Getting Out (3)

A stinging shock raced from the tip of his fist and spread through his whole body. A sharp, biting pain flooded in — though it hardly qualified as pain at all.

KRAKOOM—

The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠lifeless remains of the golem slammed into the ground, and the earth itself shuddered.

"One hit..."

He had expected the damage to land, but he'd never imagined it would detonate the thing in a single blow.

And no wonder — the Iron Golem was a field boss that had gone untouched for over a decade. Even the Red Dragon had only been worn down by degrees, accumulating wounds across countless raid attempts. The Iron Golem, by contrast, had never taken so much as a scratch, its defense so absolute that people had taken to calling it outright invincible.

And that existence had just been blown apart in one strike.

Not bad.

There was no thrill in it, no joy. He was simply curious what rewards the boss's death would yield.

Ding—

A hundred levels, just like that.

Woobin's level had been 171 back when he was sealed inside the dungeon. He was still a long way from recovering it, but this was undeniable, staggering growth. Even with the backing of a top-tier guild, the average growth curve meant a rookie hero needed a good two years to reach level 100.

Woobin had hit it by killing a single monster.

Without much ceremony, he moved straight on to the next reward.

Ding—

An enormous sum of runes had poured into his inventory. Then again, he had devoured the boss's runes whole, so in a way the figure was only natural — and yet it still exceeded his expectations.

Good. I had things to buy anyway.

With a satisfied smile, Woobin checked the next reward. EXP and runes were both crucial prizes, but the crown jewel of any boss raid was, beyond argument, the items. World bosses that guarded a region, especially, tended to drop hidden equipment obtainable nowhere else.

Gulp—

With a flush of anticipation, Woobin opened his inventory.

Three items sat in his inventory in all. His gaze locked onto the first of them.

"Chronos..."

Chronos — the name of the dungeon where Woobin had lived through a very real hell. Come to think of it, he did remember a message flashing when he escaped that place, telling him he'd earned a title and a special reward.

Ding—

"Immunity to all status ailments?"

His eyes went wide at the unforeseen effect. The single greatest difference between low-tier and high-tier monsters lay in their elemental attributes. The Elite Goblin he'd fought earlier was a perfect example — it carried the poison attribute, detonating toxin with every attack, which made it a genuinely nasty opponent.

And this title nullified every last one of such effects.

That's insane.

Perhaps it was the title's broken effect that did it, but his eyes slid to the reward that had come bundled alongside it.

Ding—

"This is..."

Chronos's Workshop. The instant he read those words, a crushing pressure closed around his chest.

Thump— thump—

No way...

With that thought, he slotted ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the skill card in at once.

Fwoosh—

A fierce surge of power enveloped his entire body. He spread his palm against the empty air and murmured,

"Create."

THUNK!

A brief shockwave rippled through the air, and out of sheer nothing, a door materialized with a heavy jolt.

Gulp—

He swallowed drily and pushed the door open with a long creak — and a familiar scene spilled out. The moss-slicked stone floor, the musty lingering echo of death, the rust-gnawed door. This was the place where he had bled out and died tens of thousands of times over.

Gooseflesh crawled up his skin, the instinct carved into his body screaming at him — but Woobin stepped through the door anyway.

Clank—

The moment the door swung shut behind him, every question he had was answered.

"So this was why."

Why only five years had passed outside. Why his skill level had been able to crest one trillion. It explained everything.

"Fifty thousand years..."

Rage boiled up in an instant. He had known he'd been trapped a long time — but the moment the exact figure registered, he could not choke the fury down.

It struck at the very moment Woobin pried loose the secret of Chronos's dungeon — the system window he had seen tens of thousands of times before. His heart plummeted, and with a crackling roar, electric current erupted to fill the room.

By all rights, agony should have come flooding in — his skin charring, the moisture in his body flash-boiling away.

"......"

But Woobin's expression stayed perfectly calm.

"So this is what 'immunity to all status ailments' means."

He felt no different than he had standing outside.

Thump— thump—

His heart pounded wildly. The corners of Woobin's mouth curled upward. He was glad. He was happy.

Because it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠no longer hurt? No.

Just you wait.

Because now he possessed the means to repay those sons of bitches with the exact suffering they had put him through.

And on top of that, this skill card was only level 1. It would grow as its level rose — what effects would attach themselves along the way?

Stats first.

Having taken the general measure of things, Woobin decided to gear up properly. He had originally meant to set out at once, without any real preparation — but the reason to hurry was gone now.

No matter how much time he burned in this place, time outside might as well have been standing still.

KRA-KRAK—

Even as powerful current wreathed his body from head to toe, Woobin opened his inventory and checked the remaining items.

Not bad.

This was an honest-to-god S-grade skill card. His attention snagged, above all, on the word target written into the effect. Skill descriptions rarely used phrasing that sweeping. Ordinarily, in place of "target," a card would pin down exact conditions — the ground, a water surface, a player, an NPC, a monster, and so on.

But this one said nothing more than target. It meant that so long as he could land a hit on anything at all, the skill would fire.

Woobin registered the card, lifted one foot, and tapped it gently against the floor.

THOOM!!!!!!

A colossal tremor erupted.

RUUUMBLE—

The workshop shook as though it might come down around him, stone dust sifting from the ceiling. An S-rank skill indeed — the performance ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was beyond doubt.

If there was one complaint to make—

— it was the ruinous MP and stamina cost. A single light tap of the floor had been enough to make his head swim and his breathing turn ragged.

"What the—?"

A skill card's level climbed naturally as proficiency stacked up through use — and the higher the card's grade, the more brutally stubborn that proficiency became. Woobin's old A-grade card proved the point. It was a skill for slipping behind an enemy's back, an essential he had used dozens of times in a single battle, yet five years of that had bought it a mere four levels.

And now a single use had just catapulted an S-grade card up five levels in one stroke.

It was the workshop's bonus effect at work.

Not bad at all.

This hellish place was beginning to grow on him. He ached to grind the skill up to level 10 on the spot, but his MP was spent, so he closed out the skill check there and turned to the one item that remained.

Ding—

The last item was good too. No — it was outright broken. A damage-absorbing shield with a capacity of ten thousand, enough to chew through an A-rank defensive skill without breaking a sweat. And on top of that, it was a rechargeable shield that restored itself every single second.

With a full picture of his rewards, Woobin moved on to his final preparations.

Time to allocate his stats.

Might as well start pumping.

Elid's system ran a little differently from an ordinary game.

Stats could be grown directly with runes.

The higher a stat climbed, the more runes each point devoured. Which meant his unallocated points were worth more the longer he held onto them — sooner or later would come the day when raising a single stat point devoured upwards of a million runes.

Checking what remained of his runes, Woobin set his feet moving.

Chirp— chirp—

Outside, warm sunlight brushed against his face. He had been inside for barely ten minutes — run the numbers, and not even a second should have passed in the world beyond.

Was it really true? He was curious, but there was no way to verify it now, and no pressing need to, either.

Ding—

He had grown at least this much. Woobin dove straight into the auction house. His remaining runes were few, but they would be enough.

What he needed right now was simple: a mount that could carry him fast. Nearly everything was listed at absurd prices, but as he scrolled toward the bottom of the page, the bargain options came into view.

Familiar names, thick with old memories.

Back in the day, they went for triple that at least.

Woobin bought up the mount he had leaned on so often in the old days.

Vwooom—

Light gathered in a swirling cluster, and an object took shape before his eyes — a rope roughly as thick as his palm.

Woobin seized the item and activated it then and there.

Light seemed to well up from the worn rope, and then—

KYAAAK—

A creature just over two meters tall came bursting out of thin air.

Grrrum— grrrum—

The long neck, the small beak — and the great shaggy cloak of feathers besides. Unmistakably an ostrich, through and through. Climbing aboard felt like a roller coaster ride with the safety bar unlatched, but no mount in existence came close to it for value.

Kyaaak—

Woobin swung up onto the emu's back at once.

"Just you wait. I'll tear you apart, piece by piece."

And with revenge burning in his mind, he set off toward the pillar of light.