My Selfish Skill Book – Chapter 54
Chapter 54
The taxi stopped near a five-star dungeon.
O Seyeon walked up to the dungeon entrance and held out her hand to me.
"Take it. Otherwise, I'll end up going in alone."
I nodded and took O Seyeon's hand.
When I entered the dungeon with O Seyeon, the world changed completely.
A crimson sky, as if painted with red oil paint. Pitch-black ground so dark you couldn't make out any elevation.
One of the bound items O Seyeon possessed allowed passage through the dungeon directly into this strange world.
"Let's go."
O Seyeon walked forward first, and I followed behind her.
"But I can't tell where anything is. Did you leave some kind of marker?"
I asked, looking around.
"This."
O Seyeon held out her middle finger. At first, I thought she was flipping me off, but on second look, she was showing me her ring.
"Ahh. Right."
O Seyeon's second bound item was a Guide. It carried a blessing that ensured she would never lose her way, no matter the place.
"You have a lot of unusual bound items. Most raise stats or have combat-related effects like attacking or healing."
When I said that, O Seyeon let out a sigh.
"I actually wanted those kinds of things. These items made exploring this world easier, but I can't kill him with them."
At the word "him," I quickly asked,
"By 'him,' you mean the guild master of the Tyrant Guild, right?"
"Yeah."
"The guild master is targeting you because you're a Listener, and he wants to kill you?"
O Seyeon just walked without answering.
"Hey, are you listening?"
"I'll answer that after I get my sword back."
'Stalling, huh.'
About five minutes later, O Seyeon stopped.
"Here?"
"No."
"Then why did you stop?"
"Get your spear out."
O Seyeon said, drawing a dagger.
"What?"
"Monsters are coming."
O Seyeon pointed at the ground with her finger. Something black and jelly-like was stretching upward from the black earth.
I quickly took out Zain's Axe-Spear from my inventory.
The black jelly gradually took on a proper form, its color shifted, and it finally became a complete monster.
O Seyeon and I began taking them down. Based on their strength, they felt like monsters from five- to six-star dungeons.
"Ooh, magic stones."
Quite a few magic stones dropped, just like when field monsters were defeated. I quickly gathered them up.
We advanced, defeating the occasionally appearing monsters and collecting magic stones.
"See? Aren't you glad I came along?"
Hearing my words, O Seyeon nodded slightly. Wielding a dagger, she was fast in terms of speed, but overall she was weaker than me in every other aspect. If she had tried to find the sword alone, she would have had a rough time.
"We're here."
At O Seyeon's words, I stopped walking. The place we had arrived at was an empty wasteland.
'Without that Guide item, we would have just walked right past it.'
"I obtained that ghost sword here. The blade is probably discarded somewhere around here."
"Got it."
O Seyeon and I began surveying our surroundings. Since nothing but the red sky and black earth stretched out in every direction, if something was lying on the ground, it would be spotted immediately.
"Ah!"
After some time had passed, O Seyeon let out a loud shout and dashed off like an arrow.
'She found it.'
I followed O Seyeon.
"They really threw it far."
I muttered, looking at the longsword on the ground—it was about O Seyeon's height. It was quite far from where we had stopped earlier.
O Seyeon, picking up the longsword, let out a sigh.
"Feeling a little more at ease now?"
"Yeah."
O Seyeon spat out those words and took a stance, gripping the longsword with both hands.
'Ugh!?'
In that instant, goosebumps rose across my body.
An incredible fighting spirit emanated from O Seyeon.
It was the same feeling as when I first saw O Seyeon cut down a fire dragon.
"...Can I take a quick look at that sword?"
"No."
O Seyeon spoke, still holding the longsword.
"If you were me, would you just tell someone your unique skill because they asked?"
"Huh? If I tell you, will you let me hold it?"
"...No."
I clicked my tongue. I really wanted to know what that sword was.
"Now that you've found your sword, tell me. Why is the Tyrant Guild's guild master targeting Listeners?"
"It's a simple story."
O Seyeon spoke without letting go of the sword.
"You know about Soul Capacity, right?"
"Yeah."
Soul Capacity was the standard that determined how many bound items one could possess.
"He's looking for Listeners to use as sacrifices to increase his Soul Capacity."
'Hm?'
That was strange.
"If he wants to raise his Soul Capacity, he doesn't have to be so fixated on Listeners."
I recalled the information I had heard from Jeong Cheonyeol.
There were two ways to increase Soul Capacity.
One was raising every stat by units of ten. The other was killing Hunters.
"Do you remember Im Jiyeon talking about the growth limit?"
I nodded.
"Forty-nine."
O Seyeon spat out the number.
"That's the limit for stats Hunters can raise with magic stones."
It was the first time I had heard that.
I had thought that just collecting magic stones would let you grow infinitely, but that wasn't the case?
"I had no idea."
"It's natural not to know. Even to raise just one stat to 49, you have to collect hundreds of magic stones. And to prevent your other stats from decreasing, the number of magic stones you need is endless."
True, ordinary magic stones carried penalties. I could remove them with [Refinement], but other Hunters had to take the penalties as they were.
"But he accomplished that. He scraped together magic stones with the wealth and power he possessed and maxed them out at 49."
"Then the Tyrant Guild master's stats are all over 40?"
"Probably."
Truly terrifying.
I felt like I understood why O Seyeon was so fixated on bound items.
To stand against such overwhelming stats, she had no choice but to rely on the cheat-like effects of bound items.
"He took other Hunters' lives to increase his Soul Capacity. But I heard that even that started getting harder."
Her tone was as if she had heard it directly from the Tyrant Guild master.
"Then he happened to use a Listener as a sacrifice and learned that his Soul Capacity went up all at once."
"I see. Now I get it. You were chosen to be one of those sacrifices, right?"
When I asked, O Seyeon's expression darkened.
"Yeah. Me... and my comrade."
O Seyeon said that and then shut her mouth with a pained expression.
I didn't pry further.
"Let's get out since you found your sword. Ah, and just so you know."
O Seyeon looked at me.
"I have no intention of raising my Soul Capacity by killing anyone, so it wouldn't have mattered if you'd told me before I found the sword."
"...So you noticed."
"Anyway, we have to take care of that Tyrant Guild master somehow. He seems blinded by getting stronger, so he'll target us again. Other Listeners, too."
It was at that moment.
[A new goal has been assigned.]
"Huh?"
"Huh?"
O Seyeon and I made the exact same sound at the same time.
I summoned the book and checked the goal-setting page.
--------------------
-Goal Setting-
[Main] Elimination of the Enemy
Eliminate the guild master of the Tyrant Guild.
Reward: Unique Skill Advancement + α
--------------------
"Reward?"
"It says reward?"
I turned my head. O Seyeon was making a surprised expression toward empty air.
"You too?"
When I asked O Seyeon, she nodded and said,
"I've been thinking about killing him this whole time, but this is the first time something like this has happened."
"Hmm... It seems like whoever gives us goals wants us to stop the attacks on Listeners."
"I agree. It's the first time they've shown a reward so clearly. I don't know what the alpha is, though."
O Seyeon looked my way as if she had closed her status window.
I held out my hand.
"How about it. Since it turned out like this, let's join hands until we achieve the goal."
"...Fine. Your guild seems like it'll be helpful, too."
O Seyeon took my hand.
***
"Those foolish bastards."
The conference room on the floor just below the top floor of the Tyrant Guild building.
Five Hunters were gathered there.
"Doing such things without any report. Because of that, even the government has turned against us."
"For now, we've framed it as something the Hunters who lost last time did on their own for revenge, but public opinion won't buy that."
"The survivors are Im Jiyeon, Jeong Cheollyeon, and Yu Songhwa, right? How are we going to handle them?"
"Anyway, we can easily raise SS-ranks of that level with suitable people. Let's deal with them before they blab unnecessarily."
"Fine, I'll do it."
"If it's about Soul Capacity, it's my turn this time. Stop being so greedy."
"Let's decide that later."
When the man sitting at the head of the table stood up, the other Hunters closed their mouths.
"The guild master is greatly angered by this matter."
The conference room was buried in a frigid atmosphere.
"The Anti-Tyrant Alliance has seized this incident as an opportunity and fully gone on the offensive. We've also received information that O Seyeon has entered Atlas."
"Atlas is the main guild of those insolent rebels, right? I Hwajin is in there, too."
At one Hunter's words, the standing man nodded.
"It is the guild master's order. He told us to step in directly."
The man slammed both hands down on the table.
"So that they can no longer harbor useless thoughts, let us engrave into their bodies and minds what it is that humans must follow."
The seated Hunters stood up.
"For his Path of Conquest."
"For the Path of Conquest."
The Hunters' voices echoed throughout the conference room.
***
"...And that's what happened."
I finished explaining and looked at Uncle Gangil and Ms. Hyeri. Both of them had their mouths open and still seemed shocked.
O Seyeon, standing next to me, wore an awkward expression and turned her head away to avoid the eyes of the two people watching her.
This morning, when Uncle Gangil and Ms. Hyeri arrived at the guild, they froze the moment they entered the hall.
I supposed it was understandable, since the woman who had slain a fire dragon was standing right next to me as I greeted them cheerfully.
Starting from when I met O Seyeon yesterday, I slowly explained the Tyrant Guild's attack, the reason O Seyeon had joined Atlas, and so on.
"Alright. I understand the situation."
Uncle Gangil crossed his arms and nodded.
"So to summarize, this young lady is on our side? And the Tyrant Guild is our enemy."
"Perfectly clear."
I answered with a smile.
"However, the only ones the Tyrant Guild is after are me and her."
I pointed at O Seyeon.
"Don't point."
O Seyeon raised her hand and tapped mine away.
"When did you two get so close?"
Ms. Hyeri asked.
"We're not that close. It just... feels like meeting someone from the same background?"
To be exact, it was a sense of kinship that came from being fellow Listeners.
"If I die and come back to life, would my current skill get better, too?"
"Don't be stupid."
Ms. Hyeri's eyes widened at the icy voice. O Seyeon was staring at her.
"There's no guarantee you'll come back to life. Usually, when you die, that's the end."
"I-I know. I was just saying."
The atmosphere was turning chilly, so I cut in.
"To continue what I was saying... I don't think I'll be able to work with you two for a while."
Uncle Gangil made a puzzled expression.
"Hm? What do you mean?"
"A new assignment has come up that we need to solve together. It's already become a problem between guilds, but the assignment we've taken on is very dangerous. So until we resolve it..."
Just as I said that, the hall suddenly grew noisy.
"Those crazy bastards!"
"How dare they do this!"
"Why? What's going on?"
"The Tyrant Guild bastards beat us to the punch!"
At the words "Tyrant Guild," I turned my head that way. So did O Seyeon.
"They say the Tyrant Guild has started attacking the guilds of the Anti-Tyrant Alliance!"