Chapter 7
Chapter 7
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 7
Chapter Title: Graduation Exam
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Instructor Jeong Yohan drew the sword from his waist like lightning and severed the heads of the two charging goblins.
While the remaining goblin failed to grasp the situation, the instructor blocked its escape route.
In front was a powerhouse who had instantly killed two of its kin. Behind were six humans. Neither side looked easy for the goblin.
"Who wants to go first?"
The instructor said, looking at us.
"I'll go first."
I stepped forward.
This was how they isolated them one by one, allowing students to fight 1-on-1 for evaluation.
Most modern people had never taken a life. And even if it was a monster, it was a humanoid goblin. It was normal to hesitate to swing a weapon.
This exam was to prove the minimum ability as a hunter—whether you could kill a monster or not.
As I approached with knuckles equipped, the goblin tensed, gripping its rusted dagger tightly and lowering its stance.
As the distance closed, it made its decision. It lunged low along the ground, swinging the dagger.
If it had come right after awakening, it might have been different, but having raised skills and stats somewhat at the academy, the goblin's movements looked painfully slow.
I deflected the swung dagger with the back of my left knuckle and smashed its head with my right knuckle. The goblin's skull shattered, and it slammed into the cave wall.
"Ooh..."
My teammates admired from behind.
"Trainee Lee Ji-seok, well done without hesitation. You learned about manastone locations in Monster Basics, right? Extract it."
"Yes."
I sliced open the goblin's chest with the manastone extraction dagger from my waist and pulled out the manastone without hesitation. I showed the instructor the red manastone, smaller than a knuckle.
"Good. Seol Young-hyun, Oh Chang-sik, extract the manastones from the remaining two."
The instructor pointed to two other students.
We had extracted beast-type monster manastones under the professor's guidance in Monster Basics, but this was the first time for a humanoid goblin's heart, so the students were tense.
Seol Young-hyun managed it properly despite the tension, but Oh Chang-sik couldn't hold back his nausea and ended up vomiting before speaking.
"Vomiting doesn't extract the manastone. Once you've finished throwing up, extract it again."
At the instructor's words, Oh Chang-sik, having finished vomiting, somehow managed to extract the manastone. I recalled suppressing my own urge to vomit in my previous life to extract one.
"We'll keep moving."
In the subsequent 1-on-1 situations with goblins that Instructor Jeong Yohan created, the other three students hunted theirs without issue. Only Oh Chang-sik, who had vomited earlier, failed to kill his goblin in combat and even got injured, so Instructor Jeong Yohan finished it off instead.
In the end, Oh Chang-sik, having given up on the graduation exam, simply followed behind us.
His face was a picture of misery, but he couldn't muster the will to try again. In a way, that was normal. It would be stranger if hunters who killed human-like beings without a second thought were the normal ones.
Awakeners seemed to develop less resistance to killing monsters over time.
Excluding Oh Chang-sik, the other students started tense but gradually grew accustomed to the hunts. Confidence built in their movements, and under the instructor's guidance, they began to enjoy hunting goblins.
We continued exploring the gate, hunting, extracting manastones, and resting as we went.
"That's odd..."
"Instructor, what's wrong?"
Seol Young-hyun, calmly extracting a manastone, asked at the instructor's mutter.
"Too few. Goblins."
We had progressed quite a bit, but there were definitely few. In cases like this, they were likely gathered in a group.
"It seems the goblins are clustered together. We'll heighten our vigilance and move slowly."
The instructor reached the same conclusion as me. The trainees swallowed hard and gripped their weapons.
I, on the other hand, wasn't particularly tense. With my sturdy body, there was no way a goblin could kill me, and that instructor was a B-Rank hunter. He could handle a hundred goblins alone.
After advancing further, Oh Chang-sik's complexion worsened, probably from being too tense for too long under stress.
But we couldn't halt progress for just him.
"Relax. There's a B-Rank instructor here—what's there to be so tense about?"
"Y-Yes... Yes...."
I spoke to him hoping to calm him, but it seemed my words weren't getting through.
When the instructor raised his fist, everyone stopped. A goblin horde was visible ahead.
"Hide over there. It's harder to protect you in a melee. If any approaching goblins come, block them per the healer's instructions."
Everyone nodded.
The instructor quietly moved in a direction different from where we'd come and began attacking the goblins.
Oh Chang-sik clutched his head at the screams of dozens of goblins—Kee-yek!—and the clash of weapons.
"Eek...."
He was completely in panic.
At that moment, a few goblins approached our side.
"Uwaaaah!"
Seeing them, Oh Chang-sik screamed and fled in the opposite direction from the goblins, and they heard the noise and discovered us.
"You bastard!"
I could feel the instructor's deep frustration from here. Coming to defend us now might draw the entire horde, so he couldn't approach.
Fortunately, only three or four goblins were heading our way, so the trainees and healer responded. Honestly, this was nothing if handled calmly.
"I'll go get him."
If I left Oh Chang-sik like that and he ran into another goblin group and died, I'd have to carry his body back, so I broke off to follow him.
"If it gets dicey, ditch him and come back alone! No need to risk your life for that guy!"
Since I was the best hunter among the five, the instructor and healer weren't worried about me.
I quickly caught up to Oh Chang-sik, who was running in a full panic, barely breathing.
"Hey! Stop!"
I called from behind, but got no response, so I grabbed his collar and slammed him to the ground.
"You trying to get us all killed?!"
"R-Run... We have to run!"
He was completely out of it. It was rare to panic this badly even in a goblin gate.
To avoid more trouble from further panic, I choked him out from behind.
As I slung the unconscious Oh Chang-sik over my shoulder to return to the group, a goblin with a shortsword appeared. I set Oh Chang-sik down against the wall and faced it.
Just one. I figured I'd deal with it quickly and head back, so I approached. Then, an arrow flew from the darkness. There was more than one.
Dodging might hit Oh Chang-sik leaning against the wall behind me, so I stood my ground. The arrow lodged in my thigh. My mobility-focused protective suit had plenty of gaps, and it hit one perfectly.
However, thanks to my Sturdy Body skill, the goblin's crude arrow didn't penetrate deeply. With the arrow still stuck, I smashed the shortsword goblin's head.
Then I yanked the arrow from my leg and tossed it to the ground. I looked around briefly, but the archer had already fled.
Having to retrieve Oh Chang-sik, I gave up the chase. As I turned to head back to the group, the arrow wound burned hot, and the world spun.
This feeling—poison.
Goblins used poison, but it was usually crude stuff I wasn't worried about. This seemed higher quality than expected.
"Hoo...."
I knelt briefly to catch my breath. Paralysis spread through my body, making movement difficult. Regeneration instantly healed dead or detached cells, but this kind of poisoning hindered recovery and took time.
"Kik."
Damn. Through my blurry vision, I saw a bow-wielding goblin approaching from behind. The one that shot me must have been waiting for me to collapse.
I just needed to hold out until the poison was neutralized. I covered Oh Chang-sik with my body and gripped my own neck with my hand.
Cautious bastard—it shot another arrow from afar, hitting my side. The poison spread further.
It slung its bow on its back, approached closely, drew its dagger, and stabbed down at my back.
The goblin's strength wasn't great, and the dagger was crude, so it didn't penetrate deeply, but this damn goblin kept stabbing relentlessly.
When it couldn't stab properly after a while, it gave up on my back and targeted my neck, which I was covering with my hand.
The dagger forced its way between my fingers and pierced my neck.
[Skill: Poison Resistance (F) acquired.]
With the cheerful notification, the paralysis began to lift.
I'd thought skill-ups were just luck until now, but I understood the timing here. The Regeneration skill accelerated evolution as the user neared death. The stress of "if I don't expel this poison, I'll die" had granted the Poison Resistance skill.
As it pulled the dagger to stab my neck again, I twisted around and seized its throat.
Startled, it swung the dagger at my face, but I caught it lightly in my hand. Then I crushed its surprised throat with force.
I'd dealt with it, but regenerating the cells killed by poison and the dagger wounds had drained my vitality too much—my legs gave out.
I desperately clung to consciousness when I saw the instructor and other party members running up from behind.
Figuring I'd be fine now, I lay down right there.
* * *
"For the sacrificial spirit and courage in throwing yourself to save a comrade, we present this commendation."
"Thank you."
On graduation day, I received the commendation from the principal on stage.
It was for protecting Oh Chang-sik, who had fallen behind during the practical.
I'd been in the very back row at enrollment, but now I'd climbed past the front row to the stage itself at graduation.
I hadn't sought attention, but feeling how different my life was from my previous one wasn't a bad sensation.
Even though I wasn't close to anyone in particular, my classmates came to congratulate me one by one.
"Lee Ji-seok, planning to join a guild?"
Instructor Jeong Yohan offered a handshake. The instructors, who had been like demons during training, now used honorifics with newbie hunters.
"No, I plan to operate solo for a while."
"Dangerous as that is... you've learned plenty by now. I'll skip the obvious nagging. If you ever need help, contact me. My letter of recommendation won't get you into a top-10 guild, but it'll work for smaller ones."
Instructor Jeong Yohan handed me his business card. He was probably worried since my only skill was Regeneration.
"If I need help, I'll reach out. Thank you."
Not that it would happen.
Choo Kang-min, whose face still bore a scar the healer couldn't fully erase and whose teeth were mostly gone, and Instructor Heo O-seong scowled bitterly from afar.
People I'd never see again anyway. Ignoring them, I gazed at my commendation and official hunter license.
With this, I could enter gates. Now the real thing began.
The moment I left the academy, I accessed the hunter app to enter a gate.
It felt a bit rushed, but having lost time to the academy, I wanted to hurry even more.