Thumbs Up, Level Up

Chapter 42

‘It was impossible to kill the boss in the first place, but now you’re also making it poisonous?!’

It seemed like death was imminent.

“Everyone, hold on tight and fasten your seatbelts! Mu-Cheok, I need you to buff the truck!” Ji-Cheok yelled.

“Hyung, what are you trying to do?” Mu-Cheok asked.

“I’m going to run through that thing!”

Mu-Cheok looked into his brother’s eyes and yelled in surprise.

“...Hyung, your eyes are crazy!”

Ji-Cheok was hurt by his brother’s words.

“Trust me! And trust humanity’s advanced technology!” Ji-Cheok said.

“What advanced technology? If we could kill monsters with ‘advanced technology’, why would we need Hunters in the first place?!”

“Just trust me! We are going to run through it!”

“Ah… Fuck it!”

After Mu-Cheok swore, he touched the truck with both hands. Soon, two words, [Acceleration] and [Weight], covered the truck.

‘Yup, good ol’ Newton’s second law. Force is mass times acceleration. That’s my brother for ya.'

“You can use two Words on one object now?” Ji-Cheok asked.

“We are way overpowered thanks to you, remember? We leveled up a lot during the hunt. But I can’t hold it for long. Just drive!” Mu-Cheok shouted.

“Is everyone ready? Ah, I need Ji-Byeok to come to the front,” Ji-Cheok said.

“What are you trying to do?” Ji-Byeok asked.

Ji-Cheok tied Ji-Byeok to the hood of the truck.

“I need you to reinforce yourself to the maximum. Seong Kwang, you have defense skills, right? I’ve seen you use some before,” Ji-Cheok said.

“Yes, I do.”

Seong Kwang put his hands together and started to pray.

“Oh, apostle of the great cow! You, who have suffered from birth, with your teat saved mankind, and with your flesh fed the hungry… Please give us the strength to overcome this ordeal…!”

The more Ji-Cheok listened to Seong Kwang’s prayer, the more he thought that humans were bastards.

A winged cow descended and nestled on Ji-Byeok.

“Ji-Byeok, you can do it! Now is the time to set the example of a real tank!” Ji-Cheok shouted.

“Mr. Um Ji-Cheok, your eyes… are crazy! That’s what you call a madman’s eyes,” Ji-Byeok said, as she looked at his eyes.

Ji-Cheok didn’t know why people kept commenting about his eyes.

Once everyone got ready, Ji-Cheok shouted to the team.

“Here we go!”

Ji-Cheok put every last drop of his mana into the truck. The truck began to glow in a blue color the kinds of which nobody had seen before.

Vroom!

Just before the truck reached the boss monster, a tiny sound rang in Ji-Cheok’s ears.

Ding!

[Hunter Jung Ji-Han has used the ■■ Acceleration skill.]

‘Cheok-Liang, is it just me, or that skill sounded kind of weird? I couldn’t hear the first two words.’

?Nope. That was not an error. That was a bleep-out.?

‘Bleep-out?’

?There are filters in place for skills that are so high-level that you cannot recognize them. That aside, the problem is… who the hell is?this Ji-Han guy? Why does he have skills of such a high level that they are unrecognizable??

The moment the truck touched the bottom of the mushroom, Ji-Cheok felt a sudden pang of fear and turned his eyes to his watch. He himself didn’t know why he was doing that—maybe it was some kind of sixth sense?

Tick.

The second hand passed without a hitch. When Ji-Cheok looked up again, the boss monster’s movement felt slow, as if the playback speed was cut in half. However, the truck still ran at a fast speed, perhaps even faster than before. The truck crashed into the [Nightmare Shroom].

Crash!

The impact caused a tremendous, bone-rattling shock. Ji-Byeok, who was tied to the hood of the truck, crossed her arms in front of her, mitigating the impact as much as possible. Even with all the buffs she had received, it was hard for her to endure the pain. However, she stood firm.

“Ahhhhh! We can do iiiit!” Ji-Byeok shouted.

Using her shouts as support, Ji-Cheok used every last drop of his mana to give the truck more boost. The truck accelerated at a terrifying rate, but Ji-Cheok started to feel sick from the mana exhaustion.

Surprisingly, the boss monster started to rip apart along the grain. The truck that Ji-Cheok thought would break upon impact actually went through the enemy like a bullet.

Shriek!

There was a hole about the size of a truck in the giant mushroom’s body. No boss could survive such a huge wound in its body. As if Mu-Cheok had waited for this to happen, he took out a few objects that resembled pine cones from his pocket and threw them at the monster all at once.

Boom!

The objects were grenades infused with his skills. With Ji-Byeok and Ji-Cheok’s critical hit and Mu-Cheok’s fatal blow, the house-size monster fell onto the ground, shrieking a few more times. The [Nightmare Shroom]’s shrieks could be heard across the dungeon. It was the sound of clearing the dungeon, the boss of which no one had ever killed.

Pant, pant…

“...”

The surroundings were covered in dust. The truck, which looked like a crumpled-up aluminum foil, rattled to a halt at the end of the corner. As Ji-Cheok was looking around, he saw that everyone was dumbfounded, but no one was seriously injured. It was a miracle, but no one was saying anything. Seong Kwang eventually couldn’t beat the mana exhaustion, got out of the truck, and vomited on the ground. That was still better than Ji-Cheok and Ji-Byeok, as they ended up coughing up blood.

“Please tell me we killed it—cough!”

Ji-Byeok wiped the blood off her mouth as she got off the hood of the truck. Her deltoids and triceps twitched—she had used her body way over her limit.

‘Why aren’t we getting the ‘dungeon clear’ message?'

Ji-Cheok staggered out of the truck while grabbing his sword. If the boss monster was still alive, he needed to go in for the fatal hit.

“Fuck…”

Ji-Cheok felt again that black blood was rushing up his throat. It was bitter.

“Do you have any bullets left?” Ji-Cheok asked his brother.

“No, I used them all. Same with the Hunter Assistants,” Mu-Cheok replied.

“I also used all of my arrows,” Ha-Na replied.

There was no way that the boss could survive that kind of firepower. As the dust settled slowly, [Nightmare Shroom]’s form vaguely appeared. Ji-Cheok could see something wriggling inside the giant mushroom.

Ding!

[Boss monster [Nightmare Shroom] evolution was not completed.]

[Boss monster [Nightmare Shroom] gives birth to the [Great Nightmare Demon].]

Rip!

It appeared from the remains of the boss monster, as it tore the [Nightmare Shroom] apart along the grain. It looked just like a man. It was similar in scale to the [Giant Scaled Demon] that Ji-Cheok had seen in the past, but the [Giant Scaled Demon] looked like a stone statue, while this demon looked more like a human being. Ji-Cheok thought that maybe it was because it hadn’t evolved fully yet, or maybe, even worse…

‘Do I have the energy to fight another battle?’?Ji-Cheok thought as he held his [Monoblade].

He knew that everyone was going to die if he didn’t fight back. He held his berserk potion in his hand.

‘Can I kill it before it kills me?’

?Master, you need to stop! You are going to kill yourself!?

That was probably true, but Ji-Cheok knew that it was either them, or the monster.

“Someone needs to take one for the team—cough!”

Suddenly, someone grabbed Ji-Cheok by the shoulder.

“Thankfully, there’s one person in our team who did a good job of saving his energy.”

It was Jung Ji-Han. He looked at Ji-Cheok with his big body.

“You’re going to sacrifice your life again. What are you going to do with the people who are left behind after you die like that?” Ji-Han said.

‘Again? What does that mean?’

“The hero always said the same thing. There is no happy ending,” Ji-Han continued to talk.

He pushed Ji-Cheok back to safety.

Shove.

It was a light push, but Ji-Cheok’s body was blown back. It was a soft, but firm push, something that was more difficult to control than just brute force—a kind of power that a level 20 could never produce.

“I’ll take care of the rest.”

Ji-Han vanished as he walked toward the demon.

When he reappeared, the head of the [Great Nightmare Demon] was blown apart.

[Dungeon clear!]

[First clear!]

[Bonus rewards granted!]

[Contribution has been calculated.]

[First place — Um Ji-Cheok. 3,421,450 points!]

[First place reward: [Random Unique Skillbook]!]

[First place reward: [Random Unique Skillbook]!]

[First place reward: [Random Unique Item Box]!]

[You have received 1,000 Likes!]

[You have received 1,000 Likes!]

[You have received 1,000 Likes!]

Ji-Cheok ignored the messages for now and looked down at his watch once more.

[Accurate Watch]

[Class: S

Type: Artifact

An ordinary and durable watch made by a craftsman from another dimension. It can be used even in the depths of the ocean, as it is perfectly waterproof. Indicates time accurately in any circumstance.]

The watch was nothing but a machine providing an accurate display of time. Ji-Cheok took out his phone to look at the time.

“The time shown on my watch is different from my phone. Hahaha…”

The hands of the [Accurate Watch] were moving a lot more slowly than they should have. There was only one reason why a watch guaranteed by the System to be perfect would have such an error.

Thus, Ji-Cheok came to realize the true ability of Ji-Han.

* * *

It was a mess when the party came out. The company people were waiting with the atmosphere of a funeral home.

‘Good thing there are no reporters.’

No reporters meant that no one in Ji-Han’s company had leaked this situation to the media. Ji-Cheok didn’t know if Ji-Han had a good eye for people or if there was any other reason, but in any case, Ji-Han knew how to find reliable people for his company.

‘Just like the party members who were with me today.’

Everyone who had been inside the dungeon had to see medical staff in the makeshift tents. Ji-Cheok wanted to let the Hunter Assistants get medical treatment first, but Mr. Kim got angry. Mr. Kim’s argument was that they were only shooting from the inside of the truck, so the Hunters needed to get the treatment first.

Ji-Cheok knew he couldn’t win the argument against Mr. Kim, so the Hunters went in for the treatment first, and the Hunter Assistants received theirs after. Fortunately, no one had any serious condition, other than stamina and mana exhaustion, so the team loaded themselves into a limousine bus. They informed the team that the dungeon remains would be cleaned up by others. The boss monster was killed, the rewards had been distributed, and there was still plenty of time until the dungeon closed, so the dungeon was considered safe for others to go in.

As Ji-Cheok laid down on the bed of the luxurious limousine bus, he finally let out a relieved sigh.

“Holy…. We almost died, didn’t we?”

“Tell me about it, hyung. I don’t think I can survive the next one. This is not worth the money we are getting."” Mu-Cheok replied jokingly.

“Hahaha…”

Ji-Cheok burst into a dry laugh, and his brother looked at him like he was crazy.

“I’m just glad we came out alive,” Ji-Cheok said.

As Ji-Cheok relaxed, he could afford to look around at his teammates.

Ji-Byeok had been sleeping since they had gotten in the limousine. Her snoring was so loud that it filled the bus. Ha-Na was also sleeping next to Ji-Byeok. Ji-Cheok was surprised as to how she could sleep next to such loud snoring. He realized how close those two were despite their differences.

Seong Kwang was praying in his seat. Ji-Cheok had heard that priests lived and died for prayers, but Seong Kwang seemed like he was even more devoted than the rest of the priests. Ji-Han was not on the bus, because he had his own personal car—probably the Rolls-Royce Phantom that was next to the bus. Ji-Han was probably taking care of the backlog of work he had missed during his time in the dungeon.

Maybe because they had faced certain death together, but Ji-Cheok felt a strange sense of trust between him and Ji-Han—a feeling that could not be expressed with the word ‘friend’.

?For those who rule the world, comrades cannot be replaced by anything, Master.?

Ji-Cheok wondered if Cheok-Liang was talking about the camaraderie among Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, and Guan Yu.

‘Well, comradeship is a very important relationship for Hunters.’

There was no law or security in the dungeon. Having a trusted friend inside the dungeon was more valuable than gold. Ji-Cheok didn’t know them well enough to call them his trusted comrade, but they had risked their lives for him, and he had done the same for them. That was the only thing that mattered to him right now.

1. Those three were very close comrades in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms.