One Sword, Two Cuts
A single stroke. A body cleaved in two.
True to those words, Jisu became a streak of light and split the Saber Tiger's belly open. The mana condensed along her rapier collapsed into a single point, then drew a line — and that trail remained vividly carved across the beast's abdomen.
"Ghhhk!"
A guttural, beastly groan tore from its throat as the Saber Tiger's body folded. Blood and viscera gushed from the ruptured gut. It was the kind of blow that would have killed any ordinary monster on the spot.
"Hah…"
Jisu let out a short breath and settled into a proper stance. The long, single wound she had left on the Saber Tiger was a thing of beauty — and then she staggered hard. She drove her rapier into the earth and barely kept her feet. The attack had burned through every last drop of her mana, and something close to anemia was crashing over her.
"Jisu! You okay!?"
Yeonji checked her over. Nothing critical, from the look of it.
"Wait — you two! Look out!"
Lina sent a chain whipping toward Jisu. More precisely, toward the Saber Tiger lunging to bury them both from behind.
Even with its guts hanging in wet ropes from its belly, the Saber Tiger was still moving. It had to know it was already dead. This was nothing but vengeance. Monster or not, the sheer spite of it was enough to raise the hair on your neck.
"GRAAAAH!"
The Saber Tiger lashed its tail and smashed Lina's chain aside. The chain snapped back at a vicious angle and cracked her across the skull.
"Lina! Damn it!"
Her body went down. She was twitching, a low sound leaking out of her, but it didn't look like she was badly hurt.
I pulled on the Holy Gauntlet and closed the distance. The dying Saber Tiger had knocked Lina's chain away, and if anything it seemed stronger than before. A death flare? That last, desperate surge before the lights go out? I clasped both gauntleted hands together and drove an uppercut into the Saber Tiger's jaw.
It didn't dodge. Even as the blow landed, it swept a foreleg in a brutal arc. A sudden, ice-cold dread punched through my chest.
"J-Jaeseong! Your chest—!"
Yeonji's voice was close to a scream. I dropped my eyes. The Saber Tiger's claws had punched in around my ribs.
Damn it! This hurts like hell!
The pain arrived a beat later. I fought it down as hard as I could and smashed another uppercut into its jaw.
"Yipe—!"
That one must have been a critical, because it made a sound like a dog that had just been kicked and flung itself backward. The claws buried in my ribs, though, did not come free.
The world swam. If those claws had gone even a little deeper and nicked my heart, I'd already be crossing the Styx. Then again — I had a skill for that.
Once every 24 hours, upon death, the user is revived in perfect condition.
Revival cost: all stats decrease by 10.
If the revival cost cannot be paid….
The price was a ten-point drop across every stat. Not cheap. I was lucky I hadn't died.
"Oppa!"
Jisu drove her rapier into the Saber Tiger's left instep with more guts than sense. Without mana wrapping the blade, the steel bounced off with a dull, useless clang.
"Jisu! Watch out!"
The enraged Saber Tiger's eyes locked on her. I could feel the strength bleeding out of its body. The next attack would be its last, desperate thrash.
Stone Skin
Hardens the skin to stone-like density.
Yeonji's flesh went rigid as rock. Then she charged. The Saber Tiger's jaws yawned wide, ready to swallow her in a single bite.
She laced her fingers together and launched herself into the air — a superhuman leap no ordinary long jumper could ever reach, not even if they reincarnated a few dozen times. At the apex she cocked her clasped fists behind her head, bowed her body like a crescent moon, and brought them down on the Saber Tiger's crown.
A killing blow that fused gravity, raw strength, and the hardness her ability granted into a single strike.
In raw damage, it nearly rivaled Jisu's One Sword, Two Cuts.
The Saber Tiger's skull — shattered.
A heavy crash. The Saber Tiger's head came apart like wet clay. Its eyeballs burst from their sockets. Its tongue sheared off. Yeonji's strike smashed the beast's skull the way a hammer splits stone. The Saber Tiger gave one last, enormous shudder — and went down.
"GRAAAH—"
The death throes ripped its claws free of my ribs. In the same instant, my body was flung down the mountainside.
"Jaeseong!"
Sujin shouted and lunged to catch me, but she was already too late. A chill went through me down to the marrow. Instead of rolling across dirt, I was falling. I had gone over a sheer drop.
Ghh—! Grab something. Anything!
The searing pain centered on my chest made it hard to move my limbs, but I managed to catch a jut of rock on the cliff face. Relief was premature. Something else was falling after me.
"Jisu!"
It was her. The Saber Tiger's last thrash must have thrown her too. I wrung every last ounce of strength from my left arm and caught her wrist as she dropped past.
"Aah—!"
A short, sharp scream tore out of her.
"Jisu. You okay?"
"Ow, ow… I think this arm is broken."
Pain twisted her face. After a fight that vicious, a broken arm was no surprise.
I looked down. The drop vanished into a dark that earned every cliché about a bottomless precipice. If I let go, I'd be paying the stat cost and resetting whether I liked it or not. I could survive that. Jisu would just die.
"You two! Are you okay!?"
Yeonji's voice came from the cliff above. She was staring down at us, frantic. Even at full stretch, her hands wouldn't come close.
"We're alive, barely. Jisu's hurt her arm. And, yeah… I'm bleeding from the chest. I won't last long. We didn't have rope in the packs, did we?"
"No… Lina's out cold, so we can't use her chains either. Should we start knotting clothes into a line?"
"I don't think I'll last that long…"
My blood pressure was dropping. Three minutes, if I was lucky. The hand locked on the rock was already going slack.
"Jaeseong! Over there — just off to your side, there's a ledge sticking out. Barely big enough for one person to lie down. You see it?"
Sujin pointed. I followed her finger. A small outcrop of rock jutted from the face.
"That'll do. Moving there now…"
I wrung out whatever strength I had left and worked us over. Carrying Jisu meant burning almost everything I had. We made it.
"Hah. Thank god. One crisis down."
The ledge was painfully narrow. If two people sat, they'd have to press their hips together. I sat back against the cliff. Jisu settled in with her shoulder flush against mine.
"How's the arm? Let me see."
"Never mind me — what about you? You're bleeding everywhere."
She pointed at my ribs. I used Light Cure. I didn't have the power to close a wound this serious outright, but it was enough to stop the bleeding for now. Staunch the blood, keep out secondary infection, then take it slow with potions.
A pale radiance sealed the worst of the bleeding.
Effect:Emergency hemostasis. Insufficient to fully close severe trauma.
"Give me your arm."
Fortunately, Jisu's break was a light fracture. With my Light Cure and a potion, I could have it mended inside half a day.
"You two holding up? I'm trying to wake Lina now."
I told Sujin not to rush it. Lina was injured too — forcing her to move would be stupid. If we'd been at full strength I would have crawled up myself, but I'd just taken a serious wound and Jisu's arm was wrecked. Rest was the right call. A single night's sleep and we'd be fine.
"Sun's already down anyway. Pushing any further tonight is asking for it, so make camp up there. Jisu and I will spend the night down here."
Whenever we split the tents, Jisu always gravitated toward the group of three. Tonight she didn't have a choice. Sujin and Yeonji set up camp above. The two of them would rotate the watch.
As for us — Hallasan National Park had no flying monsters that could hit this cliff, so there was no need to keep watch. We had a different problem. The sleeping space was far too small.
"Barely room for one person to lie down. No way we're sleeping stretched out like this."
"It's fine. We're Dungeon Hunters. We can sleep sitting up."
"And if one of us tips forward, that's it. Dying in your sleep is supposed to be a blessed way to go, but I don't think the saying covers falling off a cliff. Lying down is safer."
"There's no room, though. What are we supposed to do?"
Room was something you made.
"I'll lie down first. Then you lie on top of me."
"Me, on top of you? That's — I couldn't, I'd feel terrible!"
She had nothing to feel terrible about. If anyone should, it was me.
This is it. The perfect chance to take Jisu.
I kept the hunger off my face as best I could.
"Beats sitting up all night, uncomfortable and one slip from dead. If you're on top of me, there's no chance I roll off in my sleep."
"But…"
I didn't wait for the rest. I eased myself down on a slant and patted my stomach.
"Come on up. I'm exhausted. I want to sleep."
Jisu hesitated, then nodded. A faint flush had crept into her face; she looked embarrassed. More embarrassed, even, than when she'd peeked at me having sex with the others. Then again, when she'd been watching, she hadn't looked ashamed at all.
"Well then… excuse me."
She said it the way you'd excuse yourself walking into a stranger's house. I stretched out fully against the stone, and Jisu climbed on top of me. I slid an arm around her waist and held her — a convenient excuse, in case she slipped. She accepted it without argument.
That soft ass… Yeah. Skin like this isn't ordinary. She's exactly the kind of woman I've had my eye on.
Her scent reached me. It wasn't exactly fragrant. We'd been exploring for days without a proper wash. Maybe that was what she was embarrassed about. But the faint, bitter musk of her body only made my cock harder.
"……"
My cock was blatantly tapping against Jisu's pants. She did her best to ignore it. This was a woman who had watched me have sex more than once. There was no way she didn't know what was hitting her. I closed my eyes, pretended to sleep, and started thinking about how I was going to torment her.