Chapter 24

Jun-sang felt a white light envelop his body as the battle ended. He had leveled up once more.

“Phew…” Jun-sang raised his head, closed his eyes, and savored the sensation of fatigue washing away with the level-up. Once the afterglow completely faded, he finally accepted his level-up reward: a random card.

Card Information

• Name: Strike
• Level: 1Lv
• Experience: 0
• Grade: Uncommon
• Category: Skill
• Growth: Early Maturity (Large)
• Attribute: None
• Effect: Gathers power for a powerful single blow. (3-stage charge, Cooldown: 10 seconds)
• Cost: 10
• Seed: 3 slots

“Hmm…” Gathering power for a blow… The description was quite sparse, so Jun-sang decided to test it out.

“Open Strike.” As the command flowed from Jun-sang’s lips, the Shoulder Charge card was unequipped, and Strike was equipped in its place. Once the card was equipped, Jun-sang immediately activated the skill.

“Whoosh…” As the Strike skill activated and began to gather power, Jun-sang felt the surrounding energy resonate with him. A low ringing sound seemed to fill his ears…

Clang! An image formed in Jun-sang’s mind: the gathered power settling into his body and solidifying into a single crystal. This was stage one. And then, the low ringing continued, followed by another clang. Stage one took about 1 second. Stage one to stage two took another 1 second. And the final stage three took 1 second. After about 3 seconds, his muscles tensed and trembled from the gathered power.

“Gah!” Feeling the sensation of all his bodily energy concentrating into a single point, Jun-sang realized it was time to unleash this gathered power.

“Haat!” With a shout, Jun-sang finally unleashed his fist. As his fist tore through the air and struck the rock, a powerful shockwave reverberated through the mine. And the massive rock, directly hit by that punch, was pulverized by the storm-like force.

“Huff… huff…” Jun-sang stood with his fist extended, breathing heavily for a moment. Regeneration had begun in his body to heal the overloaded stress, and shimmering heat rose from him. The power was immense, but the impact on his body when used at full charge was also significant. Jun-sang gasped, looking at the sight of a rock almost his size vanishing without a trace, and felt an unknown thrill.

But that was only for a moment. He realized that the shockwave just unleashed might have attracted the attention of the monsters. Jun-sang first sent the Crimson Wolf to the inner entrance to guard against approaching enemies, then quickly gathered his spoils. After collecting daggers and pickaxes, and the shimmering stones and gold pieces the monsters had carried, Jun-sang finally searched their heads but came up empty-handed again. He also examined the ore the monsters were mining, but for now, he had no way of identifying what kind of ore it was, so he left it.

Once all the spoils were collected, the Crimson Wolf, guarding the entrance, sent a warning signal. Jun-sang recalled the Crimson Wolf and Will-o’-the-Wisp, then hid behind the piled ore where the monster miners had been working. As he waited quietly, he saw six monsters cautiously entering the tunnel, covered in their usual wooden armor and shields. Six felt like a bit many for a single engagement, but it was manageable for the current Jun-sang.

-Klik! -Kick! Kiriyah! As the monsters entered the tunnel, they began to make a ruckus, seeing the carnage that had unfolded. Jun-sang seized the opportunity while their attention was on the corpses and moved towards the entrance they had come from. He then noticed one monster moving to alert its comrades and pounced on it.

“Open Shoulder Charge.” The moment the Strike card was unequipped from the card slot and the Shoulder Charge skill was equipped in its place, Jun-sang’s body shot forward, launching him towards the monster. The monster, which had been hurrying to alert its comrades about the carnage, was suddenly struck by Jun-sang’s shoulder from the side before it had a chance to react. It was pushed back by the powerful impact, crushed between the tunnel’s rock wall and Jun-sang, and died from asphyxiation.

Jun-sang quickly dispatched one monster, then spoke again. “Open Crimson Wolf, Open Will-o’-the-Wisp.” Once again, the monsters were like rats caught in a trap, just like before. They seemed confused for a moment, not understanding the situation, but then, realizing that Jun-sang was the one who had brought their comrades to this state, they roared in anger.

-Kyaaah! -Kiriyah! However, such threats held little meaning for Jun-sang. Jun-sang spoke again.

“Open Two-Hit Combo.” This time, Two-Hit Combo took its place in the card slot instead of the Shoulder Charge, which was on cooldown. While this card exchange occurred, Jun-sang charged towards the monster closest to him. As Jun-sang lunged at it, the monster instinctively thrust forward the dagger it was holding. But it wasn’t a proper attack, just a dagger extended for a feint, which meant little to Jun-sang. Jun-sang lightly brushed the hand holding the dagger aside and unleashed Two-Hit Combo on the monster.

As the two-hit combo instantly struck its left and right sides, the monster shrieked in terrible pain as its insides burst, collapsing and spitting blood. A subsequent soccer kick broke its neck, killing it instantly. The monsters flinched in shock as one of their comrades died instantly, spitting blood, without even knowing what had happened.

Suddenly, Jun-sang noticed one monster turning to flee. He had commanded the Will-o’-the-Wisp to seal the exit again, but realizing it hadn’t reached its position yet, Jun-sang picked up a chunk of ore rolling on the ground and hurled it at the fleeing monster. The ore tore through the air but missed the monster’s head. Instead… it grazed the monster’s head and shattered one of the mine props supporting the tunnel.

“Whoops.” Jun-sang was startled as the mine prop broke and a section of the tunnel collapsed with a rumble. But that absurd power was enough to send cold sweat down the monsters’ spines, and in that brief moment of hesitation, the Will-o’-the-Wisp was able to safely reach its position to seal the exit. Recalling how he had hit the wrong monster’s head earlier, Jun-sang thought he needed to practice throwing stones.

But that was for later. For now, it was about dispatching the monsters who were looking at him in a daze. As Jun-sang lunged again, the monsters finally snapped out of it and tried to resist, but it was far too late. Jun-sang quickly closed the distance and unleashed Two-Hit Combo again, its cooldown having ended. The monster tried to block with its shield, but it was impossible from the start to block Jun-sang’s fist with a shield made of thin wooden planks. As the shield and the arm inside it were shattered, the monster’s cheekbone collapsed from the ensuing punch before it could even scream, and it lost consciousness.

One monster shrieked desperately, thrusting its dagger at Jun-sang, but Jun-sang spun his body like a bullfighter, dodged the dagger, and then landed a powerful hook directly on its temple.

-Guh… With a gurgling sound, the monster collapsed from a single blow. The two remaining monsters, their faces pale, stabbed their daggers at Jun-sang. Their ability to counterattack even in a state of terror was on a different level from the other monsters he had seen so far, but unfortunately, they had the wrong opponent. As the daggers came thrusting from above and below, Jun-sang first retreated to avoid the attack, then countered as the monsters were retracting their daggers. Given the difference in arm and leg length to begin with, the monsters couldn’t dodge Jun-sang’s fists, which swung like whips, and each took a blow. As they staggered from the impact, a finishing blow landed, taking their lives.

“Phew…” Were six perhaps too many? Jun-sang took a deep breath, calming his ragged breathing, then recalled the Crimson Wolf and Will-o’-the-Wisp from the entrance and collected his spoils. Jun-sang gathered six daggers and some gold pieces, then checked the monsters’ heads, but again, no seeds appeared. The fact that only one seed had appeared despite defeating more than half of them subtly annoyed Jun-sang, but he comforted himself with the thought that there was more incidental income compared to zombies.

Jun-sang then moved further inside. However, this time, a new problem arose. The tunnel, which had been a one-way path so far, split into two.

“Hmm…” Choosing one of the two wasn’t the problem. The real problem was the possibility of monsters from the other path escaping the mine while Jun-sang went down one. After a moment’s thought, Jun-sang decided to leave the Crimson Wolf at this fork. Having made minimal preparations, Jun-sang took the Will-o’-the-Wisp and quickly went down the left tunnel. Then, a few monsters mining ore came into view.

Jun-sang immediately attacked, giving them no time to sense his presence. The first monster, who was examining a freshly mined ore, was grabbed by the scruff of its neck without understanding what was happening, had its face slammed hard against the rock wall, and died instantly. The second monster turned around only to be hit directly in the face and collapse.

Having quickly dispatched two monsters, Jun-sang used the noise from their pickaxe work to his advantage, eliminating the monsters one by one. Unlike before, there were no separate guards, so Jun-sang easily dispatched seven more monsters and obtained a pickaxe and a gold piece as spoils. And after searching the monsters’ heads again, he finally got his hands on a long-awaited seed.

Item Information

• Name: Mind Seed
• Level Restriction: 10
• Type: Seed
• Grade: Uncommon
• Effect: Magic Attack Power +3%
• Description: This seed increases the power when using attack magic.
• Can be equipped to items or cards with Seed slots to enhance their abilities.
• A special ability ‘Separate’ is required to detach an equipped seed.
• [Click here to equip this seed to an item or card.]

“…” A seed that increased attack power itself was certainly a rare item, but unfortunately, Jun-sang was far from using attack magic. It was, as they say, a “pie in the sky.” He put the seed into a separate pouch for now and went deeper inside. However, this tunnel ended not far from where the miners were.

Jun-sang quickly turned back and headed towards the fork where the Crimson Wolf was waiting. As he approached the fork, the Crimson Wolf was already engaged in battle with a group of monsters. The monsters were threatening the wolf with spears and shooting arrows, but the Crimson Wolf held its ground at the fork, not retreating a single step despite being hit by arrows.

“…” Jun-sang quickly ran, leaped over the wolf, and dropped down onto the monsters who were threatening it with spears.

Author’s Note Remaining monsters: 16