Thumbs Up, Level Up

Chapter 60

Vroom!

Ji-Cheok reached the priest in an instant. However, the expressionless skeleton held out its staff with a holy mark.

?Something is coming, Master.?

‘I know!’

Ji-Cheok made the Mono Bike jump up like a leopard and let go of the handlebars.

‘If momentum?equals mass times velocity,’?Ji-Cheok wondered, ‘how much damage is the Mono Bike going to do with its weight and speed?’

Flash!

The Undead Priest’s staff was covered with light. The light struck the Mono Bike and made the motorcycle stand still in the air, as if time had stopped.

‘Oh, I didn’t know you had a skill like that, but whatever, enough about the skill. Cheok-Liang, go!’

?As you wish, Master.?

Cheok-Liang jumped off of Ji-Cheok’s neck and turned big. As Cheok-Liang jumped, Ji-Cheok grabbed the Monoblade and got off the bike.

The priest showed no sign of panic, but it seemed that it could not use the same skill consecutively. Of course, regardless of its composure, no one could prevent the two attackers from falling right onto it.

Thud!

Cheok-Liang’s claws smashed into the priest’s skull and ripped it apart. Right after, Ji-Cheok swung his dual swords side to side, cutting its limbs off. Ji-Cheok also cut its robe and staff in half. But Ji-Cheok knew this was not enough. Nothing short of smashing them to bits would make him feel safe.

Slash! Slash!

As soon as the limbs were cut off, Cheok-Liang smashed the limbs with his foot. Ji-Cheok looked back and saw two soldiers running toward him. The holy knight and other soldiers were held—no, rather, they were being destroyed by Ji-Cheok’s teammates. Since the enemy healer was dead, the holy knight and the soldiers were having a hard time. Ji-Cheok’s bike, in the meantime, was still hanging in the air. It seemed like the priest's skill didn’t end when the priest was destroyed.

‘Then, let’s try this.’

Ji-Cheok held up his dual swords and roused his inner qi. It was the cultivation skill that he had trained hard for—not just to get better at the skill itself, but to understand the essence of cultivation.

Shhhh.

The energy Ji-Cheok summoned was not one of Monoblade’s skills. It flowed like mist and wrapped around the sword. Then, Ji-Cheok ran toward the two soldiers that were also approaching him.

Ting!

The soldiers’ javelins came piercing from both sides. Ji-Cheok’s senses were sharpened by the [Heaven and Earth Divine Flow], and instinctively predicted the javelins’ trajectory. Ji-Cheok twisted his body lightly, and the two javelin blades scattered to his left and right. The shaft of the javelins struck Ji-Cheok, but there was no major damage. Ignoring the javelins, Ji-Cheok slid forward and swung his dual swords vigorously from side to side. The Monoblade covered with Sword Qi cut the two soldiers’ bodies in half without any resistance.

Slash!

The two Undead Temple Soldiers did not scream, but their upper body fell onto the ground and started to thrash around. Cheok-Liang crushed one of the soldiers under his foot.

Crush!

Ji-Cheok swung his sword toward the remaining soldier’s body.

Slash!

The crushed body wobbled around, then stopped moving. With this, Ji-Cheok had managed to kill off one Undead Priest and two Undead Temple Soldiers.

[Your teammates are astonished at your strength.]

[You have received 12 Likes.]

“Whew… It seems like you are carrying us.”

Ji-Byeok looked at Ji-Cheok with admiration. However, Ji-Cheok felt that there was something strange about her words, considering the situation.

“You know, you can’t really say I’m carrying you when you are holding the undead knight’s skull in your hand…” Ji-Cheok said.

“I mean, my strength is one of the things that I can brag about,” Ji-Byeok replied.

Crush!

The holy knight’s skull turned to dust as Ji-Byeok crushed it with her bare hands.

‘That’s pretty cool.’

Ji-Byeok’s main job was tanking, but her attack power wasn’t bad. However, the downside was that she could not deal with enemies quickly and reliably. Her skill specialized in protection, and she was a close-range fighter-type that used melee attacks. However, if she tried to kill enemies by fighting in melee range, it was difficult for her to protect her allies. That was why she would tank for her teammates rather than go fight. In a one-on-one situation, however, she was very strong. Her destructive strength and impenetrable body allowed her to be still considered very powerful although she wasn't terribly fast.

“Even from the start, this is not an easy dungeon. It’s definitely dangerous. My apostles are trembling from this barbaric atmosphere of this temple,” Seong Kwang said.

Behind Seong Kwang, a cow with a halo on its head was crying.

Moo~

“This is a place people can’t leave on their own two feet. Had it been any other team of Hunters instead, this attack alone would have been disastrous. And if there were more undead, even we would’ve been in danger,” Ha-Na said coldly.

Clap! Clap!

Ji-Han, the bastard of the chaebol family, drew the attention of the team by clapping twice.

“As you may have already noticed, this dungeon is very dangerous. It’s almost the same as the mushroom dungeon that we’ve experienced before,” Ji-Han said.

“No, it’s more dangerous than the mushroom dungeon. The mushroom dungeon was in the middle of the Dungeon Expansion, and we had some luck with killing the boss monster,” Ha-Na worriedly said.

Ji-Han nodded at Ha-Na’s remark.

“This is a dungeon that completed the Dungeon Expansion. As you can see, this is a place where even aggro skills don’t work well, and monsters are smarter.”

“And you came into the dungeon knowing this information… Correct?” Ha-Na asked.

“It was inevitable. As you know, this dungeon has already killed quite a few people. The government is not stupid enough to ignore this dungeon and let Dungeon Break happen.”

“...”

Ji-Cheok saw that Mu-Cheok had a sulky look on his face. After all, Mu-Cheok had almost no dungeon experience. To be honest, it didn’t make sense to just go into a dungeon where their life was at stake.

‘That’s why I thought a lot about whether I was going to hide the fact that I was Awakened at first.’

Hunters had many rights and power over civilians. But with great power came great responsibility. One of them was forced mobilization.

‘Even this dungeon… On the surface, it was a recommendation, but in reality, it was actually forced mobilization.’

Even a deranged world had its rules, and this was one of them. Hunters wouldn’t get the death penalty for killing people or evading taxes; in fact, they would never even go to jail for any reason. Even if they were caught with drugs, nothing significant happened to them. This was possible due to the Hunter Protection Act. There was once a Brazilian Hunter who killed a Korean civilian. All he suffered from as a consequence was that he was repatriated and exonerated of his crime. He kept living his normal life… until he was killed in a dungeon during a forced mobilization in Brazil.

This was the law in this world. Even before entering the dungeon, there were many cases where the Hunters did not receive proper information. After all, as far as monster hunting was concerned, the gap between field and office workers was bound to be large. It was crazy to think that the government would push out their agenda, even when people's lives were at stake. That was the world now—a world where insanity ruled.

Ji-Cheok brushed his brother’s hair. He knew how precious a normal person like Mu-Cheok was in this kind of world.

“I would like you guys to take into account that this is a very special situation. Besides, according to my information, it is possible to clear this dungeon by ourselves,” Ji-Han said.

“I just need to protect my brother,” Mu-Cheok said.

All the other members just shrugged without showing a sign of surprise at Mu-Cheok’s unwavering words. Ji-Cheok wondered if the other team members knew how Mu-Cheok thought about his older brother.

“Of course,” Ji-Han said.

Mu-Cheok nodded once and went over to Ji-Cheok.

“Then, we need one person to do a recon of this place, while the others make base here.”

Ji-Cheok decided that he would go scouting, since he was the fastest.

‘Is this normal?’

* * *

Vroom!

“I can’t believe this is working,” Ji-Cheok said.

?This is possible because the Mono Bike is a golem made with mana engineering, not just a normal motorcycle. [Wall Drive] is perfectly doable as long as you have the skill, Master.?

Ji-Cheok ran along the vertical wall with his Mono Bike. It seemed as if Ji-Cheok was ignoring the law of physics.

[Wall Drive] was a skill that allowed the caster to walk on a ceiling or vertical wall as if the wall was the ground. However, most wizards were already fast by nature, so it was not a skill that was often used. Moreover, it was also only available to wizards in the Hunter Store, so the skill was generally hard to obtain. Of course, this didn’t apply to Ji-Cheok. The Likes Shop was certainly unusual to sell a wide range of skills and items without any job restrictions.

Ji-Cheok had thus bought [Wall Drive] from the Likes Shop and applied the skill on his bike. Now, he could drive his bike along the walls.

“I think I should make Mono Bikes for my teammates, or jet skate shoes. It would increase our team's mobility by a lot,” Ji-Cheok said.

?I don’t know about that. I wonder if Seong Kwang will be able to adapt. Wouldn’t it be easier to just craft a mana weapon that increases mobility, Master??

“Let’s think about that.”

?Of course, Master. On a different topic, I’m sensing some enemies in front of us.?

Ji-Cheok gathered his mana in his eyes to see the other side of the hallway. There was a crowd of undead standing still in the dark. There were two Undead Holy Knights, six Undead Temple Soldiers, and one Undead Priest. The formation of the enemies appeared to be larger than the one at the entrance.

“If you convert my ability into an Awakened level, what level am I?”

?According to my calculation, you have the power of at least level 80.?

Cheok-Liang was right. If Ji-Cheok didn’t have that kind of strength, it would have been impossible to kill the two-headed gnoll from that abandoned military base and wipe out the entire gnoll village.

This dungeon had a level limit of 40, which placed it in the intermediate two-star category. Simply put, dungeons that allowed entry of Hunters between level 20 and 60 were considered two-star dungeons, and this one was right in the middle. The problem was that ordinary Hunters below level 40 would just risk their lives if they entered this dungeon.

?And the enemies in this dungeon are definitely elite monsters. If the Hunter level is capped at 40, the monster level is also capped at 40. It is a rule set by the great Gods, and it can never be broken.?

“But even at level 40, the enemies are stronger because they are elite monsters.”

?That is correct, Master.?

“Then, let’s test how strong I am… I should use my full strength.”

Ji-Cheok rotated the handlebar to increase the speed. The Mono Bike broke through the three hundred kilometers per hour threshold and made a terrifying sound.

‘Let’s add some more stuff.’

“Activate Mana Sync!”

Fooooh!

Ji-Cheok mana covered the entire bike, and the bike soon turned into something new.

[Mana Sync: The user’s skills are synced with the bike.]

Ji-Cheok skills were now synced with the bike. This time, he tried something new: syncing the Sword Qi created by using the [Heaven and Earth Sword Arts] and the [Heaven and Earth Divine Arts]. A destructive force that cut through any material like tofu was absorbed into the bike. Ji-Cheok increased the speed even further and drove the bike at top speed.

‘These enemies don’t give me Likes because they’re undead with no emotions. I guess they are a really bad match for me.’

Ji-Cheok instantly passed through the passage while driving on the wall. He jumped toward the crowd of undead that was too slow to react to his presence.

Bam!