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Chapter 1. Back to the Past (2)
3.
When the Mystic Gate appeared in the world, someone said,
“Mystic Gate is full of conveniences for adventurers. The difficulty level of the gate can be determined by the color of the gate: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. The number of people allowed to enter is indicated on the gate. When you enter the gate, monsters and boss monsters of the appropriate difficulty level appear. Even if you don’t defeat the boss monster, you can still get out if you find the exit. It’s as if someone made it specifically for adventurers.”
Mystic Gate is the best stage that adventurers could ever wish for.
“But we can’t let our guard down.”
Of course, that doesn’t mean that Mystic Gate was easy.
On the contrary, the death rate of adventurers has been higher than ever since the appearance of the Mystic Gate.
The reason was simple.
“Because no one knows what lies beyond the Mystic Gate.”
The number of monsters you can encounter beyond the Mystic Gate is uncountable.
“When you exit through the Mystic Gate, the Mystic Gate disappears at that moment.”
Also, after adventuring through Mystic Gate, it was impossible to take that information and use it to conduct a strategy.
“The problem is that there is a limit to the number of adventurers that can enter each Mystic Gate.”
Crucially, Mystic Gate was not a place where adventurers could organize parties at will.
There was a limit to the number of people allowed to enter, and the party had to be organized within that number.
“The bigger problem is that it’s not easy to fill all those limited personnel with adventurers.”
Even so, it was not as common as you might think to fill that number entirely with adventurers.
“Adventurers are precious? That’s not true. As the number of adventurers increases, your share decreases.”
Because adventurers were concerned about how to make the most profit.
“Compared to that, bait slaves are cheap.”
These are the miserable and pathetic people who were born as bait slaves, those who risk their lives for a pittance.
These bait slaves proved to be more useful to adventurers than one might think.
First of all, when hunting monsters, bait slaves were effective in many ways. As the expression bait suggests, it was possible to guide the monster’s path as intended.
However, it was not while hunting that the bait slaves were most active.
“I threw out the bait!”
It was right then that I was running away from a group of monsters.
“Everyone run away!”
It was the same day that El Palm remembered.
The party that brought him as bait slave was extremely clumsy, and in the end, when faced with a crisis, they threw away the bait slave and ran away.
Naturally, El Palm, who had been a bait slave, was placed in danger, in front of a group of orange mushrooms.
“Eww!”
With five other bait slaves.
Of course, there was no option like fighting.
The five slaves ran away, scattering, and the group of orange mushrooms also split up at their sight.
What had been hundreds became dozens and they began to chase after the bait slaves.
‘It’s the same as before.’
At that sight, at that sight exactly as he remembered, El Palm was now convinced.
‘I’m sure. I’m back in the past.’
That this is not a dream or a hallucination.
‘I don’t know why.’
Of course, this was nonsense.
The wizard El Palm knew how absurd the act of regression, of turning back time, was.
So El Palm did not question him at this moment.
It was beyond his understanding.
Doo doo doo!
Above all, El Palm was currently being chased by over twenty orange mushrooms.
Being chased by mushrooms, that’s an incredibly funny expression to hear.
But the people from Victoria Island knew how scary these mushrooms could be.
First of all, the mushrooms vary in size, with the larger ones sometimes being larger than an adult man.
Doo doo doo!
And when running on two feet, the speed was as fast as that of an adult male.
The method of hunting these mushrooms was simple.
A move where the prey is knocked down by rushing in and slamming into the ground, and then the prey is bitten madly with the teeth.
The attacks themselves weren’t that powerful, but the problem was that they were mushrooms.
Through spore reproduction, the number of individuals could increase from tens to hundreds or even thousands at any time.
Also, the bodies of the mushrooms were literally mushrooms. There was no concept of bleeding or anything like that.
Its only weakness is destroying its core!
Or else break your whole body!
Nothing was easy.
To sum up, it would not be an exaggeration to say that he was a nightmare for adventurers.
‘Orange mushrooms are the weakest of the mushrooms, but they cannot be ignored.’
El Palm knew that better than anyone.
Because at this point, you had to risk your life and run away to survive against the orange mushrooms.
In other words, it was El Palm before it returned to the past.
‘He’s not really someone I should worry about.’
El Palm, who is here now, the number of mushrooms he caught before returning to the past easily exceeds hundreds of millions.
That experience was still valid today.
That was why.
El Palm, as he ran away, grabbed a spear that had fallen to the ground.
Swish!
And the moment the mouse clicked, El Palm stopped in its tracks.
El Palm, he started hunting.
4.
Orange mushroom.
It was the weakest of the mushrooms and its strategy was simple.
Breaking the nuke!
However, putting this strategy into practice was more difficult and tricky than I thought.
“Mushrooms? The method of catching them is simple. Just stab the nucleus. Most of the time, the nucleus is located between the eyes. The only problem is that the mushrooms are all over the place.”
First of all, as I said before, the mushrooms were all different sizes. This was a very troublesome feature for hunters.
“The big ones are better. At least you can see them. The small ones are not even noticeable.”
There were also small dog-sized ones called so-called so-called puppies. These could only be killed by stepping on them, but the problem was that the corpses of the so-called puppies killed by stepping on them were a huge hindrance to combat.
That’s why the orange mushroom had a nickname.
“No matter how much you train, if you have no experience, you’re bound to get flustered. This is especially true for beginners.”
Beginner killer.
In other words, if you have enough experience, orange mushrooms are not such a scary opponent.
Doo doo doo!
No matter what, there was no weapon on the orange mushroom that could inflict fatal wounds.
Although the body slam is powerful, it is still a mushroom, so it is not as heavy as a person of similar size, and its teeth are only good enough to bite a person.
The movement speed was also similar to or lower than that of a normal adult male.
Meaning that it is not at a threatening level.
And if that benchmark is El Palm, then it’s not even laughable.
El Palm proved it himself.
Phew!
Every time he thrust his spear, it would hit the orange mushroom right between its eyes.
Break!
And the spear was inserted just far enough to accurately hit the nuke.
Phew!
After that, El Palm, who had pulled out the window, immediately showed the same skill against another orange mushroom, a guy 50 centimeters smaller than the one he had faced before.
Phew!
It pierced the space between the eyebrows with perfect precision, without the slightest error.
Doo doo doo!
This task was accomplished by backstepping and stepping against the oncoming hordes of orange mushrooms.
Phew!
It showed a wonderful battle.
What was even more surprising was that El Palm was not a warrior, a thief, or an archer, but a wizard.
Nevertheless, he demonstrated close combat skills superior to those of most warriors, thieves, and archers.
It was by no means a desired result.
This is just the result of surviving while fighting off the monsters that came rushing in alone after all of my colleagues died.
Phew!
For such an El Palm, dealing with twenty or so orange mushrooms was hardly even a hunt.
‘They say it’s difficult, but that’s only for F-class adventurers.’
It wasn’t really that big of a deal.
That’s why the Adventurer’s Association classified a group of orange mushrooms, rather than an individual orange mushroom, as an F-grade monster.
An F-class adventurer should be able to easily handle about twenty orange mushrooms.
‘But in this day and age, there are so many people who don’t even have the qualifications to do so.’
In other words, the adventurers of the party that brought El Palm here as slave bait were not even F-class adventurers.
Those who can’t even become adventurers.
Still, it was because of the Mystic Gate that they were able to become adventurers.
Originally, there were two things needed to become an adventurer.
One is an item that has a skill, and the other is a mana circle that creates the magical power to activate that skill.
Before the Mystic Gate appeared, items with skills were very rare.
So much so that adventurers below that level can’t even dream of it.
However, with the advent of the Mystic Gate, Maple World entered an era where items were abundant.
Naturally, those who opened only the mana circle could easily obtain items.
Actually, up to this point there were no problems.
The problem was that they were adventuring through the Mystic Gate using skills they were not proficient in.
Eat the magic stones that drop when you kill monsters to strengthen your mana circle and obtain items beyond the Mystic Gate.
Just for greed, for that.
‘In the end, most of them ended up as corpses because they couldn’t even run away properly.’
The outcome such adventurers encounter is obvious.
‘They did that too.’
The party that brought El Palm as a bait slave was the same.
So El Palm was now looking for those who had thrown themselves as bait and run away.
It wasn’t my intention to save them.
Frankly, El Palm hated those types of people, those who use slave bait, beyond just loathing them.
After three years of being a bait slave, El Palm felt with his whole body that they were a race that could not be compared.
Still, the reason for seeking them out was simple.
‘Recover the item.’
As I said before, they will have the items.
And that prediction came true.
‘There it is.’
El Palm, who discovered the corpse of a wizard wearing robes, already horribly mangled by mushrooms, was able to obtain it from the corpse.
‘It’s a walking stick.’
The first thing that caught my eye was the cane.
‘I definitely used Fire Arrow.’
Moreover, El Palm clearly remembered what skills were contained in this staff.
Because the scene where he threatened the bait slaves by showing them the fire arrow was not something that could be easily forgotten.
‘Not a bad skill.’
Among the 1st circle fire attribute magic skills, this was the most preferred magic.
The magical power consumption was not that much, and the power was strong. It was enough to pierce through the bodies of the orange mushrooms as if they were sheets of paper.
‘It’s at my level.’
Above all, there was only one black ring on El Palm’s left wrist.
1 circle, and it wasn’t just any circle. The thickness of the ring was as thin as a thread. As a 1 circle beginner, it was difficult to even use 1 circle magic properly in this state.
This was also the reason why adventurers went on adventures through the Mystic Gate.
The most reliable way to increase this mana circle was to eat the magic stones that drop from hunting monsters.
In the case of Circle Up, moving from Circle 1 to Circle 2, innate talent, enlightenment, and fate were necessary, but these were not important stories to El Palm.
‘I’ve used it many times.’
What’s important to El Palm is that he now has obtained magic skills appropriate to his level.
‘There’s something more.’
Of course, El Palm was not content with this.
It didn’t matter if it was unusable. The items were still expensive, even though they weren’t as good as before.
‘There is no time to rest.’
Thinking about the war with monsters that was about to begin again, El Palm was in a position where he didn’t have a single penny to spare.
Even now, monsters were no longer the only enemies for El Palm.
‘The followers of the Black Mage, they need to be taken care of now.’
El Palm knew.
Behind all the chaos in the world, there are followers of the Black Wizard.
Then, eventually, we will have to fight them too.
El Palm was digging through the corpse of the dead wizard adventurer. El Palm’s hands were like those of an expert.
No, actually El Palm was an expert.
After monsters appeared in the world, the thing El Palm did the most was to find useful items from the corpses of adventurers who were killed by monsters.
Because that was so natural in that era.
‘The simple things you can carry in your arms, the real ones are usually carried in your shoes.’
That’s why El Palm took off the wizard adventurer’s shoes and found them inside.
‘It’s a ring.’
The moment he discovered it, El Palm put the ring on his finger without hesitation and immediately infused it with magical power.
At that moment, El Palm was able to immediately identify the skill in the ring.
The staff in El Palm’s hand began to rise on its own.
Telekinesis.
It was a very good magic. There is no magic more versatile than telekinesis, the ability to move objects at will.
But it was a very unpopular magic.
The reason was simple.
First of all, there are only a handful of wizards who are born with the ability to use telekinesis.
It was at a level where only one in a hundred wizards would appear.
Another thing is that using telekinesis magic is much more difficult than using other magic.
When you say Fire Arrow, you summon a fire arrow, and when you throw that fire arrow, the magic moves as it is.
However, telekinesis was different. Even those with telekinesis magic skills often had difficulty simply levitating objects.
That was also why the dead wizard adventurer did not use this telekinesis skill item and kept it hidden.
Doo doo doo doo!
‘The orange mushrooms are coming.’
It’s a shame, but I didn’t dare to use it.
“Fire Arrow.”
Of course, El Palm had nothing to worry about.
‘I’m lucky that I got my hands on telekinesis magic so quickly.’
The greatest telekinesis, that was another title El Palm held.
fantasy,
