Unprecedented Rookie (9)
Grrrr….
The cry of a cave wolf drifted faintly into Eunho's ears. Teeth and claws that looked sharper than most blades. Dull eyes that swept restlessly over their surroundings. And, more striking than anything else, a pelt of grayish-white that gave off a faint, eerie glow.
"Eunho."
Regressor Arin's voice had gone grave.
He had a fair idea of what she was about to say.
Eunho gave a small nod and turned his gaze on the cave wolf.
Energy was radiating off its body. Even now, it was feeling its way around the area.
In other words, the beast, too, could distinguish the things around it through mana.
Degeneration and evolution. So that's what it meant.
He thought he understood now why the achievement had given Floor 3 its name.
In their original form, the cave wolves of Floor 3 had degenerated over countless generations into creatures that were vicious yet harmless — beasts capable of nothing but defense.
The one before him, however, was not.
It had sharp teeth and claws, and it wielded its energy well enough to perceive the objects around it.
Which meant it had evolved — from prey into predator.
"Arin."
Eunho had just moved to issue an order as the party's scout when—
Grr.
The cave wolf's gaze swung their way.
GRAOOO-!
The beast flung its jaws wide and lunged. Powerful forelegs shoved off the ground, coiled muscles snapping like released springs, and its body came flying at him faster than an arrow.
Eunho gripped the hilt at once and slid his left leg forward. Then — the draw.
CRACK-!
The half-drawn pommel slammed up into the cave wolf's lower jaw. The jaws that had been stretched wide snapped shut, and in the same instant the fur right down to its tail bristled upright.
Eunho, who had marked the reaction, flowed straight into his next move.
More smoothly this time.
Blade drawn free, he rode the supple, rippling arc of the steel and brought it straight down. Shff! The blade, quivering with drunk mana, passed clean through the cave wolf's neck.
SHRAK!
A thump — then a soft, wet roll, and the cave wolf's head tumbled across the floor.
Watching it happen, the chat window erupted in fervent cheers.
While the chat whipped itself into a festival frenzy, Regressor Arin alone regarded the situation with a calm, level gaze.
True, he took its head in a single stroke. But the price was a chipped blade.
Her vantage point stood far higher than that of any ordinary viewer watching the broadcast. She had climbed several times more floors than the Rankers who could be called the Tower's summit in this day and age — how could it be otherwise?
Her eyes saw plainly what state the sword in Eunho's grip was in, and how much longer it had left.
Two swings at most. At worst, it shatters on his very next cut.
The hide of the cave wolf Eunho had just faced possessed that much hardness — so much that it could scarcely be called a living creature at all.
Which, put the other way, meant Eunho was the remarkable one — he'd beheaded a thing like that in a single stroke.
The sequence of moments just past replayed vividly in her mind.
He had nullified the beast's offense with the pommel, then seized the opening it exposed and made it his own. The blade he extended had found the softest point in the cave wolf's hide and cut through it in one clean motion.
When he first flicked the pommel up, he'd ridden it with mana to locate the most vulnerable point in the creature's hide. At this point, you couldn't even call it instinct anymore.
In that moment, every pair of eyes went round.
The viewers watching the broadcast. Present-day Arin. Even Regressor Arin herself.
Because Eunho had abruptly crouched down and was pulling the molar out of the dead cave wolf's jaw.
"U-Um, Eunho? What are you doing right now?"
"Ah. Its hide was tougher than I expected. The blade chipped. If I'm lucky I've got two swings left — if not, the sword breaks the next time I swing it. So I'm preparing a backup."
Even as he answered, Eunho's hands never paused.
He seized the conspicuously enormous molar and wrenched.
Skrreech—.
With the wet sound of flesh tearing free, the dead cave wolf's molar came away in his hand.
"Hmm. Sharp enough to use as a dagger, this."
"...You're going to use that as a dagger?"
"Yeah. I think it'll work."
He pulled a strip of cloth bought from the Unmanned Shop out of his inventory and wound it snugly around the top of the bone.
I was too focused on training my mana control. If I'd blended in spiritual power, the edge wouldn't have chipped like this.
Belated regret only breeds self-reproach.
Rather than wallow, Eunho recalled what he had learned.
Where the neck meets the back. About three centimeters, precisely. The hide there alone is markedly soft.
Committing that to memory, he gave the crude dagger made from the cave wolf's molar a test swing.
A message floated up before his eyes.
A sub-skill of Swordsmanship (C-) is being created: Dagger Arts (C-).
And that was not the end of it.
You have grasped the principle of the Killing Blade.
Skill Swordsmanship (C-) proficiency increased. +15.4%
Proficiency, which had crept along stubbornly ever since passing the 50% mark, had suddenly leapt upward.
Killing Blade. The sword that kills, in other words.
It meant exactly what it said.
Swinging a sword for the purpose of killing something.
Eunho had recalled the cave wolf's weakness and pondered how to end it more easily, more cleanly — and the Tower had defined that understanding as the Killing Blade.
A little more, and Swordsmanship's grade will rise.
His Swordsmanship proficiency was now approaching 70%.
A mere 30% remained until the next grade.
I need to have my mana circuits for swordsmanship fully established within that window.
Having sorted out his tasks in his head, Eunho spoke up.
"Okay. Let's clear this floor."
Eunho turned to present-day Arin and asked,
"Arin. Can you land a buff exactly when I want it?"
"Mm."
"Good. Then when combat starts, I'll draw my right foot back. That's your cue — hit me with an agility buff."
"Got it."
Arin nodded readily, as if it were hardly worth mentioning.
To the viewers watching, however, it was very much worth mentioning.
There were cheers, and there were voices of concern.
But before long, the concerns sank away without a trace, and the whole chat was roaring its approval with one voice.
Shff! The ring of cutting steel sounded, fresh blood spattered — and every single time, without fail, another cave wolf's head went rolling across the floor.
Mana billowed out from him, and every object nearby resolved into vivid clarity.
A sense the cave wolves themselves used as a matter of course.
Theirs, however, fell short of Eunho's in precision.
I can feel all of it.
And he meant that literally.
The 'domain' Eunho had forged by layering spiritual power atop his mana captured the movement, the breathing, even the minute tremors of muscle of everything around him, missing nothing, and delivered it all straight to him.
Not a single wound had been carved into Eunho's body.
Three this time.
Three cave wolves ahead of him were baring their yellowed fangs in his direction.
Their teeth were smeared with as much of their kin's blood as they could hold — a sight that had drawn a frown from him.
Watching them, Eunho drew his right foot back. Right on cue, a buff settled into his body.
Agility Enhancement.
Feeling the buff Arin had cast settle over him, Eunho hammered the ground.
PAK-!
Before the driving leg could even finish planting, he kicked off empty air a second time, unfolding another burst of acceleration.
Wind Step.
A skill he had personally 'acquired' through the Wind Feather bought at the Unmanned Shop.
Eunho's body tore along the wall of the cavern like a gale given form.
Grrr!
The wolves' bewildered cries spun around his ears.
He had slammed off the ground, and now presence was flaring near the cavern ceiling out of nowhere — of course they were rattled.
Such was the limit of lesser beasts.
SHRAAAK!
Each time Eunho's dagger swept out, a cave wolf's neck bid farewell to its body. Having finished off all three, he touched down and drew a long breath.
"Whew. What's the count now?"
"Just the mana stones you've collected are past forty. And some of them didn't drop stones, so you've killed at least sixty."
"Already? It's really been that many?"
"That's what happens when you get all excited and hunt everything that moves."
Fair enough.
At Arin's scolding, Eunho let out a short laugh.
Well, my proficiency has already climbed this far.
Since grasping the principle of the Killing Blade, his Swordsmanship proficiency had already reached 80%.
And that wasn't all. His Race Grade had shifted slightly as well.
Up 0.067%.
Every cave wolf killed had added 0.001%.
On Floor 2, the floor immediately below, he'd needed to put down four slimes for the same gain.
A single floor of difference made itself felt this enormously.
"That's the Boost doing its work. At this rate, you might actually manage to raise your Race Grade within the 2nd Stratum."
True enough. The farther up we climb, the more monsters there will be.
The combination of Unprecedented Rookie and the Boost trait.
It boasted synergy beyond anything he had imagined.
I'm already looking forward to the next floor.
Eunho grinned and gathered up the mana stones. The end of Floor 3 was finally drawing near.
"Arin. How much stamina do you have left?"
"Plenty. All I've done is support from the back."
"Okay. Then let's finish clearing Floor 3."
Eunho's eyes settled on the fork in the path visible far ahead.
"The right passage looks like it leads to the end of Floor 3. There's one boss-grade monster there."
"Anything else?"
"Nope. That one's the finale."
Just as Eunho had predicted, the cavern's monsters began and ended with a single beast. But it was no ordinary cave wolf.
Grrrowl….
GRAAAAOO-!
Two heads joined to a single body — a pair of conjoined twins. The Two-Headed Wolf flashed its razor fangs.
"...So monsters like that actually exist?"
"One that, as of now at least, has never been discovered."
From the variant slime on Floor 2 to this Two-Headed Wolf — he was certainly getting an eyeful of firsts.
Just as the viewers said, a huge eyeball sat embedded in the Two-Headed Wolf's forehead, sweeping its gaze over the surroundings.
Eunho did not approach the beast recklessly. Instead, he picked up a nearby stone and let it fly.
Tok. Tok-tok.
The stone struck the ground with a faint sound.
In that instant, the Two-Headed Wolf's heads whipped toward the source of the noise — and the eye in its forehead flared with light.
THOOM!
With a faint tremor, a viscous green fluid splattered across the surface of the stone Eunho had thrown. Moments later, hissing and sizzling, the fluid dissolved the stone without a trace.
"That's poison. And an acid toxin strong enough to be a rarity even in the 1st Tier."
Listening to Regressor Arin, Eunho gathered up more stones and hurled them to several different spots. THOOM! Each time, poison sprayed from the Two-Headed Wolf's forehead.
Good. I've got a rough read on the poison's range now.
"Even so, what's your plan? Your dagger's reach will never, ever close that distance."
There's a way.
Eunho drew an item from his inventory.
The Silence Boots, obtained on the previous floor.
A cursed item of sorts that forcibly inflicted the Silence status upon its wearer.
Eunho put them on at once.
You have been afflicted with Silence.
A subtle sensation stole into his body, and his mouth would not move. With even his expression locked into blankness, he was beginning to understand what 'Silence' truly meant.
Eunho bounced lightly in place, once, twice. Though the leather soles met the cave floor, no sound rang out at all.
Nice.
Having chosen Poison Resistance as his resistance of choice, Eunho smiled thinly.
If the dagger's reach is short, then the answer is simply to lengthen it, isn't it?
Anyone who heard that would most likely have responded, 'What the hell is that supposed to mean?'
But Arin, a veteran of regression, guessed Eunho's line of thought in a heartbeat.
"Hold on, you're not about to throw the dag—
Before Regressor Arin's words could even reach his ears, a dagger had already shot from Eunho's hand.
A crude dagger, made from a cave wolf's remains in the first place.
Now it bared those very fangs at the leader of its own kind.
The status imposed by the Silence Boots, it seemed, applied to every 'sound' he produced. The dagger Eunho threw overwrote the flow of energy around it, carving out a pocket of perfect silence as it flew.
THUNK!
The dagger, launched at blistering speed, buried itself dead-center in the right of the Two-Headed Wolf's two eyes. KYRAAANG! Its agonized shriek filled the cavern from wall to wall.
A smile ghosted across Eunho's lips.
Nice shot.
One of the two poison-spitting eyes had been neutralized.
Only one eye remained.
All that was left was to mind that one and take the beast down.
Trait Great Late Bloomer is molding your vessel.
Skill Throwing Arts (C-) is being created.
The bonus gains were simply icing on the cake.