Chapter 63 – Tahrakhan Plateau (8)

The Operator began reward distribution.

[Monsters Slain. Harpy: 42. Dire Mountain Goat: 13. Dire Buffalo: 8. Total 6140 points.]

[Boss Monster Slain: ‘Harpy Queen’ Laliha: 900 points.]

[Hidden Boss: Manticore: 900 points.]

[Final Point count: 7940. Distributing points.]

[Your contribution is 71.2%. 5653 Stat points, 5653 Black Coins awarded. Raid Clear Bonus 2500 Stat points and 2500 Black Coins awarded. Item effect ‘Additional 10% gained’ activated. Distributing 8153 Stat points and 8968 Black Coins.]

The number of Coins he had earned in the last chapter was 8050. Taking into consideration of the inflation between rounds, he didn’t obtain all that much due to not reaching 100% completion. But it did not matter.

Because from this point onward, he would obtain much more from hunting trolls than from the Raid Rewards.

[And now we will distribute the items.]

[Armantine – Spear of Paralysis]

[Diora – Pants of Feather Fall]

[Enhancement Stone]

[Recovery Potion – Medium X2]

‘Hmm?’

The Operator gave two rounds of congratulatory messages.

[Congratulations! You have obtained the Legendary Item ‘Armantine’!]

[Congratulations! You have obtained the Legendary Crafting material ‘Enhancement Stone’!]

Sungjin stared at the items before him for a moment. A spherical orb with small jagged deformities rolled around. Sungjin picked it up.

‘Did this item drop this early in the raids?’

He recalled seeing his first Enhancement Stone after at least ten chapters last time. But it didn’t matter; Since Sungjin was almost fully equipped, it was better to get this than a useless Heroic Tier Item.

Sungjin placed all the items into the cube as he thought to himself

‘Should I power up the Moon Specter first? Or go with Blood Vengeance like last time?’

The Cube continued with the reward distribution.

[Last but not the least, you will be awarded titles you’ve earned on this raid.]

It was much faster to receive rewards alone than when receiving it as a group.

[Blue Magician – Increases Blue magic effects by 20%]

‘Ooh...’

Sungjin was honestly surprised. It was the first time for him to receive a title specific to mages. He must have qualified for Blue Magician title due to frequently casting Chain lightning and Frostbite.

Of course, he didn’t need it immediately, but from what he had heard from before, there were lots of extremely powerful mage specific titles.

‘Titles like Spell Master...’

Sungjin concluded his thoughts on the titles for now.

[Distribution has ended. Request for Dimensional transfer has been granted.]

[You will be teleported in 10 seconds. 10, 9]

The Operator began her trademark countdowns, and Sungjin uneasily shifted his weight while waiting under the beam of light. The thought of fighting other Hunters made him anxious.

‘There shouldn’t be anyone more powerful than me but... Like how a Lion hunts a Rabbit*, I need to give my all. They are evil people.”

[4, 3, 2, 1, 0]

The countdown finished, and the pillar of light grew even brighter. Sungjin closed his eyes. And then

[Dimensional Transfer Complete.]

He opened his eyes when the Operator gave an announcement.

‘Hmm?’

Sungjin was standing exactly on the same spot.

‘What happened?’

Sungjin turned around. There should have been a corpse of a Mountain Goat behind him from refilling his Mana but

“Baa”

A live Mountain Goat was standing in its place. The Mountain Goat came charging at him. Sungjin effortlessly cut off its head and surveyed the area around him. He was certain that he was in a different place; he had successfully entered a different dimension.

‘So... there is a troll somewhere in this dimension...’

Sungjin pulled out his swords and began to roam the Plateau.

*

‘High-Level Guard’ ferociously swung his spear. Luckily, the tip of the spear caught the Harpy Queen’s talons. He shouted,

“Now!”

And in response,

‘Pew~’

Someone fired a shot and

“Incinerate everything in your path! Fire Ball!”

Someone fired a spell at the same time. Once hit by the arrow and the spell, Laliha

“Kyaa!”

Screamed in pain. And the one tasked with finishing her off was another man who appeared out of nowhere. He wore white turban over his head, and he jumped high up into the air and onto the Queen’s back.

Landing, he stabbed her in the heart. The Operator gave an announcement.

[‘Harpy Queen’ Laliha Cleared]

“Haa~”

“Whew”

Everyone let out a sigh of relief. And then they congratulated each other.

“Good work.”

“Good job.”

“Can’t believe we beat it”

“Mhmm.”

Only four of the men were congratulating each other. One of the five was silent; he had been ripped apart to pieces by the Harpy Queen. The hunters briefly turned to look at him.

One or two of them gathered their hands and gave him a moment of silence. But no one spoke to him. And once the brief moment of silence ended, no one turned to look at him.

It was because they felt guilty about his death. As the raids progressed, countless teammates perished until now.

Too many died to mourn all of them. So the only thing remaining was the feeling of guilt.

‘It was my fault he died.’

They couldn’t help but feel this way, and so the Hunters found a way to cope. After all, whether it was the tank, the dps, or the support, it was partially their fault that a team member had died. So the common evolution of thought was to then think

‘I’m glad it’s not me.’

It was the same for the ‘Armored Soldier’ Max O’Brian. He was the tank for the team, but the Japanese man (he already forgot his name) had stood too far from him to avoid being hit by the sound waves.

So when Max was hit by the sound wave and fell asleep, he woke up to the Japanese man already torn to pieces. The other teammates understood this and would not blame him for the death of the Japanese man.

After shifting blame away from himself, he turned away from the corpse and drank his potion. Since the boss was slain, it was time to go hunting surviving mobs to collect additional contribution points.

If there was time after killing the boss and more than three members were left alive, then the surviving members of the team should continue hunting for additional contribution points; This had become common sense. Everyone valued each and every status points and coins they could obtain.

“Let’s go hunt the remaining mobs, shall we?”

At the Indian ‘Assassin’ Atman’s suggestion, the French Halbardier ‘Guard’ Adrian and the English ‘High-level Sniper’ Mason consented.

“Then, let’s go. We need every point we can get.”

Max paused from drinking his potion to speak to his teammates.

“Wait... let’s take a quick break first.”

“Sure, I am getting low on MP anyway.”

The remaining hunters waited until their HP and MP were replenished and then reentered the hunting grounds. Although they were down by one person, they were confident in their ability.

It was because they were able to defeat the boss without much difficulty. (Although one died, but losing only a single member to the boss was considered to be a good outcome)

Pulling was ‘High-level Sniper’ Mason’s job. His precise arrows landed on Dire Mountain Goats, Dire Buffalos, or on Harpies from a considerable distance, and expertly brought single enemies at a time to the team.

Since the four hunters only faced one or two mobs at a time, hunting was quite easy.

‘Pew’

Mason’s arrow hit a Dire Mountain Goat and lured it in.

“Baa~”

Adrian shouted once the Goat got closer

“Binding Frost! Frostbite!”

Affected by the freezing cold crystallizing ice at its feet, the Mountain Goat gradually slowed down. Max watched the Goat advance even closer and then lifted his shield high and shouted

“Steel Body!”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Metallic material seeped through the shield and coated his entire body. Shortly after, the Mountain Goat reached and charged into him.

“Clang!”

The combination of Adrian’s spell and his own active skill nullified all damages. Once the Charge was halted, Atman and Adrian poured their attacks onto the stationary Goat.

Atman was proficient with short and sharp knives. He was so dexterous that he could counterattack harpies while dodging them.

Max had always fought in the front, and could easily tell how rewards would be distributed.

When he thought of the rankings in his head, the Operator often confirmed his guesses. In fact, he was good enough to even guess their general percentages.

‘Since the guy has good offensive power and spells... 1st place with about 35% contribution?’

He believed that Atman would easily receive 1st place with an extremely disproportionate rate of 35~40% of total contribution level. Atman was certainly skilled and strong enough to do so.

Adrian and Mason were both weak, far weaker in comparison to Atman.

‘Atman should be first, me second, Mason 3rd... Adrian on the 4th?’

He guessed the order of contribution levels. While the four of them were fighting the Mountain Goat,

‘Pew’

Mason’s arrow flew past the three hunters and missed its target. Missing in of itself was not too uncommon. By this chapter, most archers were skilled, but in the beginning, archers had missed more often than being able to land a hit.

The problem was that the arrow flew off into the distance and landed on a Dire Buffalo.

“Baa~”

The Mountain Goat was still alive and kicking. The Buffalo became enraged and

“Mooo~”

Began to charge towards the Hunters. The cooldown for Steel Body was not over yet. No one could block the Buffalo’s charge yet. Max shouted

“Get out of its way! Dodge it!”

At his words, the hunters scattered. Max faced off against the Goat alone as he stepped backwards. The Buffalo came charging towards him. He was in mortal danger.

“Veil of Darkness, cover their sight! Blind!”

Atman’s magic glowed brightly. The Buffalo became blind; it tripped and fell on its own.

“Good job Atman!”

Atman quickly ran to the Mountain Goat and shouted

“Quickly! The Spell won’t last long!”

But

‘Pew~”

Another shot was fired. Max had thought that Mason had aimed to hit the fallen Buffalo. But

“Kyaa!”

It hit a Harpy in the distance.

“What are you doing?”

He shouted to which Mason replied with an apology.

“Sorry!”

‘Do you think a sorry is going to suffice right now?’

Max was becoming angry, but he couldn’t help it. He had to face against the Dire Mountain Goat alone, and now a Harpy was on its way. The Buffalo regained its sight and stood back up.

The only good news was that Atman had taken off his Turban and managed to stab the Goat in the heart. Now only two enemies were remaining.

Max turned to face against the more threatening Buffalo when he heard an incantation being recited.

“Binding Frost! Frost Bite!”

Max had believed the spell was meant to try and reduce the Buffalo’s running speed. But

“Hmm?”

His feet were stuck to the ground. He was frozen in place.

“What?”

When Max was about to turn to look at Adrian,

“Ahhh!”

Atman was hit by the Buffalo and gored on its horns.

Sajabakto 사자박토 狮子搏兔 [shī‧zi bó tù] – Chinese saying ‘Even a Lion puts his everything into properly hunting a rabbit’. As in, no matter how easy or trivial it seems, one should do it earnestly to avoid making careless mistakes.