Chapter 25
Chapter 25
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 25
Chapter Title: Revival at the Goddess Statue
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Whoosh-!
Amid the players defending the Goddess Statue during the monster defense, two clusters of light gathered.
As the lights took on human shapes.
Pop!
The lights transformed not into human forms, but into real people.
The two who appeared were none other than Jung Nam-gil and Kang Hee-soon.
Just moments ago at the entrance, they had fought harder and faster than anyone else to prevent more monsters from entering.
Clearly, the two had died while fiercely hunting monsters.
Yet.
Those who had clearly lost their lives had now revived alongside the light.
Jung Nam-gil and Kang Hee-soon, revived like this, checked their own conditions.
"Ha, we really revived?"
Having said that, Jung Nam-gil checked one more thing.
"It's real?"
What Jung Nam-gil had just confirmed was none other than his own skills.
Among his skills, some had short cooldowns, but the ultimate skills had extremely long ones.
Yet Hae-jin had told them.
In this Trials' Arena, even if you die, you can revive, and upon revival, all skill cooldowns reset.
And so Hae-jin had said.
『That way, use your longest cooldown skills to defend as tightly as possible and kill as many monsters as you can. To survive this Trials' Arena, you need to take down a lot of monsters.』
That way, Hae-jin had shared all the information with Jung Nam-gil and Kang Hee-soon, who wanted to be of help to him.
And the two had believed Hae-jin's words and fought, resulting in their actual revival.
Everything was just as Hae-jin had said.
Having checked their skills after reviving, the cooldowns were indeed reset.
Having confirmed everything, Jung Nam-gil grinned.
‘Standing by Park Hae-jin's side was the right choice!’
He had worried that maybe Park Hae-jin wouldn't need him or Hee-soon and might not accept them into his team.
But Jung Nam-gil believed you had to clash first to find out.
And by charging in like that, he had actually gained benefits.
By getting information about this Trials' Arena in advance from Park Hae-jin.
Was that all?
‘If we get through this Trials' Arena well, from the next one on, Park Hae-jin will fully take us under his wing.’
Jung Nam-gil thought he would reap the full benefits of riding with Park Hae-jin, the bus driver, from here on out.
With that in mind, Jung Nam-gil realized that for all this to happen, he and Kang Hee-soon needed to remain right behind Park Hae-jin in this Trials' Arena as well—second and third place.
There would be plenty of others wanting to get under Park Hae-jin too.
He had to prove his worth.
With that thought, Jung Nam-gil called out to Kang Hee-soon.
"Nice, Hee-soon."
"Speak."
"If we head out now, some sharp ones will catch on. To the fact that you can keep reviving even after dying. So we need to grab as much advantage as possible before that."
"Right."
"Let's go."
"Yeah."
And so the two charged back toward the village entrance, resolved to die again if needed, to kill as many monsters as possible.
Thanks to their greater sacrifice than expected, the other players gritted their teeth and fought harder, and as a result, the number of monsters from the first wave had noticeably decreased.
Hae-jin had said a thousand would come, but right now, it looked like less than half that.
Even in the chaos, Jung Nam-gil confirmed this as he rejoined the fight after reviving and thought.
‘He said a thousand, but it feels like barely three hundred came...’
What did that mean?
One of two things.
Either Hae-jin's claim of a thousand was a lie...
‘Or Park Hae-jin alone took down seven hundred monsters...’
*
"Hmm, they can handle three hundred on their own, right? With all those people."
The moment Hae-jin burst out of the village, he faced the thousand monsters of the first wave approaching.
There, Hae-jin swung his twin swords without rest.
Every swing of Hae-jin's twin swords mowed down the monsters like autumn leaves.
He had taken down nearly seven hundred that way.
With a thousand monsters heading for the village in the first wave, and Hae-jin downing seven hundred of them, the remaining three hundred weren't all that tough for the current players.
There were over two thousand players participating in this Trials' Arena.
In a typical matchup of regular monsters against Awakened players, one player could handle two or three easily.
With the current number of players, they could manage six thousand monsters.
Why?
Because revival was possible.
In that situation, Hae-jin himself was reducing the monster numbers.
With just three hundred, they probably wouldn't even need to use the revival chance.
They could handle it without any real sacrifices.
Thinking that, Hae-jin pondered.
‘Still, with the info I gave them, Jung Nam-gil and Kang Hee-soon are probably going all out without sparing their lives to kill monsters, right?’
Hae-jin had shared info that other players wouldn't know without experiencing it firsthand—with Jung Nam-gil and Kang Hee-soon.
That in this Trials' Arena, you could revive even after dying.
That info was hugely appealing to the two.
Jung Nam-gil and Kang Hee-soon—their job classes specialized in assassination.
Classes with high close-range physical damage, especially lethal strikes, but inherently low defense and stamina.
So they usually had to aim for assassinations, but in this Trials' Arena, they could revive after death, and even reset their long-cooldown powerful attacks.
It was the perfect boon for classes like theirs.
So if they performed as planned, this defense wouldn't be too hard to hold.
Recalling that, Hae-jin finished off the first wave monsters and pressed even further forward.
The monster waves in the third Trials' Arena came in ten total waves.
Each subsequent wave increased by a thousand monsters, with set distances between them.
As Hae-jin dashed forward like that, he could see it.
The second monster wave approaching right after the first one he had just faced.
Two thousand monsters in total were coming.
Seeing that, Hae-jin gripped the twin swords in both hands and said.
"Grabbing about a thousand here should be enough, right?"
With that, Hae-jin wildly swung his twin swords.
Shiiiish-!
So fast were his swings that the blades themselves became invisible.
Every time Hae-jin swung his twin swords like that.
Pffft-pffft-pffft-!
Monster bodily fluids erupted like fireworks all around.
Among the second wave monsters, those nearby saw it and stared in shock at Hae-jin.
But monsters beyond a certain range weren't drawn by the aggro; they kept heading toward the village outskirts without a care.
Monsters outside that range were designed not to be pulled by aggro, focusing solely on destroying the Goddess Statue.
Hae-jin massacred the second wave monsters without pause.
After confirming he had wiped out more than half, Hae-jin said.
"Hmm, shall we move on to the next wave then?"
Thinking half was about enough, Hae-jin planned to face the third wave next.
Of course, from the monsters' perspective, the offensively charging Hae-jin would look like the wave's boss monster.
And so Hae-jin kept pushing forward offensively.
*
"Phew, it's over."
That was Jung Nam-gil speaking.
Kang Hee-soon asked him.
"How many did you get?"
"Me? Probably around forty or fifty."
"About the same here."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
As Jung Nam-gil and Kang Hee-soon talked like that, a man approached.
"Excuse me, could I ask you something?"
"What?"
Jung Nam-gil, mid-conversation with Kang Hee-soon, turned to the man who had called them.
The man thought to himself at Jung Nam-gil's informal reply.
‘Why's he talking down to me? And what kind of eyes are those...’
The man startled at Jung Nam-gil's gaze.
The eyes of a killer like Jung Nam-gil were too much for an ordinary person to bear.
Unlike the killing intent players could control after Awakening, this was pure murderous intent in the gaze itself.
At the man's reaction, Jung Nam-gil smirked.
‘Yeah, that's more like it.’
The man's reaction reminded Jung Nam-gil of his position as a top predator.
It had to be that way.
After being overwhelmed by the killing intent Hae-jin had emitted back then, he had felt somewhat crushed.
It was a feeling he'd never experienced in his life.
Even looking at someone like Kang Hee-soon, it wasn't the case.
Kang Hee-soon hadn't cowered before him either, and Jung Nam-gil himself hadn't cowered before her, someone similar.
They could even throw down in a deathmatch anytime if they lunged at each other.
But Hae-jin?
‘He's different.’
Hae-jin himself just felt like a superior predator.
A natural sensation.
Hae-jin was someone who had massacred countless people and monsters alike.
There was no reason for him to yield to mere murderers who had killed a few humans.
Anyway, bolstered by the man's reaction, Jung Nam-gil simply stared at him.
Startled by the gaze but having called him over, the man decided to finish his business.
"Weren't you two the ones who kicked off the fight at the very start earlier?"
Kicked off the fight.
Correct.
Unlike the other hesitating players, Jung Nam-gil and Kang Hee-soon had jumped into combat the moment they saw the first monster wave.
In truth, without Hae-jin's info, they never would have stepped up like that.
Both knew their classes were perfect for getting wrecked if they rushed without a tank upfront.
But with Hae-jin's info, they had engaged faster than anyone.
Of course, they had considered the possibility of Hae-jin's info being wrong.
‘Either way, I judged that surviving long-term without latching onto that guy would be tough.’
Even as second and third in the zone, no matter how he thought about it, overtaking Hae-jin for first seemed impossible.
Unless the zone personnel changed every Trials' Arena.
But with the same three meeting two rounds in a row, it couldn't be mere coincidence.
They would keep meeting Hae-jin in future Trials' Arenas too.
But that wasn't the real key point.
‘The gap was just too massive.’
The difference between him and Kang Hee-soon wasn't that big.
But first-place Park Hae-jin?
There was what people called an insurmountable wall.
A four-dimensional barrier impossible to cross.
Hae-jin's scores were records utterly beyond their reach, two rounds straight.
Seeing that, Jung Nam-gil had decided.
‘I have to stick with Park Hae-jin no matter what.’
The Trials' Arena had countless zones.
By nation, by region.
Surely the top players in other zones would grow far beyond second- or third-placers like him and Kang Hee-soon.
In this situation, for him and Kang Hee-soon, who were only second and third in their current zone, to survive?
They absolutely had to latch onto Park Hae-jin.
Which meant options like "his info might be fake, so I won't trust it" weren't available to him.
‘That would defeat the purpose.’
He could have waited for some player to die to verify if Hae-jin's info was correct.
And upon their revival, it would confirm Hae-jin's words.
But that would create two problems.
First, if it got out that they hadn't trusted Hae-jin, they couldn't latch onto him anymore.
Second, failing to fully capitalize on advance info could let other players outpace them.
Considering those two, Jung Nam-gil saw it as a no-choice gamble.
‘Above all, Park Hae-jin gains nothing from deceiving us like that.’
And the gamble paid off.
Just as Hae-jin had said, revival after death was possible in this Trials' Arena.
Jung Nam-gil recalled what Hae-jin had told him before the Trials' Arena began.
『If you step up when no one else dares, you'll become heroic figures to the other players.』