The Price of Curses
The Specter Warrior screamed and twisted violently.
Rufo, watching from the side, gaped. “W-what the...?”
No matter how he looked at it, Kim Tae-hyun was below him in strength. And yet the Specter Warrior that had endured Rufo’s attacks so easily had been reduced to that state in a single blow.
At a glance, it looked like it had taken catastrophic damage and fallen into a near-death state.
Tae-hyun didn’t stop. He kept swinging the hammer.
Circle of Attack was a continuous sword art—once it began, the assault kept coming without pause.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
You have defeated a Specter Warrior.
The dungeon’s enemies awaken.
“Huh?”
That had looked like a very ominous message window.
You receive a bonus experience reward for fighting a powerful opponent.
“...!”
That, more than anything, was the message he wanted to see.
Tae-hyun clenched his fist.
In his current situation, leveling up was better than anything else.
Wait. Just how high-level are these Specter Warriors?
Come to think of it, Legendary Classes were normally something you could only obtain at high levels. Which meant the things in here had to be around that level too.
And of course the experience reward would match.
Not sure if I should be relieved... or worried.
“M-Mister Tae-hyun.”
“...?”
“Those Specter Warriors over there...”
“Goddammit.”
Only then did he understand what it meant when it said the dungeon’s enemies were awakening.
Specter Warriors were slowly stepping out of the walls.
They were overwhelmingly intimidating.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Kh... ngh!”
Holding back the scream threatening to escape, Rufo brought down one Specter Warrior.
To be honest, he’d been arrogant on the way in.
There may be enemies, sure, but I should be able to handle them alone.
But now that thought had been completely shattered.
Every single one of the things in here was strong enough to defeat him.
Individually they were weaker than him, but once they swarmed together, that was another matter entirely.
I should’ve brought a mage too!
“Circle of the Rushing Gale!”
When he unleashed the area-of-effect skill Circle of the Rushing Gale, a powerful circle formed around Rufo and expanded outward.
Crack! Crack! Crack-crack!
The Specter Warriors were shoved back by its force.
“Grrrr... human... insolent...!”
“Mister Tae-hyun! Isn’t there some way out of this?!”
Without meaning to, Rufo turned toward Tae-hyun as he shouted.
What Tae-hyun had shown just moments ago—
Rufo had thought Tae-hyun was weaker than him, but clearly that wasn’t true.
At least in a situation like this, Tae-hyun might actually be much stronger.
“Aren’t you the guy who came here to protect me?”
Tae-hyun asked in disbelief as he swung the hammer.
The Specter Warrior’s body vanished and reappeared behind Tae-hyun.
“You bastard... fighting dirty like that!”
Evasion successful.
“Tch... the dirty one is your skill...!”
The Specter Warrior snapped that out when the attack that should have landed cleanly simply missed.
To be fair, if they were talking about broken skills, Tae-hyun didn’t have much room to complain either.
He dodged just about everything.
“Then dodge this too!”
The Specter Warrior shouted savagely and thrust out a hand.
Tae-hyun instinctively tried to move out of the way, but it was too fast and the range too wide.
Fwaaaash!
A black, rippling mass erupted outward.
You have been struck by the Specter’s Curse. Evasion is impossible.
Magic Defense decreases.
Physical Defense decreases.
You take poison damage from the Specter’s Curse. Divine Authority reduces the damage.
Evasion rate decreases.
A curse that couldn’t be dodged.
Tae-hyun clicked his tongue.
His Luck wasn’t some invincible suit of armor. Attacks like this—ones that simply couldn’t be evaded—had no choice but to land.
At least Divine Authority is keeping the direct damage from being serious.
The poison damage was being completely neutralized by his passive skill, Divine Authority.
But the drop in his evasion rate was dangerous.
The reason Tae-hyun could fight these Specter Warriors on even footing was because he could dodge most of their attacks.
If he started taking hits?
That was when things would get dangerous.
If I want to avoid this, I either need to not get hit at all... or block it.
Tae-hyun raised the hammer properly.
He’d fought this kind of battle countless times before.
Read the opponent.
Even if it was a Specter Warrior, it wasn’t all that different.
They just had annoying skills. When they attacked, something still moved.
The legs!
The Specter Warrior’s attack sliced through empty air.
Tae-hyun had already slipped away a step ahead of it.
“Grrr... how?”
Instead of answering, Tae-hyun returned the favor with the hammer.
Bang!
The Specter Warrior staggered back when the hammer, swung with full force, smashed into it.
Attack power beyond Rufo’s—an absurd, transcendent hammer strike.
The moment it staggered, the turn belonged to Tae-hyun.
He attacked again without hesitation.
Even without a proper offensive skill, Tae-hyun’s normal attacks themselves were weapons.
He pounded the Specter Warrior with a variety of techniques—swinging, thrusting, smashing with the hammer—and the creature collapsed without even managing a counterattack.
“Come over here, Rufo!”
“What?”
Rufo had no idea why he was being called, but if Tae-hyun said come, he moved.
He shoved back the Specter Warrior he’d been dealing with and ran over in a panic.
And then Tae-hyun immediately pulled something out and threw it.
KWA-KWA-KWA-BOOM!
It was a bomb.
“Good thing I brought a few of these when I was training under Maxwell.”
He’d grabbed a few useful bombs while learning mechanical engineering.
He hadn’t expected to use them like this, though.
Rufo nearly had a heart attack and grabbed his head.
“What if this place collapses if you use that here?!”
“It’s fine. I can dodge it.”
“...”
Rufo did not ask, And what exactly am I supposed to do?
There was no point asking a question like that anymore. By now, he knew exactly what kind of person Tae-hyun was.
The explosion brought down part of the wall and ceiling, blocking the path for an instant.
The Specter Warriors seemed to have taken damage too, because none appeared immediately.
“Mister Tae-hyun. What do you plan to do? They’re much stronger than we expected.”
Rufo pulled out a potion, drank it, then wrapped bandages around himself.
They hadn’t fought for long, yet he already looked exhausted.
As for Tae-hyun...
Why the hell does he look fine?!
Other than the curse making parts of his appearance look faintly blackened, he seemed perfectly normal.
Even that curse was fading quickly.
“We still have to break through here, don’t we?”
“That’s true...”
“They’re strong, sure, but not so strong we can’t get through.”
“Right. But if they’re this dangerous here, won’t it be even worse farther inside?”
If the Specter Warriors guarding the path were this strong, Rufo didn’t even want to imagine what might be waiting deeper in.
“Probably.”
“Then...”
“Still, we don’t have a choice.”
Tae-hyun shrugged.
“We can’t climb back up. Since we’re here, we need to take everything we can in one go.”
In a situation where they had no idea when they might be discovered, leaving and coming back later was unrealistic.
Rufo wanted to go back up and bring priests or mages with him, but realistically that wasn’t possible.
“Grrr... you cowards...!”
“Intruders, and yet...!”
The Specter Warriors began emerging again from beyond the shattered passage.
Rufo sighed and raised his sword once more.
What else could he do?
At this point, all he could do was follow Tae-hyun’s lead.
“I just had a good idea.”
“What? What is it?”
“First, hand me that shiny bracelet.”
“Here it is, but... why do you...?”
As he passed it over, Rufo reflexively looked at Tae-hyun’s face.
And instantly regretted it.
Tae-hyun was wearing a wicked grin.
“I’m going to curse you! I’m seriously going to curse you!”
Shouting that, Rufo ran backward.
The Specter Warriors were chasing him.
Tae-hyun used Stealth and sprinted forward.
The Specter Warriors attacked several times, but when none of their blows connected with Tae-hyun, they immediately lunged for Rufo instead.
“Rufo! Fall back and keep running! These things are guardians—they won’t chase you that far!”
“I’m really going to curse you for this!”
“I’m doing this for your own good!”
Tae-hyun’s voice echoed away into the distance.
Grinding his teeth, Rufo ran even harder.
Sure enough, the Specter Warriors didn’t pursue him all the way.
“Huff, huff...!”
Rufo stopped and looked back down the passage.
He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d had to run like this.
At this point, all he could do was wait until Tae-hyun broke through whatever was inside.
Will he really be okay?
Ordinarily, by common sense, Rufo should have gone after him immediately.
But he didn’t.
Tae-hyun gave off that sort of feeling—that even if he pulled something this reckless, somehow it felt like things would still work out.
“Specter’s Curse, Specter’s Curse, Specter’s Curse!”
“Kgh!”
Contrary to Rufo’s faith, Tae-hyun was struggling.
For the first time since entering Fantasy Online 2, he could see his health dropping in chunks.
Just because Tae-hyun’s level was low didn’t mean his stats, HP, and MP were low too.
But that only put him roughly around the level of a current mid-tier to expert player.
These Specter Warriors, on the other hand, were genuinely powerful.
The moment they realized normal attacks wouldn’t reliably work on Tae-hyun, they began doing nothing but layering curses on him.
Even with Divine Authority reducing the effects, once the curses stacked up, his HP still started dropping fast.
“Damn it... Lucky Strike! Circle of Attack!”
Gritting his teeth, Tae-hyun poured on the offensive.
Right now, attack was the only thing he could trust.
He had to kill them to reduce the number of curses on him.
Your Swordsmanship skill has increased.
Beginner Swordsmanship has advanced to Intermediate Swordsmanship.
You have obtained Intermediate Swordsmanship. From now on, all swordsmanship-related skills receive bonus effects.
New skills have been added to Gataqua Swordsmanship.
You are recognized as a swordsman in the city.
Swordsmanship-related NPCs will treat you more favorably.
Even finally raising his Swordsmanship skill to Intermediate wasn’t something he had time to celebrate.
Tae-hyun moved frantically.
He had to avoid as many curses as possible.
Fighting while dodging attacks like this made him think of the old days.
Yeah. I’ve gotten lazy lately.
I’ve been relying too much on Luck to handle my dodging for me.
This is how I used to fight in the first place!
The instant a Specter Warrior reached out a hand, the curse burst forth.
So he either had to stop the hand from extending at all—or, the moment it did, move beside another Specter Warrior and use it as a shield.
“Die!”
Bang!
Once it had stacked enough curses, the Specter Warrior seemed to gain confidence and rushed in swinging its sword.
Evasion successful.
“That’s impossible...!”
“That’s what I should be saying!”
Tae-hyun answered with the hammer.
He swung it straight into the Specter Warrior’s face.
A critical hit has occurred!
“KRAAAAGH!”
The Specter Warrior screamed and collapsed.
As one curse disappeared, the rate at which his HP was dropping slowed.
Letting out a breath of relief, Tae-hyun resumed fighting.
By the time he’d put down the rest of them, he had about twenty percent HP left.
That was dangerous. Seriously dangerous.
After making a big show of leaving Rufo behind and coming in alone, dying here would have been humiliating beyond words.
Having Rufo around had definitely made things easier.
When the attacks focused on Rufo, Tae-hyun only had to worry about dealing damage.
But Rufo wasn’t like Tae-hyun.
He couldn’t let the man die in here.
A high-level NPC he planned to keep putting to work in the future!
“Achoo!”
Rufo sneezed.
A sudden chill had run down his spine.
“Is someone talking about me?”
Opaque dust gathered from an undead specter.
It is infused with undead essence.
The stronger the undead, the stronger the essence within the dust.
“Could’ve at least dropped a sword or some armor...”
Grumbling, Tae-hyun gathered up the Specter Dust.
It was the sort of material blacksmiths or mages would love.
But Tae-hyun couldn’t make much use of it himself.
Not unless he had an Enchantment skill or something like that...
After sorting everything out, Tae-hyun wrapped himself in bandages.
He’d brought plenty of bandages and potions when leaving the merchant group.
That was the kind of meticulousness that never let an opportunity go to waste.
Come to think of it, my Swordsmanship skill reached Intermediate, didn’t it?