Chapter 178

‘Applied magic.’

The basic requirement for using applied magic was to be at least a 3rd class wizard who was capable of unraveling complex runic sentences. Do-Jin had previously remarked that Yu-Seong was just an entry-level magician who struggled even to unravel a simple sentence, indicating he was only a 1st class novice magician.

‘If mana was the only consideration, he said I could even perform 3rd class magic.’

However, since Do-Jin had never witnessed Yu-Seong's full mana potential, it was possible that Yu-Seong could surpass even that level.

‘The language combination I want to use is…’

Yu-Seong quickly moved the clusters of light. In fact, just looking at his combination of words, it was safe to say that it was not 2nd but 3rd class magic.

If Do-Jin had known what Yu-Seong was thinking, he would have snorted and said that he was being naive.

Nevertheless, Yu-Seong continued to run and create the magic circle while earnestly carving his desired message with the Runic alphabet. It wasn't just a matter of thinking, 'if it worked out, great, and if not, oh well'.

‘The most effective way to persuade through the Runic alphabet is by demonstrating both a sincere heart and a sense of urgency.’

After the realization of this fact when first learning Light magic, Yu-Seong had never inscribed a single Runic alphabet with a careless heart.

Although he could feel it quickly, Yu-Seong cautiously and carefully released his mana as he focused on conveying his desired message to the world. As a result, the light clusters floating above his hand wriggled, trying to shoot forward at a rapid pace.

Yu-Seong quickly canceled the spell before anyone could catch him. He couldn't help but smile brightly. He had reached the 2nd class level in magic.

‘I did it!’

If other magicians, including Do-Jin, had witnessed what Yu-Seong had just accomplished, they might have screamed in shock.

Yu-Seong, who had accomplished it with such ease, clenched his fists tightly and suppressed the urge to cheer. The benefits of reaching this level were too numerous to count, but if he had to pick one, the biggest was that it was something that only Yu-Seong knew, and Do-Jin remained unaware of it.

Now, they could see the entrance to the mine in front of them. Sensing Do-Jin's pursuit, Yu-Seong dashed into the entrance with him close behind.

***

Inside the mine was complete darkness. There wasn’t even a speck of light. When he first chased Yu-Seong into the mine, Do-Jin furrowed his eyebrows slightly at the realization.

‘I can’t see…’

Maybe it was because he had been chasing the light clusters for so long, but it took some time to adjust to the darkness.

‘This is uncomfortable. If I had regained all my strength, I wouldn't have to do something as useless as this.’

He clicked his tongue inwardly, then immediately activated his Insight skill. Finally, he saw the footprints of Yu-Seong's movements.

‘He turned off the Light magic.’

After all, attempting to use Light magic in such darkness would only attract monsters, making them easy targets. Do-Jin nodded in understanding and kept moving forward, but suddenly heard a shrill monster's scream and quickly stopped in his tracks. When he arrived at the source of the noise, he recognized the sight of a monster lying on the ground.

‘Orc. He’s being chased.’

The number of monsters also seemed to be quite high. Apart from Yu-Seong's footsteps, there were many footprints of monsters overlapping each other.

Do-Jin had one more thought upon observing that sight.

‘Did he intend for this to happen, or...?’

Lost in thought, Do-Jin stopped walking. From ahead, he saw Orcs slowly emerged from the darkness with low growls and a menacing aura. Despite being surrounded by the corpses of their comrades, they showed no fear.

Do-Jin unintentionally snorted at the Orcs’ appearance. It was because he suddenly realized that getting lost in thought itself could be a trap. In fact, it had been a while since he had found himself in such a situation. He couldn't be sure what the other person was thinking. He thought he knew Yu-Seong quite well, but he realized that he needed to watch every move with caution.

The reason for this cautiousness was simple.

‘It's because...I'm feeling afraid.’

It was a precarious fight where one wrong step could lead to a thorny path. Could he keep winning after his initial victory? Do-Jin quickly slit the throat of an Orc swinging its ax and started running toward the monsters like a madman.

‘Let's not overthink it. I'll just have to chase after him and win.’

The most important rule in this fight was to follow the basic principle of ‘

hide and seek.

’ Do-Jin wanted to catch Yu-Seong, who clearly wanted to evade him.

As time passed, Yu-Seong's strategy of sending the soldiers back would ultimately serve to benefit Do-Jin. In this fight, there was no time for hesitation or second-guessing if he planned to win.

In fact, such hesitation was a trap set by Yu-Seong in the first place. In situations like this, it had always been his sixth sense, or instinctive intuition, that led him to victory. Certain of this, Do-Jin quickly followed the path and cut through the darkness and the monsters.

‘The number of footprints is increasing.’

The footprint sizes of humans and Orcs differed, so finding Yu-Seong shouldn't be too difficult. However, there were so many footprints that even the traces of Yu-Seong had been buried.

‘As expected, if I had fallen for his tricks, it would have been a disaster.’

At a sudden crossroad, Do-Jin found himself becoming more confident in his thoughts. If he had not followed quickly, there was a high chance he would have missed Yu-Seong at another fork.

‘Left or right?’

There were countless footprints leading to the left, while the right path was suspiciously clean.

‘My instinct tells me it’s the right path…’

Do-Jin quickly followed that path. There initially were no traces of footprints, but they began to appear from the middle point.

‘I don't know how he managed to drive and push the monsters, but…’

The same method was used at the second and third forks. The traces of Yu-Seong, which had disappeared, reappeared in the middle of the path. There was no confusion.

‘Choi Yu-Seong.’

According to his intuition, Do-Jin was sure that he was almost catching up to Yu-Seong. At that moment, he approached a crossroad, and saw three paths in front of him. The middle path was still chaotic with footprints scattered everywhere, while the left and right paths appeared to be quite neat.

‘Which one of those three paths…?’

Do-Jin wondered which path to take, feeling confused for the first time since he started following his intuition.

‘What is this?’

His intuition was spinning around in place as if it had lost its direction. He couldn't hide his bewilderment since he had never experienced such a thing before.

‘What kind of trick did you pull, Choi Yu-Seong?’

Suddenly, a loud noise echoed from the central path, followed by the eerie voice of a monster. Do-Jin, who was grinding his teeth, ran toward the sound as he panted heavily.

From the darkness, the silver blade of a spear shot toward his waist. Although he reacted a bit late, his sword managed to block the tip of the blade accurately. Once again, it was Do-Jin's intuition that saved him from the crisis at the last minute.

However, Do-Jin couldn't react in time to the bright light that suddenly exploded in front of him. The explosion occurred just as he blocked the blade of the spear.

“...?!”

His eyes were momentarily blinded so that he couldn't see anything in front of him.

‘Choi Yu-Seong...!’

It was natural for Do-Jin to rely on his other senses after that, but it was inevitably slower to ‘see’ movements using his other senses than directly using his eyes. And in a fight between two similarly skilled individuals, the slightest bit of slowness made a big difference.

Thud-!

As the thick spear struck his knee with great force, Do-Jin wavered unsteadily before he crumpled to the ground.

***

In fact, Do-Jin was right; this competition was like a hide and seek. In this case, Do-Jin was the tagger, and Yu-Seong was in a position to run away from him. Furthermore, Do-Jin was resolute in his conviction, and Yu-Seong was sure that Do-Jin could never change his mindset on the matter.

‘That is because he’ll think that I won't ever fight him.’

Just as Yu-Seong had been overconfident in his understanding of Do-Jin, Do-Jin had made the same mistake. It was a foolish mistake that could happen when both individuals thought they knew each other well.

In fact, Yu-Seong wanted to take advantage of this gap. However, he also had to consider the possibility that Do-Jin might be able to read his mind. Therefore, as soon as Yu-Seong encountered the first monster in the mine, he immediately conducted a few experiments.

He led the group of monsters, the Orc horde, while using his newly invented Free Light magic to divert their attention whenever he encountered a fork in the road. Then, he moved as much as possible along the walls, without leaving any traces at the beginning, and used the opposite path.

If Do-Jin perceived this to be a complete game of hide and seek, he would pursue Yu-Seong at a rapid pace. In the first place, Yu-Seong didn't expect to deceive Do-Jin with small tricks.

As expected, Do-Jin was now chasing after him. Now, Yu-Seong had to make sure that this game was perceived as a hide and seek. Yu-Seong then repeated the same action several times before seeing the sudden appearance of three crossroads.

‘This is where the showdown takes place.’

Although it wasn’t as good as Do-Jin’s yet, Yu-Seong also had a good instinct. He applied Delayed Explosion, a 2nd class magic that was the same class as Free Light magic, to one of the following monster’s necks. This skill—Delayed Explosion—had a clear advantage and disadvantage.

‘Although it’s similar in power to a 3rd class magic fireball, it didn't explode immediately even when used.

‘It takes 3 to 5 minutes to be executed.’

Yu-Seong thought that this disadvantage could be an advantage in the current situation. He cast Delayed Explosion on the body of the Orc rushing into him. Immediately after, he used the same Free Light Magic as before to lure the monsters.

‘The duration that the light leaves my hand should be at least 10 seconds.’

This short duration greatly helped to further deceive Do-Jin.

All the skill’s disadvantages were used as advantages, and Yu-Seong attached himself to the ceiling of the left path of the three crossroads, killed his breath, and waited for the opportunity. It was because he strongly felt that he had to gamble here, even though it was somewhat dangerous.

Soon, he detected Do-Jin's movement as the man passed by while he remained in hiding. When he felt the sound of the Delayed Explosion magic exploding, Yu-Seong didn’t hesitate. He had no idea how Do-Jin would move, but he knew that if he hesitated here, he would surely miss the opportunity.

Yu-Seong’s swift action gave him a chance to take advantage of Do-Jin's gap. Yu-Seong quickly extended his spear and used the Light magic, which he could easily and familiarly spread as much as he wanted, in front of Do-Jin's eyes.

Although it had no practical lethality, the Light magic could momentarily take away Do-Jin’s vision. At that moment, Yu-Seong's choice was to swing his spear and smash Do-Jin's kneecap, and his strategy paid off brilliantly.

"Huh… Huh..."

Yu-Seong took a deep breath and looked down at Do-Jin, who had collapsed in vain. When their eyes met, Yu-Seong couldn't help feeling strange.

‘Did I really knock down the protagonist of the original novel?’

Of course, he didn't kill the man or strike him unconscious.

However, Do-Jin’s current condition could be expressed in one word—incapacitated. Yu-Seong was sure that Do-Jin was unable to fight as he aimed the tip of his spear at Do-Jin's chin.

"I won."

With a short declaration, an exciting thrill rose within him.