“The position is just right, but how’s the battlefield?”
Even though we were several dozen meters away, Yeon-hee was easy to spot.
Our party had moved quite a bit forward from our starting position.
It’s an unspoken rule to hold your position when the raid begins, but as time passes, it gets all muddled up like now.
Naturally, it was expected that our relatively powerful party would step forward. Still, we were still a little far from the Lizardman Champion.
“It’s almost over, but I see people pushing themselves even more.”
Greed is something for the strong, after all.
Thud—
“Ahhh! Help me! Quickly, save me—”
Pwoooosh—
Kooroorok—
A hunter in front, swinging their shield to hit the Champion’s thick leg, found themselves stuck in its slimy flipper and was buried in the swamp.
Once you’re caught like that and dragged into the swamp, unless you have a special ability, it’s really hard to survive alone.
Yeon-hee, who had been frowning, finally squeezed her eyes shut. It seems she’s still struggling to stay calm when witnessing death. Personally, I hope that such scenes will continue to be something she finds hard to watch.
“I’ve been down here for about 15 minutes, and the progress is surprisingly quick.”
This Lizardman is on a whole different level than the Ent Champion; the average clear time is around 30 minutes.
You need a majority of hunters with constant small attacks to hinder health recovery, along with some with significant destructive skills to take it down smoothly.
“Spear of Freezing!”
And we had one temporary hunter in our party with such skills.
I could see Noh Ha-yoon, who was trying out a skill on me.
The skill name sounds lame, but with that one technique, she climbed to the ranks of the strongest in the future.
Since it wasn’t the right time to use her Ice Sword in close combat, she was now focusing on the ranged skill, Spear of Freezing.
Swoosh—
The ice spear flew at a speed barely trackable by the eye, hitting the left arm of the Champion, who had just sent a hunter to the afterlife.
Crash—
Chuak?!
Crash—Crash!
With repeated hits from the spear on the arm, the freezing effect spread, causing the Champion to struggle to manage its left arm.
“Attack the left arm!”
The faster hunters around were already focusing their strikes on the frozen left arm.
Crash—Boom!
Ultimately, the Champion’s left arm burst below the elbow, painting the swamp red with its blood.
The Lizardmen summoned alongside the Champion tried desperately to block the attacks aimed at their leader.
“Churrak!”
The Lizardmen were hanging on to the hunters with all their might.
But their numbers were already thinning, and crucially, Yeon-hee’s Lizard Squad, adeptly navigating the swamp, bypassed their interruptions and had already grasped the Champion’s leg.
Shake-shake—
“Rraaaah!!”
The Champion shook off his leg, trying to throw off the hindrance from the Lizard Squad, but he was considerably weakened after over ten minutes of battle.
Stagger—
In the end, the Champion started to fall over, swaying outward from the swamp.
“Kuuhng!”
“We did it! Damn it!”
“Stick to the order! Our guild gets the first pick!!”
“Order my ass!!”
It’s already proven that landing the finishing blow grants a positive bonus toward contribution, so it’s understandable that hunters were rushing in like a pack of wolves to claim the final hit.
But despite the chaos, I was in a surprisingly good mood.
“It’s great to glide after a long time.”
With my gliding cloak on, I jumped from the hill and, in stealth mode, was flying directly above the Champion’s head, ready to drop at just the right moment.
Whoosh—
Whoa—
Seeing the Champion on the ground staring at me as I fell, I noticed one of its eyes was completely missing, and its huge body was covered in numerous injuries, with blood oozing from everywhere.
Smash—
Somehow, its instincts were still intact, as it opened its mouth full of vicious teeth, all tightly packed together.
“I’m probably not tasty. Do you like it spicy?”
Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, whir—
I threw five Skeleton Bombs right into its mouth and activated the cloak effect again, halting my fall.
Boom—
Churrup—Kaboom!
Thanks to the Champion gulping down all the bombs,
“Guehh?!”
Kaboom—Kaboom—!
The upper half of its body exploded into pieces.
“Ahhh!! What the hell?!”
“Is there a villain?! Is it a villain?!”
“What kind of destructive power is that? Who just crushed that monster’s head in one blow?”
“Who the hell is doing this when it’s clearly my turn?! Have you lost it?! Who are you?!”
“It’s me, you idiot.”
Considering it was blown up from the inside, the explosive power of the bombs made from Lizardman bones was indeed impressive.
“You have defeated the Lizardman Champion!”
“You have gained a large amount of experience points.”
“Your level has increased!”
“Your level has increased!”
“You have acquired an Intermediate Mana Stone…”
“You have acquired a Low-Rank Rune…”
Among the dizzying notifications, what stood out was the fact that I didn’t collect the Intermediate Rune. This means someone has a higher contribution than me.
“Of course, I can’t eat the best loot just because I got the last hit.”
While the other hunters were still reeling from the explosion that obliterated the hefty Champion’s upper body, I landed in stealth mode and began to search through the Champion’s remains.
“Rune, rune, ah here it is.”
I spotted five runes glowing from the corpse. Out of those, two were Intermediate Runes and one was clearly a Low-Rank Rune that belonged to me. The two Intermediate Runes I clenched in my hand were swaying in one direction.
“You are not the owner of the rune.”
Once a rune is acquired based on contribution, it only functions and can be transferred once it is bound to the owner. Someone else holding it is useless.
So even if I became the rune’s owner, I couldn’t be too excited. There were plenty of vultures lurking around, waiting for the moment to snatch it.
“Have I been through that shit for a day or two?”
I could recall dozens of filthy memories flashing through my mind.
“I’ll quietly take what’s mine, and you all can fight over the rest.”
At first glance, it might seem illogical to aim for the stronger ones with the highest contribution.
But someone who has done their best to raise their contribution might be drained, and there might also be those who hide their strength, waiting for someone else to scoop up the rune.
Yet, I can’t just wait for the trash to take their leave without grabbing the rune myself. At night, mana density in the dungeon increases, and the benefits from that go more to the monsters that have lived here than to the hunters.
This is also why we always return to the exit around lunchtime.
“Damn it, how many hours have I invested? Those damn idiots!”
“Looks like it’s about to get messy.”
Whenever there are too many people, a tiring situation is bound to unfold. Just like the person in front, boiling over in frustration, eagerly searching for any phony justification because they think they have priority.
I put the Low-Rank Rune I got from the last hit into my inventory for now and casually made my way through the crowd to Yeon-hee.
“The longer I keep my stealth, the better.”
Whoosh—
I tossed a bomb at the empty space behind the Lizardman, and everyone’s attention was drawn to that direction.
Swoosh—
At that moment, I dropped my [Stealth] and carefully made my way over to my party members.
“Hey? Here they come!”
“Where have you been, Skeleton?”
Helen and Jin-kyeong welcomed me first, and soon after, Yeon-hee waved at me.
“Il-wol, over here, here…”
Yeon-hee’s small hand waving shyly looked adorable. Noh Ha-yoon, standing beside her looking a bit awkward, was cute too.
“Hm?”
“Uh… ahem—”
The moment our eyes met, Ha-yoon quickly turned her gaze away.
“Oh, this? She’s quick on the uptake.”
I knew she had already seen the stones in my hand.
Phew—
As I opened my hand, the two runes floated up, moving toward Yeon-hee and Ha-yoon.
“Of course, a true master doesn’t blame their surroundings.”
Even at the back, starting the fight, the top two in contribution were indeed those two.
“Whoa! You brought runes? That’s so great!”
“Shhhh—Hurry, Jin-kyeong, quiet down! Anyway, we’re done here, right? Let’s move quickly; the atmosphere is unnerving.”
Although Helen is still E-rank, her age seems to make her perceptive in various ways. It feels better for my mental health to be with a hunter like Helen than with a powerfully strong but dim-witted one.
Yeon-hee fidgeted with the rune I had given her before placing it back in my hand.
“Rune of Giants (Intermediate)”
– Strength +17
“Not bad.”
The maximum for Intermediate Runes is 20, so 17 is a very satisfying result.
Without hesitation, I added the rune to my inventory and did a little happy dance.
“Heehee—Is it good? I’m happy too—”
Noticing my joyous mood, her expression brightened significantly as well.
“I need to give the Rune of Magic to Yeon-hee, but I need to reach D-rank to get that dungeon first, hmm…”
I suddenly recalled ‘Nargul’s Dungeon,’ which would be the next target.
“It seems like I’ll reach my goal faster than expected. I thought it might take until April… but now it’s going so smoothly, it’s making me tense.”
While I was lost in thought, a warm light wrapped around our party.
Everyone, excluding Noh Ha-yoon, was reveling in the joy of leveling up.
Support me by donating at least $10, and you'll have the right to request any novel from Novelpia (excluding 19+ content) using a newly developed tool.
