60
Chapter 60: What Falls Has Wings
'The estimated altitude of Seonjoong Mountain roughly guessed right before jumping from the mountaintop is approximately 1,700~2,000 meters.'
This calculation was made according to the slope of Seonjoong Mountain and the distance traveled that he felt while pursuing the survivors.
Mountain paths aren't straight, so they're difficult to figure out by feel alone. However, if one draws a straight line between the starting point and ending point, some estimation becomes possible. Because steep paths and less steep paths were mixed, the margin of error was large. However, if he proceeded with work adjusted to the maximum of 2000 anyway, ultimately that risk could be minimized.
In fact, Dong Bong-su's calculation started from when Transformed Shadow and Water Shadow attacked him and the pursuit force from behind. The new way out he thought of then was precisely jumping from the mountaintop.
From right after making that judgment, he steadily stuffed rocks, stones, torn body parts of the dead, and whatever else he could into his Inventory. Of course, he only targeted things that got in his way so no one could see.
This method was something he absolutely couldn't even attempt if his body were an ordinary person's. Everything was possible because his strength, endurance, agility, and so on were far superior to ordinary people and because he had Inventory Divine Art.
Above all, what made him confident of this method's success was that memories from modern times remained.
Pythagorean theorem, Newton's law of gravity and action-reaction, equations of motion, and so on.
With just basic mathematical and physical calculations, Dong Bong-su could jump from the cliff with confidence in survival.
'Judging from experience so far, there may be exceptional other martial world physical laws... but the basic physical laws aren't much different here either. Gravitational acceleration has slight differences according to altitude, but that's only very slight. Not worth considering. It's fixed at approximately 9.8 m/s². Assume this is roughly 10. If there's almost no air resistance, my speed right before touching the ground becomes 720 km/h. Fast enough to exceed half the speed of sound. Of course, there's terminal velocity so it won't accelerate all the way there... but even though I've become much stronger from leveling up, there's no way my body can withstand this impact. My physical body can probably endure a fall speed of at most 50~60 km/h. If survival is possible even after taking big damage... up to 100 km/h, with my current body, I might perhaps be able to endure. Perhaps I can withstand impacts slightly stronger than that.'
Inside Dong Bong-su's head, the calculations and assumptions he made earlier were repeating again. No matter how much Dong Bong-su thought, since he was performing various tasks simultaneously, those assumptions and calculations had no choice but to be simplified as much as possible.
'However, to descend while decelerating to this degree, one corpse per second is consumed. If free-falling without air resistance, the time to reach the bottom is about 20 seconds. But if descending while decelerating as calculated, that time increases dramatically. Estimated time minimum 1 minute to maximum about 2 minutes. Therefore, the corpses and objects needed are... since all the objects' weights inside the Inventory aren't constant... minimum 60, maximum about 120... perhaps more needed than that. If I consider here again that there's air resistance, fewer than this might be needed.'
One hundred and twenty objects with enough inertia to support his body weight.
Dong Bong-su's Inventory didn't have that many corpses and objects. There were small stones, miscellaneous wood, corpse fragments he stuffed in earlier, but these wouldn't help much with deceleration.
'However.'
Dong Bong-su still had more trump cards.
That was precisely the method of using the cliff slope.
Thud, thud, thud…
In Dong Bong-su's eyes as he steadily reduced speed and fell downward, the place he wanted finally appeared.
'It's here.'
Dong Bong-su kicked one rock he took out from Inventory toward the cliff. Then he stuck to the cliff just like that. Since he had already almost eliminated his falling speed, Dong Bong-su could stick to the cliff relatively easily. This was possible because there were gaps between the cliff where hands and feet could be inserted. Above all, the important fact was that the cliff's slope was tilted very slightly toward the bottom.
Dong Bong-su slowly went down below the cliff as if rock climbing. Then when the slope tilted upward again making it difficult to place his feet, he floated his body in midair once more and fell downward. Then when space to place feet on the rock wall was discovered again, he took out objects from Inventory, gave propulsion in the opposite direction, and back toward the cliff...
Dong Bong-su repeated that.
When the wall surface had an upward diagonal slope, he struck objects and corpses, reducing speed with that reaction. Then when a place appeared where the wall surface's slope leaned even slightly downward like a slide, he stuck to the cliff and went down.
This was Dong Bong-su's strategy, and until now it was successful. If he did this, he could go down below while reducing consumption of corpses and objects to the minimum. If he had the ability to immediately retrieve objects as soon as striking them with feet or hands, he could perform this task more easily, but that was an ability he couldn't do. The moment he struck an object, immediately the distance between him and the object widened, so putting the used object back into Inventory was impossible. If this were possible, he could even do Walking on Air, but it wasn't possible from the start.
What made him confident of this strategy's success was when he looked down below the cliff from Seonjoong Mountain's peak. What he focused on was the fact that columnar joints made of basaltic rock continued, then at some point a schistose layer mixed with granite and basalt appeared.
The vertically sheer straight cliff had transformed at some point into a fault-structure cliff connected horizontally in layers. Probably since the mountain was high, multiple layers seemed to have been generated separately by era. Because of this, Dong Bong-su could jump below the cliff right away without much hesitation.
Though he had never done it before, he thought he could do it.
He actually did it and was doing it.
He even slid down below the cliff. Occasionally very smoothly cut rocks that appeared among the columnar joints, and some of those slopes were also very suitable for sliding down.
Screeeech-screeeech-screeeech—
What he used as a sliding mat was corpses. The corpses' skin peeled off from friction, blood splattered, and bones were ground down. But the more that happened, the more Dong Bong-su could go down below.
Then when accelerating excessively causing the corpse to be completely ground down or when it seemed difficult to endure more, Dong Bong-su kicked the wall with his feet, floated his body into midair, then returned to the cliff. In this case, naturally the corpse that became a rag was used to return to the cliff. Upon returning to the cliff, he laid a new corpse slide and slid down again.
It was a very dangerous and difficult method, but Dong Bong-su carried it out calmly. Like that, he step by step increased distance from the sky more and more, and by that much got closer to the ground.
Thud-thud-thud-thud!.
Another corpse was ground on the cliff and became a rag. And by that much, Dong Bong-su's survival possibility increased.
At some moment when Dong Bong-su had almost reached the ground like that.
"Aaaahhhhh!"
A scream that someone let out while falling below the cliff was received in Dong Bong-su's ears.
'Finally came.'
The moment Dong Bong-su heard the sound, he was already leaping that way. In his hand at some point was the Novice's Sword, and as always it cut through midair grotesquely concisely.
Slash!.
The falling person might have thought like this perhaps—still, what if an opportunity awaited below the cliff if he jumped down? If he didn't have even such a small hope, he wouldn't have jumped at all. However, what waited for him was Dong Bong-su's cold blade.
His head and body separated in midair and departed on a journey toward the ground again. On the other hand, Dong Bong-su who cut him in two summoned one rock, kicked it, and returned toward the cliff. Then he muttered lowly.
"87."
[First Class Change Quest: Wanderer]
Tester-exclusive class.
Quest completion condition: Achieve 100 Kills of enemies Level 10 or above.
Current quest completion (completed/total): 87 / 100
Until class change, just 13 people.
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
Dong Bong-su began going down below the cliff again. While waiting for the next victim.
***
Moments ago, atop Seonjoong Mountain.
Whoooosh—
Transformed Shadow stood at the cliff's edge where Dong Bong-su and the water bandits had been standing and looked down below. Naturally, nothing was visible. At most what was visible to his eyes was only white clouds hanging on the mountainside.
"Why did he...?"
An empty question with no counterpart was swept by the updraft and scattered across Seonjoong Mountain's summit.
Transformed Shadow slowly turned his body and swept over Tang O and that rabble clustered at the cliff on the opposite side. Then his eyes met Tang O's.
"Regrettable, but I'll have to be satisfied with you."
Transformed Shadow said calmly. Then without any hesitation, he launched his body that way.
Using that as a signal, Water Shadow and the water bandits, Heavenly Demon Castle members attacked Tang O and the other final survivors all at once...
The 87th victim of the class change quest became the first among them to jump off the cliff.
And.
Soon more people would jump down below. Pinning hope on the thread-like survival possibility.
***
New Murim Online 8th Law: When multiple people kill one person, the amount of experience points Dong Bong-su obtains is proportional to the damage he inflicted on the deceased. (More research is needed on the efficiency of first hit or last hit.)