Chapter 556: For the Goddess’s Advent
Chapter 556: For the Goddess’s Advent
“Whew. They’re finally gone. Shall we get going again?”
Once Duke’s party was out of sight, I let the stern expression I’d been holding drop and muttered to myself.
“What? What about revenge? Are you really not going to do it?”
Sara, who seemed to think I hadn't been entirely lying just a moment ago, asked back with a dumbfounded look.
“Of course not. Why? Do you want to?”
“Hmph. Who said I…”
“She already did.”
“Diana!”
Sara tried to play innocent with a prim look on her face, but Diana’s revelation made her blush instantly and lunge at her.
I wrapped my arms tightly around Sara, holding her still, and then shot Diana a look.
Alright, what is it? Spit it out! It's hard to hold on! Seriously, how did Sara get so strong?!
“While we were looking for you, she’d chase down and kill any whale the moment she saw even its shadow.”
“I-I was just checking to see if you’d been swallowed, since you were swept away by a whale! You agreed too, Diana!”
Having given up on escaping my embrace, Sara protested to Diana, her face beet red.
“Who said anything to the contrary?”
As she spoke, Diana wore a sly grin, clearly enjoying teasing Sara.
“Sara, I love you.”
“I-I know that, okay?! What are you doing in a dungeon! Let go! You idiot!”
My whispered words seemed to embarrass her quite a bit, as Sara started struggling to get away from me again.
Heh. Heh. As expected of our party’s youngest. She’s so cute.
“Alright. In accordance with our Sara’s request, let’s go catch a whale… no, let’s go back to the ice cave. Right now! Diana! Hurry! Quick! Chop-chop!”
Seeing how cute Sara was, I’d been tempted to go hunt a whale, but I quickly changed my mind and had no choice but to urgently tell Diana to prepare for our return.
“Eh, hmm? What’s the sudden rush?”
Why? Simple.
I could see a familiar face swimming toward us at high speed from the distance.
Tanned, firm skin and distinctive hair as red as blood.
It was Alicia.
And for some reason, she was staring straight at me with eyes that had completely lost it.
I didn't know why, but this was dangerous. Those were the eyes of someone who had decided to commit murder.
I could also see three stragglers trailing behind her like goldfish poop, but Alicia’s aura was so ferocious that they barely registered.
“Anyway! Hurry! It’s dangerous! Your man might die!”
“Ah, I understand. Don’t rush me.”
Startled by my urgency, Diana released her mana again, stopping the flow of water along the path we had used to exit the ice cave.
The moment I saw that, I grabbed Silvia and Matilda—the worst swimmers—one in each hand and frantically kicked my feet toward the ice cave.
“Let’s go! Quickly!”
Alicia’s party had no mage.
It seemed that after confirming I was safe, Rea, one of the twin executives, had left the party again.
In any case, that meant that once we were back in the ice cave, Alicia would have no way to follow us.
We managed to rush back into the ice cave just before Alicia arrived.
“Guwooooooooon! You bastard!”
The 4th Layer is entirely underwater. Voices don’t carry unless you’re connected by air.
That should have been the case, and yet, for some reason, I thought I could hear Alicia’s voice from the distance.
“Pant. Pant. Whew. That took years off my life. What’s with Alicia?”
After reaching the ice cave, I desperately tried to catch my breath while prying off a trembling Silvia and a clinging Matilda.
That was the most intense situation I’d been in since entering the dungeon this time.
“Huh? You mean Alicia-ssi?”
“Yeah. She was coming this way looking like she was about to kill someone. Did you not see Leia?”
“N-No…”
“Wait. So you were rushing to get away from Alicia-ssi? Why?”
“Why? She was scary. Why was she so angry anyway?”
“...Haaah. When I see things like this, I feel like I’m pretty lucky.”
“Mm. I agree.”
“Oh, you all… Of course, it’s true that we’re lucky.”
“What? What’s that all of a sudden?”
“It’s nothing. You idiot. Anyway, we’re staying here until the Emperor Penguin respawns, right? How about we take out the sleeping bags?”
In the end, with none of the mystery solved, I had no choice but to set my questions aside.
Well, Alicia has an easygoing personality.
I don’t know why she was angry, but if I avoid her for a while, she’ll probably have cooled down on her own.
A few days later, we were finally able to meet the Emperor Penguin again.
Of course, that’s not to say we didn’t try other things in the meantime.
We attempted to break through the walls ourselves, rather than having the boss do it.
But some kind of special magic must have been at work, because unlike the holes the boss made, any holes we made sealed up again almost instantly, making it impossible for a person to pass through.
Besides, we had no idea how deep or in which direction we needed to dig.
So, we eventually gave up on digging our own way through and just waited for the Emperor Penguin to respawn, fighting off the regular penguins that appeared nearby.
“Come at me, you damn animal.”
High attack power, low defense.
This trait applied to all penguins, and the Emperor Penguin was no exception. Honestly, if we really wanted to, we could have finished it in an instant.
But our goal was to make it punch holes for us.
And since we didn't know which direction led to the male penguin's room, we needed as many holes as possible.
So, the others took a step back from the boss room to wait while I stood confidently in the center alone. I used Holy Ground Proclamation to draw its aggro, planning to just dodge its attacks.
“Kieeeek!”
As I struck a kung fu-like pose and beckoned with my fingers, the Emperor Penguin let out a shriek as if it had truly been taunted and shot toward me like a missile.
But for me, with my Agility massively boosted from leveling up my Assassin job, dodging it was a piece of… well, not cake, but I could still dodge it.
I mean, it’s still a boss, so it’s fast.
And no matter how good my crampons were, it was still hard to move freely on a sheet of ice.
Still, it was no match for me.
After about ten minutes of narrowly dodging its attacks and letting it riddle the boss room with holes, I decided it was enough. As the Emperor Penguin launched itself like a missile again, I executed a sneak attack.
With Saint’s Touch imbued in my hands, of course.
“Kwaaack!”
Just because its defense was low didn't mean its Charm was, but it seemed it couldn't withstand my even more powerful skill. The beast lost its life in vain.
At the same time, I felt my Assassin level rise.
Finally! Finally!
I’d actually been waiting for this moment!
As I mentioned before, I had managed to raise my Martial Artist and Assassin levels tremendously while I was stranded.
My Martial Artist level, in particular, had already reached 100.
Of course, I hadn't undergone a class change yet, so the level hadn't gone any higher.
Why hadn't I changed classes? Simple.
I had spotted a peculiar option among the available advanced jobs.
It was called the Moon Shadow Warrior. An advanced job for a Martial Artist, and at the same time, an advanced job for an Assassin.
In other words, it was a special job that required both job levels to be at 100.
Heh heh. Actually, from the moment I got the Martial Artist job, I had this in mind and went out of my way to beat up Kyle to get the Assassin job… okay, sorry. That’s a lie. I just got the Assassin job because I wanted to use Stealth to peek into the women’s bath.
I never imagined a job like this existed.
I knew there were special jobs that combined two classes, but Great Earth’s games have a ridiculous number of jobs.
Even I couldn't possibly know every single special job.
I got lucky this time. Could this also be the goddess’s guidance?
Anyway, that’s why I had been holding off on my class change. But with my Assassin level having just gone up, I finally met the requirements.
Without hesitation, I changed my class to Moon Shadow Warrior.
Name: Guwon
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Race: Human 24
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Job: Saint 154 / Adventurer 78 / Moon Shadow Warrior 100 / Elementalist 23
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Level: 154
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Health: 40800/40800
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Essence: 12900/15400
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Strength: 328
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Durability: 421
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Agility: 362
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Stamina: 298
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Intelligence: 186
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Spirit: 303
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Charm: 407
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Bonus Stats: 218
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Status: Normal
Yes. Good. I’m satisfied.
Truthfully, just because it was a special job that combined two classes didn't mean it was particularly better than other jobs.
The only unique feature of such special jobs is that you get the characteristics of two jobs in one.
But for me, that feature was a huge advantage.
For example, I had been leveling both my Martial Artist and Assassin jobs by using Saint’s Touch as a base and alternating between their respective skills. But now, I just had to level up the single Moon Shadow Warrior job to get the stat bonuses of both at the same time.
Of course, the stat growth would be lower than leveling up the advanced jobs for Martial Artist and Assassin separately, but I didn't have the time to raise both to a high level evenly anyway.
Besides, the Assassin job was half for Stealth anyway, so combining them like this was several times better.
There’s a reason people don’t take on multiple jobs at once and instead invest in just one or two.
Look at Diana. Aside from Adventurer for dungeon exploration, she has only the Mage job.
If possible, I’d even want to combine my Elementalist job with something else.
I don’t really use spirits much, except for a quick wash.
Well, I did make good use of the wind spirit for meals while I was stranded.
Could I combine Moon Shadow Warrior and Elementalist later?
Am I being greedy? Yeah. I’m being greedy.
I don’t think I can even get Elementalist to level 100 in the first place.
“Guwon-ssi? Guwon-ssi?! Are you hurt somewhere?”
Oops. I must have been spacing out for too long.
Leia, a worried look on her face, rushed over to me as I stood there staring into space after taking down the Emperor Penguin and changing my class.
My angel, you’ll fall if you run like that on the ice.
“Ah, no. I’m fine. I was just leveling up and changing my class. Sorry.”
I gave Leia a light hug as she came into my arms, then quickly looked around.
Thankfully, the holes the boss had made were still there.
So the condition really was for the Emperor Penguin to make them itself.
Seeing that made me even more certain that the male penguin was hiding in one of these holes.
Otherwise, there would be no reason for a gimmick like this to exist.
But the holes are a bit small.
It wouldn’t be a problem for the girls, but it looked like I’d have a hard time crawling through them.
“Alright, Guwon. I’ll go in first and check it out.”
As I was thinking that, Sara, who had approached me at some point, pointed to a hole in the ground and spoke.
“What? No. It’s dangerous.”
“You handled the Emperor Penguin, so this much should be fine.”
It seemed Sara felt bad for making me fight the Emperor Penguin alone.
“No. Still no. I have to use my skill to get the penis anyway, right?”
“Ugh… th-that’s… Then just let me scout to see which hole it is! That should be fine, right? With your size, you can’t check every single one of these holes, Guwon. They’ll seal up before you can.”
Despite my opposition, Sara didn't back down.
It seemed she was determined to make me rest, even if just for a little.
“G-Guwon-nim. Please leave the scouting to us!”
“She’s right. If Silvia-ssi or I were to be discovered, we could certainly block any attacks. We are the right people for this mission.”
Silvia and Matilda seemed to agree with Sara.
Honestly, these girls. They saw me fight just now, so they should know it wasn't that strenuous.
“Alright. I get it. Then…”
“Huhu. It’s this one.”
As we were having our heartwarming conversation, Diana approached with a smug look and pointed to one of the holes.
“…Huh?”
“Why bother going in to check yourselves? While you were all talking, I used wind magic to see which one connects to another space. It’s this one.”
“…Ah, right. You’re the best, Diana.”
“Hmph!”
Diana, convenient anytime, anywhere.