Chapter 10
Chapter 10
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 10
Chapter Title: Brutal Sparring
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"I won this round."
A little girl with her hair tied back in a half-ponytail clutched her broken arm and plopped down onto the floor. In her unbroken arm, she gripped a dull knife, its tip smeared with red paint to mark where she'd stabbed.
"You're so slow you didn't even notice, but I slit your throat first."
A boy with one broken leg lay on the ground, pointing a finger at his neck.
There was a red paint streak on the girl's throat like a knife cut. Not just her throat—red paint marks dotted her arms and legs here and there.
He bragged about slashing the throat first, but the boy was the one in far worse shape. One mark on his left chest, a thin one on his throat. And everywhere else, paint smeared thickly.
Today was a day when big shots had come to visit, so they were using fake knives, but normally they wielded real ones.
"You got eyes or what? Look at this. You're stubbornly denying it out of pride again."
The girl pointed at the red marks on the boy's heart and throat.
"Still, I stabbed your artery first, you stubborn idiot."
"You introducing yourself? Keep denying it, you asshole. Even counting that, I won."
"Why do you always think I'm the one denying?"
"Th-that word... logic? You only spout shit that doesn't make logical sense."
"Hmm, so if it doesn't fit your logic, it's automatically illogical?"
"Asshole, don't use that tone. Before I break your other leg."
"You think you have an arm left to break my other leg?"
Sore from barely losing, the boy mocked her in the tone she hated most.
Having sneered at her, the boy now stared intently at the girl sprawled on the floor. She looked too exhausted from the fight to even move.
The boy clicked his tongue, then slowly got up, dragging his broken leg toward the emergency button.
The training room visible to outsiders had an emergency button that would send injured patients straight to the hospital anytime.
After pressing the button, the boy flopped back down onto the floor.
Beeep! Beeep!
"Who pressed the emergency button again... Dawn! Sae-byeok! What the hell happened while I was in the bathroom!"
Lee Sae-byeok and Seol Do-yoon shot disdainful looks at the supervisor, who was pretending to worry for the sake of the outsiders watching.
Lee Sae-byeok and Seol Do-yoon. Both came from the same orphanage.
They were exceptionally sharp and quick among the kids, and they'd survived a gate opening and monster attacks, so the Hunter Association had taken them in. By force.
"I told you not to fight so hard you break limbs where people can see."
"Sorry~ Take us to the hospital."
As the supervisor approached and quietly chewed them out, Sae-byeok shrugged and demanded he hurry up and get her to the hospital because it hurt like hell.
"You're not pulling this stunt just to avoid your meds, are you?"
At those words, Sae-byeok turned her body and stared at the supervisor.
Just then, she spotted a crowd of people heading toward the training grounds from behind.
"Ah, aaaah! It hurts so bad I'm gonna die! Get me to the hospital quick! Kraaah! Kraaah! Kraaah! Kyaaah! A kid's arm is brooooken!"
Sae-byeok's eyes bulged as she grabbed her broken arm and screamed at the top of her lungs.
The sudden wail from a child in the training grounds made the visitors curious, and they started heading that way.
Unfortunately, another supervisor quickly intervened, ushering the investors off to another area.
"Shut the hell up already!"
The supervisor raised his hand and slapped Sae-byeok across the face, telling her to shut up.
If she weren't so outstanding among the kids, they wouldn't even bring her out of the hidden quarters. Her overwhelming combat skills impressed the onlookers.
In short, she was the perfect kid to show off when the Association wanted to boast about raising talents like this. If only they could do something about her wild foal of a personality.
"Why hit my face, asshole! Take me to the hospital quick and get my arm fixed!"
Thwack!
Her eyes spinning from the slap to the face, Sae-byeok swiftly kicked the supervisor's head even harder with her leg, then climbed up a pillar with one hand so he couldn't grab her.
"You parentless brat!! Get down here now!"
"Better to be a proud orphan without parents than grow up into a thug like you! Hurry up and take me to the hospital!"
Worried more fuss would draw the crowd back, the supervisor spat curses and called a car to the hospital.
Seol Do-yoon, watching Sae-byeok with his broken leg, let out a low murmur of admiration.
* * *
[The player 'Lee Yoo-hyun' has completed a quest!]
[The player 'Lee Yoo-hyun' has completed a quest!]
Doing laundry at the riverbank with her sleeves rolled up on her mom's errand, Dun jolted at the flurry of notifications.
"Whoa, you scared me."
Crack!
Dun pouted, holding the wash bat she'd accidentally snapped. She'd hit too hard, and it broke. Rihao-well's clothes she'd been washing tore too.
She changed tactics.
She dumped all the clothes into a big washbasin. After rinsing her feet in the river, Dun poured her mom's powdered soap into the basin. She shoved her hands in her pockets and carefully stomped to make suds.
"Hey, wash harder. The soap isn't rinsing out properly."
She tossed the sudsy laundry to the slime, and it sucked up river water, then spat it out to rinse the suds.
When she asked it to do the job, it worked hard. Its pale blue complexion had turned sallow from exhaustion.
[lv.17] Love-Struck Exhausted Slime
Dun giggled at the jaundiced slime, then noticed its level had gone up.
"Leveled up? When'd that happen?"
Must've gained enough XP from doing the laundry.
Her surprise was short-lived. Dun tossed more laundry at the slime.
Faced with even more work, the slime paled—this time literally turning white.
It paused its rinsing, froze in front of the piled-up laundry with what looked like a thoughtful expression, then started oozing off somewhere.
The slime arrived at the creek bank. It gulped down a ton of water, swelling up huge.
The enlarged slime crawled atop the laundry and began sucking it into its body. Inside, the clothes spun round and round as the slime simply spat out the soapy water from its mouth.
"Whoa, pffft! Hey, how'd you do that? You a washing machine?"
Dun burst out laughing, and the slime briefly turned pink before going pale again.
[Tired...]
The pallid slime turned itself into a washing machine, devouring the remaining laundry and spinning it inside. When it spat it back out, the clothes were spotless.
Urp.
It burped, and soap bubbles floated out.
"You're pretty useful."
Looked like leveling up had boosted its intelligence.
Dun gathered the cleanly washed laundry and put it in the basket.
[Thank... you... Thank... you...]
"Yeah, thanks a bunch."
At her thanks, the slime bubbled and turned pink again.
"Still got that slime clinging to you?"
As she turned toward home with dripping laundry in hand, Lee Yoo-hyun, who'd just finished his quests, came over and spoke up.
Yoo-hyun looked even stronger than yesterday.
"You didn't say anything yesterday when I had this thing stuck to me?"
"First time I've seen a slime fall in love. Felt wrong to kill it, and isn't its singing cute? Figured you knew it was tagging along."
"If it's so cute, you take it."
[...Don't throw me awaaay!!!]
The slime cried out desperately and plastered itself to Dun. As it tried climbing to her face, Dun soothed it, saying she wouldn't ditch it, and placed it on her head.
"I'm too scared to keep a monster as a pet. But how'd this even happen?"
"Dunno. Hugged it 'cause it was cool, and woke up like this. Guess the hug made it fall for me."
"So hugging stops the attacks... Nah, that doesn't sound right. Do you have some special skill or...?"
Yoo-hyun tilted his head, mumbling to himself. Listening absently, Dun suddenly recalled the legendary skill 'Domination' she'd recently acquired.
Just in case, Dun pulled up her skill window without letting Yoo-hyun see.
The window filled with a huge list of skill names, sorted by rarity, so the legendary 'Domination' sat at the top.
[Monster Domination lv.4]
Dun tapped the description with her eyes to open it.
[Monster Domination lv.4]
Description: Induces empathy with monsters to dominate them. Domination methods vary by empathy method, but at higher levels, you can choose your preferred method.
Registered domination methods so far:
Domination of Warmth, Domination of Strength, Domination of Love
"Why are all the domination names so cringey?"
Especially Domination of Love. It bugged her for no reason.
She had no idea where this Domination of Love came from. The description said methods depended on empathy, but Dun couldn't remember doing anything to make it fall in love. Except the hug.
She didn't know why it appeared, but this Domination of Love?
She'd never use it. Ever.
"Hang on, so during that walk, you didn't fight the slime till it collapsed—you just... napped there with it?"
Yoo-hyun asked Dun with a baffled look.
Still grossed out by the Domination of Love, Dun welcomed the topic change. She shoved it out of her mind and answered.
"I can beat a slime."
"But... Dun... you're like, one of the weakest in Genesis Village, right? NPCs... no, even among people. You're still a kid too."
Yoo-hyun countered, probably having heard she was weak somewhere. She never ate properly, always looked sickly, and begged others to carry stuff because she was tired, so yeah, she seemed frail.
Last time, he'd seen her jumping in place, and she was pretty fast at running.
"Stronger than you."
"Oh, yeah. Of course. Totally."
"..."
"Gasp. N-no sarcasm. I meant it—you really are stronger than me."
His eyes showed sincerity, so Dun dropped her piercing gaze.
"Let's go to the training grounds and check out those quests."
Shoving her hands in her pockets, Dun nodded toward Yoo-hyun.
At "quests," his eyes sparkled, and he scurried after her.