Chapter 40: Preliminary Preparations (3)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 40: Preliminary Preparations (3)
Woo Jae-hee was feeling quite strange.
That guy—the interloper who had been getting on his nerves by acting so chummy with Yu-hak—had actually found the dungeon.
At that point, the bet was already a loss, but that was fine.
In the end, all that mattered was that he performed better in the dungeon than that guy did.
No matter how he looked at it, there was no way a scrawny punk like him could be useful in a dungeon.
That conviction remained unshaken right up until he was bravely charging alongside Cheon Yu-hak to hold back the Human-Faced Trees.
‘I knew it.’
The way he used his shield and his bulk to “dribble” the monsters so they couldn’t reach the rear was, even in his own opinion, quite impressive.
Ri-ra was obviously devoted only to Yu-hak, but surely Mi-na or Yoon-ha had developed a bit of a crush on him by now?
Thinking such foolish thoughts in the middle of a battle was essentially a suicidal act, but Woo Jae-hee was overcoming it through his innate talent.
However, it was also true that he had lost his focus, causing him to forget a very basic and fundamental fact: plant-type monsters often have their main body in their roots rather than above ground, and they frequently use those roots to target the rear.
And it was at that exact moment that his unshakable confidence wavered.
‘Uh…?’
Shit, he was screwed.
The root of one Human-Faced Tree was already snaking toward the rear.
Since they couldn’t see it coming, one of the three in the back was bound to get caught.
Just as he thought he was too late and tried to shout—
“Gotta be careful.”
The scrawny guy with the dagger cleanly blocked the root.
‘What the—how did that bastard see it?’
Jae-hee had only realized it because he was in direct contact with the monster and felt the vibration, but there was no way that guy could have felt a vibration from that distance.
‘Does that bastard… actually have something up his sleeve?’
Only then did Woo Jae-hee recall the terms of their bet and begin to tremble with anxiety.
* * *
Shit. That hurts like hell. Seriously.
I only blocked two attacks from a Human-Faced Tree that the big guy accidentally let slip, and it felt like my arms were going to fall off.
It was true.
Now that I had mostly overcome the greatest drawback of Innate True Qi, the only weakness of my Reinforcement was that I couldn’t enhance multiple things at once.
Of course, the boundaries were quite vague, so reinforcing an entire person or a tool was fine, but it was still impossible to focus reinforcement on one area while simultaneously reinforcing something else.
Since I couldn’t boost my physical strength while my vision was reinforced like it was now, I had to parry using pure technique and raw physical power. Since I lacked both, it was incredibly difficult.
On the other hand, Cheon Yu-hak was absolutely flying.
“He really does fight well.”
As if proving the saying that he grows stronger the more enemies there are and the longer the fight lasts, he was carving through the enemies with overwhelming martial prowess.
In this specific moment, facing an absolute majority, he might even be considered stronger than Lilac.
“Hahahaha!!!”
However, he had a weakness he couldn’t do anything about, and looking at his current state, it seemed I needed to stop him soon.
“Shouldn’t someone stop him? He looks like he’s about to lose it.”
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but most talents have a penalty, whether weak or strong.
Among them, the penalty for Cheon Yu-hak’s Unrivaled was Berserk.
It was a penalty that sounded like something out of a middle-schooler’s edgy fantasy—becoming intoxicated by blood and slaughter the more one fights until eventually losing one’s mind—but in practice, it was a total nuisance. To make matters worse, the more enemies there were, the faster he killed them, and the faster the penalty consumed him.
“What? How do you know that…?”
Ah, shit. I wasn’t supposed to know that, was I?
Ju Ri-ra was staring at me with a look of pure shock.
“I mean, what do you mean ‘how do I know’? Just look at him, he obviously looks weird.”
I made up an excuse on the fly. She didn’t seem to fully believe me, but she let it slide because the situation was urgent.
“<Cure!>”
Oh, so you’re the type who shouts the skill name while using it?
The healer of Cheon Yu-hak’s party… was her name Oh Yoon-ha?
Some people shouted while casting spells or prayers, while others insisted on chantless casting. Unfortunately, she was the former.
It’s a common thing in this world, but if it were me, I’d be too embarrassed to go hunting with her.
Then again, I suppose it’s better than the people who recite long, poetic incantations.
Anyway, as the healer cast her recovery magic on Cheon Yu-hak, the madness smoldering in his eyes receded slightly.
“Ah, I must have gotten too excited. My apologies.”
The moment Cheon Yu-hak regained his senses, he swung his spear one last time, bisecting the remaining Human-Faced Trees and ending the first battle of the dungeon.
* * *
“Not bad.”
Cheon Yu-hak looked at the party and offered praise first.
“Everyone stuck to their roles, and there were no major mistakes. Although I ended up handling most of it because I got carried away, I suspect you would have managed just fine even without me.”
The expressions of the party members brightened at the compliment.
Yeah, but guys, don’t get ahead of yourselves. He’s the type who always gives a compliment before pointing out the flaws.
“However, there are points that everyone, including myself, needs to reflect on.”
The upbeat atmosphere immediately deflated. It was almost funny to watch. They looked like small dogs getting scolded by their owner.
“First, Woo Jae-hee. Your monster-dribbling and stamina management were good, but your focus wavered, which put the rear in danger.”
“I-I’m sorry, Yu-hak.”
“Conversely, the backline fulfilled their roles, but you admit you failed to react because you trusted the frontline too much, right? I won’t say trust is a bad thing, but you should have maintained a minimum level of vigilance yourselves. If Kang So-hyun hadn’t helped, the formation might have collapsed.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re right.”
“Ju Ri-ra. You weren’t bad, but you were so obsessed with aggro management that you neglected other areas. That support should have come from you, not Kang So-hyun.”
“That’s true.”
“Finally, I lost myself to my talent’s penalty and charged in too deep, disrupting the party’s overall balance. That is something I must restrain.”
Cheon Yu-hak acted as if the debriefing was over and moved to help Chan-hwi, the porter.
“Hey, what about me?”
“Hmm?”
I hadn’t really done much, so I didn’t expect him to say anything, but it felt right to be criticized along with the rest for the sake of appearances.
There’s already one guy who’s unhappy with me; if I’m the only one who gets skipped, his gut will probably twist with jealousy.
“There are no particular issues. In fact, your battlefield awareness is very broad. It was good that you were the first to accurately catch that I was losing my reason, and protecting the rear despite it not being your role was ideal. I didn’t expect such a satisfactory performance in the first battle. It’s a pleasant surprise.”
Uh… aren’t you being a bit too generous with me, Yu-hak…? The others are going to get jealous.
I honestly wished he’d just give me some unfair criticism, but he just looked at me with a proud face.
Contrary to my worries, however, the party members seemed to be meritocrats like Cheon Yu-hak. With the exception of one person, their gazes toward me had generally turned favorable.
Well, “favorable” might not be the right word for the bulky guy glaring at me with a strangely displeased face.
He looked like he wanted to say something, but since there was nothing to nitpick, his expression remained sour.
“Ah, wait. We should clear one thing up. You acted like you knew about Yu-hak’s penalty just now. How did you know?”
Oh boy, the purple cat didn’t forget and brought it back up.
But surprisingly, just as I was about to make an excuse, Cheon Yu-hak answered for me as if it were no big deal.
“Hmm, that’s not surprising. It was quite a while ago, but I went berserk in front of Kang So-hyun once, and he was the one who personally stopped me.”
Eh…?
Did that happen?
Cheon Yu-hak was arrogant, but he wasn’t the type to tell lies.
Which meant what he just said was likely true.
I felt like I really needed to look into what kind of relationship we had in the past.
“Oh, what? If that was the case, you should have just said so. Why did you look so flustered?”
Upon hearing Yu-hak’s answer, the slight tint of suspicion vanished from Ju Ri-ra’s eyes, replaced by a hint of goodwill.
It seemed I had been more or less accepted as a party member.
“Everyone, I’m finished here.”
Right on cue, Chan-hwi, the porter who had been scavenging through the remains of the Human-Faced Trees alone, returned.
Ah, for the record, his surname is Chan, and his given name is the single syllable Hwi.
“How is it?”
“It’s good. The ones Yu-hak handled were clean, so we can use them as materials, and some of them had small fruits attached. Human-faced fruits sell for quite a bit.”
“I see. The efficiency isn’t bad, and it’s a perfect dungeon for gaining combat experience.”
Actually, no.
The Human-Faced Trees and the other things aren’t special monsters, but the boss here is a bit tricky to handle.
“Alright, we’ve had enough rest. Once the materials are organized, we move out immediately.”
“Got it.”
* * *
The party atmosphere remained generally good after that.
There was one guy making clumsy mistakes because he wasn’t happy with the situation, but it wasn’t so severe that it couldn’t be covered, so everything was going very smoothly.
“Hmm, having such a large, obvious door makes me suspicious instead.”
“Yeah, I get that, but according to the info, this is the boss room.”
“Fine. If you say so, it must be. Is there anything specific we should watch out for?”
“The boss is a bit of a bothersome tree monster. But I’ve prepared something, so it should be manageable without too much trouble.”
“Really? Then, just in case, Jae-hee will enter first, and Ri-ra will guard the rear. We’ll open the door slowly and move in.”
See? I didn’t lie.
The moment the door opened and they faced the monster inside, the confident expressions of the party members turned pale in an instant.
“…Ho.”
Only Cheon Yu-hak maintained his composure, but even he wasn’t entirely unfazed.
“You crazy bastard… that crazy bastard led us to our deaths!”
Oh, come on, man. No matter how surprised you are, a frontliner shouldn’t scream like that.
— …?
See? We had a chance for a surprise attack, but it noticed us.
“Woo Jae-hee, what are you doing? Hold your position and shut your mouth right now.”
Because we lost the initiative, Cheon Yu-hak glared irritably at the big guy, but Jae-hee just shook his head in denial.
“You’re planning to fight that…?! Yu-hak! We can’t win! We all have to run!”
Looking around, even Ju Ri-ra, who was so devoted to Cheon Yu-hak, was hesitating, and the other party members seemed to agree with the big guy.
I suppose it would be terrifying for mere cadets who were just handling low-tier monsters to suddenly face something like that as a dungeon boss.
An Ent.
A low-rank High-tier tree monster.
The lord of the forest, which thousands of Human-Faced Trees couldn’t match, was staring down at us with its majestic bulk.
High-tier.
That was a rank reserved for true monsters—disasters that could single-handedly lay waste to a city, creatures that would grant someone an immediate A-rank Hero certification if they could take one down alone.
“Everyone, get into position! Compared to its destructive power, an Ent is slow and is considered one of the easier High-tier species to defeat! As long as you don’t get intimidated by its name and stay focused, we can do this!”
He wasn’t entirely wrong.
It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that if Cheon Yu-hak’s party dealt with it calmly, an Ent wasn’t completely beyond their ability to kill.
However, for a party consumed by fear, the story was different.
— GRAAAAAAA!!!
The moment the Ent roared, the big guy and the healer collapsed to the ground.
“…Ugh…!”
“This is all because of you! We’re all going to die because of you!”
And as for me, the one who could be considered the cause of this pandemonium in a sense—what was I doing?
“Ah, shit. You’re being way too loud, seriously.”
Everyone was looking at me like I was a madman as I calmly operated a device, but of course, I brought them here because I had a way to deal with it.
The high-grade Mana Bomb I had spent a fortune on lit up.
“What do you expect to do with a bomb like that…!”
Yeah, it was damn expensive, but it’s true this doesn’t have the power to take out a High-tier species in one go.
However, Cheon Yu-hak seemed to catch onto my intention immediately. He stood up and shouted:
“Close the door the moment he throws that bomb!”
The Ent was lumbering toward us.
“Yeah, exactly.”
As a mysterious light began to swirl around the bomb, the other party members nodded as if entranced.
Reinforcement.
The high-grade Mana Bomb (Fire attribute, consumer price 15.6 million won, tax not included), imbued with an all-powerful supernatural power, was hurled toward the Ent.
“Everyone, cover your ears…!”
The moment Cheon Yu-hak shouted and slammed the boss room door shut—
BOOM—!
A massive explosion shook the entire dungeon.
Cowardly?
Call it being rational.