Chapter 75: Kim Ji-Hee Makes Her Entrance (1)

Kim Ki-Rok preferred dealing with weaker monsters living in packs over fighting a single powerful one. He had trained in a wide range of combat methods, allowing him to adapt according to changing situations or different enemies.

"I really hate fights like this." Kim Ki-Rok groaned.

Even though he had managed to destroy half of the troll's heart by using up his last reserves of mana, the troll was already regenerating from its wounds.

Taking a deep breath, Kim Ki-Rok kicked off the ground, leaping backward to avoid the looming shadow overhead.

Booom!

He evaded the blow with ease, yet never stopped observing the opponent. Sliding a dagger out of his sleeve, Kim Ki-Rok hurled it in a smooth arc.

It struck squarely into the small wound on the monster's instep.

In terms of raw damage, it was negligible. However, the blade featured a peculiar groove carved into the side of the dagger's blade that was filled with a deadly poison. Even if the poison's effect was minor, it was still better than nothing.

"Diiieee!" From above, Yoo Seh-Eun dropped in, controlling five blades made of mana as she thrust her sword forward.

When it came to these trolls, thrusts had proven to be more effective than slashes.

Putting her full body weight into the thrust, Yoo Seh-Eun drove her sword into the troll's chest, then hung onto the embedded blade. She slammed her legs into the troll's torso, using the impact to propel herself away.

While breaking off, she summoned two additional mana blades in midair and hurled them at the troll. Rather than focusing on how to land safely, she was determined to keep up the offensive no matter what.

"

Grrrraaagh!

"

After she fell and rolled across the ground a few times, Yoo Seh-Eun quickly sprang to her feet, still glaring daggers at the troll. Her strike had aimed for its heart. Seeing the mana blade still lodged in the troll's left chest, she checked the troll's expression and briefly allowed herself a triumphant grin.

But even though the troll was breathing heavily with bloodshot eyes, it was still clinging to life.

"Fuck."

Yoo Seh-Eun kicked off the ground again, darting in like a hound that had locked onto its prey. The repeated battles were draining, but it had also sharpened her senses against these giant-type monsters, making it easier to fight.

Looks like there won't be any problems here.

Kim Ki-Rok watched her skirmish from a short distance, then quickly checked the rest of the battlefield.

Lee Ji-Yeon, with her bright red hair, and Lee Chil-Sung, with his short, sporty cut, were both charging at another troll. Flanking both its left and right sides, they leaped in unison and swung their weapons.

Both blades struck simultaneously, slicing through its neck. Then, using the troll's shoulder as a foothold, they sprang backward, preventing it from retaliating. The resulting scene looked like it came straight out of an action film, and all those who witnessed it couldn't help but let out a gasp of amazement.

If Lee Ji-Yeon and Lee Chil-Sung fought with calm, refined skill, then the third team on the battlefield operated with fiery abandon.

"Man-Kook! Attack!" Nam Dong-Wook shouted loudly as he flew circles around a troll, raining arrows down upon it.

"Man-Kook! Moving out!" Jeong Man-Kook barked, referring to himself in third person for some strange reason, as he charged forward while swinging his huge mace.

Booom!

The troll staggered sideways from the sheer impact.

"Hup!" Nam Dong-Wook took a deep breath as he used a skill to create five mana arrows and loosed them straight for the troll that had yet to regain its balance. The arrows shot forward, aiming for the troll's face.

The moment they struck, the mana arrows exploded, snapping the troll's head backward. Already off-balance, it toppled onto its side. At once, the surrounding guild members came rushing in to strike their fallen foe.

"Man-Kook! Smash him into pieces!" Nam Dong-Wook shouted.

Still speaking in third person, Jeong Man-Kook roared back, "Man-Kook! Smashing away!"

"Good job! Once this is over, I'll buy you ten bowls of octopus seafood stew!"

"Man-Kook! Diligently following orders!"

If anyone asked who, besides Kim Ki-Rok, was the most entertaining in DG Guild, most would point to those two Mapogu siblings, Kang Seh-Hyuk and Nam Dong-Wook.

Kim Ki-Rok couldn't help a low chuckle overhearing them. Turning away, he glanced at the final group. The fourth team was adopting a wholly different strategy to dispatch trolls.

Their central fighters were Dong Sung-Min and Seo Lee-Ha. While Dong Sung-Min used Curse of Illusion to scramble the troll's vision with hallucinations, Seo Lee-Ha cast Shadow Control, letting him and his teammates slip along the troll's own shadow.

They'd then appear on its shoulder to launch simultaneous attacks. Whenever the troll roared in pain, forcibly dispelling the curse, she would use the shadows to move her team back down onto the ground.

The whole process was going smoothly. If things continued like this, the Ice Trolls could be vanquished in as fast as five minutes, or at the latest, ten minutes. The real concern was the Ice Troll Lord.

Kim Ki-Rok continued throwing daggers here and there to assist Yoo Seh-Eun while frequently glancing toward the Ice Troll Lord.

Bang! Bang!

𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

"Hey! Don't you see me?! I said, don't you see me?! Look at me! You bastard!" Kang Seh-Hyuk banged his shield repeatedly to provoke the Ice Troll Lord.

"

GRRRRAAAH!

"

The enraged lord lifted its iron club high and swung. Kang Seh-Hyuk steeled himself, gripping his shield with both hands, channeling mana.

A colossal impact thundered across the battlefield, incomparable to any they had felt before.

"This guy is fucking strong, damn it!" Kang Seh-Hyuk gritted his teeth and wiped the trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth.

Team Captain, Ji Cheol-Hyun, had been circling around the Ice Troll Lord and keeping it in place by disrupting its movements. He asked Kang Seh-Hyuk in a loud voice, "Can you still hold on?"

"As long as the recovery and buff support is in place, I'll manage somehow!" Kang Seh-Hyuk replied.

"All available healers and support, focus on Hunter Kang Seh-Hyuk!" Ji Cheol-Hyun ordered, then began to scale the troll's iron club.

Ji Cheol-Hyun again performed his signature skywalk with the Transparent Shields, leaping just high enough to reach the monster's face.

"Eat this!" He twisted his waist in midair, hurling the shot-put-like projectile in his right hand.

BOOOOM!

The invisible shield slashed across the Ice Troll Lord's face, but it barely seemed fazed, responding with nothing more than a scowl.

Having put his full force behind that blow, Ji Cheol-Hyun cursed, "Fuck, this is driving me crazy..."

He kicked off another shield, his body sent flying backward from the impact, just in time to see the Ice Troll Lord's left hand swing through the space where he had been. Even a split-second delay would've left him as squashed as a rice cake.

"That side looks like it's going to take a while," Kim Ki-Rok muttered to himself.

It seemed like a few dozen more B-Class Hunters, or at the very least five or six A-Class Hunters, would be needed as reinforcements in order to defeat that monster.

Having gotten a rough grasp on the full situation, Kim Ki-Rok pulled a bow and arrow out of his subspace pocket and drew the bowstring.

The arrow flew at blistering speed and exploded in the armpit of a troll that had been just about to crush someone at its feet.

Boooom!

As the troll's movements were interrupted by the sudden attack, a Hunter who had lost his balance and fallen to the ground immediately took the opportunity to roll out of danger.

"This is probably all I can do right now..." Kim Ki-Rok continued mumbling as he pulled his bowstring back once more.

—Ah... Guildmaster Kim Ki-Rok.

Kim Ki-Rok was caught off guard when Jang Bo-Hyun's voice suddenly emerged from his walkie-talkie.

After he had loosed another arrow from his bowstring, Kim Ki-Rok responded while taking the time to reload, "Yes, Mr. Jang Bo-Hyun?"

—Um... well, Ji-Hee is here.

"Hm?"

At this sudden news, Kim Ki-Rok spun his head around to look back at the Hunters' base that was surrounded by a wall of ice.

With the strength of the Ice Trolls, it would be difficult to expect their hastily erected ice wall to hold off against them. As such, they took the fight to an empty space some distance away from the wall.

Kim Ki-Rok urgently drew on his mana to sharpen his vision. He saw Kim Ji-Hee wearing a set of rabbit pajamas and holding a stuffed rabbit. Standing next to her was Jang Bo-Hyun, clutching a loudspeaker.

Kim Ji-Hee appeared to be still half-asleep, as she was rubbing her eyes with her free hand.

Overwhelmed, Kim Ki-Rok could only blink his eyes in disbelief for a few moments, but he quickly came to his senses and shot another arrow at a troll before turning around and racing back to the base.

He quickly leaped up to the top of the ice wall and landed in front of Kim Ji-Hee.

Kim Ki-Rok asked worriedly, "Ji-Hee, aren't you sleepy?"

"Mhm, I'm sleepy," she easily admitted.

"Then you should quickly head back in and get some more sleep."

"But it keeps going boom booom."

Kim Ki-Rok tilted his head to the side in confusion. "Boom-boom?"

"Mmm." Kim Ji-Hee frowned in frustration. "Or maybe grgrgrgrung?"

Unable to understand her onomatopoeia, Kim Ki-Rok could only tilt his head to the other side. "Grgrgrgrung?"

Booooom!

The ice wall shook violently from the vibrations caused by an Ice Troll stomping its foot nearby.

Kim Ki-Rok had a flash of realization. "Ah! You meant that?"

"Yeees." Kim Ji-Hee nodded solemnly. "Grgrgrgrung."

"So you came here because the ground kept shaking?"

"Nuh-uh." Kim Ji-Hee shook her head before stating seriously, "Mister. If you work overtime, you die."

Kim Ki-Rok frowned. "Now what on earth do you mean by that? Do you two know what she's talking about?"

Completely nonplussed at this point, Kim Ki-Rok looked over her head at the older and younger spirit floating behind her. The old man gave a half-chuckle, passing on what Kim Ji-Hee had said earlier.

Kim Ki-Rok's mouth hung open. "

Ha!

Well... she's not entirely wrong...?"

"I think we should at least warn her not to repeat everything she hears. Our dear Ji-Hee has been using all kinds of strange words lately," said the old man.

"I feel like she's learning most of those strange words from a certain group of elders," Kim Ki-Rok pointed out with a smirk.

"Ah... hm... I guess that's true."

Among the various spirits that accompanied Kim Ji-Hee at all times, there were spirits that enjoyed games, spirits that enjoyed movies, spirits that enjoyed morning dramas, spirits that often used difficult words because they had developed a taste for idioms and proverbs, and other such bad examples.

"Well, let's set that aside for now," Kim Ki-Rok said with a shrug. "Since the two of you chose to bring Ji-Hee here instead of comforting her and putting her back to sleep, you must have had a reason for doing so, right?"

"That is correct." The old man nodded and relayed the information that he had discovered earlier when checking her status and skills.

[

Kim Ji-Hee

]

Level: 43

Strength: 43

Vitality: 43

Magic: 53

Willpower: 58

Skills: Spiritualism (B), Spirit Contract (B)

[

Spiritualism (B)

]

Description: Allows the user to control spirits

Restrictions: Affects spirits up to Level 80

Control Limit: 30/50

[

Spirit Contract (B)

]

Description: Allows the user to make contracts with spectral monsters and spirits of the deceased

Effect: Spirits can be contracted as permanent summons

Control Limit: 2/4

"I thought that the only changes we would see from the growth of her skills would be the disappearance of the cooldown and duration, but it seems that wasn't the case. Even the description of the Spiritualism Skill itself has changed," Kim Ki-Rok observed, pleasantly surprised.

"It was probably adjusted accordingly because all of her short-term contracts have been with spirits that have their own self-awareness, rather than spirit-type monsters."

"I see." As Kim Ki-Rok was nodding in agreement, he suddenly paused. "Huh? How did her skills rise to such high classes?"

"Why wouldn't they? This battle has been more than enough to raise her skill levels."

Both Kim Ji-Hee's Spiritualism Skill and her Spirit Contract Skill had gone up from C-Class to B-Class.

If she equips the staff on top of that, wouldn't that bring her skills up to A-Class?

Kim Ki-Rok thought to himself.

The very first spirit that Kim Ji-Hee had made a contract with was the wizard Kan Cho-Woo, and the second was a Pegasus Spirit, so it made sense that the level of her Spirit Contract Skill had gone up so quickly.

After some quick calculations, the corners of Kim Ki-Rok's mouth curled up into a smile. "With this... it seems like we won't be needing any reinforcements, now will we?"