Murder Association President Kim Yeo-ul (3)
Three of us sat huddled on a small hill overlooking the goblin settlement. When Kim Yeo-ul and Kim Ji-woo saw more than a hundred goblins, they could only blink in stunned silence. I started the briefing.
“The plan is the same as before. Mage strikes first, dealer protects. Yeo-ul, you’ll cast four spells this time. Distribute twenty-five percent of your mana to each one, got it?”
Even though Yeo-ul didn’t nod, I kept going. “Fireball the fixed targets like last time. Ji-woo, you hold the path here. The bushes on both sides will make it easy to handle any pincer attacks.”
It was an absurdly simple strategy for wiping out a hundred goblins. Predictably, Kim Ji-woo immediately complained.
“Fireballs are going to kill a hundred goblins? Splitting the power four ways will make them pathetic.”
“I’ll make them strong enough. Same goes for you. I’ll layer a defense buff on top of the attack buff.”
“Boss, is the defense buff that strong?”
“Goblin attacks will feel like tickles.”
Why am I going out of my way to coddle my mortal enemy? Simple. This bastard had to suffer so Yeo-ul and I could stay safe.
“Um, Manager? What if the goblins ignore Ji-woo and come for me instead?”
“I’ll be right beside you, so don’t worry.”
A supporter promising to protect them sounded ridiculous to anyone else, but after watching me beat goblins to death with my bare hands, they actually believed me.
“Yeo-ul, start.”
“R-right now?”
“What, you want to eat first?”
“Haa… haa.”
He raised his staff, but the word “fireball” refused to leave his mouth. I leaned over and spoke gently to the frozen, terrified mage.
“Who’s holding a knife to your throat telling you not to cast? No one, right? Guess I’ll have to threaten you myself.”
I poked his backside with the goblin dagger I’d picked up earlier. Yeo-ul let out a shriek.
“Ack! F-fireball!”
It was a little slurred, but the spell still fired. The first one was always the hardest. Once it launched, the rest followed on pure momentum—three more fireballs in quick succession.
The explosions lit up the valley. All four shots carried my attack buff, so their power was devastating. The village became an inferno without warning. Goblins scattered in panic.
“Kar-to!”
The survivors charged straight at Kim Yeo-ul. He had already used all his mana and couldn’t cast anymore, but the goblins didn’t know that. They were desperate.
“Hahaha! I’m invincible!”
Kim Ji-woo met them head-on, wrapped in both physical attack and defense buffs of three hundred. Three hundred defense could stop a .22 caliber bullet. No goblin could break two hundred attack no matter how hard it tried.
“Kiyah!”
No dodging, no blocking. Ji-woo simply swung his sword. The goblins were completely helpless. It was like trying to smash an armored tank with a wooden bat.
Meanwhile, Yeo-ul stared blankly at the chaos he had created.
“D-did… I do this?”
His eyes glazed over as he watched dozens of goblins burn alive. The power had only been possible because of my buffs, but the dopamine of victory flooded his brain and made rational thought impossible.
Just as planned.
I watched everything from behind, then quietly slipped out of sight. I had known the clever goblin was circling around, but I deliberately pretended not to notice. That way Yeo-ul would get ambushed.
I wonder how many Grace Points I’ll get for saving him at the critical moment.
There was no real danger. If I slapped a defense buff on him right before the attack, he wouldn’t even get a scratch.
“Kyaaak!”
The goblin had closed the distance and leaped. Only then did Yeo-ul turn around. He had no time to scream. He swung his staff instead.
“Kyak! Kyaaak!”
The goblin grabbed the staff and shook with its whole body. Skinny Yeo-ul was flung around like a rag doll.
“Give it back!”
He yelled and tried to pull, but the goblin sensed his weakness and shook even harder. Watching it, I rubbed my forehead. No matter how much I told myself it was an experiment, it felt wrong to stand there while a terrified person was being bullied.
Still, I have to do what I have to do. If the goblin takes the staff, I’ll step in.
I glanced over at Kim Ji-woo for less than three seconds—just to make sure he was fighting properly and there were no problems.
That was all it took.
A sickening crack came from Yeo-ul’s direction. At first I thought the staff had broken. But when I looked, it wasn’t the staff. It was the goblin’s neck.
The staff lay on the ground. Yeo-ul was breathing hard. I ran over and examined the scene.
“Yeo-ul, are you okay?”
“Manager…? Ugh, my head…”
I checked his head for injuries, but there were no visible wounds.
“Did you do this to the goblin?”
“N-no. I don’t really know. I remember it trying to take my staff, but…”
I looked into his eyes. They weren’t the eyes of someone lying. Strange. Goblins are smaller than humans, but their bones are harder. It shouldn’t be easy to snap one.
When I supported him and touched his arm, it felt soft as tofu. An arm like that shouldn’t be able to break even a tree branch.
“Let’s finish up first and rest.”
I decided to solve the mystery later and focused on cleaning up the situation. Thanks to Kim Ji-woo greedily hogging all the experience, only a few goblins remained. A handful had fled, but I didn’t bother chasing them.
The next village is at least an hour away. Even if reinforcements come, it’ll take two hours. We have plenty of time.
In the end, my party cleared the goblin settlement without a single injury.
As I expected, twenty tokens were displayed like trophies inside the goblin village.
“These are real, right? Whoa!”
“I already hit level twenty. Haha!”
“Yeo-ul and Ji-woo, you two rest. You know mana recovers faster while resting, right? I’ll go farm.”
“Boss, didn’t you use all your mana too?”
All my mana? I still had more than half left. And even if it ran low, I had the supply-type mana storage bracelet I’d seized from him anyway.
◈ Can store up to 10 mana (Stored: 10/10)
“A supporter has to work hard so the dealers and tanks can live.”
“Then… if you don’t mind, I’ll rest a bit. Haha.”
“Manager, I’ll help you farm—”
“Yeo-ul. If I say it’s fine, it’s fine. So rest.”
“…Yes.”
Both of them were already exhausted, so they sat down immediately and caught their breath. While I farmed, I also checked their seizure windows.
Target: Kim Ji-woo
Grace Points: 2,999,096
Target: Kim Yeo-ul
Grace Points: 192
In one battle, Ji-woo gained ninety points and Yeo-ul gained a hundred and twelve. It rose a little last time, but this time it piled up nicely. The number of monsters killed and the tokens we collected had clearly played a part.
At this rate, a thousand points a day will be easy. Even an A-rank that required a hundred thousand points could theoretically be seized after a hundred days of grinding. An incredible profit.
We still have nine tokens left. There should be time to hunt a bit more, hit level ten, and then leave. Perfect.
The last fight had raised me to level eight. Two more levels and I’d hit ten. Of course, leveling up didn’t make me dramatically stronger. Every level gave one point to all stats, plus one extra to the main stat. A supporter’s main stat was mana, so my maximum mana was now twenty-six.
The real dramatic jumps happened every fifty levels.
“Oh, mana stones back to back. Nice.”
The marble-sized mana stones were the lowest grade, but they sold for a million won each. In my previous life I wouldn’t have bothered picking them up. Now every single one mattered.
Running a real hunter management agency is going to cost a ridiculous amount of money, isn’t it? I had no intention of borrowing from my family. If anything, I would be the one helping them.
Family…
When I lived as a licensed hunter, every day was so busy I barely managed any contact. Even on the day I fought the moon itself. Sure, my fame let my family live comfortably, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t call them.
Our family motto might be “every man for himself,” but asking if they’re doing well once in a while isn’t that hard, is it?
I’d call them right after the second test. It would be dawn, but my family were all night owls anyway. They’d still be awake.
I picked up another mana stone and paused. A suspicious sound reached my ears. It wasn’t a noise that belonged in nature. And it was coming from the direction I had come from—where Kim Yeo-ul and Kim Ji-woo were resting.
“What a disloyal bastard. Trying to run away by himself. Ptui!”
The tank in green armor and carrying a green shield—the one they called “Haemosu”—had beaten Kim Ji-woo half to death for trying to flee alone. The spearman from the same party spoke to the now-isolated Kim Yeo-ul.
“Mage, we know you’ve got tokens in that pouch. Just hand them over. Don’t be stupid like this idiot and get yourself hurt.”
Yeo-ul looked back and forth between the unconscious Ji-woo and the party in front of him. It wasn’t just a tank and a dealer. There was a ranged archer, a healer with a medical backpack, and even a supporter. A complete five-man party. He couldn’t understand why they were trying to rob him like common bandits.
“W-why are you doing this? We’re all test candidates. I’ll report you to the supervisor.”
“Pfft—hahaha!”
“He says he’ll report us. Oh no, I’m so scared—!”
“This guy is way too naive. How did someone with that personality even think about becoming a hunter?”
Haemosu closed the distance in an instant, snatched Yeo-ul’s staff, and threw it aside before pressing down on his shoulder.
“A-aaaagh!”
“Kid, do you think this is the Olympics? You think we’re playing fair? The licensed hunter exam is pure competition. We’re all rivals.”
“To be honest, people like us who only take tokens are practically gentlemen. The really nasty hunters strip you of your gear and inventory too.”
“Do we really have to force you like this and make ourselves the bad guys before you feel satisfied?”
Rip!
The pouch at Yeo-ul’s waist was mercilessly torn free. It contained all twenty-one tokens they had collected so far. Awakened inventories could only hold items, so the qualification tokens had to be carried separately. The test had been designed with exactly this kind of situation in mind. Steal and defend. If you couldn’t, you failed.
“No! Don’t take it!”
Yeo-ul grabbed Haemosu’s arm. But the difference in forearm size was nearly three times, so taking it back by force was impossible.
“Where does a little punk get off throwing a tantrum!”
Haemosu slapped Yeo-ul across the face with a hand the size of a pot lid. The blow was hard enough to knock him out. Yeo-ul’s head snapped sideways, his glasses shattered and flew off, and his lip split open. But Yeo-ul didn’t let go of the arm.
That was when Haemosu saw it—behind the broken lenses, bloodshot eyes and a chillingly twisted smile.
“Ugh, what a pain in the ass.”
Haemosu thought Yeo-ul had fainted while standing. The moment he tried to pry the fingers off—
“You dare try to take what’s mine too?”
“Huh? You didn’t faint… AAAAAAGH!”
“Filth rotting at the bottom of a trash can dares to reach for what belongs to me?”
Haemosu collapsed, screaming. His arm was bent at an angle that should have been impossible.
“What the fuck!”
“That guy’s a mage, right? What skill was that?!”
“Wait, he disappeared! He just vanished!”
“Healer, you idiot! He’s right in front of you!”
Even though their tank had gone down in an instant, they quickly tried to reform their ranks. But Kim Yeo-ul was already driving a fist toward the healer. A red aura wrapped around his knuckles. The healer, seeing it up close, understood immediately.
It wasn’t a skill. It was the physical manifestation of pure murderous intent.
Crack!
The adult man’s body flew into the air before crashing back down. The rest of the party was certain the healer was dead. Yeo-ul frowned at his own fist. He had aimed for the head but failed to kill.
The hunters gripped their weapons and backed away. The moment Yeo-ul moved to pounce on his terrified prey—
“Yeo-ul, you can’t do that.”
I arrived at the last possible second and stepped between them.