Chapter 4

“C-rank? You’re here to enter this Namsan Gate, is that right?”

The gate attendant checked my dismantler license before asking the question.

He did it with one eyebrow raised, as if he found the whole thing distasteful.

A C-rank dismantler showing up at an E-rank gate clearly sat poorly with him.

I could sympathize with the attitude, even if I was annoyed on principle since I hadn’t actually done anything wrong yet.

There were plenty of hunters and dismantlers who’d caused trouble by entering gates below their proper rank.

The government and the Hunter Association even set aside specific periods just for cracking down on that sort of thing.

To him, I probably looked like one of those people.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“...Baek Do-woon, identity confirmed.”

After the check was finished, he handed my license back.

The way his voice had gone flat made it obvious he didn’t want to let me in.

He must have had some gut feeling that I’d cause trouble if he did.

And honestly, the instinct he might have felt would have been right.

I had the gate entry permit as a dismantler, sure, but I had no intention of doing any dismantling work.

I’d come here because I wanted to know who was targeting me.

If I wandered around alone, I figured they’d come to me.

A smart person would avoid anything that might be dangerous, but...

My curiosity was bigger than that.

Well, there was always the chance nobody would show up at all.

“Thanks for your hard work. Have a good one.”

“Y-yes, thank you....”

The answer I got back came with all the life wrung out of it.

He sounded almost pitiable.

Let’s all pray nothing troublesome happens.

I muttered that in my head as I entered Namsan Gate.

The moment I stepped inside, the weather and atmosphere changed.

It felt like I’d crossed into another world entirely.

The blue sky turned dismal, and the clear air grew murky, as if yellow dust were blowing through it.

Namsan Gate was ranked low because its monsters were weak, but hunters still disliked it because the air pollution was worse than in other gates.

That was exactly why I’d come here.

With fewer hunters around, it would be easier for anyone targeting me to make a move.

If there were any eyes on me, that was.

“Skill window.”

Passing the occasional hunter and dismantler, I opened the skill window.

A bluish window popped up, and the new skills I’d gained immediately came to mind.

My goal was to find the people after me, but while I was at it, I might as well check out the new skills too.

The first thing that caught my eye was World Tree Manager.

Because of that skill, I was now immune to every poison.

I could feel that effect working right now.

If I’d been my old self, breathing in Namsan Gate’s polluted air would have been a chore.

Without a mask, I probably wouldn’t have been able to breathe properly at all.

Thanks to the skill, all that reached my lungs was fresh air.

It felt like the pollutants in the air were being purified automatically every time I breathed.

“World Tree Summon seems like a good skill too, but....”

For now, I couldn’t make use of it.

I checked the World Tree Summon skill.

[Cannot be activated because the current unlock conditions have not been met.]

Apparently I still hadn’t met the unlock conditions.

Even an S-rank skill was useless if I couldn’t activate it.

Which meant the ones I’d be testing now were the lower skills underneath it.

They were A-rank skills, one tier lower, but I wasn’t disappointed in the least.

Whatever it was, an A-rank skill was ridiculously efficient.

F-rank Weaving and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠A-rank Weaving were both skills that drew thread from objects, but the results were so far apart they were treated as completely different skills.

In the case of A-rank Weaving, it could even draw thread from gold, which told you just how unusual the materials it handled could be.

That was why there were so many people who spent their whole lives honing a single skill in hopes of forging one into an A-rank skill.

How could I be disappointed when I’d gotten three such skills at once?

“Oh.”

Not far away, I spotted a few test subjects for the new skills.

They were Red Gnolls, one of the humanoid monsters that commonly appeared in E-rank gates.

The creatures had hyena heads and wide ears, which gave them good hearing.

I stopped walking and looked at them.

There were four gnolls in total.

They’d clustered together and were greedily devouring something.

Fortunately, the thing they were eating wasn’t a human, but a wild animal.

I decided to use the skill whose name felt most familiar among the new ones.

“Warm Touch.”

The moment I activated the skill, mana wrapped warmly around my finger.

When I’d read the description, I’d thought it would wrap around all my fingers, but that wasn’t the case.

The mana only wrapped around my right index finger.

“Why the index finger, of all things...?”

Maybe because it was the finger I used most often to tap my smartphone screen?

I’d used my thumb a lot too, but apparently the index finger had gotten more of the work.

I stopped thinking about it and decided to hunt the gnolls.

Keeping Warm Touch active, I crept toward the creatures as they wolfed down the wild animal.

“Grrk!”

“Grrk, grrk!”

But I didn’t get far before they noticed me.

As expected of monsters with good hearing, they heard something and started looking around before quickly spotting me.

Red blood dripped from their muzzles as they clicked their tongues and charged at me with wooden clubs raised high.

It was ridiculous.

“Look at these guys.”

The gnolls were treating me like prey.

The way they failed to understand their place was almost funny.

Gnolls were monsters I could hunt easily even when I was still active, without using any skills at all.

And now I’d eaten the Fruit of the Previous World Tree and my body was in even better shape than it had been back then.

That wasn’t all.

The World Tree had grown inside my smartphone, and I’d gained A-rank skills on top of that.

At this point, gnolls weren’t even game. They were just test subjects for my new skills.

The idea that those things saw me as prey was absurd.

I’d better kill them quickly and snap them out of that delusion.

“Grrk! Grrk!”

“Grrrk!”

The gnolls were soon in front of me.

True to their low rank, they didn’t try to use their numbers to surround me; they just swung their wooden clubs straight at me.

I dodged the clubs and thrust my right index finger at the gnoll directly in front of me.

It had lost its balance from swinging its weapon too wildly, so a slight shove to the shoulder would have been enough to send it tumbling.

Bang!

“...Huh?”

But my right index finger didn’t shove the gnoll aside the way I’d expected.

When my finger touched the gnoll’s left shoulder, it made a thunderous sound, like a bomb had gone off.

The gnoll’s left shoulder, which I’d meant to push, was blown open in a huge hole, and its left arm dropped straight to the ground.

Half its torso gone, the gnoll collapsed while spraying blood everywhere.

Startled, I stared at my finger and completely forgot about the other gnolls still standing there.

Even after one attack, my finger was still wrapped in mana.

“What in the world-”

A sharp impact rang out and cut me off.

One of the other gnolls had swung its wooden club into my forehead.

A throb of pain flared there, then vanished almost at once.

Just like when I’d fought Jeon Myeong-hwan, the injury healed in an instant.

My body’s regeneration had become absurdly strong thanks to the Fruit of the Previous World Tree.

But right now, it was even better than that.

Because of the World Tree Manager skill, my physical recovery and mana recovery had increased again.

The reason I’d come into the gate alone was because I was confident I wouldn’t die here.

Even if my opponent wasn’t a Red Gnoll, but someone else entirely.

“Grrr...?”

“Shocked, huh? Yeah, me too.”

Saying that, I thrust my finger toward the gnoll that had swung the club.

Another explosion-like sound rang out.

Just like the shoulder of the gnoll I’d killed before, its head vanished.

The body of the headless gnoll clutched its wooden club tightly and fell to the dirt.

“Grrk! Grrrk!”

At this point, even the stupid gnolls seemed to realize I wasn’t prey or game.

Once they understood I was something that could kill them, the remaining two started backing away.

I hadn’t even finished testing all my skills yet. Where did they think they were going?

There was a skill that was perfect for this situation.

Dance of the World Tree.

“Dance of the World Tree!”

The moment I used it, the shape of a World Tree began to appear in midair.

It looked just like the sprout I’d seen on my smartphone screen.

The mana-made World Tree sprout slowly started shaking its stem.

As the stem shook, the leaves followed along naturally.

“....”

“....Grrk?”

Well, if I had to describe it...

It looked less like a dance and more like a violent fit.

A ferocious thrashing from the base of the stem all the way to the tips of the leaves.

Watching it only made me feel dumbfounded.

No wonder even the gnolls made an unsettled sound.

Would something like that really count as a provocation?

That thought and worry had just started taking over my head when

“Grrk! Grrrk!!”

“Grrrk! Grrrkh!”

to my surprise, the effect of Dance of the World Tree was impressive.

The gnolls that had been making confused noises stepped forward again and charged the illusion.

As if shouting that they were going to wipe out the sprout, they barked furiously and swung their clubs wildly.

I had no idea what sort of mechanism made that happen.

The World Tree sprout had only been thrashing around, so why were the gnolls getting so worked up?

“Hmm... It worked, so that’s good enough.”

It wasn’t as if it had failed, so I decided not to worry about it.

Right now, while the gnolls were reacting to the provocation and flailing at the illusion, was the best possible timing.

The skill was supposed to last one minute, so I should test World Tree Swing, the one I hadn’t used yet.

I picked up the wooden club of the gnoll I’d killed first and poured mana into it.

World Tree Swing let me control how much mana I infused into the weapon, and the more I poured in, the stronger the attack became.

The total amount I could gather was equivalent to ten uses of Warm Touch.

But pouring that much mana into a gnoll weapon seemed like a waste, so I only infused it once.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Feeling blue mana faintly wrap around the wooden club, I walked over to the two gnolls.

I was curious to see just how much power it would show.

“World Tree Swing.”

I used the skill on the gnolls, who were still swinging at the illusion.

The club arced horizontally through the air, scattering blue mana as it struck the gnoll on the left in the torso.

Then it struck the gnoll standing to the right as well.

“...!”

No.

“Struck” wasn’t the right word.

I’d swung a wooden club, yet the gnolls had been split clean in two as if they’d been sliced by a sword.

That wasn’t all.

The club had also cut through the trees behind them.

Even though they hadn’t touched the club’s path at all.

Thud. Thud.

Watching the trees topple over, I was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠dumbstruck.

“That’s with just one use of Warm Touch?”

World Tree Swing said I could gather mana up to the equivalent of ten uses of Warm Touch.

Then what would happen if I gathered the maximum and attacked with that?

Just as the urge to try it began creeping up on me, I sensed someone nearby.

....

Someone had definitely come.