Paranet
"Paranet. Go gather some monster bones."
"Yes? Why?"
"Why do you think? They're for you."
"For me? Why would I need them? You aren't suggesting you mean to replace my bones, are you?"
"Close, but not quite. Anyway, we need a lot of monster bones, so hurry up."
"Yes, Master!"
Yujun decided this had worked out rather well. A dungeon that spawned monsters was the perfect place to strengthen Paranet.
Chances to get monster bones don't come along often.
Unless you went all the way to the Demon Realm, you almost never encountered them. This was the first he'd even learned that monsters could exist inside a dungeon. He had a way to synthesize their bones into something harder and tougher, and with that, a goal took shape.
"Shall we pick up the pace?"
"Yeah."
They hadn't walked far before another monster showed itself, this one even larger than the last. Unsurprisingly, it was no match for Yujun.
Shhk! Thud!
The monster's body split cleanly in two. After that, Yujun hunted every creature that kept appearing, without a moment's rest. One strike. Not a single monster survived his blow.
Monsters granted as much experience as demons. Paranet, who shared that experience with him, leveled up fairly often as well, and Kim Heeyeon, whose level was still low, went without saying.
"Whoa... this is no joke. I'm leveling faster here than anywhere I've ever been."
"You would. These monsters start above level 300."
"The more I think about it, the luckier I feel."
Yujun stopped walking.
"...You can say that after being kidnapped twice?"
"But it won't happen again. The first time, fine, but the second was just ridiculous. A demon happening to be right by a hidden dungeon entrance? That doesn't even make sense."
"..."
"Anyway, thanks to you I'm already level 140. Thank you."
"You're the one who found this hidden dungeon."
"Oh, by the way, how old are you?"
"Me? Twenty-two..."
Yujun trailed off and clamped his mouth shut.
Wait. How old am I?
He hadn't lost his memories. He was simply confused. Hadn't the system forced him into sleep for five whole years?
What does my age even count as now?
In the mirror, his face was exactly as it had been five years ago. Even a player only aged more slowly; they didn't step outside time altogether.
Did I not age at all?
It wasn't as if he'd climbed into a time machine, either.
Five years passed, but my body's age stayed the same...
Yujun made his decision.
"Twenty-two."
"Oh, really? Then we're the same age."
"...Yeah! That's right."
"Then... mind if we drop the formalities? Keeping it polite the whole time feels a little weird..."
"Let's do that."
"Great! Yujun."
"Uh..."
"Just wanted to try saying it!"
"R-right."
Speaking casually only made it feel more awkward.
"I have brought them, Master!"
Paranet returned with an armful of bones taken from the monsters.
"Good work."
"Yes!"
Paranet looked pleased as well. He knew that gathering bones would benefit him.
"Krrrk..."
Shhk!
"Kyaak! Kyak!"
Shhk!
In less than twenty minutes they brought down more than ten monsters. Yujun's hunting speed was part of it, but the cave simply held a great many of them. They even came across monsters biting and tearing at one another.
"Huh. So this is when you use 'two birds with one stone'?"
A smile tugged at the corner of Yujun's mouth.
Shhk! Shhk!
Now and then a monster appeared so enormous it filled the cave. At first he'd taken it for a massive wall, and he startled when he realized it was alive. Of course, one swing of his blade ended that one too.
With attack power like this, is there really anything I can't cut?
At his level, offense of that caliber was practically cheating. He was stacking titles faster than No-Pay Casual Gamer, and on top of that he possessed the power of the Primordial Player, something that character had never had. Confidence came naturally, and his hunting only grew faster.
Collecting the bones, though, ate up a fair amount of time.
"Paranet. I'll handle that too."
"Pardon?"
"Move."
Shhk! Shhk!
Yujun swung his sword again and again, shearing away every scrap of flesh.
"..."
"M-Master, that is my role..."
"Quiet. From now on you just pick up the bones."
"Understood!"
With Yujun helping butcher the carcasses, the work went much faster, and thanks to that they reached the boss room in no time. The chamber was thick with a bleak, eerie air. It felt colder than the rest of the cave, too.
"We're here. Get ready."
"Okay. I just need to stay far back, right?"
"...Yeah. That's right."
"I'll wait outside the boss room."
Kim Heeyeon was quick on the uptake.
"But... where's the boss?"
Yujun glanced around. His senses caught no trace of it.
Then it happened. His instincts screamed a warning, and Yujun didn't think—he threw himself into a roll.
Thud!
A massive silhouette crashed down on the spot where he had been standing. Yujun narrowed his eyes and looked the boss over.
"A monster?"
It was a monster, yes, but not quite like the others.
A Transcendent.
A Transcendent was a monster that had surpassed the limits of monsterkind itself. Among monsters, Transcendents took on a form close to human, and the dissonance was considerable.
"To invade my domain without a shred of fear... Are the two of you the only ones who came here?"
It spoke. Speech was another trait of a Transcendent.
"Yeah."
"Where did those demons go?"
"I killed them."
At Yujun's words, the Transcendent looked startled.
"All of them?"
"Yeah."
"You are no ordinary man."
The Transcendent shifted its stance.
Should I have just lied?
All he'd done was put the boss on guard. He regretted it a little.
Doesn't matter.
Yujun charged the Transcendent at once. True to its nature as a monster, it used no weapon. In place of one, it had a formidable armament of its own: the claws on its hands and feet. It swung both arms at the approaching Yujun.
Clang!
The claws met his sword and went spinning through the air.
"Graaaah!"
Nails torn out raw, the Transcendent screamed. An opening. Yujun didn't hesitate—he thrust his sword forward.
Whoosh!
In the instant the blade was about to reach its neck, the Transcendent vanished without a trace.
"What?"
He couldn't sense it either. It was the same state as before.
Does it have a high-grade stealth skill?
Even senses honed by the jewels he had equipped couldn't pick it up. Yet the Transcendent didn't ambush him. It revealed itself some distance away.
"Huh?"
Beside it stood a woman wrapped in a luxurious cloak. The cloak shadowed her face, so he couldn't make her out clearly, but it was a face he had never seen.
Human? Or a demon?
While Yujun stood there blankly, the woman—who gave off a distinctly wicked air—opened her mouth.
"What do you think you're doing to my precious little one?"
Yujun frowned.
"What are you talking about? What's cute about that thing?"
The Transcendent was grotesque, if it was anything. Cute, it was not.
"Lay a hand on my Tot and I won't let it go."
"Tot? That's the Transcendent's name? Tot?"
"That's right. Isn't the name cute too?"
The woman stroked the head of the Transcendent, Tot, and smiled brightly.
"You a witch, by any chance?"
"...How did you know?"
The woman—the witch—went wide-eyed.
A Witch. Neither human nor demon, a rare existence. Uniquely, they were the only race that could travel freely between the Continent and the Demon Realm. Of course, that freedom wasn't unlimited. There were restrictions.
"You modified a monster and turned it into a Transcendent, didn't you?"
"...What are you?"
The smile slipped from the witch's face. It went hard.
"..."
Yujun said nothing. He raised his sword and began to walk slowly toward the Transcendent.
The witch shouted.
"I told you not to come any closer!"
"No."
Yujun wanted the Transcendent's bones no matter what it took. Besides, neither witches nor monsters were beneficial enough to be worth sparing.
"You know about witches, don't you? You of all people should understand how dangerous it is to come any closer!"
The witch threatened him.
"I know."
A witch was certainly dangerous on the level of a Demon King—not merely for raw strength, but because they laid powerful curses and spoke prophecies that came true to the letter. They created chimeras, and they remade monsters into entirely new beings. Their combat power wasn't something you could ignore, either.
Even so, Yujun didn't stop. Once the distance had closed, he kicked off the ground and rushed the Transcendent. It swung its regenerated claws to meet him, but Yujun slipped past the attack. Passing the Transcendent, he thrust his sword at the witch.
The moment the blade touched her—
"Y-you...! Just you wait!"
The witch scattered into dust and vanished. She wasn't dead.
So it was an illusion after all.
The witch he had just spoken with hadn't been real. She had been a phantom, and the real one was most likely in the Demon Realm even now.
If she'd been real, she would have ambushed me and tried to kill me. Not warned me.
Behind him, the Transcendent bent low and charged.
Shwiiik—!
It sounded like an arrow in flight. That was how fast it was, and still its claws were stopped cold by Yujun's sword.
Clang!
"Graaaah!"
The claws flew through the air. The result was no different from before. Yujun activated Cleaving Strike (B) and delivered the finishing blow.
Cleaving Strike (B)
Shhk!
"What. No achievement this time?"
The level gap should have been considerable.
What kind of standard do achievements even use?
As No-Pay Casual Gamer, he had rarely accomplished achievements that character could never have earned, so even he knew next to nothing about how they worked. He decided to be satisfied with the sharp jump in level.
Still, making an enemy of a witch is a little awkward...
She could heap curses on him, or spin some scheme and come for his life. A witch's grudge ran deep. He already knew all of that, and still he'd had no choice but to kill the Transcendent. He wanted the items and the bones he would get from it.
"Paranet!"
Yujun called for Paranet, who had been guarding Kim Heeyeon outside the boss room. Paranet came running in a single bound, Kim Heeyeon with him.
"Is it over?"
"Yeah. Now I'm going to make you stronger."
"Ooh...! At last!"
"Before that, hold on."
Yujun swung his sword at the Transcendent's corpse. Bone and flesh separated in an instant, and Paranet gathered up the bones. Its body wasn't as large as the other monsters', so the work was quickly done.
"Master! By what method am I to grow stronger?"
"Oh, right. I'm curious too. You can actually strengthen an undead with bones?"
Kim Heeyeon asked, apparently curious herself.
"No. Normally you can't. But if you have an item, you can."
"An item?"
Yujun gave a short laugh and opened his inventory.
It should be in here somewhere...
He rummaged through the inventory for a good while before he found the item he wanted.
◈ Option: You can synthesize bones.
The synthesis machine was a single-use item. Use it once, and it vanished. He had a comfortable five more, though, so there was no need to save this one.
"Oh... you're going to do something with that?"
"Yeah. But this alone still isn't enough."
Yujun took out one more item. This time it was a stone the size of a fist, glowing yellow.
"That's amazing. Things just keep coming out of your inventory..."
"That's the nice part about an inventory."
"Mine doesn't do that."
"Guess you were unlucky."
Everything was ready. All that remained was to follow the steps.