Chapter 44 – Escape (1)
Flap-!
Hundreds of sharp pieces scratched his body.
But Hyun had already activated «One Second Absorption».
Thanks to that, he didn’t receive any damage, and it served as fuel for his «Vision Sword».
‘Now…!’
Hyun took out the «Vision Sword» and cut slightly into Louise’s arms.
Why did he suddenly attack her?
Why was he damaging the one the quest had asked him to protect?
It would be normal to ask these questions, but it was part of their plan.
Swoosh-
Louise’s entire body was enveloped in the wind.
It was the buff effect of ‘The Blood Fairy’s Frenzy.’
Hyun had given Louise his robe and lowered her HP to a point just before 20%.
「Resist a little bit.」
Hyun used «Assimilation» again.
Poof!
They caused an explosion in the air and used the reaction to jump as high as possible.
From side to side!
The stairs had a spiral form, so you could jump over an entire floor if you jumped correctly.
Poof-! Poof-! Poof-!
With three jumps, they went over three floors instantly.
‘There they are!’
They saw the enemies that had thrown bombs from upstairs.
These people were wearing black clothes and a mask. They had the same look like the people that had been following them yesterday.
«Vision Sword»!
Louise’s tiny hands grabbed onto a giant sword made of light that didn’t match her.
Hyun slashed without doubting for even a moment.
—A blue light that cuts through space!
But they failed to cut the opponent.
‘Disassimilate!’
The light scattered away and then formed again.
Hyun appeared behind the opponent.
By the time he appeared behind the opponents, he was already swinging his sword.
From the opponent’s point of view, it probably was like being ambushed from behind out of nowhere.
“Ugh…!”
The masked man bent down instinctively.
The reflexes of a level 200 Thief-related job were so incredible that it didn’t look human at all—it was outside of a normal human’s capabilities.
Even though the ambush plan was perfect, the «Vision Sword» cut through the air.
«Assimilate»!
The moment he discovered that the attack had failed, Hyun «Assimilated» into Louise again.
All the inertia that was hanging in Hyun’s body disappeared.
Within a tiny lapse of time, Louise swung the «Vision Sword» forward.
—Inertia Cancel.
In real life, if an attack with a big movement failed, you wouldn’t be able to attack immediately after it because your center of gravity would be off, but that changed while using «Assimilation».
From a physical point of view, it was as if an entity repeated ‘destruction’ and ‘creation.’
—Once in front and once from behind.
Since light shone from both sides, even if the opponent were fast, they’d be hit with one of the two attacks.
[Critical Hit! You’ve dealt 26,193 damage!]
The Vision Sword cut the opponent’s neck.
‘He didn’t die?’
Even though the attack had been a success, Hyun was still surprised by the result.
In Asrian, there was a system that if you inflicted more than 33% of the HP as damage in one hit, your opponent wouldn’t be able to use the body part where the attack landed.
If the enemy was alive after being hit in the neck, that meant their HP was at least a hundred thousand.
Suddenly, a thought crossed Hyun’s mind.
‘Don’t tell me… These guys were named?’
Paf-!
Suddenly, a light came from the side.
Another person was trying to cut them with a sword.
Just before the sword penetrated Louise’s heart, she used special steps to do a half turn.
Her clothing was torn a little bit.
The one that had just attacked Hyun and Louise was familiar to them.
—It was the first girl that had followed Louise.
‘So she survived…’
Looking at her appearance, it seemed like she hadn’t received much damage.
Beep-!
One of the masked men took out a flute and blew it.
He didn’t know what signal it was, but it definitely wasn’t good news.
With the sound of the flute, more masked people began appearing.
Above…
From below…
He could see between three to five people.
“Ah…”
Louise took a breath of air.
Her legs began trembling.
Because she had previously engaged with them, she knew how strong they were.
Just knowing that such strong opponents surrounded her was enough to make her lose hope.
Louise’s body was about to collapse.
Because Hyun was using «Assimilation», he knew how Louise felt.
He suddenly became annoyed.
「Hey, do you want to die?」
“U… Uh… No…!”
「I’m a user, so it doesn’t matter, but you’re not. If you don’t get a hold of yourself, you’re going to die!」
After Hyun talked to her via his soul, Louise’s trembling stopped slightly.
「Remember what I previously told you?!」
Hyun looked upward.
—A spiral staircase connected to the edge of the pillar.
From the end of the staircase, which was close, they could see the dungeon’s exit.
「The way of climbing here is the same as on the cliff. If your feet stop, you’ll fall.」
Hyun moved forward and walked to the ‘Red Stairs.’
It was a trap.
The red stairs, red railing, red walls, and red columns…
Everything that was painted red was a trigger that activated traps.
Tak-
The moment he stepped on the first red stair, a trap activated.
The stairs from the ground to the exit began crumbling like a sandcastle.
Seeing such a big spiral staircase crumble in its entirety was like looking at a tall building being demolished.
There were only a few staircases left.
The opponents that didn’t have anywhere to step began falling.
But they quickly adapted and either grabbed onto the walls or created a stepping stone and used that.
「Don’t stop!」
The moment the trap activated, Louise leaped forward with everything she had.
Because there weren’t any staircases left, she had to run while using the walls.
‘It’s the same as that moment!’
Louise tried to remember how that previous movement felt and tried to copy it.
While going to the secret marketplace, Hyun had used centrifugal force to climb up there easily.
Now that they had disassimilated, she was the one that had to do it.
Louise stepped on the walls while clenching her fists.
With all of her might…
Every time she leaped, she moved approximately 10 meters.
Although her movements, which were similar to vortex movements, seemed a little bit unstable, she didn’t fall.
…But the opponents were lighter than Louise.
They were stepping on the walls and moving freely. It looked as if they’d be able to catch up to Louise very quickly.
She reached the place Hyun had told her right before she got into trouble.
Tik- The moment Hyun touched a red wall, another trap activated.
Thuck-!
Arrows were shot from the sides.
There were thousands of them in number.
There were so many silver lights that they were blocking vision.
Although the arrows had successfully slowed the opponents, they had also put Louise in danger.
The moment she was about to become a hedgehog…
«Assimilation»! «One Second Absorption»!
Ting!
All of the arrows bounced away.
“A… Am I alive?”
「Stop talking and run!」
Swish-! From the sides, some short swords came flying toward them.
Because there was some cooldown time left for «One Second Absorption», Hyun used the «Vision Sword».
He used the sword as a shield to brush away all the incoming attacks.
That had been possible because Louise’s body was small.
‘So there’s approximately 10 of them, right?’
After searching for a place to hide after the staircase crumbled, he was able to count the number of enemies.
‘Damn, this isn’t a joke!’
The difficulty of the quest was too great.
Usually, you were rewarded according to the difficulty of the quest, but he just couldn’t understand the current situation.
But Hyun quickly shook away his irrelevant thoughts.
There was no time to complain.
“Use this!”
After disassimilating, Hyun gave Louise ‘The Ring of the Executioner’ he had bought from the secret marketplace.
Louise’s eyes widened.
That’s because she knew what the effect of that item was.
“This…?!”
It was the item she had complained about because of how cursed it was.
But—for the moment—she followed Hyun’s words without complaining.
She trusted Hyun’s words and decisions.
As soon as she put on the ring, she could feel her heart squeezing and an unpleasant sensation spreading through her body.
Yes, just as if she had been cursed.
‘Good, let’s do it.’
As Louise put on the ring, Hyun began moving.
He approached a place near the red wall and pressed something.
Thuck-!
Thousands of arrows covered the sight.
‘«Assimilation», «One Second Absorption»!’
As soon as he activated the trap, he «Assimilated» into Louise.
Suddenly, the view changed.
‘Ah…’
Hyun and Louise were both lost for words.
Whoosh- The arrow was dragging in all the surrounding arrows.
The sight of thousands of arrows moving by themselves just as if they were alive was too unrealistic.
They couldn’t see the front because it was covered with a silver light.
Thousands of arrows formed a wall.
The distance between them and said wall kept getting smaller…
‘We’re going to bump into it!’
Thuck thuck thuck thuck-!
‘Ugh…!’
Hyun groaned in pain, even though he had blocked every arrow with the «One Second Absorption».
There was nothing he could do about it.
Even though he was invincible with that skill, from a human’s point of view, it was impossible to make an objective judgment in such an overwhelming situation.
Three masked enemies took the opportunity to jump at them.
«Vision Sword».
A giant sword formed in Louise’s hands.
But that time, it was a little bit different.
The «Vision Sword» was bigger than before, and blue flames spouted from its blade.
Hyun had never seen it do that, but it wasn’t the right time to ponder it.
At the same time that he used «Shield», he swung the «Vision Sword».
The three opponents were within range and became stunned at the same time.
—Striking at the opponent’s sword was a way to defend.
Hyun took the opportunity and slashed them three more times.
Every time he swung the sword, blue flames wrapped the opponents.
[Critical Hit! You’ve dealt 153,942 damage!]
[Critical Hit! You’ve dealt 151,534 damage!]
[Critical Hit! You’ve dealt 149,917 damage!]
[By consecutively attacking the same part of the body, you’ve dealt more than 33% of the opponent’s HP as damage!]
[Level up!]
The result of centering the attacks on the opponent’s neck was impressive.
Hyun never thought he would level up after killing a single opponent.
From the messages he received in his system, he guessed that the opponents should have at least a million HP—they were at the level of a mid-range named monster.
The enemies became warier after one of them died.
Hyun disassimilated again and touched the next red wall.
Clack- The trap activated again, and they were showered by a rain of arrows.
Swish-!
[The cooldown time of «Shield» has been reset!]
At the same time, eight enemies attacked simultaneously!
Four of them threw daggers and ninja stars.
And another four were charging toward them at a frightening speed with swords in their hands.
‘We only need to resist this…!’
They were getting closer to the dungeon’s exit.
Hyun was feeling the tension.
He enjoyed the slight dizziness.
[The moment your ‘tiredness’ surpasses 100, the game will forcibly shut down! (Current: 92)]
‘A little bit more…’
The moment the opponents closed in, Hyun disassimilated and ran toward the enemies.
Even though he swung the sword, they didn’t try to counter it.
The enemies were also learning.
—They’d seen their allies get stunned after hitting Hyun’s sword.
But even though Hyun’s attack pattern was the same as before, it was slightly different.
He swung it again and smashed down the sword from a higher angle.
The blue flames drew a half-moon twice.
First, it was small.
But then, it grew bigger.
«Shield»!
Two enemies were within the attack range of the half-moon.
Both were stunned!
That was more than enough.
Because they were going to be stunned for the next three seconds, they were going to fall deep into the abyss.
«Assimilation»!
Hyun entered Louise’s body again.
He laid down the huge sword and blocked the incoming attacks.
Ting-!
The four that had launched long-range attacks became stunned at the same time.
He saw the four of them losing consciousness and falling down the cliff.
They probably would’ve never guessed that launching a ninja star from a distance would be enough to make them stunned.
That was the great thing about «Shield».
‘Disassimilate!’
The flow of Hyun’s consciousness changed many times.
Such a thing was possible because he used the time by breaking it into decimal units.
After Disassimilating, he appeared behind an opponent.
Clang-! The enemy became stunned after being touched with the «Vision Sword».
‘Up to here.’
In just a second, he had managed to stun seven opponents successfully.
—There was only one remaining.
The last opponent was already charging toward Louise.
‘You won’t dodge this!’
Hyun raised his hands as high as possible and smashed down at the opponent.
Clang! As the blue flames clashed with the enemy’s sword, Louise’s body soared high into the air because of the chain reaction.
“Oh…!”
Louise groaned slightly.
Finally, she could see the exit of the dungeon.
Was that how a climber who had reached the top of a mountain felt?
She could feel something hot circulating through her veins.
The wind that was coming from the exit was cold.
It was dark outside.
It was night, the sun wasn’t there, and she was free from the curse.
