Leveling Up Alone

“Tsk tsk… I can tell just from the direction this country is heading. How is this country not changing even though the whole world has been turned upside down?”

Most people bad-mouthing the politicians were bound to use this one-liner while talking about politics, since it was a shared sentiment among the public.

Han-Yeol got up from his seat and supported Sung-Jin out of his seat.

“Are you going?” boss hyung-nim asked.

“Yes, I have to go now. I have to go home and Sung-Jin is also drunk,” Han-Yeol replied.

“Alright, get home safely. Try to drop by whenever you have time,” boss hyung-nim said.

“I will, boss hyung-nim,” Han-Yeol replied. He paid the bill with his credit card and brought Sung-Jin to his car.

Then, he placed his hand on his own chest and muttered inwardly, ‘Restore.’

Wooong…

Blue light came from Han-Yeol’s hand and wrapped all around him. The skill Restore had the ability to cure whatever status ailments, which included intoxication from alcohol. It was kind of weird to use a skill to recover from being drunk, but it was way better than hiring a driver to drive the car for him.

Just as he was about to bring Sung-Jin home, Han-Yeol suddenly realized something. He wondered, ‘Ah! Does Sung-Jin still live in the same house?’

Han-Yeol only remembered the house that Sung-Jin had lived in twenty years ago, so he was going to be in a pinch if his friend had moved within those years.

‘Should I try calling?’ Han-Yeol wondered. He tried to use Sung-Jin’s phone, but it was locked with a security pattern.

‘Wait… Maybe this will work…?’ Thinking, Han-Yeol infused mana into his eyes and used Mana Eyes. Then, he muttered, ‘As expected…’

Mana Eyes had the ability to see mana, but it was not possible to see anything since the smartphone was not an object made out of mana. Han-Yeol had used Mana Eyes in hopes that he could at least see a remnant of the pattern when Sung-Jin swiped his phone, but he could not see any of it just as he expected.

‘Mana Eyes still has a long way to go,’ Han-Yeol thought while thinking that he still had to level up his skill.

Just as he was contemplating whether he had to wake Sung-Jin up or not, Sung-Jin’s phone suddenly rang.

Ring… Ring… Ring… Ring…

‘Oh, lucky,’ Han-Yeol thought. Thankfully, someone was calling Sung-Jin’s phone just when he needed it.

[Father]

‘Ah, now that I think about it… It has been 10 years since I have been friends with Sung-Jin, but I never met his father even once,’ Han-Yeol thought.

It was understandable, since the kids that Han-Yeol had used to hang out with had all been delinquents. They had spent their time roaming the streets all day, so it was understandable that they had only known where each other lived and some details about their family, but they had never had the chance to meet them.

Han-Yeol answered the phone. “Yes, this is Sung-Jin’s phone.”

[Uhh… May I know who is on the line?]

The voice of an elderly man was on the other end of the line, but Han-Yeol felt that the voice sounded familiar for some odd reason. He thought, ‘Who is this…? I know this voice…’

[Hello?]

“Ah, sorry. Hello, this is Sung-Jin’s friend. Sung-Jin is a bit drunk right now, so I should be bringing him home, but I do not know where he lives. Can you kindly let me know his address?” Han-Yeol asked.

[Ah, sorry to trouble you. The address is…]

Han-Yeol drove to the address that Sung-Jin’s father had given. It was around a forty-minute car ride before he arrived at a large house on the outskirts of Seoul. Then, Han-Yeol pressed the bell.

Ding dong!

[Who is it?]

“It is me, Sung-Jin’s friend. I brought Sung-Jin over, so may you kindly open the door please?” Han-Yeol replied.

[Ah, just wait a minute.]

Click…

The door opened and Han-Yeol went inside with Sung-Jin in tow, and his father came out to meet them but…

“Huh?”

“Huh?”

Han-Yeol and Sung-Jin’s father both jumped in surprise when they saw each other.

“Factory manager-nim?” Han-Yeol muttered in surprise.

“Han-Yeol Hunter-nim?” Sung-Jin’s father muttered.

Surprisingly, Sung-Jin’s father was the factory manager and CEO of the factory that Han-Yeol frequently dealt with.

“Who knew that the world could be so small?” Han-Yeol said with an awkward laugh. He found it quite surprising and funny how small the world could be.

“I-I know right? Who knew that Han-Yeol Hunter-nim would be friends with Sung-Jin?” Sung-Jin’s father replied.

Sung-Jin mentioned during their drinking session that the factory’s situation was not so good at the moment. The factory that his father ran was going through a tough time because of the mounting pressure from the big corporations, but he kept it running thanks to the consistent supply of monster corpses from a handful of Hunters. Han-Yeol was one of those Hunters, supplying the factory with monster corpses in huge quantities although they were low-ranked ones.

The atmosphere between the two suddenly became awkward. It could not be helped since their business and personal matters had collided all of a sudden.

“Ehem… Anyway, thank you very much for bringing my son home. I will take Sung-Jin now,” Sung-Jin’s father said.

“Ah, yes,” Han-Yeol replied. He passed Sung-Jin, who was still out cold from being drunk, to the factory manager.

‘Well, I will get to meet him again the next time I bring monster corpses to the factory anyway,’ Han-Yeol thought. It was not going to be too late for him to talk about factory matters with Sung-Jin’s father then. ‘It’s going to be a different story now that factory manager-nim is Sung-Jin’s father.’

Han-Yeol sort of knew that the factory he was dealing with was going through rough times, since he saw the exact same cases happening to numerous other factories when he had been a Porter.

Also, he clearly remembered the employees at Sung-Jin’s father’s factory making the exact same faces the other factories’ employees had made in similar situations.

Han-Yeol went back to his car and started driving home. While he drove, he suddenly felt like something had smacked him on the head.

[The Shadow Demon has entered combat.]

It was Kavis, who had been quiet for quite a while.

‘What? What happened all of a sudden?’ Han-Yeol asked.

[I am not sure myself, but the Shadow Demon is currently in combat.]

Listening to Kavis’ reply, Han-Yeol suddenly started to feel anxious. Did something happen to his father? He quickly asked, ‘Where is the location?’

[12km northwest from here.] Kavis replied.

‘Damn it!’ Han-Yeol cussed inwardly as he slammed on the accelerator. He swerved like a madman and ignored all of the traffic lights. It was not the time for him to worry about fines or demerits on his license.

Han-Yeol immediately used Mana Eyes after arriving at the place that Kavis directed him to. The Shadow Demon’s mana was a bit different compared to other manas, so he was able to easily identify it.

‘Over there!’ Han-Yeol exclaimed inwardly. He could see the Shadow Demon was currently fighting against something, just as Kavis informed him. He then thought, ‘Is it a monster? But the emergency sirens should have been blaring by now.’

The state-of-the-art monster detection system was deployed all over civilian areas, and it should have rang a long time ago the moment it picked up any signs of a monster appearing in the area. The system was designed to immediately notify the public to evacuate and send a notice to the Hunters’ Association to deploy a team of Hunters to handle the threat.

This was an expensive system that they had imported from the United States when the dimensional holes had previously appeared in civilian areas.

‘Is it a new variety?’ Han-Yeol wondered.

It was going to be quite a headache if a monster that could avoid being detected by the state-of-the-art monster detection device started to appear in civilian areas.

Tak!

Han-Yeol jumped from building to building while running as fast as he could toward where the Shadow Demon’s mana was. When he arrived at where the battle was, he was surprised to find no monsters. He muttered in confusion, “Humans?”

Han-Yeol was not the type who would subconsciously blurt things out like that, but he was so flustered that he simply vocalized whatever was on his mind.

“Han-Yeol!” his father shouted and ran toward him.

Han-Yeol only realized what was going on after snapping out from the confusion. He muttered, “Ah, damn it. What the hell is that?”

“I think he is a Hunter. He jumped down from above.”

“Maybe he is a high rank?”

“Damn it. There was that strange monster and now this. We stepped on shit this time.”

The Shadow Demon was currently facing four Hunters, and the demon was already on its last leg right now. The immaterial demon might be immune to physical attacks, but its innate attack power was weak due to its low level. On top of that, Hunters usually used skills aside from physical attacks, so the Shadow Demon’s immunity would not be of much help against them. It was understandable why it would be badly beaten up.

“Who are you people?” Han-Yeol asked.

“Han-Yeol…” his father muttered.

Anger started to boil within Han-Yeol as he stared at the four Hunters with cold murderous intent. His father wanted to say something to him, but he could not muster the courage to speak because of the look on Han-Yeol’s face.

‘You dare attack my father?’ Han-Yeol thought. He knew it was a severe crime for a Hunter to rob an ordinary civilian.

“This doesn’t look good. What if that guy is of higher rank than us?”

“Wait a minute. I’ve seen that guy at the association before. You know, right? My girlfriend works at the Hunters’ Association.”

The man with blonde hair and earrings seemed to recognize Han-Yeol.

“Of course, you are the only one among us that has a girlfriend.”

“Hahaha!”

The blonde man let out a creepy laugh before he said, “That guy is E Rank. I caught sight of him when I went to meet my girlfriend.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, why would I lie about something like that?” the blonde man said.

“What? So he is just a small fry?”

Actually, these Hunters were E Rank as well, but they were very confident of winning because there were four of them.

“Let’s run, Han-Yeol. They are also Hunters and there are four of them. You could die at this rate!” his father urgently pleaded. He was very worried about Han-Yeol. He knew that his son was a capable Hunter, but it was a different story if the battle was four-against-one.

Han-Yeol would have normally listened to his father, but he was extremely angry right now. He simply said, “Please head back first, father.”

“Han-Yeol!” his father retorted in surprise.

However, Han-Yeol looked straight into his father’s eyes and said, “Please head back first, father. I will wrap things up and be home in no time.”

“Alright…” his father muttered in the end. He had wanted to stop Han-Yeol at all cost, but he knew very well that Han-Yeol would not change his mind once he had made up his mind. He also recognized his own son’s look of stubbornness; after all, this was the one thing that his son had inherited from his stubborn wife.

There was a time when he had asked Han-Yeol to give up on him when he had been sick, but his son had the same stubborn look on his face and had refused to listen. In the end, his son did manage to achieve the impossible by curing him of his illness.

But that did not mean that a father was not going to worry about his son.

“Please be careful,” his father said.

“You do not have to be worried about me,” Han-Yeol said with a smile.

When his father took his bag and was about to leave the alley, one of the assailants shouted, “Where do you think you are going, fxxker!”

Boom!

One of the Hunters extended his hand and shot out mana just as Han-Yeol’s father tried to escape. The mana bullet that was the size of a basketball threateningly flew toward his father’s back.

Fwooooosh… Ziiing!

However, the flying mana bullet suddenly stopped in mid-air.

“W-What the hell?”

“Why would a mana bullet suddenly stop…?”

“L-Look at that guy!”

“What?”

They saw Han-Yeol with his right hand extended toward the mana bullet, and it seemed that he was holding the mana bullet back with his hand from a distance.

“You dare to attack my father in front of me… I guess you have a death wish, you fxcking bastards!” Han-Yeol shouted angrily.

Baaaam!

Han-Yeol gripped the mana bullet the moment he shouted and the mana bullet exploded and disappeared as if crushed by his hand from a distance.

“!!”

Han-Yeol’s father looked back in surprise when he heard the sound of the explosion, but he soon continued running away when he saw that his son was not harmed.

“H-How?”

“Is that even possible?”

Ding!

[The rank of ‘Psychokinesis’ has risen from (E) to (D).]

The reason why Han-Yeol was able to grab and crush the mana bullet in mid air was because of the skill he had recently acquired—Psychokinesis.

***

Fwaaa…

A cloud of smoke rose after the mana bullet’s explosion, and Han-Yeol stood in the midst of it with an enraged look. Looking at him, the four Hunters gulped nervously as they readied their weapons, but it was not like they were scared of him or anything.

“Damn it, that bastard is not a normal E Rank!”

“I think that bastard has low mana density but got lucky with a nice skill.”

The thought of doubting Han-Yeol’s rank never crossed their minds, since it was more plausible for a Hunter to have a low rank but possess a unique skill that let them dominate their rank. A typical raid party would comprise of fifteen Hunters, but there were cases like the Blue Hunter who had the ability to solo raid a raid monster thanks to possessing two unique skills.

“Don’t be scared. I don’t think he has any unique skills. Also, don’t forget that there are four of us here.”

“Look who’s talking, crazy bastard. Keke.”

“Kekeke!”

The four Hunters managed to maintain their composure since only a handful of Hunters possessed unique skills, after all.

‘Hmm…’ Han-Yeol pondered.

He had kept Mana Eyes activated even after coming here, so he could observe the level of the four Hunters in front of him, since he was planning to make a run for it if they were stronger than he was. However, the numerous escape scenarios he had hatched in his mind completely disappeared without a trace when he saw their levels.

Han-Yeol was confident that he could take them on with no problems at all.