Dark Predator (2)
Jin-soo kept climbing the Tower on the strict rhythm of twenty-two hours, twenty-two minutes, and twenty-two seconds, and the result was that he reached Tower Floor 149 in what felt like an instant. Whatever Floor 149 had to offer, he claimed it just as quickly. All that remained was the clear mission.
Will you challenge the clear of Tower Floor 149?
[Yes.] [No.]
"Let's go."
"Yeah."
Jin-soo and Shin Sua selected Yes.
A wash of brilliant light wrapped around them both.
The clear condition for Tower Floor 149 is survival for one week.
We wish the challenger survival.
A blizzard heavy with biting cold coiled around their bodies.
"Ugh, it's freezing!"
Shin Sua shuddered, shoulders hitching. Jin-soo felt the cold against his skin as well.
"Let's let the summons out first."
"Got it."
It was a cold that would have turned an ordinary human into a block of ice on the spot. For Players who had climbed into the superhuman stage, it was miserable and painful, but still something they could endure. Jin-soo and Shin Sua spun up their buffs.
Go.
Wings beat, and at his command the Bone Dragon punched up through the blizzard and climbed high into the sky. The rest of the summons drove forward without hesitation, plowing through snow that swallowed them to the knee.
Cold is something only the living feel. To Jin-soo's inanimate summons, blizzard and frost were no obstacle at all.
"Nyaang!"
"Kkaak! Kkaak!"
Ah — Leo and Kkami were the exceptions. Those two were not inanimate. They felt the cold at once and burrowed into Jin-soo's arms, curling tight against him. Feeling them pressed into his coat, he let out a hollow little laugh. Didn't think they'd make this much of a fuss.
Search first, then. He could not remember exactly where, before the regression, he had obtained the Dark Predator class book. I was out of my mind just trying to stay ahead of the Ice Orcs and Ice Trolls. Even if he had kept his head, pinning down an exact spot in a world of nothing but snow would have been nearly impossible.
"The summons can handle the hunting on their own. Let's get the tent up."
"Yeah, let's. We at least need to cut the wind."
Drawing on every skill they had, they cleared the snow, pitched the tent, and lit a campfire. A gentle warmth soon drifted through the interior.
"I'm going to scout the area. Cast Sanctuary and rest."
At his words, Shin Sua's face tightened in brief thought. Should I say I'll go with him? But it was far too cold. And more decisively, with her physical ability lagging behind, joining the search would not help — it would only get in the way.
"All right. Go on. I'll get a meal ready while you're out."
"Do that. And you two — out. Rest in here."
Jin-soo drew Leo and Kkami from inside his coat as he spoke.
"Kkaak! Kkaak!"
Kkami flapped happily inside the tent, plainly pleased. Leo, however, slipped straight back into Jin-soo's arms.
"You want to come too?"
"Nyaang!"
At the question, Leo cried out with force, making it perfectly clear he meant to follow.
"Don't regret it later."
"Meow!"
At that spirited answer, Jin-soo broke into a short laugh and stepped out of the tent. I have to find it within the week. No exceptions.
If he could put the summons to work on the search, nothing would be better. But the summons he held were built, almost entirely, for battle. An order to attack someone, they understood and carried out to near perfection. An order to find something met with a far lower chance of success. They even haul back every item that drops from a hunt, without sorting any of it. Byproducts with no monetary value ought to be left behind, but the summons could not tell the difference. So he simply ordered them to bring everything, and did the sorting himself. It was the only way to keep a valuable item from being abandoned on the hunting ground by mistake.
I did tell them to bring back anything like a class book, no matter what. Whether they can actually tell one apart is another question. For all he knew, they would return with a rock or a chunk of ice about the same size. In the end, I have to find it myself.
A week was not a short span of time. Searching alone, though, it felt tight enough. If it had been a class book from clearing a hidden dungeon, or from taking down a specific boss, this would be easy. He had found it by pure accident — wandering in a daze, and there it was, buried in the snow. Aside from searching without discrimination, there was no other way.
Flame roared as he cast a fire-attribute spell, and the snow melted away in an instant. Even if I have to melt every bit of snow out here, I will find it. The search began in earnest.
"Graaaah!"
An Ice Troll burst from the snowfield in a sudden ambush. Steel sheared. A ragged shriek tore out of it as Jin-soo took the head off in a single stroke. Ice Trolls boasted a viciously stubborn vitality, propped up by powerful self-recovery, but once head and torso were parted, that was the end. He cut down the monsters rushing him from every side and threw everything he had into finding the Dark Predator class book.
Time slipped past quickly. Hunting new monsters in great numbers pushed up the growth of his blessing, which until then had only crawled. Even so, Jin-soo could not bring himself to smile.
Only a day left. Where in the world is it? For six days he had pared even sleep down to the minimum and combed the snowfield as if he were hunting lice. The Dark Predator class book was nowhere to be seen, as if it had sunk into the earth or shot up into the sky. He had hung a little hope on the summons, just in case. Why do these things never once step outside what I expect? All they brought back was trash that happened to look like the book.
I find it. No matter what. It might clash with his blessing and turn out useless, but that was something he would only know once he checked. First, he had to have it in hand. I really was lucky back then. Stumbling across the Dark Predator class book in this vast snowfield before the regression had been as good as a miracle.
He sprayed fire magic and melted the snow, then searched the field with everything he had. Time kept sliding away, and the anxiety only sharpened. Less than two hours remained before they would have to leave Tower Floor 149.
"Nyaang?"
Unlike the frantic Jin-soo, Leo had been lounging in the warmth of his arms, tearing into meat at his leisure — and then his nose twitched. A moment later he sprang clean out of Jin-soo's coat.
"Leo?"
Jin-soo stared, thrown. Until now the little thing had stayed burrowed in his arms, complaining of the cold and gnawing dried monster meat. Why come out all of a sudden?
"Meow!"
Leo launched himself straight into the snowfield. His small body sank deep, swallowed by the drift. What's he doing? Is there monster meat buried under there? Jin-soo was still wearing that puzzled look when Leo shot back out of the snow with something clamped in his mouth.
"Huh?"
Jin-soo's eyes went wide. Clenched in Leo's jaws was a pitch-black class book.
"Leo!"
His face lit up. The jet-black volume in the kitten's mouth was the very Dark Predator class book he had been searching for so desperately.
"Thank you, Leo! You're finally earning your keep!"
He broke into a bright grin and rushed in to take the book from Leo's mouth. A burst of brilliant light flared — and the Dark Predator class book scattered, absorbed straight into Leo's body.
"Huh?"
The absurdity of it left Jin-soo's face blank. In that instant, a system message rose before his eyes.
Summon Shadow Beast Leo has devoured the class book — Dark Predator.
Summon Shadow Beast Leo has grown.
"What is this?"
Jin-soo's face collapsed into blank despair. He knew that living summons could grow. In almost every case, though, they did it by hunting monsters and stacking experience. Growing by eating a class book was something he had never heard of — not before the regression, and not after.
"Leo!"
"Nyaang?"
Leo only looked back at him, perfectly unbothered, as if nothing at all had happened.
"Haa..."
A long sigh escaped him. In a single instant, all that effort had come to nothing.
"If you were going to eat one, you could have eaten a different class book."
He had acquired countless class books and skill books along the way, and Leo had never shown the slightest interest in a single one of them. The thought that the kitten might eat a class book and grow had never even occurred to him. What's already gone can't be undone. A dull weight settled in his chest. I suppose it's a mercy that nothing went wrong.
A summon devouring a class book — an event without precedent, before or since. Fortunately, Leo himself showed no sign of anything wrong. But did he actually grow? He was still small and cute, his body no different from a kitten's. From where Jin-soo stood, it was impossible to tell what, exactly, had grown at all.
"Grrrr..."
A low growl rolled out of the snow. Another Ice Troll? Jin-soo gave Baekcheonsingeom a light swing. Steel bit. One arm sheared away, and the Ice Troll burst into an enraged roar and hurled itself at him. The severed arm began knitting back at a frightening speed.
Not an ordinary specimen. Reattaching a cut-off arm was regeneration even a common troll could manage. Generating a new arm entirely was beyond even a troll with high regenerative power. A variant with exceptional regeneration, then. Take the head, though, and it would die all the same. He was about to swing again.
"Nyaaang!"
With a vigorous roar, Leo charged and sank his teeth into the regenerating arm. L-Leo, joining the fight? It was something that had never happened, not even once. So this is what growing looks like for him? Sadly, the attack itself was pitiful. All Leo managed was a set of small tooth marks in the arm as it regrew.
"Kuwek?"
The arm, which had been racing back toward its original shape at tremendous speed, slowed all at once. The Ice Troll stared at the limb — regenerating now at a pace plainly slower than before — as if it could not understand what it was seeing.
"Kyaaang!"
Leo roared again and threw himself at the Ice Troll, unleashing a flurry of cat punches. His front paws struck in a rapid chain, and the arm's regeneration slowed even further. Then, with a brittle crack, the limb that had still been knitting itself back together, however slowly, shattered like glass.
"Kuuwaaaak!"
The Ice Troll screamed in pain.
"Huh?"
Jin-soo startled. Don't tell me it devoured the self-recovery skill.
Skill Predation. One of the core skills of the Dark Predator class. A broken skill that let you devour the skills of an enemy you struck — and the higher the level of the skill you devoured, the more your own skill level rose, permanently. Put simply, it was a skill that ate the skills other people held and used them to raise your own.
So Leo, after absorbing the Dark Predator class book, obtained Skill Predation? He could grant that much. But no matter how he turned it over, there was one point he simply could not believe. Skill Predation shouldn't be able to devour a skill of a higher level than your own. That was why it had to be raised with care, starting from level 1. Before the regression, Jin-soo had handed his companions level-1 skill books, had them learn the skills, and then repeatedly devoured those skills to push the level up. At low levels, besides, Skill Predation was close to useless — you could only devour the low-level skills an opponent actually possessed. And the success rate isn't even one hundred percent. The higher the skill level, the closer devouring it in a single attempt comes to impossible.
And yet Leo had just done the unbelievable. In a flash, he had devoured the self-recovery of an Ice Troll that, by any glance, was of an enormous level.