Skill Book My Way
Chapter 40
Chapter 40
"What exactly are you planning to do?"
Hajiho whispered to Jeong Cheon-yeol, who was walking beside him.
A mixture of bewilderment and anxiety was etched on Hajiho’s face.
Hwajin was following the two of them at a distance.
"In battle with monsters, unexpected situations and unintended results always occur, don’t they?"
Jeong Cheon-yeol said in a low voice and chuckled.
"I hope this becomes an opportunity for you to restore your honor, Jiho."
Hajiho didn’t answer, but murderous intent swirled in his eyes.
***
I hid behind a tree and poked my head out slightly.
At what seemed to be the center of the forest, a one-eyed giant, seemingly well over ten meters tall, sat leaning its back against an enormous tree. All kinds of monsters surrounded it.
Viewed through my monocle, the one-eyed giant exuded an aura rivaling that of a Fire Dragon.
I took a staff out of my inventory, stuck it into my waistband, and held a spear in my hand.
"Now then, while I prepare my skill, Jiho, take that S-Rank Hunter over there and draw the attention of the Field Boss and the monsters. About one minute. You can do that much, can’t you?"
Jeong Cheon-yeol looked at me and smirked.
I approached the monsters together with Hajiho.
Hajiho didn’t make eye contact with me at all and didn’t say a single word.
It was strange that he didn’t even show a hostile attitude, though it wasn’t as if we were on good enough terms to chat happily.
*I see. So it’s already begun.*
Whether the monsters had noticed us, they glared this way. The one-eyed giant, the Field Boss, rose to its feet as well.
The sight of the giant standing beside the tree that seemed to pierce the sky was tremendously oppressive.
When the giant pointed at us with its finger, the monsters began charging.
I used [Thunderbolt Spear]. On the other hand, Hajiho didn’t move in the slightest and simply stood staring at the monsters.
Then, suddenly, a translucent membrane formed around us, becoming a giant dome that trapped the monsters and me.
Immediately after, Hajiho, who had been beside me, disappeared.
When I looked back, Jeong Cheon-yeol and Hajiho were standing there looking this way.
"You cheated to pass the last exam, didn’t you?"
Hajiho, who had finally opened his mouth, looked at me and curled his lips.
"Let’s have a retest."
He seemed to be talking about how I had used invisibility to endure for an hour in the Defense Game Dungeon.
*So he’s trying to recreate the same situation to get revenge.*
Back then, I had left only Hajiho, who had followed me into the dungeon, while using invisibility with the other two, subjecting him to concentrated fire from the monsters.
I used [Single Flash] toward the wall of the translucent dome, and the wall swelled up like rubber before returning to its original shape.
I stood with my back to the wall.
The monsters were charging in a pack.
One of the Dungeon Bosses leaped into the air and tried to smash me with a club.
"Single Flash."
Along with a flash of light, the Dungeon Boss that had tried to attack me vanished on the spot.
Both [Thunderbolt Spear] and [Single Flash] were enhanced by [Spearmanship], demonstrating destructive power several times greater than before.
The charging monsters all halted at once.
I charged toward the monsters.
***
"Crazy..."
Watching what was happening inside the dome, Hajiho broke into a cold sweat.
Even though they were monsters of a 6-star dungeon, aside from the Field Boss, those inside the dome were either Dungeon Bosses or Elites.
Nevertheless, Hwajin took down dozens of Bosses and Elites at a terrifying speed as if it were nothing.
When Hajiho thought about what would have happened if it had been him, his face contorted as if he had bitten into shit.
"To think he was this capable. Truly impressive. If only he weren’t someone opposing our guild, I would have scouted him right away."
Jeong Cheon-yeol said with an expression of genuine admiration.
"It is truly a great pity."
He raised his staff. After channeling mana for quite a while, he quietly chanted the skill name.
"Purgatory (煉獄)."
The crystal embedded in the staff glowed red, and flames began to rise inside the dome formed by the translucent membrane.
The flames began to devour the trees and grass filling the dome at a terrifying speed.
The SS-Rank Hunter Jeong Cheon-yeol’s nickname was the Wizard. He possessed a variety of skills befitting that nickname.
[Position Change], which could arbitrarily alter a target’s location over a short distance.
[Mana Compression], which compressed mana up to twice the skill’s original MP consumption to amplify destructive power or effects.
[Mana Barrier], which could withstand any impact, and [Purgatory], which swept a wide space with flames.
In particular, [Mana Barrier] and [Purgatory] were a lethal combo.
The monsters and Hunter trapped inside the dome created by the Mana Barrier could only wait for their bodies to burn entirely without being able to escape.
The Field Boss trapped inside the dome sensed the crisis and frantically pounded and kicked the dome wall, but to no avail.
*No matter how great a monster is, it can’t survive my skill combination.*
Thinking that eliminating a Hunter who opposed the Tyrant Guild and taking down the Field Boss to obtain a bound item would be killing two birds with one stone, Jeong Cheon-yeol watched the interior of the dome with satisfaction.
"What is this?"
Jeong Cheon-yeol’s face was colored with shock. Hajiho beside him wore a similar expression.
"The fire is going out!?"
The flames that had filled the dome were dying down.
***
"Quell Fire (鎭火)."
I used the skill to extinguish the fire inside the dome.
Immediately after Jeong Cheon-yeol came to get me, I had used the bookmark function to examine his stats and skills.
--------------------
-Status-
Jeong Cheon-yeol
HP: 200/200 MP: 240/240
Vitality: 10 Strength: 9 Mana: 24 Spirit: 17 Sense: 20
Unique Skills: [Position Change] [Mana Compression] [Mana Barrier] [Purgatory] [Magic Bullet]
--------------------
As befitting an SS-Rank Hunter, his stats were tremendous. He had three stats at or near 20, and his other stats were by no means low, either.
*If his Sense is 20, [Perfect Invisibility] won’t work, so I’ll have to use a different method.*
I examined each of Jeong Cheon-yeol’s skills that appeared in the book, calculating how he would attack me, how I would escape, and how I would counterattack.
And I surmised that the combination of Mana Barrier and Purgatory would be Jeong Cheon-yeol’s main combo.
Fortunately, I already possessed the skills to break his combo.
"Kuaaa...."
The Field Boss, heavily burned, let out a pained groan. Perhaps because of its massive size, its groan was enough to make the ground shake.
I landed a hit of [Single Flash] on each of the one-eyed giant’s ankles.
Then, as the giant fell with a tremendous roar, I made holes with Single Flash at the vital points along its center line—its eye, throat, heart, solar plexus, stomach, and so on.
Squelch!
And when I fired Single Flash at its testicles, it finally disappeared. It seemed the core was located in a very unfortunate spot.
The brown light that appeared as the Field Boss’s corpse vanished circled around me before disappearing. My soul capacity had been exceeded.
I turned around.
Jeong Cheon-yeol and Hajiho were staring this way with wide eyes.
I walked slowly toward them. I could see their shoulders flinch as if frightened.
I stopped walking before I had gone far.
The wall of the dome was blocking my path.
They put on relieved expressions before soon curling their lips at me.
When Jeong Cheon-yeol swung his staff, the massive dome gradually shrank around me.
"I don’t know what trick you pulled on my Purgatory, but you can’t do anything about this Mana Barrier! Just stay there unable to move and get crushed!"
I let out a scoffing laugh. Once the laughter started, it wouldn’t die down easily.
"Have you gone mad with death staring you in the face?"
Jeong Cheon-yeol scowled.
Without answering, I raised my staff and pointed it at the Mana Barrier.
*Complete Dispel.*
The shrinking dome stopped contracting and came to a halt, and Jeong Cheon-yeol panicked.
"What?!"
"It’s a Mana Barrier, you said."
A few seconds later, the barrier vanished clean away.
"Well then. Is there anything else you’d like to show me?"
"Ugh! Jiho!"
"Damn it!"
Hajiho drew his twin swords. It seemed he had bought new ones after I broke his last pair.
*Single Flash!*
Crack!
Without giving him a chance to attack, I immediately used Single Flash, shattering his twin swords once again.
The Single Flash enhanced by Spearmanship sent Hajiho flying over ten meters away from the impact alone.
He might have had a small hole in his chest, but that was something to check later.
"Kuh! Magic Bullet!"
Jeong Cheon-yeol swung his staff, and countless magic bullets flew toward me.
I used Charge to the side, dodging the magic bullets flying in a straight line.
*Ground Shrink!*
After evading the magic bullets, I didn’t use Charge but Ground Shrink to ram into Jeong Cheon-yeol.
Boom!
The sound was so loud I wondered if all his bones had been broken.
Jeong Cheon-yeol, hit squarely by my shoulder, dropped his staff and rolled backward for quite a distance.
With his Sense stat at 20, he might have been able to dodge a normal attack.
But with Ground Shrink, which moved hundreds of meters in the blink of an eye, even if he noticed it, there was no way he could dodge.
I checked the condition of the bastard collapsed on the ground.
The fact that he couldn’t move at all suggested he had fallen into a coma from the impact just now.
I grabbed Jeong Cheon-yeol by the neck, dragged him over to Hajiho, who likewise couldn’t move, and threw the one I’d been holding.
With a thud, he fell on top of Hajiho.
"Recover."
I canceled the skill the moment Jeong Cheon-yeol regained consciousness.
"Don’t pull any stupid tricks. Next time, I’ll make sure you never open your eyes again."
I pointed my spear at Jeong Cheon-yeol’s face.
Jeong Cheon-yeol erased the sickening smile he had constantly shown and instead glared at me with a face twisted in pain and fury.
"You’d do well to think carefully before you act."
Hearing Jeong Cheon-yeol’s words, I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t understand why words I would say were coming out of this man’s mouth.
"We are Hunters of the Tyrant Guild. If they learn you laid hands on us, not only you, but your guild will disappear overnight as if it were nothing."
Ah, damn it.
"If you lower that spear right now, I’ll pretend none of this ever happened."
A sigh escaped me.
"What exactly is ‘all of this’?"
"...What?"
"I’m asking what ‘all of this’ is."
"Th-that’s..."
Jeong Cheon-yeol’s pupils trembled.
"Shall I tell you?"
I spoke while holding back the urge to stab Jeong Cheon-yeol’s face right then and there.
"That bastard Hajiho lying underneath you right now tried to trap me and my guild members in a 7-star dungeon, and you pretended to ask for my help only to trap me in a mana dome with Dungeon Bosses, Elites, and a Field Boss, then set them on fire to kill me. For what reason?"
"B-because you dared to oppose the Tyrant Guild..."
I brought the spear close to Jeong Cheon-yeol’s neck.
"All I did was refuse a scouting offer. Does your guild kill people for something like that?"
"You attacked a member of the Tyrant Guild..."
"You attacked first. By that logic, I should kill you too for attacking my guild members."
Jeong Cheon-yeol trembled.
"How dare you... A mere Hunter belonging to a small guild like Atlas dares to stand on equal footing with the Tyrant Guild."
For a moment, I felt something snap inside my head.
"You people are always like that."
I used [Thunderbolt Spear]. Golden sparks flashed from Jain’s axe-spear.
"Just because you’re a bit stronger, you don’t see people as equals and think you can do whatever you want."
Jang So-yu, who had tried to use me as food for the monsters she raised.
Hajiho, who had tried to retaliate against us simply because I refused a scouting offer.
Jeong Cheon-yeol, who had tried to trap me in a dome and burn me alive for slighting the Tyrant Guild.
"Right now, I’m stronger than you, so you have nothing to say if I kill you, do you?"
"T-the guild won’t let you get away if they find out...!"
"I’ve been wondering this whole time. If you die here, who in that great guild of yours, and how, would be able to reveal the fact that I killed you?"
Jeong Cheon-yeol’s eyes widened, and at the same time, I thrust the spark-engulfed axe-spear with all my might.