Leveling Up Alone

Chapter 93: Angel Shard (5)

Egypt was currently without a doubt the economic leader of the African continent.

The ability of African countries to sustain themselves took a massive blow, and their economic state deteriorated quite quickly, when the value of underground resources dropped significantly after the Dimensional Gates had appeared. That was why the African continent was entirely dependent on Egypt right now.

In short, the hope and future of the entire continent of Africa solely relied on Egypt’s success.

Sukeok!

“Kieeeek!”

After getting used to dealing with the Trappers, the Egyptian Hunters began to shred through them like monsters.

The traps laid out by the Trappers were now nothing but mere annoying distractions, and their laughter, which they used to confuse their prey, was rendered ineffective thanks to Mariam’s mental support.

[Phew, that wasn’t so hard?]

[Yeah, it is a lot easier than dealing with the Banshees.]

[That Hunter, Han-Yeol, turned out to be a much stronger Hunter than I expected.]

[Yeah, I mean, I know the monsters this time around are easy to deal with, but… He shoots those strange healing bullets whenever someone is in danger, immediately binds the monster if anyone is in danger, and…! Do you know how difficult that is? That is some crazy decision-making ability!]

The Egyptian Hunters shook their heads in disbelief.

They could not really tell if Han-Yeol was stronger or weaker compared to them based on combat ability alone, but they could tell that he was strangely able to use a wide variety of skills.

The general knowledge was that every Hunter awakened with three abilities, but that did not seem to be the case with Han-Yeol. They could tell from their observation alone that he probably possessed at least five skills in his arsenal.

Meanwhile, it seemed that the Egyptian Hunters were not the only ones who had come up with the same conclusion.

[Wait a minute… Don’t tell me that Hunter is a multi-ability user?]

[I thought of the same thing as well!]

[We have so far seen him use skills while handling his chain, setting his sword on fire, and even healing his party members. However, I don’t think that’s the end of it. If you look closely at his eyes, then you will notice them turning red from time to time, and this can only mean that he has some sort of detection-related ability too!]

[Not only that! I think he has a mobility-related ability too! You can see him suddenly go blurry when he moves sometimes!]

[A single skill could give numerous effects and that is why Hunters are known to only have three skills, but that Hunter looks like he is still hiding some of his abilities… Therefore, it is reasonable to say that he probably has at least five abilities!]

[Wow! Just how many skills does he have then?]

[It should be just five right?]

[It could be way more than that.]

[Does that mean that he is the first multi-ability user?!]

[He would be the first multi-ability person to be known to the public!]

[Woooaaahhh!]

The V-Ticket holders watching Han-Yeol’s channel were in an uproar. That was because they knew what kind of an issue this was going to be if they spread the word on social media and various community forums regarding Han-Yeol.

In fact, there were already numerous people who had another screen readied just so they could record the livestream and edit it in real-time, and then they would write a caption on it before spreading it all over social media.

Thanks to them, the V-Tickets were sold out in an instant. Even the general chat room of Han-Yeol's broadcast was packed as people began flocking to watch the channel after hearing news of his exploits on social media.

“Unni!” one of the Mulan team members shouted.

“I know, Hye-Jin. How is the server management going from your end?” Soo-In asked in response.

“I’m working on it together with Golem Mania TV. We decided to expand the server and increase the capacity of the broadcast channels,” Hye-Jin replied.

“Okay! Everybody listen up, the most crucial part is just coming up now. We have installed a special mana antenna at the entrance of the hunting ground, so we should take extra caution not to let the server get too congested with high volume traffic. The antenna is going to go down and the show will be ruined if that happens. Do you understand?!”

“Yes, team leader-nim!”

“Alright, you guys better keep that in mind. Then, it’s now up to the server management team to figure things out from here,” Su-In said with a mischievous smile.

“Huh? Unnieeeee?!” Hye-Jin protested.

“I’m just kidding. Don’t get too worked up,” Su-In said with a grin.

“Okay…”

The sudden surge of viewers was a good thing for the broadcaster, but the number of things to handle and take into consideration for the film crew also exponentially increased whenever the viewer count rose. Not only that, but they also had to use the special mana antenna installed at the entrance of the hunting ground to act as a relay station.

It was true that the whole broadcast could come to a stop if the special mana antenna got overloaded. The mana antenna was not yet a perfected technology, so there were many unknown factors that the Mulan film crew had to prepare themselves for.

The Mulan film crew busily ran around trying to keep the broadcast up while Han-Yeol was fully focused on hunting down the Trappers.

Whooosh!

A Trapper swung its bloodstained meat cleaver at Han-Yeol. The monster’s weapon had been bloody from the start, and it was not from any of the raid party members getting wounded.

The meat cleaver was swung in one quick motion, but the attack was simply too slow for Han-Yeol. He managed to avoid it by taking a single step back thanks to his Sixth Sense skill.

Tak!

Then, he took a step forward and placed his weight on his knee before kicking off the ground and launching himself toward the Trapper that was still in the process of swinging its meat cleaver again.

‘Head Cutter.’

Shwiiiik!

Head Cutter was the sword skill that Han-Yeol often used these days.

Han-Yeol was already standing behind the Trapper in a blink of an eye as his skill activated almost instantaneously. Then, not even bothering to finish off the Trapper, he immediately ran toward another one and engaged it in battle.

The Egyptian Hunters were going to finish the first monster off anyway, so Han-Yeol decided that it was going to be more beneficial for him to engage as many monsters as he could so that he would be able to maximize his chances of gaining Angel Shards.

Han-Yeol nimbly moved around the battlefield like a cat thanks to his Catwalk skill, and he really looked like a cat from a third party’s point of view.

***

[Your level has risen.]

‘Phew…!’?

The intense hunt finally came to an end after ten long days.

The Horus raid party preferred to take short breaks and hunt hard for longer periods of time, unlike how the average Korean raid parties would hunt, so they were a perfect match for Han-Yeol’s preference.

Thanks to this high-paced hunting, he was able to gain five levels despite the atrocious experience points he had gained from the monsters.

Han-Yeol proceeded to invest all of the bonus stat points he had gained into his MAG and INV stat.

[Huff… Huff… Huff…]

[Hoo… Hoo… Hoo… Hoo…?]

Han-Yeol’s two Shadow Demons flanked him while letting out their distinctive breathing sound.

Han-Yeol usually alternated between his Shadow Demons when summoning them, but the second Shadow Demon had learned a new skill called ‘Surveillance’ that allowed him to have a real-time view of the target it was tasked to protect. This allowed Han-Yeol to have an accurate grasp of what was happening around his father and the ability to instantly teleport over to him through the Shadow Demon if anything happened.

Thanks to this, Han-Yeol was now able to confidently deploy both of the Shadow Demons into the hunt without having to worry about anything.

Then…

Ding!

[Both Shadow Demons have reached Level 100 at the same time.]

[You have achieved the level requirement for the intermediate evolution of the Shadow Demons.]

‘Achieve intermediate evolution?’ Han-Yeol wondered as he read the message.

[You may now choose between evolving or transforming your Shadow Demons.]

1. Intermediate Shadow Demon. (Evolution)

2. Lesser Void Demon. (Transformation)

3. Lesser Void Fiend. (Transformation)

A screen appeared in front of Han-Yeol as soon as the Shadow Demons reached Level 100, and the screen was similar to the one that had showed up when they had reached Level 50.

‘I’ll definitely go for the Intermediate Shadow Demon,’ Han-Yeol decided while recalling Kajikar, who was an incredibly strong intermediate-level demon.

Han-Yeol had high expectations that the Shadow Demons were going to display the same prowess that Kajikar had displayed once they evolved into Intermediate Shadow Demons.

Han-Yeol tapped the first option without any hesitation.

But then…

[Both Shadow Demons have refused to evolve to the intermediate level.]

‘W-What?’?Han-Yeol was taken aback.

Refuse? What did it mean that they had refused?

Han-Yeol was so flabbergasted by the system message that he stood dumbfounded for quite a while. He was unable to process what was going on, because he had never imagined in his wildest dreams that something like this was even possible in the first place.

Regardless, he got a grip and decided to think about what his next move was going to be. He was left with no other choice but to choose between the second and third options, because he couldn’t force the Shadow Demons to evolve. After all, the Shadow Demons had already expressed their refusal to. The nature of their contract also did not allow him to force them to do something by force.

‘Hmm… If that’s the case, then…’ Han-Yeol contemplated whether to pick the second or the third option.

Both of Han-Yeol’s Shadow Demons were lesser demons. It was going to be helpful if they could assist Han-Yeol during hunts, but the most important thing for him was for them to be able to protect his father in case of an emergency.

The Shadow Demons were excellent bodyguards, because they could freely and discreetly move within the shadows. However, Han-Yeol had no idea whether the Void Demon or Void Devil was going to be more suitable for the job.

Han-Yeol sat on the floor and glared at the two choices, contemplating just which one to pick. He had to make his choice within the hour as the raid party’s break and mealtime was going to be over soon.

[Hmm….] Tayarana observed Han-Yeol from a distance.

[What do you think he is doing while sitting over there?] Mariam asked.

Mariam was standing right next to Tayarana and attending to her despite still having command of the entire Horus raid party and giving out orders through telepathy.

Mariam was a B Rank Hunter with telepathic abilities, so there were a lot of raid parties in Egypt with hopes of recruiting her. It was quite normal for her to be bombarded with recruitment offers from other raid parties both domestic and international, and some of them were far superior to the Horus raid party. In fact, Mariam had received a phone call just a few days ago from Egypt asking her to reconsider their offer.

However, her answer was always the same.

“I refuse.”

Mariam was born as the daughter of a maid who worked at the Presidential palace of Egypt, and the Egyptian president himself had visited, personally given her the blessing of the pharaoh, and bestowed her the name Mariam when he had heard the news of her birth.

She had been privileged to live in the presidential palace ever since she was born, and she even had the honor of serving as Tayarana’s lady-in-waiting and loyal companion.

Mariam had sworn in the name of Ra that she would serve Tayarana and only Tayarana as her master for the rest of her life even if it meant she had to risk everything she had, including her life, for Tayarana’s sake. She had sworn this after having heard the entire story of her upbringing from her mother.

This decision was as good as Mariam staking her entire life on Tayarana, so something materialistic like money or a special item was nowhere near enough to make her break the oath she had made.

[Hmm… I’m not sure, but it might have something to do with his abilities,] Tayarana deduced.

[Ah…] Mariam said.

Both Tayarana and Mariam had already given up on trying to understand Han-Yeol thoroughly. They had already long decided to just accept whatever he did every time he displayed a different set of abilities, and they also had given up on trying to analyze him.

[Perhaps one day…he will reveal his true powers to me when I completely win over his heart,] Tayarana said.

[I am sure that he will, Tayarana-nim,] Mariam said.

[Let’s go,] Tayarana said.

[Yes,] Mariam said.

Tayarana and Mariam then returned to the Horus raid party and ordered them to take a break.

“Ugh…”?Han-Yeol groaned in frustration as it had been almost twenty minutes since he first started staring at the second and third options. Scratching his head in frustration, he grumbled inwardly, ‘Argh!?This damn indecisiveness of mine!’

It was difficult to say that Han-Yeol was being indecisive, because this was more of a case of having to make a choice without much information on which one would give him the result he wanted.

‘I saw on the TV that I should be prepared to suffer some?losses?as a consequence of my choices, but I can’t simply take that risk?when my father's?safety is at stake…’?Han-Yeol covered his head in frustration and started to rack his brains. However, he soon raised his finger and tapped on a selection. ‘Screw this! A man should be resolute when making choices!’

Ding!

[You have selected Void Devil.]

[The Shadow Devil has transformed into a Void Devil.]

[The Void Devil’s level has been reset.]

[The Void Devil’s skills have been reset.]

[The Void Devil has learned new skills.]

‘Oh? Demon Status,’?Han-Yeol scanned the newly summoned demon.

[Void Devil Lvl. 2]

Rank: Low

Experience: 10/222

Skills: Void Wave, Void Strike, Void Shift

[Void Devil Lvl. 1]

Rank: Low

Experience: 1/111

Skills: Void Storm, Void Mind, Void Space

‘T-This is awesome!’?Han-Yeol thought excitedly.

It was a shame that the level of the demons that Han-Yeol painstakingly raised by sharing his own experience points from hunting had been reset back to Level 1. This was especially true when the demons that should have been upgraded to the intermediate level were back down to being lesser demons.

However, the Void Devils possessed quite a powerful set of skills that Han-Yeol was able to ignore all of the losses he suffered. The number of skills that the demons possessed decreased to three, but each of the demons had their own unique skill sets. The skills also looked even more powerful than their previous skill sets.

‘Does Void Space mean that they can move directly to where father is at?’ Han-Yeol wondered.

It was a shame that only one of the two Void Devils possessed a teleportation skill, but it was still better than nothing.

One drastic change from the Shadow Demons transforming into Void Devils, however, was their appearances.