Chapter 143 – Investigation (7)
Bang-!!
Sssss
Unidentified blue energy collides with magic attacks of fire attribute from magicians.
The magic was strong enough to burn everything, but this time the opponent was taking it easy.
Class A monster, Ao Oni.
It is a monster that means a blue ghost in Chinese characters, but it was very difficult to deal with because it poured out powerful curses to its heart’s content and had a deep magic resistance.
Thanks to that, Akiba, who had been concentrating only on the search, was also firing support this time.
Self-
“Park Jinwoo! Careful!”
Once again, the ao oni move.
I hurriedly shouted at Park Jin-woo.
Thanks to the special effect of the [Sword of the Penitent], Hunting was still easy for me, but Park Jin-Woo’s position was quite dangerous as tanking was more burdensome than before.
He was surrounded and attacked by a large number of Ao Oni, and he was narrowly avoiding attacks that might strike at any moment.
It’s a shame that he has the best spiritual rune [Bright Landscape Index], Otherwise he might have been hit by Ao Oni’s curse and physical attack combo.
To my cry, Park Jin-woo responded with a lot of strength.
“Late! Chase!”
Park Jin-Woo’s body moved as if he was missing, avoiding Ao Oni’s attack.
Then, momentarily, he turned to one of the Ao Oni and attacked them with a sword.
A total of 17 cuts, so fast that it is hard to see with the naked eye.
It was a blow that made full use of his main rune, [Unstoppable Quicksword], And even used his ultimate skill, [Left Slash].
Skan-Kang-Kagaga-!!
Ss- sss….
One Ao Oni collapsed in that attack.
Park Jin-Woo’s [Rainbow Strike] Is also quite skillful now.
It doesn’t compare to when I first hit it.
It was much more sophisticated and skillful than before.
There was no way that an ordinary A-class monster could withstand such an intense ultimate skill.
“Sigh… !!”
I didn’t even have time to admire this, and quickly joined the guy’s battle.
To protect Park Jin-woo, who became defenseless after casting the ultimate skill, and to defeat the few remaining Ao Oni.
Fortunately, it wasn’t difficult to finish them off, as the monsters were already exhausted by our party’s firepower.
“Hey. What if I already use my ultimate skill?”
After such a fierce battle.
After holding his breath for a while, he reprimanded Park Jin-woo.
“Then it looks like you’re going to die from being beaten, but don’t you use it?”
“Who dies? I just dodge it.”
“You foolish bastard. You are easy to fight, right?”
Having said that, it wasn’t actually a bad choice.
Anyway, the search for this dungeon ends here.
We don’t go to the boss room.
The boss room of the ‘Shady Ghost Lair’ is composed of a room, and because of this, anyone can notice when an unlicensed warp gate is created.
Therefore, we already knew that going to the boss room was a waste of money.
Besides, Ao Oni is one of the trickiest monsters we’ve ever faced.
If you save your strength and get hurt in the first place, it could be a big loss, so Park Jin-woo made the best decision and poured out all his strength.
Certainly, when it came to battles and duels, Park Jin-Woo had an overwhelmingly faster brain rotation.
“Chairman. What are you going to do now?”
Yoon Ji-ah, who was behind us, approached us and asked.
The look of her sweating profusely.
This battle showed that it was quite hard for the rear support personnel.
“This is the end of the middle part, and I won’t go to the boss room… We have to wait for the 5 hunting teams here.”
After answering that, I looked at Akiba.
“Mr. Akiba. Are the results still the same?”
Akiba nodded with a dark expression.
“Yes, Jaehyun. Apparently, smuggling did not take place in the shady yōkai lair. Sorry.”
“A. Akiba-san, what are you sorry about? We’re all here to investigate.”
I never thought I’d be able to find it right away.
I turned my gaze to the fork on the right.
The road that Kwon Oh-joon’s 5 hunting teams were in charge of.
It seemed that they hadn’t finished hunting and searching yet.
“Then wait a bit, and if the A team is too late, we take the right fork. Because I don’t have much time.”
“All right.”
Everyone nodded at my words.
In my mind, I wanted to start right away, but the battle up until now had been so fierce.
Tired team members also needed some rest.
I also sat on the floor for a while and had maintenance time.
[You won the duel! Victory is credited due to the high contribution in the duel. Rune Hunter’s arcane power allows him to duplicate one of his opponent’s runes. Please select a rune to duplicate.]
[You have selected ‘The Devil’s Curse’. Because it is a level 6 epic rune, the level will drop and be registered as level 3.]
[You have obtained a new rune.]
[Acquires 5 divinity and 3 spirit with the rune’s inclination.]
There were quite a lot of rune rewards obtained from the ‘shady monster’s lair’.
The monsters I hunted this time were different from the monsters I had previously fought, so the obtainable runes did not overlap.
A total of 3 counts.
The runes are [Contaminated Body], [Cry of the Soul], And [Demon’s Curse].
What’s interesting is that they all have something to do with ‘divine’.
The first rune was a rare secondary rune focused on endurance and divinity, and the second was a normal secondary rune focused on spirit and divinity.
‘Is the curse counted as some kind of divine ability?’
Considering the [Simple Curse] Assist I got after defeating the hobgoblin shaman in the past, the curse certainly seemed to be an ability related to divinity.
〈HOLDER INFO 〉
◎Name: Jaehyun Do
◎Gender: Male (20)
◎Ability
[Muscle: 50] [Magic power: 45]
[Speed: 51] [Divinity: 31]
[Duration: 40] [Spirit: 40]
◎ Resistance ability
-Property
[Water: 10] [Fire: 8] [Lightning: 8] [Ground: 6] [Wind: 5]
-Special
[Poison: 11]
…
…
Thanks to that, my divinity level hit the bottom at 31.
The stagnant mental level was hitting 40.
At first, the values were biased around the main stats (strength, speed, durability), so the other stats were infinitely low, but now it seems to be well-balanced.
Even the magic power level increased in importance and surpassed the durability level.
[Seeker’s Sweat Drops] Random stat increase due to special effect.
And it was the result obtained through [Rune Hunter].
I nodded my head in satisfaction at the 〈 holder information 〉 that I lightly recalled, and checked the newly obtained rune information.
〈 Rune Info〉
◎Name: Demon’s Curse
◎Rating: Epic
◎Level: 3
◎Engraved part: left palm
◎Special effects
: You can freely deal with high-level curses, and you can exert more power in proportion to the rune level and divinity level. All curses recorded in the official spell book can be used.
: A person with a vicious and intense curse rather becomes more resistant to the curses of others. Once per day, you can block one curse with resistance twice your sanity. This effect is automatically applied at all times.
: Divinity +5 Spirit +3
◎ Derivation skill
[Destroy the barrier]
◎Details
: The curse of the demons who worship Ahriman. When the direction of deep piety is displaced, it sometimes transforms into an intolerable curse.
‘Wow….’
A regular A-class monster, not a boss-class monster.
Among the runes obtained from them, a fairly good rune was selected.
Although there are a lot of restrictions attached to it, it seems that they have acquired almost the highest level of runes among the runes that are divided into mental or shamanic classes.
The number of assisted abilities was quite high, and the special effects were all attractive.
‘Now I’ll be able to properly use the incantation.’
[Cursed Incantation].
Epic-level item obtained during the first raid on the ‘Hobgoblin Village’ the other day.
The true value of this item is that it becomes a teacher for the use of runes related to witchcraft.
Various curses that could not be found in libraries or general libraries were written on it, and anyone with a related rune could freely use them.
In the meantime, I’ve been using it well with the [Simple Curse] Rune, but now that I get the [Demon’s Curse] Rune, I thought I’d be able to use high-level curses that I hadn’t touched before.
‘The curse resistance is fine.’
Second special effect.
Even if it’s once a day, it automatically blocks one curse with resistance twice your sanity.
This is a pretty unconventional effect.
No matter what kind of mental attack you will receive in future hunting or raiding, one will inevitably be able to prevent it.
It was a kind of curse-only safety device.
‘The barrier is destroyed… I wonder if there’s a place to use it.’
Derivation skill was a bit ambiguous.
A skill that allows you to destroy barriers made up of magic over time.
It probably won’t be effective right away, and it seemed that it would be effective when entering a special dungeon where barriers were often used.
“Huh~ As expected, I was right. You said you’d be there first, right?”
I was in the process of doing the maintenance.
A familiar voice came from the other side.
Team A joined after searching for the right fork.
They were members of the 5th hunting team.
“… Chief, is this correct? How are they faster than us?”
“Hmm. There’s one more dealer, over there.”
Kwon Oh-joon is making excuses with an embarrassing face.
I got up and went to him.
“Chief Kwon, did something come out?”
But as expected.
Kwon Oh-jun shook his head heavily.
“None. I guess this is bullshit.”
“That’s too bad.”
“I can’t help it. How are you going to go somewhere else?”
Kwon Oh-joon asked me casually.
The general command of this operation rests with me.
It was a question that reminded me of this again.
“No. I think it will be difficult because it is too late today. Instead… “
I looked around at my teammates for a while and continued talking.
“Starting tomorrow, we will further subdivide our team members, divide them into teams, and investigate.”
“Are you sharing?”
“Yes.”
A total of 11 suspicious points of unlicensed warp gates.
Among them, the ‘shady monster’s lair’ was the most difficult dungeon of medium to high level.
It is a fact that can be easily seen from the fact that there are B-class monsters like Red Cyclops from the beginning, and A-class monsters like Ao Oni appear at the end of the middle.
But that’s because we took the high difficulty from the start, and not every doubt point was dangerous.
4 of the remaining 10 are the same difficulty as this dungeon.
The other 6 were relatively weak dungeons or fields.
“Team A will go as it is, and Team B will be divided again. Jooyeon Kang and I are Team B, and the rest of the members are Team C.”
“What? Would you mind doing that? No matter how good the lady and you fight….”
Even Kwon Oh-joon, who had infinite trust, showed a surprised look this time.
To conduct an investigation with a party of just two people?
Even though we had been proving our skills, it was something that was ahead of our worries.
To this I answered honestly.
“Yes. Since my weapon is a divine weapon, it works well against monsters and cursed monsters. Hunting today was much easier because of that. I think Team B should conduct an investigation focusing on the spots where such monsters appear.”
“Hmm, but….”
Kwon Oh-joon seemed to be thinking for a while.
After coming to Japan this time, the first conflict of opinions.
But it was an understandable concern.
It is said that Kwon Oh-joon gave me the overall command, but I can’t easily agree with the fact that the party is subdivided like this.
〈 Judgment of Fire 〉 As the leader of my dispatch team, he was not only participating in the operation, but also carrying out the mission of escorting our circle.
In particular, Jooyeon Kang is the daughter and heir of the clan master.
One of the key figures for the dispatch team’s first priority protection.
It was a problem that was difficult for her to understand that she would separate her for the smooth operation of her operation.
However….
“… It’s okay.”
“Yes?”
At the sudden interruption of the voice, I and Kwon Oh-joon were taken aback.
The person who made us worry.
It was Kang Joo-yeon’s comment.
“Me too, Do Jae-hyun too… I’m not weak enough to be escorted. The speed of investigation will be fast, and it will cope well with variables. So, you can do it according to the plan.”
She spoke calmly as usual…
But he spoke to us in a more determined voice than anyone else.
“I do it according to the plan.”
That was the end of the situation.
When I went back to Korea, I couldn’t go against the words of the de facto highest authority.
It wasn’t that I was being forced, so it was hard to refute anything more.
“…….”
To that neat conclusion.
Kwon Oh-joon and I were scratching our heads for a moment…
They looked at each other and nodded their heads without speaking.