novelTime Attack, Part III
| ← Ch.140 | Ch.142 → |
Translator: HunterW
Editor: RED
The boss monster in the boss room was one I had heard plenty about in the past, but had never seen before. It was the Steel Staff-Wielding Ogre Champion.
"Graaah! Only death awaits your bravery!" The Ogre exuded danger as it stood over four meters tall and its muscles rippled with strength. The Ogre Champion boasted a high ATT and DEF, and was one tough opponent to face alone.
However, it was the perfect opponent for me. This first dungeon was an experiment, to gauge how difficult it was and how long it would take.
I didn't bother to activate Judge's Gavel, and charged straight in.
"Raaah! Die!" The Ogre swung its giant metal staff right at me, but my spear was faster.
The spearhead pierced straight into the Ogre's abdomen and at that moment, I saw it. A bolt of black lightning struck the Ogre's head.
==[Absolute Destruction has been activated.
Your opponent dies regardless of how much HP it has. ]==
The Ogre cried out before slumping to the ground, dead.
"Huh?" It actually went off on the first hit. I was so shocked that it actually happened."No! This was supposed to be a test..." I had even purposefully taken my time getting to the boss room and didn't use Judge's Gavel to save the cooldown.
==[You have defeated the Ogre Champion, boss of a one-man dungeon.
Time take: 01:26:37
You can choose to register your record or save it.
Register: Register your record which will be shown on the display boards if it is one of top 50 fastest records. Any time a faster record is registered, your record will be lowered each time.
Save: Save up to 5 records. Saved records can be held for up to 15 days and will be deleted after 15 days. ]==
"Hmm...Save."
=[one-man dungeon: 01:26:37 - this record has been saved under 1. Not registering this record in 15 days will delete this record. ]==
I decided to save my record for now. If I wasn't careful, I could attract too much attention too early.
==[You will be forcibly removed from this one-man dungeon in 1 minute:
60, 59, 58...]==
Soon, I was moved back to the rooftop overlooking the Store.
"They still aren't up yet." As soon as I returned, I turned to look at the display boards and found that they were still empty of records."I guess they're all saving their records in a battle of wits." It was either that, or that no one had cleared a dungeon yet. That seemed more likely, actually. There probably wasn't anyone else out there that could defeat a boss monster in a single blow.
"Meh, it doesn't matter." I could afford to take it easy now. I learned from the little experiment that these one-man dungeons were easy enough for me. All of those monsters and traps could do nothing to slow me down. I was confident that I could set an even faster record each time I went in. There was still one obstacle that I wasn't sure about; the boss monsters.
"It won't be a problem if Absolute Destruction goes off each time like it did just a little while ago." Of course, I could still rely on my higher STR and AGI to defeat the Ogre Champion without having to block or dodge any of his attacks, and still manage to clear it in a decent time.
"Still, the more I think about it, the more I realize how overpowered Absolute Destruction is." It was my strongest ace in the hole and I broke out in cold sweat every time I thought about what would happen if Lagus had been the one to obtain it, not me. If he combined it with his Psychokinesis abilities...I shivered at the thought.
Still, now that I had Absolute Destruction, I could now show everyone that I could defeat a boss monster faster than I had the Fallen King-Emperor. That time, I had several buffs on me, used Judge's Gavel, and had the boosted STR from Shaman Ko which took a serious toll on my Fatigue. There was no way I could ever reproduce any of that.
"I'll just get that item first and call it a day. I don't need to clear any more dungeons if they're not going to net some rewards."
From today's experiment, I realized that I didn't need to rely on Absolute Destruction or Powerful Shock against the normal monsters. My normal attacks were enough against them. I only needed Absolute Destruction against the boss monsters, and I just needed to get at least one point of damage on them to increase the chances of it going off. In other words, rather than CRIT rate or damage, I needed another effect.
I put on my hat and sunglasses and headed straight for the Store's auction house. There, I bought the item I was looking for. It was cheap, as it was a low ranked item and pretty common.
—
One week later, in the Sunbin Guild's headquarters...
The display boards at the Store could be seen from the ninety-seventh floor of the Sunbin Guild's building. Song Daechul stared at the sixteen-man display board from the window of his conference room.
==[16-Man Dungeon Rankings
S Rank: 06:49:27 - Cheng Long Guild
S- Rank: 06:54:48 - Black Wyrm Guild
S- Rank: 06:56:03 - House of Windsor Guards
S- Rank: 06:57:44 - D. Nerv
S- Rank: 06:58:21 - Sunbin Guild
27. C Rank: 07:35:56 - Nayuta Guild
44. D- Rank: 08:01:17 - Myth Guild
- ]==
"We're in fifth place...we're all over the place, " Song Daechul said quietly, but no one else in the room could say anything back. They did know that he wasn't saying it out of spite and more as a matter-of-fact.
The Sunbin Guild had five records saved. One of those records was faster than the Cheng Long Guild's registered record; they just hadn't revealed it yet."
"Yes sir. It seems we're all playing the same game."
"It also seems as if this battle of wits will last until the final day and it'll be an all-out psychological warfare on that day."
"I suppose so." Song Daechul nodded at what his vice-master said.
"Currently, our R&R department is poring over our 14th raid, trying to come up with ways to decrease our time. It'll be possible for us to get a faster record."
"Yes, I know you're all working very hard at this but our biggest problem is the boss monster, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir."
The sixteen-man dungeon boss monster had a special trait. It possessed two shields; one red and one blue. The blue shield was completely immune to all physical attacks, and the red shield was completely immune to all magic attacks. This boss monster would even switch those shields around every now and then.
Another problem was that if the blue shield was hit by any physical attacks, the blue shield would deal counter damage anywhere from 2x to 10x the damage it received. The same went for the red shield.
It was easy to work around as the boss monster would telegraph each time it switched its shields, but nonetheless, it was very annoying to deal with. All those shields did was waste more time.
"I believe that all of the other guilds are in the same position, and are stressing over the shields."
Song Daechul nodded at what his officers reported. It wasn't just their problem.
At that moment, Song Myungsoo carefully brought up a subject to his guild master."Father, if we could ask Jiwon for help..."
"I also believe that we could really cut down our time if we could have Mr. Lee help us, sir. If we can have him focus on physical attacks, we can gather more mages and increase our magic damage output. If we do that, then we can definitely defeat the boss monster faster, " Han Kyungchul added.
"No. Leave him be."
"Father, Jiwon will absolutely be of great help to us."
"He's right, sir. Besides, he can't turn us down after India. It's not even a difficult request, either."
"Hohoho. I know that, as well but..." Song Daechul took a sip of his tea and sat back in his armchair before continuing, "Wouldn't it be better if we wait for him to extend his hand first?"
"Sir?"
"What do you mean?" The officers looked to Song Daechul in confusion. Song Haein, who had been quiet the whole time, turned her head as well.
"The best help is when a strong person offers it to a weak person. Jiwon is that strong person now. Just wait. Jiwon will contact us himself and offer us his help."
No one could say anything as Song Daechul sat there, smiling to himself.
—
The Myth Guild's headquarters in Old Cairo, Egypt...
"We just need to wait."
"Are you sure that's all we have to do? I never realized we had this much of a difference with the rest of the world. There was that business with the Blood Prince and I thought we all did as much as we could..."
"There's no need to fret. You're doing more than fine as our guild master. Everyone in the Myth Guild is doing great. The race isn't over yet, nor can we see the finish line. We can catch up to everyone else as long as we don't ever stop, " Ebonene said strongly to encourage Shin.
"Master Ebonene is right."
"We must keep going and we'll soon close the gap."
"Thank you, all of you." Shin could smile again at her officers' encouraging words."Then, as you said, all we need to do is wait for him?"
"Yes. Lee Jiwon is no fool. He isn't aware of it himself, but his sense of balance is strong. He'll contact us soon and all we need to do is thank him for his kindness."
"I understand. Then that is what we'll do."
—
Fifteen days later...
I was once again at the starting point of a one-man dungeon.
"Mana Conversion - Fire. Warrior's Brave Spirit."
==[Mana Conversion - Fire Level 2 has been activated. ]==
==[Warior's Brave Spirit Level 1 has been activated. ]==
I activated the two skills and charged in at the horde of orcs.
"Skree! It's a human!"
"Yeah, that's right. I'm a human, " I replied to the same words I heard countless time already, and began swinging my spear at the monsters like a machine.
I obliterated this horde in four minutes; three minutes faster than when I had first started. I didn't stop to pat myself on the back and headed for the next horde. I Blinked twice down the one-kilometer long hall of traps.
"Judge's Gavel."
==[Judge's Gavel has been activated. ]==
I used Judge's Gavel to smash the giant boulder blocking my way. I didn't need to save it for the boss monster; I had something better to use against it.
I made quick work of the undead monsters and the harpies flying around like gnats. Once I cleared them all, I arrived at the boss room.
"It's been...exactly fifty minutes."
Before I entered the boss room, I put my Harrier into my inventory and took out my new weapon. It was a type of spear. This new spear felt almost alien in my hands after using the Harrier for so long.
"Item Check!"
==[Triple Hitting Spear (Rank 4)
It is a typical spear, except that it was enchanted with Triple Hit by an apprentice mage practicing his magic. However, the enchantment isn't very strong. Each successful attack will attack three more times. The 1st attack inflicts 10x the base damage, 2nd attack inflicts 5x base damage and the 3rd attack inflicts 1x base damage.
Decrease ATT speed by 9%
Increase Penetration by 31 points
Increase CRIT chance by 1. 4%, increase CRIT damage by 77%
Increase STR by 50 points
Durability: 1, 450/1, 450
ATT: 550]
It was a worthless spear; even more so compared to my Harrier, but I only bought it for its one special effect. The spear attacked three more times for each successful attack. That was four attacks every time I swung it. It was all to increase my chances of activating Absolute Destruction.
"Perfect." I quickly entered the boss room, ignored whatever the Ogre was trying to say and attacked.
The first attack didn't activate it, but it didn't matter. I could already attest to Absolute Destruction's weird probability.
I didn't bother to dodge the Ogre Champion's attack and kept attacking.
==[Absolute Destruction has been activated.
Your opponent dies regardless of how much HP it has. ]==
==[You have defeated the Ogre Champion, boss of a one-man dungeon.
Time taken: 00:52:17
- ]==
"It's tough getting less than 50 minutes." I had another record saved from the second day, and it was on its last day.
=[One-man dungeon: 00:49:32 - this record has been saved under 1. Not registering this record in 15 days will delete this record. ]==
"Register."
==[Lee Jiwon's one-man dungeon record of 00:49:32 will now be registered on the display board. ]==
That was it. It was the fastest I could do, and I didn't want to do another dungeon again. I believed that it was just impossible for me to get anything faster.
"Hmm...I guess it's time to pay back those favors." If it meant that I would have to sacrifice a lot of my time and energy, I wouldn't have even thought about it, but it was easy for me.
"Yeah, I might as well." It would be best to help them since I would probably have to keep relying on them in the future. I decided to call the Sunbin Guild and the Myth Guild.
—
Around the time Lee Jiwon made his decision, the Stores around the world were thrown into a tizzy, all because of a single record that showed up on the display boards.
This new SSS Rank record pushed all of the other records below it down to F- from the severe difference in time. People panicked even more, as it was a deva who was responsible for pushing second place and below down to Rank F-. Just before, only deities had held the first thru tenth places!
And the man responsible was ignorant of the fact, naturally...
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