Monkeys and the Jaguar
I flicked my finger without pause, scrolling down the skill list.
Hundreds—no, thousands—of skills streaked past my eyes. Just looking at them was enough to make my vision blur.
Beside me, Serena was completely absorbed in playing with her water spirit.
I clung to what patience I had left and kept scouring the list.
At last, the A-rank skills began to appear.
Is this an attack skill? That one… a taming skill?
Trying to guess the performance of every endless skill was giving me a headache.
Please. Just one decent hit…!
Then one skill jumped out at me.
Whole body? One qi?
The martial-arts-novel reader experience I'd racked up killing time in the army whispered the answer the moment I saw it. This was no ordinary skill.
Names like this always pull their weight.
My heart swung hard toward it. This was the one. Even if I couldn't eat it, it was still a five-star dish.
Without hesitation, I selected the A-rank skill Whole Body One Qi Gong.
Ding! Bam-ba-ra-bam!
You have acquired an A-rank skill against extremely low odds!
Skill information bloomed clearly before my eyes.
A supreme external martial technique that perfectly transfers the ultimate hardness achieved by any single part of the body onto the blood, flesh, and bone of the entire form. It thoroughly erases the disparities in defense that exist between body parts, unifying the whole under a single perfect value.
[Full-Body Synchronization]: The physical defense value of the single body part with the highest physical defense is expanded and applied at 100% identical strength from the crown of the head to the tips of the toes—including the internal organs.
[Full-Body Impact Dispersion]: When a powerful blow or slash is taken from outside, the impact energy is dispersed throughout the entire body, minimizing the actual damage the caster receives.
"Yes!!!"
A thrilling jolt raced up my spine. Who would have thought the martial-arts-novel trivia I'd picked up just to kill time in the army would shine like this?
It was exactly the skill I had wanted.
Among the effects of the skill I'd gained on the first floor, (A) Slap Fighting Champion, was this ability:
Unshakable Brain.
A broken power that pushed my head's defense to the absolute limit. Thanks to it, even a crossbow bolt straight to the face and the fangs of the white zombies on the second floor hadn't left so much as a scratch on my skull.
And now that monstrous defense would be copied across my entire body by the newly acquired (A) Whole Body One Qi Gong?
So I can just tank everything and throw slaps?
And if I could fight while taking hits on purpose, my attack power would shoot straight into the Andromeda galaxy.
Because another effect of (A) Slap Fighting Champion was waiting for me: You Hit Me, I Hit You.
Take an opponent's attack head-on and counter, and attack power jumps a full 300%. A ridiculous effect.
The anxiety I'd been carrying melted away like spring snow, and a deep sense of ease settled in its place.
With this, I had perfectly bagged both rabbits—offense and defense.
"Don't tell me you rolled another disgustingly good skill?"
When I let out my cheer, Serena—still playing with her water spirit—looked over at me with an expression of pure disbelief.
"This one's pretty much to my taste."
The suspicious look in her eyes didn't fade. She had probably already figured out I wasn't some ordinary guy, but she still had no idea what I actually was.
"All right. Enough fooling around. Let's move."
There was no proper map of the fourth floor's tropical rainforest zone. Dense trees filled every direction, making mapmaking nearly impossible—and even if a map existed, trying to navigate this jungle by looking at one would have been absurd.
Fortunately, the fourth floor had a clear, simple way to find your bearings.
The slope.
The fourth floor was structured so that the ground descended very gently toward the center. The center was the lowest point, and the outer cliffs where we stood were the highest. Follow the slope down and you reached the center; climb it and you could escape toward the outer edge.
Thanks to the large notice posted on the wall of the Explorer Support Center, which had kindly laid out the fourth-floor information, we already knew all of this before coming in.
With the cliff at our backs, we started walking inland along the gentle slope.
Massive tree roots tangled together, making the ground uneven, but at least it wasn't a muddy quagmire. Maybe because sunlight barely reached the forest floor, even ordinary weeds refused to grow.
But how is there not a single bug or bird?
A jungle this thick should have been crawling with every kind of small life. Instead, the forest was quiet—beyond quiet. It was dead silent.
Even when it isn't a cave, a labyrinth is still a labyrinth.
It hit me all over again that this place wasn't a normal world—it was a bizarre otherworldly dimension created by the labyrinth.
That was when the silence broke. From far off, the cries of monkeys erupted.
Kieek, kieeek, ook-kieek!
"Labyrinth monkeys."
I gave the short warning to sharpen Serena's guard.
Moments later, a troop of monkeys closed in at full speed from the trees to our left. With their long arms they swung from branch to branch and, in an instant, seized the high ground above our heads.
Five of the little beasts looked down at us, screeching sharp cries.
"Kieek! Kieek!"
"Ugh, so loud."
I unstrapped the shield from my back and tossed it straight to Serena.
"Serena, you take the shield. I'll be fine."
"What? For real? I heard those things throw rocks."
"Stop complaining and take it."
Serena set her staff on the ground and, half in a daze, accepted the shield.
"Stay well hidden."
Apparently offended that we were ignoring them and whispering among ourselves, the monkeys pulled stones from their pouches.
"Here they come!"
Long arms cracked like whips, and stones screamed toward us at terrifying speed. Control and velocity both were Major League pitcher–class.
I lifted both arms lightly over my head and blocked the incoming rocks.
Shhk! Thok! Thok!
The stones came in with bullet-like air-splitting sounds and slammed squarely into my arms. I felt nothing. Not pain. Not even an itch.
Kang! Kang! Kang!
Violent impacts rang off the shield Serena held as well, but not so much as a hairline scratch marked its surface. Seven million Truna well spent. Performance, at least, was rock-solid.
"You okay, Serena?"
"Yes! This shield must have a shock-absorption function too!"
No problem, then. I lifted my head and looked back up at the monkeys.
When the stone attack did nothing, they went even more berserk, then scattered in every direction and came racing down the trees.
Lucky for us they were low-intelligence monsters. If they'd just thrown rocks and fled, chasing them would have been a pain—but charging straight in on their own was a free gift.
"Incoming! Get behind me!"
I shouted the short order to Serena and locked my eyes on the ones closing in.
The first monkey to charge from the right swung a long arm straight at my face.
I casually knocked the attack aside with my right hand and, in the same motion, whipped my left across its cheek in a full slap.
Puck!
The monkey didn't even get out a scream before it flew and smashed into a massive tree root.
In that same instant, a dull impact landed on the back of my skull. Another one had cracked me across the nape. Without so much as a frown, I twisted my upper body around and drove a full-power smash into its torso.
Puhk!
In a blink, two of them were meat on the ground. The remaining monkeys that had been about to leap in slammed on the brakes. Their eyes rolled as they tried to make sense of the ridiculous situation.
But a monster's shallow intelligence couldn't grasp the gap. With furious howls, they charged me again.
Puck! Puck! Puck!
In the end, the rest of them sprawled across the forest floor as cold corpses too.
I dusted off my hands and gave Serena the order.
"Serena, go harvest the Magic Stones."
"Yeees~"
Serena, who had been glued behind me under the shield, stepped lightly out toward the monkey carcasses.
Back on the second floor she had grumbled the whole time while harvesting Magic Stones. But once she realized those stones paid for beds, good food, and pretty clothes, she seemed to accept the work without complaint.
Hmm… the fourth floor was turning out easier than expected. Why had everyone made such a huge fuss about it?
"Serena, make some water with your spirit."
The muggy climate of the tropical rainforest was the worst. On top of that, my palms were sticky with the blood of the labyrinth monkeys we'd just killed—thoroughly unpleasant.
But the discomfort didn't bother me at all.
I had Serena, after all—evolved from human hangover cure into human water purifier.
"My friend Tabi is not a water generator!"
Having finished harvesting the Magic Stones, Serena pouted and complained.
"Tabi? Don't tell me you named that water blob."
"It is not a water blob! Look how cute it is. Hehe, Tabi! Make us some water!"
Serena's hands must have gotten dirty digging through monkey corpses for Magic Stones. Or maybe she just wanted to try out her newly acquired skill right away.
Even while grumbling, she promptly summoned her water spirit and had it pour out clean water.
We washed our hands and wiped away sweat in the clear stream. After cooling our throats as well, a satisfied sound slipped out on its own.
"Ahhh!"
Water spirit—performance confirmed!
Should I adopt a spirit of my own?
The sheer usefulness of spirit-type skills drew a genuine note of admiration from me.
After a short rest and cleanup, we pushed deeper into the jungle.
We ran into labyrinth monkey troops twice more after that, but there was no tension left. To my eyes, they were nothing more than walking Magic Stone lumps.
"Feels like we've come pretty far down."
"It does. This place is huge."
The massive, tangled tree roots made walking difficult. It was definitely a terrain that burned stamina.
"Let's rest a bit."
"Okay."
That was the exact moment.
Beyond a stretch of gnarled roots in the distance, deep in the heavy dark, I thought I saw a flash of yellow eyes.
A cold premonition skimmed through my mind—and in the same breath, a black beast came screaming toward us at terrifying speed.
Paaat!
Its target wasn't me. It was Serena, who was still looking casually ahead with her guard down.
Serena, sensing no danger at all—and the predator baring its fangs as it closed on her.
A saber-toothed jaguar…!