riding a gyro-drop. The instant I realized the massive body was collapsing, I burst out from inside the troll and fired a strand of silk at a nearby tree.
BOOM!
I landed safely a split second before the giant crashed down. Only then did I review the fight in my head.
Would’ve been nicer to destroy the brain before berserk kicked in… but then it probably would’ve flailed wildly and tried to grab me.
I had waited until the rage ended because only then could I safely burrow in. If I’d tried earlier, the troll might have snatched me in its frenzy and crushed me to paste.
“Hoo… huh?”
I was about to catch my breath when a massive shadow fell over me. If the troll was the Tyrant of the Forest, the creature now standing before me was its true ruler—also known as the Demon King of the Woods.
“Guooooooooh!”
An ogre.
The moment I killed the troll, this insane monster appeared. Lucky runs only go as far as trolls. From ogres onward there was a clear wall my physical stats and spider silk simply couldn’t overcome. Even a skilled party would struggle. There was no way the weakest character, Lee Seokhyun, could handle it.
This is as far as I go.
I sensed the practical exam had reached its end and slowly rose to my feet.
“Still, I can at least go down fighting.”
If you have no teeth, use your gums. Trade bone for flesh. Inflict a wound even if you die. With that mindset I charged the ogre. About thirty minutes later—
You have sustained near-fatal damage.
Practical exam terminated.
Exiting the testing area.
The practical exam ended just like that.
“...?”
After being ejected from the test space, I stepped through the door and froze in shock. They’re all still inside? The moment I exited, the entrance gate should have vanished automatically. Yet hundreds of those gates still floated in the air. All those students were attempting to solo an ogre? Isn’t the level of this academy a bit too high? I think I came out first. Wait, does this mean I actually failed?
Confused by the unexpected result, I followed the signs and left the academy grounds. Either way, there was nothing to do now but wait for the results.
“Oh? The first dropout is already out.”
“Dropout? He just finished the test early.”
“Ah, right. I keep mixing those up since he came out so fast.”
The two students volunteering as entrance-exam assistants were bored out of their minds and welcomed the distraction.
“Professor Gainard, may we go check the results of the first candidate who just exited?”
“Permission granted.”
“Thank you!”
This was one of the little perks. You couldn’t see theory-exam answers, but practical-exam results were viewable by others with a professor’s seal. They had just received permission, so there was no problem.
“At this point he’s probably just finishing off an orc, right?”
“I bet it was a war wolf.”
“Want to bet on it?”
“How about a week’s worth of Mirinae Special Deluxe Burgers?”
“You’re on.”
The Mirinae Special Deluxe Burger was so popular that students would skip class and stand in line during lunch just to get one. Betting a whole week’s supply was basically the same as agreeing to be someone’s errand boy for seven days.
Delighted to have something to do during their tedious assistant duty, the pair ran to the monitor and checked the results.
“P-Professor Gainard?”
“You… you might want to come see this.”
“Understood.”
They had no choice but to call the supervisor in utter shock. At the exact same moment—
“Gainard! Gainard! I distinctly told you that if a student solved the first question of the written test, you were to watch them closely and report to me!”
Professor Lee Hwaryeong came running, her flaming hair streaming behind her like a banner of fire.
“Didn’t you only say to watch closely? I simply carried out my duties.”
“Hah. After seeing this, you can still say that?”
Flutter. The moment she reached him, Lee Hwaryeong slapped the test paper against his chest. It was covered in neat answers and stamped with five perfect circles.
“Right now! Tell me where this Lee Seokhyun is right now! I have something to discuss with him.”
“H-he’s right here.”
The two students standing in front of the gate Lee Seokhyun had used answered involuntarily, their voices sounding like suppressed screams under the pressure of her killing intent.
“What? Oh, it’s you two. Is he still in there?”
“Yes, but… he just left.”
“He left? He already finished the practical exam?”
“Y-yes. We thought it was strange, so we were about to ask Professor Gainard to confirm—”
“Lead the way.”
Lee Hwaryeong and Professor Gainard headed toward the gate Lee Seokhyun had used. The two students, unable to withstand the aura radiating from the professors, had already retreated a good distance. Getting caught in the crossfire would have been disastrous.
“What’s so strange? Hurry up and check.”
Since she lacked supervisory access to the space, Lee Hwaryeong urged Gainard on. Ignoring her impatience, he calmly reviewed the results and, just like the students before him, froze in astonishment.
“...Hwaryeong, it seems I won’t be the only one coveting this talent.”
“I marked him first, so he’s definitely mine. If you cross that line, I will actually kill you, understand?”
While the other prospective students were still struggling with orc parties, an insane clear speed against a troll and a result that had pushed an ogre to the brink of death unfolded before their eyes. They hadn’t even reviewed the process yet, but the outcome alone proved how absurdly talented he was.
“...”
The moment he saw the data, the same deep, dark hunger for talent ignited in Gainard’s eyes. It was the face of someone who had discovered a true pearl buried in mud, not just a confirmed gemstone.
“Lee Seokhyun.”
“...Lee Seokhyun.”
Both professors breathed his name like a prayer while staring intently at the exit he had used. They were only beginning to realize just how greatly the results he had produced would shake the entire entrance examination.
“Achoo! Is someone talking about me?”
Only the person himself remained completely unaware.