The Start of the Flame Party

The summons were still growing stronger, but whether they would ever need the trait or not was beside the point. A characteristic that raised both speed and defense at the same time was rare, so it felt like a massive jackpot all on its own. If I could combine it with the Reckless Charge I’d stolen from the Big Bore, the synergy would be incredible…

……But nothing happened. Maybe a simple charge and digging the ground were two entirely different things.

‘They’re not going to make things that convenient for me, huh. Tsk…’

I clicked my teeth in disappointment and started moving again.

Thanks to our hurried pace, we reached the spawning ground right beneath the summit earlier than expected.

“Whoa—there’s a shit-ton of harpies…”

“Hahng~ See? Told you.”

“Why are you acting so smug about it?”

Baek A-rin puffed out her chest as if to say exactly, flashing a playful grin. That look seemed to declare that she had been fighting in this harsh environment the whole time.

I turned my gaze upward. Hundreds of harpy eggs were tightly wrapped in sticky, spider-web-like gray threads, hanging in long strands from the edge of the cliff all the way down. There was no point in bursting those eggs. If we could take them with us, maybe it would be different.

- Kiiiaaaah!!

The creatures must have thought we had come for their eggs; their movements were utterly desperate. From a harpy’s perspective, it was only natural to try to drive out the sudden intruders in their home.

‘……’

The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠frantic gestures filled with such desperation struck me differently now than when I had been human. Back then, monsters had felt like nothing more than consumables for a hunter’s growth. I had never once considered that they had lives of their own. It seemed one’s perspective truly changed once their own circumstances were flipped.

Thud!Crunch!!

Thanks to Clacky and Jeombaki’s provocation skills, the orcs and lizardmen units drew the bulk of the attacks. The Neos Harpies’ assaults, however, weren’t particularly effective. A few summons did fall into poisoned states, but Ham Eun-yeong dispelled the affliction at regular intervals, so it never became a serious variable.

“Krrgh!”

The evolved lizardmen’s bodies only suffered minor scratches even when struck by the Neos Harpies. In fact, against these light attacks, the lizardmen—with their thicker scale-like outer skin—performed better than the orcs.

Whirling through the air, dashing from foothold to foothold, A-rin used the cracks in the cliff and protruding rocks as supports to swiftly move about and slaughter the harpies. I wondered how she could be so light on her feet; it was like watching an elf leaping from tree to tree.

After taking down over a dozen in the blink of an eye, she flashed us a wide grin. While Yeonhee watched A-rin’s display, she spoke to me.

“…Ilwol, do you want to head up with Jua? We’ll clean up down here.”

I nodded. Yesterday’s events had left me tense, but this was a relief. Yeonhee took my hand, and the gaze she gave me was as gentle as always. With a slightly lighter heart, I escorted Bae Jua toward the summit where the boss fight was unfolding.

Suddenly she broke into a run. It seemed she had decided that taking a few hits was preferable to falling behind. Still, there’s no need to take unnecessary damage.

I detonated every harpy swarming around her as we raced upward.

“Whoa—they really do cover the sky.”

“Clack clack!”

Just as Jua said, the summit was already a chaotic battlefield between over a hundred hunters and several times that number of Neos Harpies.

“Hmm… Ilwol?”

“??”

“Wanna come over to me instead?”

“Tsk…”

“…Pfft! I’m kidding, I’m kidding.”

Bae Jua patted my shoulder with a smile, then summoned two rocks in advance to narrow the enemies’ attack paths.

Among the hunters, some weren’t fighting at all—they were busy collecting Neos Harpy eggs. The eggs were considered a delicacy and fetched a decent price outside. Naturally, the harpies had flown into a frenzy.

‘If they’re going to charge in so aggressively, all the better.’

The so-called boss fight in this dungeon wasn’t really a boss fight. No special entity appeared. Of course, the creatures here ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠were about thirty percent stronger than the ones below, but a variant was still a variant.

That was exactly why I had climbed all the way up here without complaint, leaving the countless harpies below. These ones were far more nutritious. The space was also wide open, making it easier to maneuver. Yeonhee had given me exactly the order I wanted.

‘…Hmm. It looks like Yeonhee can see my class-change quest conditions now.’

That made her decision to send me up first perfectly understandable. It was rare for her to direct me anywhere specific. Had she ultimately invested her stats into Dominance? Even with the artifact I gave her, considering the increasing number of summons she would have, investing in magic power or recovery would have been far more efficient. It was a shame.

Of course, Dominance probably had effects I didn’t know about yet, but what I needed right now was magic power. I had to keep in mind that making her anxious caused this kind of inefficiency. Still, the fact that she could now check my information didn’t seem like a bad thing given the current situation.

If her reaction to seeing my true form today wasn’t negative, I might gradually reveal pieces of my past. How about the concept of slowly recovering lost memories? Yeah. After all, it was impossible for me to handle everything alone against so many enemies.

‘She’s no ordinary genius, either.’

A unique class like Summoner, and the ability to dump all her points into a single stat. In a way, Yeonhee was just as mysterious an existence as I was. Cooperating closely with her would surely let me gain even more.

‘For now, focus on the present.’

It was said that each hunter was usually assigned two hundred kills. With four people in our party, we needed to take down eight hundred on this summit. It didn’t matter who killed them; eight hundred was the goal.

One hand holding a fireball, the other a skeleton bomb.

“That skeleton! It’s Lee Yeonhee’s summon!”

“He’s already dual-casting?!”

“A skeleton soldier evolving into a mage… I can’t believe it.”

‘Heh heh heh… It must look like dual casting to them.’

I had simply taken out bombs I prepared in advance, but to the other hunters it would appear that way. While others were watching, I planned to focus on these two skills. The more people associated my abilities with bombs and fireballs, the greater the effect of Stealth would become. Of course, my main skill would still be Flame Explosion.

There was also something I needed to test.

‘How much will he allow?’

It was clear that Jo Giman intended to use Yeonhee. But considering he had used Search on me, he seemed to want to maintain some wariness without letting it grow too large…

‘The level of force that can moderately delay the orc legion when they appear. That’s probably the limit.’

Could Jo Giman even predict exactly when the orc legion would invade? Given how much faster ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the timeline was compared to the world line I experienced, even he would have trouble forecasting it. In such uncertain circumstances, guessing how far he would tolerate Yeonhee’s growth was difficult.

So I decided to prod a little. After the flashy display I put on at the ‘abandoned school’ yesterday, word would have definitely reached his ears. If our current growth had already exceeded his criteria, there would be a reaction within two or three days. But if nothing happened…

‘It means this level of growth is still within his acceptable range.’

Of course, dancing inside his predicted range left a bitter aftertaste, but there was nothing I could do about it. We were still desperately short on time to overcome the overwhelming gap in power.

Anyway, the fact that Kang Yeonsu had come to us and openly declared she would support Yeonhee suggested that some sort of understanding had been reached with Jo Giman. That understanding likely meant Jo Giman would turn a blind eye while Kang Yeonsu made use of Yeonhee.

Taking all of that into account, it was highly likely ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠we would be left alone until the guild competition began. In truth, with the monstrous strength required to challenge the ninth floor of the Giant’s Dungeon, whether we were B-rank or A-rank probably meant nothing to him. Still, since there was no telling when he might change his mind, we had to prepare steadily.

Of course, I held no expectations of dealing meaningful damage to that monster…

‘Just one momentary opening. A brief window of time to get Yeonhee to safety. That’s all I need.’

I nodded to myself and hurled the two round orbs I held high into the sky with all my strength. It was the beginning of the flame party.

Thirty minutes later.

“Whistle~ You’ve already taken down this many?”

When we had completed roughly half the boss fight conditions, Yeonhee, A-rin, and Eun-yeong arrived at the summit one after another.

The quest was progressing smoothly, and the Obsession trait had noticeably increased our combat efficiency. What surprised me most was that the harpies’ thumb claws were automatically piling up inside my inventory. I thought it only collected mana stones and runes, but it even retrieved the proof marks on its own. What an insane ability.

‘This is so broken… Golden Mimic is the best! Tania is the best!’

Praising Tania, I looked at the stone engraved with a wing-shaped relief.

It was the Rune of Levitation obtained from killing harpies. The effect was rather absurd. What was the point of floating 1.4 centimeters off the ground? It was naturally called the most useless rune among all runes. Still, there were situations where it proved useful, so demand wasn’t completely nonexistent.

‘I’ll sell them all except the one with the highest value.’

The price was as trash as the performance, but since they were mid-grade, I could probably get at least three hundred thousand won each. I had killed roughly three hundred matured Neos Harpies by myself. Jua had finished off about seventy, and roughly half of the quota remained.

‘I killed three hundred and not a single level up… Looks like these guys don’t give decent experience past level 50.’

I dismissed the message about the tiny bit of experience gain and focused solely on completing the class-change quest. I mixed in Sneaky Drain whenever I had the chance, but that didn’t level up either.

I refrained from using my dagger as much as possible and fought only with skills. I had already exhausted every benefit I could receive from the mana circuits. An ordinary magic-type hunter would have burned out their mental strength from spamming spells to this degree, but a blessed skeleton soldier had no such weakness.

Once my party members joined, the boss fight’s pace doubled. Bursts of light kept flashing from the summons’ bodies. They were raising their levels and growing stronger through repeated combat as well.