Level 25, the first turning point a Player faced.
The reason it was called 'the first turning point' was precisely because of 'advancement'. When Players reached level 25, they were given a choice to advance to a class. Normally, it was the biggest turning point before level 40.
'How come I'm not getting a notice?'
Normally, you'd get a list of choices without delay. The 'first advancement' was set to several basic choices.
'Usually, it's tank or damage dealer, plus a few miscellaneous classes.'
Miscellaneous classes referred to the 'non-combat' classes. Choices like explorer or blacksmith definitely existed. It was just that no one chose them.
The first advancement was exactly as it sounded—the first class change. It played the role of determining the body's 'direction'.
'In the early Play period, everyone always advanced at level 25.'
But as time passed and strategies were published, people no longer chose to do their first advancement at level 25.
'Level 30. That's the real advancement point.'
I would wait for that point. So to me, level '25' itself wasn't all that important. However, I should have still heard the 'advancement is possible' notice. How come I didn't?
'Did something go wrong?'
I got a call from Sunhwa.
—I went to D-Tower like you told me to, but… it's just a normal building?
That meant it still looked like the normal 'D-Tower', having fulfilled its purpose as the Tutorial Dungeon.
—Got it.
I hung up. The D-Tower was still the same as before, and I didn't get the advancement notice. I was able to draw a conclusion.
'It hasn't been updated yet.'
In conclusion—
'I leveled up too fast.'
It seemed that I had leveled up faster than the System had expected, so the advancement system hadn't been patched in yet. No wonder. The other countries had just barely started their 'Tutorial Quests' now.
'This is correct. It's correct that the update hasn't happened yet.'
My level was 25. I relaxed a little after figuring out the situation. Nothing would change from the past. When I thought back, I remembered that in the early Play period, the person with the fastest level ups had been the Tutorial Ender.
The Tutorial Ender, So Yoohyun, who would later be called the Fist King. I guessed that his level was currently somewhere in the early 20s.
'So Yoohyun was probably the first to get the first advancement notice, too.'
Thinking about the timeline according to his level up speed would be easiest.
'I can just check, can't I?'
I sent Yoohyun a call.
–Hyungnim! My level is 22. I've been doing my best to hunt, but it's really slow-going.
Yoohyun was level 22. That was certainly an extremely fast leveling speed. It was just slow compared to me.
'Then for now, advancement is on hold.'
I decided to busy myself with other matters and organize my thoughts until the Tutorial Dungeon 'D-Tower' turned into the 'Tutorial Building', until a new system called NPCs took effect.
'Inventory.'
In my Inventory was the compiled 'summary' I had brought with me from 2028. I didn't know why I had it, or why I had returned to the past. I didn't know those things, but it was okay. To me, right now, the reason wasn't important.
[May 11, 2018. The beginning of the Cataclysm on a worldwide scale.]
Today was June 13.
[June 16, 2018. Gates/dungeons appear simultaneously in Korea.]
Soon, 'beginner' or 'tutorial' level gates and dungeons would be simultaneously generated all over the country.
'Thinking about it like that, my leveling speed is really fucking fast.'
It wasn't just my level up speed. I got extra random stats whenever I leveled up. That meant I'd gotten way more stat points than regular Players of the same level.
'There are three more days until the 16th of June.'
What could I do during these three days? The new house was nearly ready for moving in. Tomorrow, our family would be able to move to our new home. I was itchy to find out how happy my mom and sister would be after finding out. My mom's lifelong wish had been to live in a real apartment, after all.
'Okay.'
I decided what I would do today. The goal for today was 'Mt. Inwang'.
At the foot of Mt. Inwang, in the early evening of a weekday, I saw quite a lot of climbers.
"Oppa. Why are we here?"
"There'll be a monster somewhere around here."
"A monster?"
Some distance away, I saw a monster getting trampled under the climbers' feet. It was a Slime.
"Like that Slime?"
"You can't really call that thing a monster."
Slimes were only technically monsters by classification. Even civilians who weren't Players could easily kill them. Slimes were simply a tool to get people accustomed to 'Playing', to get them used to destroying something.
"Then what? Is there something else here?"
"Yeah."
I knew. There was definitely a 'Lycanthrope' living here, somewhere on this mountain. There hadn't been any victims yet, but someone would die here… at the Lycanthrope's claws.
"A Lycanthrope."
"Ehh?!" Sunhwa stumbled back one step. "A-A Lycanthrope?"
It was a monster we had already seen. The Lycanthrope was a bipedal, walking wolf-type monster. The Lycanthrope we'd seen on the Tutorial Field was the essence of fear itself, at least to Sunhwa.
"W-We're going to kill that?"
"We have to."
"O-Oppa. Please reconsider."
I could understand why Sunhwa was so frightened. How scared must she have been back then? The fear engraved in her head must still be very present.
"I'm level 25 now."
"What? Already?? I'm only at 21."
It was actually shocking. She was in her early teens, so her 'talent plates' shouldn't be completely open yet. For her to have almost the same level as So Yoohyun at her age was insane. Her talent hadn't even bloomed yet. If this young child was this incredible, just how crazy would she be when all her talent plates opened? It was a bit iffy coming from my level 25 mouth, but this kid really was a 'damn genius'.
In any case, Sunhwa and I started going up Mt. Inwang. I tried to remember the newspaper article.
'They said six people died gruesome deaths on the trail.'
One of the six had captured the 'Lycanthrope' on her phone camera. A military unit was dispatched to hunt down the Lycanthrope, and they managed to succeed because Lycanthropes could be hunted with modern weapons.
'But it was a real mess.'
It felt really different. I had only come in contact with the incident through a newspaper article, and back then, I simply thought that it was a terrifying creature. But now, I was climbing Mt. Inwang to kill that very creature.
The sun crept down, the sky dimming.
'They said it was around the halfway point.'
Once you hit level 20, even a child would have the physical abilities of most adult men, or better. Sunhwa didn't struggle much.
"Oppa, will a monster really show up here?"
The only monsters we could see were slimes. Even the commonly seen city foxes were nowhere to be spotted, and there weren't any rabbit monsters. It was so peaceful I started to wonder if this was all in vain.
"It's possible we might not find it today."
It could go either way. I hadn't been thinking that we would find the Lycanthrope in just one day. However—
'Ah.'
I felt something through my constantly active 'Eye of Perception'.
'Bloodlust.'
I didn't see the source of the bloodlust. We were on a steep slope, with a not-too-thick forest on both sides. Nearby, a few climbers were chattering jovially as they descended the mountain.
'In the newspaper article…'
The situation had been described with comparatively greater detail. I was almost fascinated by my ability to remember all of that now. I didn't know why I could remember it. Was it because I was a genius?
'Old schoolmates in their 40s experienced an unlucky mishap while descending the mountain.'
I didn't come here because I wanted to save them. Incidents like this would occur in tandem all over the country anyway, and I couldn't save them all. This might make me seem a little violent and cold-hearted, but I came here in order to test my current strength. I wanted to see if the level 25 me could face a level 25-ish Lycanthrope head-on.
'Where is it?'
I definitely felt its bloodthirst, that feeling of a savage beast eyeing its prey. 'Eye of Perception', the far more developed version of 'Sixth Sense', heightened every sense of my body to the utmost.
'Where is it?'
Before long, I was able to find it.
'There…!'
* * *
Han Myunghye, who was 43 years old this year, climbed down Mt. Inwang while chattering with her old school buddies, who she hadn't seen in a while.
"They say events like Jongno have happened all over the world."
"Haa. How terrifying. Don't talk about it. I don't even wanna think about it."
Out of 150,000 people, just 5,000 managed to survive Jongno. That was, in every sense of the word, a calamity and a disaster.
"I hear those Intermediate Administrators or whatever monsters are killing people at random, and not even the police can do anything about them?"
Han Myunghye shook her head.
She had many worries these days, too. Her daughter awakened as a Player, or something of the sort, and insisted that Playing was fun. She tried to scold her daughter to not say such crazy nonsense, but the child didn't want to listen to her.
"Yeah. Those Intermediate Administrators? I hear those guys are real monsters, too."
"Not even guns work on them. They appear and disappear suddenly, so… there's nothing we can do about them."
The world had changed too much these days. Ever since the 'Cataclysm', it felt like Earth had become a completely different world.
"We've lived fifty years, but who would've known that something like this would happen?"
"Seriously."
"But I hear the items those monsters drop are being sold off at a pretty high price?"
"That, you know, Sungshin President described them as new technology."
New technology. Monsters. Tutorial. To them, the terms were far too unfamiliar. Even slimes were fascinating to them, despite having seen them many times.
"And these squishy things have appeared on the ground, too."
But just then, they saw someone running over.
"H-Huhh?"
Han Myunghye was startled out of her wits. It was almost like some crazy person was charging towards them.
"K-Kyaaaa!"
She screamed, falling backwards to the ground. Some crazy person was running over with a huge knife in hand, after all. Myunghye's school buddies also screamed. One of them even fled without a single look back, and the three remaining women screamed in place.
'I-I have to call the police!'
But her body was frozen. She couldn't move—she was just too shocked. What kind of bolt from the blue was this? How could there be a sudden suspicious man with a knife here?
"Please stay still. Don't make pointless noise. It'll stimulate it."
Hyukjin gestured towards his mouth with his index finger. Myunghye shut her mouth, but the three women around her continued to shriek, apparently caught in a panic. They could do nothing but scream.
"T-T-T-T-That is—!"
Behind the collapsed Myunghye, something enormous appeared.
Grrrrrrr–!
It was a lifeform of a kind they had never seen in their lives, a monster with golden eyes and saliva dripping from its sharp fangs.
Lycanthrope LVL 24
It was a level 24 Lycanthrope. Hyukjin reached out with his left hand, grabbed the slumped Han Myunghye, and dragged her behind him.
'Before, I could only use petty tricks…'
How would it be this time, now that he was a level 25 Player? Just how well could he really hunt this level 24 Lycanthrope?
'I'm curious.'
He readjusted his grip on the 'Iron Sword'. But just then, Eye of Perception picked up on 'bloodlust'.
'This feeling.'
It was the same bloodlust he had felt earlier. Now that he could see the beast with his own eyes, he knew. The bloodlust from earlier… wasn't coming from this Lycanthrope. The source of the bloodthirst he'd felt through Eye of Perception was from something 'else', something giving off an energy more refined than the Lycanthrope.
____