The Genius Assassin Who Takes it All Chapter 17

Episode 17 Skill Stealing (1)

* * *

Phew!

“Kurururuk!”

“If you can follow, follow me.”

After that, Kang-hoo diligently ran through the dungeon and what he did was to injure the clawed lizard.

I didn’t go out of my way to aim for the vital spot.

As soon as I encountered the guys, I quickly approached them, inflicted only moderate wounds on their bodies, and ran away.

Because it was such a hostile monster, even if I provoked it like that, it glared at me and chased me as if it was going to kill me.

Experience points for dungeon monsters are calculated based on two important factors.

The first is contribution.

See what percentage of damage each hunter contributed to kill the monster.

Of course, separate correction values were applied to healers and buffers.

For example, it is calculated by looking at the amount of buff given to the hunter who killed the monster and the increased damage.

The second is the presence or absence of damage itself.

Except for healers and buffers, other classes had to have a record of dealing damage to monsters.

Without it, even if you kill a boss monster together, you are excluded from experience point calculation.

The groundwork that Kang-hoo is doing now is the work to meet the second requirement.

First of all, you need to have a record of the damage you inflicted so that you can receive experience points without missing anything later.

“They’re chasing me like crazy.”

Kang-hoo deliberately cut his palm, causing further injury.

Then, following the dripping blood, the clawed lizards came running with their nostrils flaring.

Before we knew it, their number had grown to nearly fifty.

There weren’t usually that many.

Because there are too many.

If Kang-hoo had stopped moving even just a little, he would have been immediately surrounded and torn to pieces.

The reason why he was able to avoid that situation was because he was moving steadily along the ‘Mana Milestones’ that Kang-hoo had created in advance.

It was a landmark made before luring the spurred lizards.

Leaving a trace of mana.

Even if you can’t see it, you can track its location with the mana tracking ability.

Because I had done this work in advance, I was able to continue luring it to the desired location without even a moment’s pause.

Wheeee!

The sandstorm grew stronger.

Rather than moving by looking with his eyes, Kang-hoo was relying 100% on the Mana milestones.

Gecko lizard.

They are very good at hit-and-run combat, so they are difficult to kill in honest combat. Of course, the rewards are good.

So when this opportunity came, if I could just make the most of it, I would definitely have fun gaining experience.

Tadadadot!

Kang-hoo started to increase his speed in earnest.

Now is the time. I didn’t come here to play hide-and-seek with monsters.

I ran, ran, and ran again.

As Kang-hoo’s speed increased, the lizards, whose reason had been paralyzed by the smell of blood, also ran ahead.

How long did you run like that?

The moment Kang-hoo stops and feels the absence of the Mana Milestone that is no longer being tracked!

Droor roor!

Something that had been caught on Kang-hoo’s foot rolled off.

At the same time, as I turned my body, I felt a different emptiness from before at the bottom of my heel.

Fall off a cliff.

It was the end of the road, at the top of the valley that I had been keeping an eye on since a while ago, with nowhere else to go.

Dudada!

The sandstorm obscured the view, making it impossible for anyone to perceive the cliff’s existence.

The clawed lizard became more assertive and flew towards the still Kang-hoo.

It contained a cruel will to somehow scratch and wound Kang-hoo and eat his blood and flesh.

Kang-hoo held on as long as he could.

And when the front legs of the lizard at the very front came within about 50cm of the body, it was just about to touch it.

Pfft!

I lowered my body and used the jump skill.

Then, Kang-hoo’s body left the scene, scraping the dry ground as if skating.

Phew!

At the same time, he targeted the lizard that appeared as a silhouette and linked it with a horizontal movement.

Then a jump, and another horizontal movement.

By repeatedly using the skill, Kang-hoo quickly escaped the cliff.

It was a close call, but that made the evasion all the more perfect.

The guys were never able to find Kang-hoo, who disappeared in the sandstorm.

The problem started from then.

“Whoaaah! Whoaaah!”

“Kwaak!”

The clawed lizard, who had barely managed to stop after realizing that it was on the edge of a cliff, was pounced on by the guys coming from behind.

It was like a pileup on a foggy highway.

“Kuaaaa······!”

A disaster has occurred.

Of course, from the clawed lizard’s perspective, it was a double whammy.

You can gain experience by taking care of all the clawed lizards without having to use your skills one by one.

As if rain was falling from the sky, the clawed lizards fell helplessly from the cliff to the ground.

Because it was such a high place, there was no way to revive the knight.

In the meantime.

Phew! Phew!

Kang-hoo dealt with several lizards that narrowly escaped being caught in the water and fell to the ground.

Those who were so distracted by the screams of their own kind that they heard from before died without even making a sound.

【Level has increased significantly to 27.】

Before catching Iceman, his level was 22, but after several increases, it rose to 27.

【The constellation ‘Master of Mobile Warfare’ is so impressed by your lure strategy that he can’t stop applauding.】

【I will use a small amount of Holy Power to support you with a small buff.】

【Experience Increase +0.2%】

The support of the constellations continues to be as pleasant as leveling up. The experience increase buff is always beneficial.

【It was pretty good.】

The joy was further enhanced by the praise from the Dimension Robber.

That wasn’t all.

Among the lizards that died to Kang-hoo just before falling off the cliff, one dropped a magic stone.

It’s usually hard to obtain loot from regular monsters, but it looks like it came out despite the low probability.

“Blue magic stone. Ten million won. Then two lines of Solar Ki-um.”

Kang-hoo picked up the blue magic stone from the lizard’s corpse.

It is the fifth magic stone in the rainbow-colored magic stone grading system. However, it was quite expensive.

This was also a part where we could see why Eclipse was trying to exploit the Hunters to mine magic stones.

Dungeons are probabilistic, but mines are definite. The difference is as great as the difference between heaven and earth.

Whew······.

Soon, as if it had been waiting, the sandstorm died down.

Rather than saying that Kang-hoo’s timing was right, it was probably just something that went as planned.

If you think about it the other way around.

If Kang-hoo had hesitated just a little longer at the last minute, the lure strategy could have failed and he could have been in danger.

“It’s a shame that this isn’t a strategy that can be used often.”

Kang-hoo whetted his appetite.

The monsters’ aggressiveness, the dungeon environment, and even the timing.

It seemed like it would be hard to have fun in this dungeon again, as it was a problem that had to fit perfectly into the Trinity.

Anyway, the results were great.

Because I was able to gain experience points in one go that other hunters wouldn’t be able to earn in days, or even weeks, of hard work.

If experience were food, I would have eaten so much that I would have burst and died a long time ago.

* * *

Meanwhile, Cha So-hee continued to investigate traces and records regarding Kang-hoo.

I frowned for a moment when I saw Lee Taek-geun’s body reduced to ashes. I think I was being too emotional.

But I thought there was nothing to be sorry about since I had already ‘killed’ him, so I just let it go.

After further investigation, it seemed that it was an undeniable fact that Kang-hoo was level 10.

Cha So-hee called Kang Dong-hyun.

As soon as I heard the ringtone, I got straight to the point.

“Please send me a new copy.”

– Hey, how many times have I told you to kill that guy’s temper? Just be careful, okay?

Kang Dong-hyun didn’t seem particularly surprised either.

Because it happened often.

And this kind of follow-up work is not uncommon.

Since the two people didn’t think it was a big deal in the first place, they didn’t even bother to worry.

“I’m sorry. But the situation was so incoherent that I got angry and reached out first.”

– I’ll send a successor right away, so encourage him and train him well. Do you understand?

“Yes, I’m sorry. Anyway, we will investigate Shin Kang-hoo more thoroughly.”

After hanging up the phone, Cha So-hee looked around the place where the last hunter to be sacrificed by Kang-hoo, the ‘Chaser’, had been.

The Tracker was a kind of human weapon being raised within Eclipse.

Because his body and mind are thoroughly dependent on drugs, he is usually no different from an idiot.

Anyway, the Tracker was created by selecting only Hunters who are skilled in battle and are level 90 or higher.

The pursuer died on the spot without being able to offer any proper resistance to Kang-hoo.

“It was good that you fished with Mana. It was a great tactical decision and it worked out well. But······.”

Cha So-hee was constantly bothered by the scene that went against common sense.

No matter how much I think about it, there’s no way the assassin class could have fooled the pursuer’s eyes with a normal jump or horizontal movement.

This is a human weapon that has been directly trained at the organizational level. I don’t know about other things, but I won’t be fooled by a cheap trick.

“There is only one possibility.”

There was only one case that Cha So-hee confirmed through numerous simulations.

That is, if Kang-hoo uses ‘Leap’ and ‘Horizontal Movement’ at maximum skill level.

Then, it was possible to get out of the pursuer’s sight and then take a surprise shot under the chin.

The problem is.

“Are you asking me to believe that a level 10 hunter could perform such an absurd ‘miracle’?”

This is it.

Even if you think about it a hundred times,

There was a gap between Kang-hoo’s publicly available information and his abilities that made it impossible to even estimate a causal relationship.

Investigator Cha So-hee has a 100% success rate and has never failed to reach a clear conclusion in an investigation.

The reputation she had built up at Eclipse was about to be tarnished by Kang-hoo.

At this rate, it seemed like I wouldn’t just have to chase after Kang-hoo, but I had to find him myself.

* * *

“First of all, it seems that two or three Solar Ki-ums are confirmed. I expected it, but I didn’t expect them to stick together like this.”

At that time, Kang-hoo met the middle boss while moving to the location where the main boss was.

There were three, not one.

Like the Iceman and Fireman series we’ve previously faced, this was a middle boss with a sort of brother concept.

The name is Defender.

All three appear identical and are humanoid.

It’s like looking at a rugby player who is about 2 meters tall.

These three each had their own specialized skills.

It’s defense.

The expression shield would also be appropriate.

However, the three specialized in slightly different areas.