Leveling Up Alone

Clench…

Han-Yeol clenched his fist.

‘The only way to heal father’s illness is to grow stronger. Am I right, Karvis?’ Han-Yeol asked his Ego System mentally.

[You are correct.]

The Ego System, Karvis, had made an appearance after quite a long absence.

‘I wish you came with an instruction manual,’ Han-Yeol complained to Karvis.

[I am ashamed to say that I cannot help in that matter.]

‘That’s a shame,’ Han-Yeol thought.

He had initially thought when he first met Karvis that the Ego System would play a huge role in his life as a Hunter. However, the game-like system he had awakened with was quite strong and simple to use, so there were not many instances when Karvis had to step in and assist him.

Of course, Karvis was an extremely smart system, and Han-Yeol had been able to gain some knowledge from Karvis, but it was not to the point that the Ego System could solve problems for him. That was how he had ended up talking less to the Ego System, and thus only spoke to Karvis a few times when he was alone, such as at the present.

‘Well, I guess there might be a day when I’ll be able to fully utilize you,’ Han-Yeol thought.

[…]

Karvis did not provide any response.

***

Puk!

“Kuek!” An Orc shrieked as it kicked in the abdomen, falling backward.

Ding!

[The rank of ‘Martial Arts’ has risen from (F) to (E).]

The rank of the last skill Han-Yeol had obtained, ‘Martial Arts’, was quite low. Thus, it ranked up very quickly compared to his other skills. His physical attacks were no longer just punches and kicks thrown by an average Hunter; rather, they dealt quite a lot of damage due to that skill.

Additionally, the ‘Martial Arts’ skill was quite useful, as Han-Yeol was quite adept at mixed martial arts after having trained from an early age. In truth, it was not on par with flashy swordsmanship or swinging chains as if they were an extension of his limbs, but it did still allow him to know how to properly throw punches and kicks.

There was one other thing he had gained while hunting the Orcs, however.

Whoosh!

An Orc ferociously swung its glaive, but Han-Yeol easily managed to avoid it by sidestepping and twisting his body. Then, he swung his sword using the momentum to add more force to his swing.

Sukeok!

Han-Yeol swung his sword in an instant, and cleanly severed the Orc’s head from its body. He thought, ‘Ah, I’m kinda getting used to using a sword.’

He had initially purchased and begun using a sword because he needed a melee weapon, but at the time, he had never had any experience holding anything that resembled a sword other than the knives he used to cook. However, he was slowly growing more proficient in using a sword due to his continuous, stubborn use of it during his hunts.

Ding!

[The rank of ‘Sword Mastery’ has risen from (C) to (B).]

His ‘Sword Mastery’ was now at an astounding B-Rank. Even though he had no skill in swordsmanship, the system seemed to have given him merit for swinging his sword repetitively, ranking up his skill extremely quickly.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Han-Yeol freely swung his sword in different directions as if it were an extension of his arm, due to his skill. Then, he suddenly threw his sword behind him, infusing his mana into it. ‘Power Strike.’

Perhaps because he had gotten used to throwing his sword instead of swinging it back when he was still inexperienced with it, he had developed a strange habit of throwing his sword and using ‘Power Strike’.

Claaaang!

“Kieeeek!”

Han-Yeol’s sword, which was infused with the C-Rank ‘Power Strike’, smacked an Orc that had been intending to ambush him from behind. Then, he quickly ran at the Orc while it was disoriented from being smacked by his sword and threw a high kick at its head.

Puk!

“Kuek!” The Orc let out a groan, falling to its knees after being hit by Han-Yeol’s kick in the head.

Han-Yeol did not skip a beat, quickly drawing his revolver and aiming it at the Orc’s head before pulling the trigger.

Bang!

Thud…!

The Orc, a monster that was well known for its vitality and toughness, fell lifelessly to the ground as the bullet pierced through its skull and pulverized its brain. It lay motionless, dead in a pool of its own blue blood.

Ding!

[Your level has risen.]

Han-Yeol had easily taken care of five Orcs once again, but he did not feel particularly happy about it. He thought in frustration, ‘Damn it… Was there really just one Mutant Orc?’

His dissatisfaction was because he had been unable to see even the shadow of one of the Mutant Orcs he so desperately sought for.

Meanwhile, Sung-Beom and Ah-Ri, who usually got busy once Han-Yeol finished hunting monsters, busily moved around and skillfully dismembered the Orcs, extracting their mana stones.

‘Should I give up on the Mutant Orc…?’ Han-Yeol wondered. It was likely that no other Mutant Orcs existed, as he had failed to find one even after leaving no stone in his path unturned.

‘Should I focus on mass hunting the Orcs and power leveling instead of looking for Mutant Orcs…?’ he wondered.

Han-Yeol had hunted the Orcs carefully just in case a Mutant Orc appeared, but he had been unable to focus on going all out. Now that he was certain that there were no more Mutant Orcs, he no longer had a reason to hold back.

‘I guess I have no choice…’ he thought.

Han-Yeol climbed up to the roof of a commercial building and activated ‘Mana Eyes’. The skill had already reached D-Rank, as he had used it over and over again without reservation ever since arriving to hunt the Orcs. Due to that, its range had expanded greatly.

‘Let’s see… Where are the Orcs gathered?’ he thought as he observed the landscape in front of him.

The time had come for him to look for large clusters of Orcs instead of small groups. However, what came into view instead of a large cluster of Orcs was something strange.

‘What’s that lump of mana?’ he wondered, observing the strange phenomenon he had found. He was certain that he could not recall seeing anything of the sort when he had observed the area with his regular eyesight.

Han-Yeol disabled ‘Mana Eyes’ and took out his binoculars to get a closer look at the physical form of the lump of mana. However, he saw nothing. He thought in surprise, ‘Hmm? There’s nothing there?’

‘What’s going on…?’ he wondered.

He lowered his binoculars and infused mana into his eyes again. Once again, the spot that had appeared empty in his normal vision was overflowing with an abundance of mana. Han-Yeol instinctively thought that there had to be something hiding underneath all of that mana. He would not be able to provide a reasonable answer if he were asked why he had come to such a conclusion, but his instincts kept telling him that there was something over there.

‘Let’s go and take a closer look,’ he thought, making up his mind to investigate the strange phenomenon.

“Is the work still going to take a while?” Han-Yeol asked his Porters.

“No, we just finished everything, Hunter-nim,” Sung-Beom replied.

“Then I’ll head out first,” Han-Yeol said.

“Yes, we will be right there with you!” Sung-Beom replied enthusiastically.

Tak!

After he finished talking to Sung-Beom, Han-Yeol used ‘Jumping’ to move around, leaping from one building to another. He had initially intended to use ‘Jumping’ as an evasive skill, but it had eventually turned into a useful mobility skill that allowed him to travel from building to building quickly to save time. Thus, ‘Jumping’ had quickly reached C-Rank after he used it over and over again to get around.

It did not take long for Han-Yeol to arrive at the spot where the strange phenomenon was occurring, as it was not far away from where he had been. He thought, ‘It looks just like a normal place on the surface.’

The place was an old, abandoned factory, with a padlocked chain wrapped around its gates. Han-Yeol thought as he observed the tightly shut gates, ‘It seems nobody has been here for a long time…’

The chain locking the gates would not be there if someone had already entered the place. Judging by the fact that they were still present, not a single Hunter had entered the abandoned factory for the past thirty years.

‘This is making me pretty nervous…’ Han-Yeol thought.

Any person who had wanderlust or loved mysteries would be thrilled by the words ‘a place where no one has been’.

Clank!

Han-Yeol smashed the padlock that was holding the chains together tightly with his sword. The rusty old padlock could not withstand the blunt force from a sword coated with mana stones, made by a crafting-class Hunter.

Creaaak…

Han-Yeol gave the old gates a push, and they moved with a loud creak. At long last, the entrance that hid the secrets of the old abandoned factory no one had visited in a long time had been opened.

Vroom…!

The familiar sound of a truck’s engine, coming from the vehicle Sung-Beom and Ah-Ri were on, filled the air shortly after Han-Yeol entered the gateway.

Woooong…

‘Is it really just an old abandoned factory?’ Han-Yeol wondered while looking around the place.

He infused mana into his eyes and looked around with ‘Mana Eyes’, but he did not really find anything out of the ordinary aside from the lump of mana he had seen previously. He clicked his tongue and grumbled inwardly, ‘Tsk… I just wasted my time.’

He was about to turn around and leave the abandoned factory after confirming that there was nothing special about the place using ‘Mana Eyes’.

At the very moment he was about to leave, however…

Rumble… Rumble…!

‘Earthquake?’ Han-Yeol thought in surprise. The floor had suddenly begun shaking, and it did not seem to be a natural phenomenon at all.

‘It’s not an earthquake…! Mana Eyes!’ Han-Yeol thought, instinctively activating ‘Mana Eyes’ and looking around the moment he realized that the shaking was not an earthquake. He saw that the lump of mana was suddenly vibrating. He thought in surprise, ‘What the? What the hell is going on?’

Han-Yeol gripped his sword tightly as he observed the completely unfamiliar phenomenon happening right before his eyes. After five minutes, however, the unnatural tremors gradually subsided. He thought nervously, ‘Is it over?’

It was then…

Creak… Creak… Rip…!

The space before Han-Yeol began to distort, and a hole that resembled a gaping maw tore itself open in midair.

‘T-That’s…?!’ Han-Yeol thought, stupefied.

It was a phenomenon that he had seen only once before in his life—when he had witnessed a monster’s appearance on the way to the Hunters’ Association.

‘Dimensional hole?’ Han-Yeol thought nervously.

The hole that had appeared before his very eyes was none other than the subject of heated discussion around the world—a dimensional hole.

‘Weren’t these things only supposed to manifest outside the hunting grounds?’ Han-Yeol wondered..

It was natural for him to assume that the dimensional holes only appeared outside the hunting grounds, as the only documented and reported instances of them ever occurring had all been in the outside world. However, he soon realized not long after how ignorant and stupid he had been for thinking that.

Han-Yeol composed himself, bit his lips, and prepared for combat. He was filled with nervousness at the thought of fighting against the monsters that would soon emerge from the dimensional hole. He thought, ‘What kind of monster will pop out?’

Bam!

A loud sound rang out from the dimensional hole, and three monsters slowly appeared from it.

‘!’ Han-Yeol let out an exclamation of surprise, stunned and speechless. His eyes opened wide when he saw the monsters that had emerged from the dimensional hole.

Soon, however, the tips of his mouth curled up and he exclaimed in delight, “There you are!”

Han-Yeol did not usually voice his thoughts out loud, but he could not hide his joy after seeing the monsters that had come out from the dimensional hole.

“Mutant Orcs!” he exclaimed.

All three of the monsters that had emerged from the dimensional hole were the very same Mutant Orcs he had so desperately looked for.

‘So that’s it. I couldn’t find them no matter what because they came from dimensional holes,’ he thought as he observed the answer to the mystery that had eluded him for so long.

The Mutant Orcs were not monsters that naturally roamed around the hunting grounds; rather, they were variant monsters that had to be summoned through dimensional holes.

“Keeuuu…” The Mutant Orcs let out low growls. They looked around at their surroundings after exiting the dimensional hole, and when they spotted Han-Yeol in front of them, they immediately raised their shields and axes.

“Kuuuooo!” All three of the Mutant Orcs let out a howl. It was much like a wolf’s howl, seeming to announce that they had found their prey.

‘Nice to see you again, you damn bastards,’ Han-Yeol replied inwardly to the Mutant Orcs’ howl with a grin on his face.

He felt that he had profited this time around, as he was finally able to find the Mutant Orcs he had so desperately searched for. On top of that, he had been able to figure out the secret of the dimensional holes.

Shwik!

Han-Yeol let loose his chain, which by then could be considered his trademark move.

‘Well, I killed the other one in one blow before. There’s no reason for me to be unable to do it again,’ he thought confidently as he threw his chain toward one of the Mutant Orcs, using his favorite chain skill. ‘Restrain!’

Clang!

However, the Mutant Orc, which was three times larger than a normal Orc, lightly swung its axe and parried the chain Han-Yeol threw.

Han-Yeol would have been taken aback and panicked if that had happened in the past when his level was low, but things were different now. He was now able to control his chain like an extension of his own body due to the skills ‘Chain Mastery’ and ‘Restrain’, and so he maneuvered his parried chain to swing around and fly toward the Mutant Orc once again.

Shwiiiiik!

“Keoru?” The Mutant Orc tilted its head in confusion when the chain it had parried turned in midair and flew right back at it.

“Hap!” As the chain successfully bound and stunned the Mutant Orc, Han-Yeol let out a cry as he pulled it forcefully.

Thud!

The Mutant Orc fell forward, landing flat on its face with a thud that shook the ground.

‘As expected!’ Han-Yeol rejoiced inwardly.