52 Chapter 51

The reason for searching for the mages was quite simple.

'If my thoughts are correct….'

And that was to confirm whether the supposition he made back in the Penalty Zone was correct or not.

Meanwhile, the knights all began rushing violently towards him.

Jin-Woo calmly jumped and stepped on the shoulder of the knight closest to him, and leapt up into the air. That allowed him to take in the interior of the boss room in one go.

'Where are the mages?'

...Found one!

Not too far from him, he spotted a lone mage.

'As I thought!'

What he witnessed back then was right.

Indeed, he didn't see wrong.

Back then, when he was being squeezed tight by the group of knights and only his arm could flail about helplessly, Jin-Woo spotted something through the narrow gaps he couldn't quite understand at the time.

'....'

And that was a mage continuously chanting a spell.

A mage busy chanting a spell… at a casual glance, that wouldn't be something out of place. However, Jin-Woo still felt a strong sense of discord from that.

'If that's the case, then how come….'

How come he saw not one single spell flying at him?

Every attack he received came from the knights. Mages continued to chant, yet not once did they complete their spells and display their might.

No, there was that one time.

Back when one of them used something called Eyes of Detection and undid his Stealth. And when that was happening, for some reason, all the knights nearby stopped moving.

At first, he thought they only stopped because they had lost their target.

However, while he was hunting down the giant centipedes in the Penalty Zone, he belatedly realised something quite important.

Was it around the eighth centipede he killed? The level up message popped up and he clenched his fist tightly.

[Level up!]

His spent HP and MP were restored to full. After the short period of elation, a weird incongruency rushed in right afterwards.

'My level can rise this easily, yet why didn't I level up once in that place?'

The System said that his health wouldn't recover through level up, but crucially, it said nothing about him being unable to level up.

Indeed, his level rose up by 5 on his way towards the boss room, too. However, only during the Class Change Quest, he didn't level up once. Even though he endured for over six minutes and killed a hundred plus knights.

Mages busy chanting but not casting any spells.

Knights that apparently didn't give out any experience points.

When he took these actions of the two separate groups that puzzled him so much and combined them into one singular puzzle….

A new possibility formed in Jin-Woo's head.

'It could be….'

It was possible that all of the knights there were fake.

The reason why all those knights stopped moving when the mage used Eyes of Detection could be that… it wasn't because he had vanished, but because the mage had stopped casting.

'If my guess is correct…!!'

He needed to confirm it right now.

Jin-Woo ignored the knights reaching out to grab him and ran towards the mage while using their shoulders and heads as his footholds.

'….!'

He sensed the mage panicking after spotting his approach. And its casting speed had increased. Suddenly, the knights no longer attacked him without a plan and tried to gather around the mage to protect it.

With that, Jin-Woo was convinced now.

Tap!

He landed in front of the mage. Without a moment of hesitation, the dagger held in his right hand accurately pierced the mage's heart.

'Vital Points Targetting!'

Stab!

The mage soundlessly turned into a wisp of black smoke and disappeared from the view.

[You defeated a mage.]

And at the same time-!

Tumble!!!

Hundreds of knights rushing in to attack Jin-Woo all collapsed at the same time. It was as if they were puppets with their strings cut.

The knights collapsed on the floor were now, more or less, empty suits of armour.

'This was my answer!'

Jin-Woo cried out inwardly in elation.

He had to go through several near-death situations just to get to this conclusion.

Knights were nothing to worry about. No, it was the mages that controlled these knights.

The real goal was to kill them, instead.

'The first target my Knight Killer killed was a mage…..'

Jin-Woo couldn't help but chuckle as he looked down at the empty robe discarded on the floor. He had that much leeway now.

Of course, he couldn't continue to stand around doing nothing forever. After all, his quest hadn't ended yet.

Rumble…

The ground shook again.

Jin-Woo turned around and saw that the knights had him surrounded from almost all sides with no gaps to speak of.

Meaning, there were other mages controlling these batches of knights hidden somewhere.

Knights pounced on him. Jin-Woo's right hand moved so fast that naked eyes couldn't even see its shape.

Slice!!

The knights standing in front of him all got cut in half.

Jin-Woo's eyes opened real wide after witnessing that.

'Wow!'

It was worth investing 2.8 million Gold on this dagger. The blade of his Knight Killer pierced and sliced open the knights' armour as if they were made of paper.

It didn't seem that the saw-like blade was the only reason for this.

Just as the item description, 'dagger designed for use against knights' said, he could sense a strong magic-like power emanating from this Knight Killer.

'A weapon from the Store is actually pretty good, isn't it?'

There was a slight deviation from the accepted norm here. Normally, most people would think of weapons sold in stores as something one would use in a pinch when there was no better alternative.

'I shouldn't be dismissing Gold from now, huh….?'

At a bare minimum, this dagger seemed a lot more useful than weapons designed for a Hunter. He even thought that, if he sold weapons from the Store to other Hunters, he would become rich in no time at all.

Well, he didn't see any restrictions on the weapon descriptions that he couldn't give one to someone else, which was different from 'consumable' type items.

'Concentrate, man. Concentrate!'

Now wasn't the time to get distracted. Knights were still tirelessly rushing at him.

Swish! Slice!!

Jin-Woo dodged this way and that while cutting them down.

However….

'This will go on forever.'

When he shifted his gaze away just for a brief moment, far more knights than he had cut down appeared out of seemingly nowhere to fill the gap.

Slice!!

One more knight lost its head.

'I gotta find the mages.'

Jin-Woo utilised the shoulders of the headless knight and leapt up before the creature collapsed to the floor.

'Stealth!'

Jin-Woo's form blurred in an instant. Of course, he wasn't trying to hide via Stealth. What he was aiming for was….

[The mage has used 'Skill: Eyes of Detection'.]

[The mage has used 'Skill: Eyes of Detection'.]

[The mage has used 'Skill: Eyes of Detection'.]

….The ear-piercing mechanical beeps rang out from several directions.

Jin-Woo ran on top of the knights and quickly confirmed the positions of the eye-like symbols.

'There are a total of five mages!'

Jin-Woo targetted the closest mage to him.

'...!'

The mage hurriedly gathered knights around it the moment Jin-Woo turned to stare at it, but….

Swish-!!

The Poison Fang of Kasaka flew out of his left hand in a straight line and stabbed accurately in the middle of the mage's forehead.

Stab!

[You've acquired 'Skill: Dagger Throw'.]

[You defeated the mage.]

Tumble…

Once more, hundreds of knights tumbled to the ground.

'Four more left!'

Jin-Woo stepped on the knights' heads and moved towards his next target.

Meanwhile, he sneaked a glance towards the 'Poison Fang of Kasaka' he hadn't recovered yet. It was time to use his new skill.

'Ruler's Reach!'

Jin-Woo extended his left hand towards the dagger, and as if a magnet was pulling it in, the weapon flew back in.

'Yes!'

Jin-Woo snatched the dagger off the air.

Now that he didn't have to personally retrieve his dagger, he could take the most efficient route to his target. In the next second, he arrived before the next mage, and…

'…..!'

Even before the knights could try anything, he cut the b*stard up in half.

[You defeated the mage.]

More knights collapsed again. With that, not even half of the original number of knights remained.

The initiative was clearly with him now.

Jin-Woo's glare became harsher.

'There are three left.'

Perhaps sensing the threat, the remaining mages all gathered in one spot. It wasn't only them, either. The knights they controlled also gathered around them.

And then, the mages all chanted a certain spell together. Their ominous and creepy voices reverberated throughout the boss room and soon, they finished their spell.

Crack, creak.

The knights guarding the mages were suddenly pulled into one lump and got compressed as if they were thrown into an industrial crusher. And then, they were reborn as one huge metal Golem which began glaring at Jin-Woo right away.

Wuooo-!

'Wow, this is no joke, huh?'

Jin-Woo leaked out a gasp of pure admiration after sensing the overwhelming pressure emitted from this giant monster.

However, he wasn't scared by its appearance at all.

Perhaps because he had encountered several life-or-death situations already, he was feeling expectant rather than nervous.

Thud, thud, thud!!

Whenever the large Golem took steps, the ground shook.

What a fearsome presence it possessed.

Swoooosh-!

Jin-Woo ducked lower and dodged the Golem's fist.

Kabooom!

The stone pillar behind Jin-Woo shattered into pieces after its metallic fist grazed it.

'Well, that is pretty serious power…..'

Jin-Woo grinned slyly.

If he hadn't yet figured out what was going on here, he would've been wracking his brain trying to figure out how to deal with this monster. However, there was no need for him to worry about that now. No need at all.

Kuoooaarr!!

Just as the Golem locked its hands together and raised them high to smash down…

Jin-Woo didn't back away, but used his skill, 'Dash', and pounced forward. And then, he slid on the floor.

In the blink of an eye, he had slid in-between the legs of the Golem and shot right past it.

While the lumbering Golem was hastily turning around, Jin-Woo had already arrived before the three completely defenceless mages, still busy chanting their spell.

'….!'

'….!'

The shoulders of the panicking mages grandly shuddered.

'Checkmate!'

A smile of contentment formed on Jin-Woo's face.

The old saying went something like, by being together, you'd be safe and that separating from one another would mean death. Too bad for them, that was not the case this time around. It was far easier to kill them off because they had gathered in one place.

Jin-Woo freely swung his daggers about, and….

[You defeated the mage.]

[You defeated the mage.]

[You defeated the mage.]

The remaining three mages also became smoke and joined their already-departed comrades. And the Golem that was trying to hurriedly grab Jin-Woo shattered into pieces of armour and scattered all over the place.

Jin-Woo didn't let his guard down, however.

'Is this the end? Or, is there something more?'

He remained alert and ready just in case something else might happen, but then, the familiar beep went off in his head.

Tti-ring.

Jin-Woo swallowed his saliva.

Perhaps to laugh at his unnecessary worries, the System announced the end of the quest, instead.

[The Class Change Quest has been concluded as all monsters inside the examination chamber have been defeated.]

[Your Class will be determined shortly.]

[Depending on the amount of advancement points accumulated, it will be possible to change your Class to a high-ranking one.]

Only now…

Only now could Jin-Woo spit out a sigh of relief.

"Fuu…."

What a difficult battle this had been.

If he remained fixated on the Immediate Return Stone, he'd never have figured out how to counter the Class Change Quest monsters.

'Yeah, I'd probably have been thinking about escaping all the time.'

He got unlucky – or perhaps got really lucky, instead – and lost the Immediate Return Stone. And that forced him to focus solely on surviving this battle. The end result was an unbridled success.

And now, it was time to receive his rewards.

Jin-Woo's gaze drifted towards the timer.

[04:29:16]

The numbers on the timer had stopped moving. He had 'endured' for almost four and a half hours. And that wasn't all.

In a quest that could be cleared simply by enduring the combined assault of the countless enemies for a while, he actually managed to kill them all.

Just from wondering about how many points he got to accumulate and what kind of a class he'd earn from that, his heart began trembling in anticipation.

[The suitable Class will be bestowed upon the Player after your past actions have been thoroughly analysed.]

'Yup, that sounds good.'

If his past actions were used as the basis for the selection of his Class, then the odds of him ending up with something weird and struggling in the future would be close to zero now.

It was probably the most welcoming thing he'd heard in a while.

[The places where the Player stands are dyed with the hidden breaths of an assassin. Corpses fill the paths the Player has walked past, and the scent of blood is thick and strong.]

….He thought that this description was a bit too heartless and cold, but after looking back, he couldn't come up with anything to rebut those words.

'I only did those in order to raise my level, though….'

After entering an instant dungeon, he kept hunting monsters down until his level would not rise any more. And while inside a regular dungeon, he made sure to find every single hidden monster there and slew them all, too.

Also, although it wasn't his intention, he ended up fighting other Hunters a couple of times, too.

'Assassin', 'corpses', and the 'scent of blood….'

'No matter how you look at it….'

Just as he suspected from the beginning, it seemed that his Class would be set at 'Assassin' now.

[Also, the Player thirsts for power, never relies on his comrades, and paves the new path for himself with his own strength.]

Nod, nod.

Jin-Woo nodded his head in agreement with the System's assessment.

'Well, it's not like I had any trustworthy comrades, to begin with.'

However, he couldn't understand why those points were being addressed during the selection of his Class. The System's explanation continued on.

[Your thirst for strong power is intense enough to summon the spirits of the departed, and the army of the deceased that unquestioningly follows all of your commands will pave the road only for you, without anyone's aid.]

'...…The army of the deceased?!'

Only now had Jin-Woo realised something had gone awry here.

Too bad, though.

"No, wait!!"

Even before he had any chance to raise his objections….

The System read off the result of the selection in its usual dry and humourless voice.

[Your Class has been set as 'Necromancer'.]

"…..What the f*ck?"