NOVEL WEB Chapter 17: Skill Plunder (1)
Thud!
“Kururuk!”
“If you can follow me, try to.”
After that, Kang-hoo moved quickly through the dungeon, aiming to wound the Claw Lizards.
He avoided targeting their vital points.
Upon encountering them, he would swiftly strike a moderate wound and then retreat.
The highly aggressive monsters followed him furiously, their eyes ablaze with rage, at the slightest provocation.
Experience points from dungeon monsters were calculated based on two main criteria.
The first was contribution.
It considered the proportion of damage each hunter had inflicted on the monster.Healers and buffers received a different coefficient.
For example, the amount of buff applied to the hunter who dealt the killing blow and the resulting increased damage were included in the calculation.
The second criterion was the presence of damage.
Aside from healers and buffers, other classes needed a record of dealing damage to the monster.
Without it, even if they participated in the kill, they wouldn’t receive any experience points.
What Kang-hoo was doing aimed to meet the second criterion.
A record of damage would ensure full experience points later on.
“They are following me madly.”
Kang-hoo deliberately allowed his palm to bleed more.
The Claw Lizards chased after him, flaring their nostrils and following the trail of blood.
Their numbers had grown to nearly fifty.
An unusually large group.
Dangerously large, in fact.
If Kang-hoo stopped even for a second, he would be instantly surrounded and torn apart.
He avoided this by moving along the ‘mana waypoints’ he had set earlier.
These were markers he had placed before drawing the Claw Lizards out.
Trails of mana left behind.
Invisible, but detectable through mana tracking.
Thanks to his earlier preparations, he was able to continue leading them to the desired location without pausing.
Whooooo!
The sandstorm grew fiercer.
Kang-hoo navigated not by sight but by relying entirely on the mana waypoints.
Claw Lizard.
Experts at hit-and-run tactics, they were tricky to kill in straightforward combat. But the rewards were good.
So, if he could wipe them out in one go when the opportunity arose, it would be a jackpot in terms of experience points.
Tadadadat!
Kang-hoo started picking up speed.
It was time. He hadn’t come here to play hide-and-seek with the monsters.
He ran, and ran, and then he ran some more.
As Kang-hoo’s speed increased, the lizards, their senses dulled by the smell of blood, also raced forward.
How long had he been running?
The moment Kang-hoo felt the absence of mana waypoints, he stopped!
Rolling…
Something Kang-hoo had stepped on rolled down.
Turning around, he noticed a different emptiness beneath his heels than before.
A cliff.
It was the edge of the canyon he had been eyeing all along, the end of the path with nowhere else to go.
Dududada!
The sandstorm obscured the view, making the existence of the cliff unknowable to anyone.
The Claw Lizards grew more aggressive, lunging toward Kang-hoo, who had stopped.
They were determined to scratch Kang-hoo and feed on his blood and flesh.
Kang-hoo stood his ground.
Just as the leading lizard’s front paw was about to reach him, about 50 cm away from his body.
Swoosh!
He crouched low and used his leap skill.
His body slid over the dry ground like skating, swiftly leaving the scene.
Whish!
Simultaneously, he targeted the lizard’s silhouette for a sideways movement.
Then another leap, followed by more lateral movement.
With repeated use of his skills, Kang-hoo quickly moved away from the cliff.
It was a close call, but that made the evasion all the more perfect.
The lizards, lost in the sandstorm, couldn’t find Kang-hoo in the end.
That was when the problem started.
“Woah! Aah!”
“Kwak!”
The Claw Lizards that managed to stop just in time at the cliff’s edge were overwhelmed by the others coming from behind.
It resembled a pile-up crash on a foggy highway.
“Kuaaaa…!”
A catastrophe unfolded.
Of course, it was a disaster for the Claw Lizards, but for Kang-hoo, it was a stroke of good luck.
He dealt with all the Claw Lizards without using any skills and earned experience points.
Like rain falling from the sky, the lizards helplessly plummeted to the ground from the cliff.
Given the height, there was no chance for them to miraculously survive.
In the meantime,
Pwook! Pwoook!
Kang-hoo diligently dispatched a few lizards that narrowly escaped the tragic fall.
Distracted by the screams of their kin, they perished without making a sound.
[Your level has significantly increased to 27.]
His level had climbed from 22 before capturing Iceman, to an impressive 27 after several increases.
[The Constellation ‘Master of Mobile Warfare’ is astounded by your baiting strategy and can't stop applauding.]
[A small amount of divine power is used to grant you a slight buff.]
[Experience Increase +0.2%]
The pleasure of leveling up was complemented by the gratifying support of the Constellation. An experience increase buff is always welcome.
[Impressive. Very good.]
The compliment from the Dimension Plunderer added to his joy.
That wasn’t all.
Just before falling into the abyss, one of the lizards Kang-hoo killed dropped a magic stone.
A rare loot from ordinary monsters, it seemed to mock the low odds.
“A blue magic stone. Ten million won. That’s two stalks of Solarkium.”
Kang-hoo picked up the blue magic stone from the lizard’s corpse.
In the ranking system of magic stones, which is categorized by rainbow colors, it’s the fifth level. Yet, its value was considerable.
This was why Eclipse exploited hunters to mine magic stones.
Dungeons are about probability, but mines are a certainty. The difference is as vast as heaven and earth.
Whoosh…
Soon, as if on cue, the sandstorm subsided.
It seemed more like a natural progression than something orchestrated for Kang-hoo.
Conversely, if one were to think about it…
If Kang-hoo had hesitated even a moment longer in the final moments, his baiting strategy might have failed, endangering him.
“It’s a pity I can’t use this strategy often,” he lamented.
Kang-hoo licked his lips in regret.
The monsters’ aggressiveness, the dungeon environment, and the timing all had to align perfectly.
It seemed unlikely that he could replicate this success in the same dungeon again.
Yet, the achievement was significant.
He had earned experience points in one go that other hunters might take days, or even weeks, to accumulate.
If experience points were food, he would have eaten so much that he could have burst.
Meanwhile, Cha So-hee continued to investigate traces and records related to Kang-hoo.
She briefly frowned at the sight of Lee Taek-geun’s ashes, perhaps too emotional.
But having ‘killed’ him already, she moved on coolly, leaving no room for sentiment.
Further investigation seemed to confirm that Kang-hoo was indeed level 10.
Cha So-hee called Kang Dong-hyun.
As soon as the call connected, she got straight to the point.
“Please send a new deputy.”
“You know, I’ve told you several times to control that temper of yours. Be careful, will you?”
Kang Dong-hyun’s reaction wasn’t particularly surprised.
Frequent occurrences like these, and cleaning up such messes, were commonplace for them.
Neither of them thought it was a big deal and didn’t dwell on it.
“I’m sorry. But the situation was nonsensical, and I got so frustrated that I lashed out.”
“I’ll send a replacement right away. Make sure to encourage them and stabilize the situation. Understood?”
“Yes, sorry. In any case, I’ll continue to investigate Shin Kang-hoo more thoroughly.”
After ending the call, Cha So-hee examined the site where Kang-hoo’s last victim, the ‘Tracker’, had fallen.
The Tracker was a kind of human weapon being developed by Eclipse.
Completely drug-dependent, the Tracker’s body and mind were practically inert outside of combat.
Selected and engineered for their fighting prowess, Trackers were hunters, elevated to level 90 or above.
Yet, this Tracker was instantly killed by Kang-hoo without a chance to resist.
“The mana bait was good. A brilliant tactical decision, and it worked well. But…”
Cha So-hee was bothered by how the scene had played out, contrary to conventional wisdom.
No way could an assassin class, with just ordinary leaps and sidesteps, have deceived the Tracker’s eyes.
A human weapon cultivated by the organization itself wouldn’t be fooled by simple tricks.
“There’s only one possibility.”
The only scenario Cha So-hee could confirm through numerous simulations was one.
It was where Kang-hoo used ‘leap’ and ‘side move’ skills, both at maximum proficiency.
Only then could he have escaped the Tracker’s sight and made a surprise attack from below the jaw.
The problem was,
“How can I believe that a level 10 hunter performed such an impossible ‘miracle’?”
That was the crux of the matter.
Even giving it the benefit of the doubt,
The gap between Kang-hoo’s publicly known information and his actual abilities was too vast to make any causal connection.
Cha So-hee, an investigator with a 100% success rate who had never failed to reach a clear conclusion, was now facing a blemish on her record due to Kang-hoo.
It seemed she needed to do more than just follow Kang-hoo’s trail; it was time to find him directly.
“Looks like I’ve secured at least two or three Solarkiums. I expected it, but I didn’t think it would turn out this perfectly.”
At that time, Kang-hoo encountered another middle boss while heading toward the location of the main boss.
Not one, but three of them.
Like the Ice Man and Fire Man series he had faced earlier, these were a kind of sibling-themed middle bosses.
Their name was Defender.
All three looked identical and were humanoid.
Imagine rugby players around 2 meters tall.
Each specialized in a skill unique to them.
Specifically, defensive techniques.
‘Shield’ would also be an appropriate term.
Each of the three, however, specialized in slightly different areas.