[Translator – Bob ]
[Proofreader – ilafy ]
Chapter 24
[Fogged Forest]
The area around the Graveyard of Despair was composed entirely of trees. The hunters called the areas with dense fog the 'Fogged Forest'.
'…The Dullahan must be skulking around this area.'
The Dullahan was a hard boss monster to find, as it did not stay in one place and instead roamed around the forest.
On top of that, it was an undead monster—the worst kind of opponent for a martial artist like Shin YuSung.
'The worst boss I could have challenged if I wanted to set a record.'
But Shin YuSung had no choice. If he wanted to get the Black Dragon's Hide, the clothes that the Fist King used during his youth, as his reward, he had to clear the Graveyard of Despair.
The one thing in his favor was that when the boss monster Dullahan was roaming the forest, other death knights would not appear in it.
'…And no other living things live in the Fogged Forest.'
Only the Dullahan and Shin YuSung were in the Fogged Forest.
'So I can find it.'
Shin YuSung placed his hands on the ground. Even if the skeletal horse that the Dullahan was riding was gigantic, it was impossible for one to sense where they would be by feeling the vibrations of its hooves on the forest floor.
But Shin YuSung defied impossibility.
He focused his mana towards the tips of his hands to search for the Dullahan. He wasn't using [Heightened Focus] this time, despite having grown a habit from his training to subconsciously use it.
'I need to extend my senses…'
The breath of the forest…
The wind tickling his hand…
He also felt the pulse of the land.
Clop— clop! Clop—
He could feel the vibrations of something large hitting the soft soil and hard rocks on the ground.
Shin YuSung looked towards that something and smiled.
'Found you.'
* * * *
Adela walked towards a beautifully sculpted and unmarred ice castle with an expressionless face.
The path she was taking was lined with rock-solid ice statues of what used to be monsters .
[Astella Ice Castle]
The dungeon that Academy City was most reluctant to manage. The monsters that appeared were, of course, around the same difficulty as those in the other dungeons. The problem was with the location that the boss monster was living in.
Boom— Creak!
As Adela pushed the ice doors with her fingertips, the inside of the castle was revealed. An endlessly spiralling staircase that extended to the ceiling complete with countless traps extended before her.
The wide-open ceiling was lined with archers formed of ice circled around the hole and pointing their bows at Adela.
This dungeon was practically a fortress.
Adela slowly shifted her gaze between the stairs and the archers. Her eyes held no emotion. Her stare seemed even colder than the boss monster, a witch made entirely of ice.
'So it's stairs.'
Adela crouched. She did not head towards the path that the dungeon had made for her but instead began to concentrate and allocated mana to her legs.
Wssh!
As the arrows loosed by the ice archers began to fly towards Adela, she leapt off of the ground.
Tap!
Adela reached about halfway up to the ceiling with one jump. Even so, her physical abilities were around the same as a regular person; she had never trained her body.
What she had just done was done entirely with the power of her mana.
Thuck-thuckthuck!
The arrows flew into the ground. Underneath Adela, who was still in mid-air, a platform made of ice appeared.
Tap.
Adela casually landed on the platform. Even though the floor was a dizzying height away from her, she stepped on empty air without hesitation.
Tap. Step.
Stairs made of ice formed where Adela slowly walked. To the ice witch, Adela was, up until then, an opponent she had never met before.
"Kill her! Send her back down!"
White eyelashes. A body made of ice.
As the sharp voice of the ice witch rang throughout the castle, the ice archers, in unison, shot their arrows.
Wsssh!
The ice arrows raining down on her could not stop Adela from advancing.
Crack! Crrrrrack!
The intense chill in the air around her even managed to freeze ice. The swift arrows turned into ice as dense as a rock.
And those arrows fell through the dizzying heights to the ground below.
"Fall!" yelled the witch.
Adela turned off the translator function of her Pocket, as if annoyed by her speaking.
" !"
Ice rained from the ceiling.
Adela did not gain a single scratch from the torrent of ice showering her.
Woosh—
Arriving at the top, Adela waved her hand like the conductor of an orchestra. The mana emitting from her hand glowed blue and annihilated ten ice archers' heads.
Crack! Split! Shatter!
Seeing the ice archers she made be destroyed in an instant, the ice witch stood up with her own staff in hand.
Even among the rank 4 boss monsters, the ice witch was high-level. On top of that, she could use mana to cast a variety of ice spells.
" !"
With an incomprehensible speech, spears made of the chill began to form around her.
Tap!
As the witch hit the end of her staff against the floor, the spears flew towards Adela.
Wooooosh!
It was a skill that could be considered her equivalent of a hunter's ultimate attack.
'As expected, this is also…' thought Adela, face expressionless.
Nothing was interesting to Adela—not conquering dungeons, nor the spars at the Academy. Because she was so strong, the hunter world that her grandfather had described to her and the experience she was living through were different.
Crack! Crack!
As she stretched out her hand, the spears turned into powder and scattered.
" !"
The ice witch cried in her incomprehensible language. Even if she couldn't understand her, Adela had an idea of what the witch was feeling. Fear and despair clouded her expression. That expression of defeat was something shared among the opponents Adela fought against.
In the end, Adela couldn't feel anything that day, either.
"…È troppo facile (too easy)"
Adela spoke with a voice colder than the chill freezing the surrounding area; she lightly clenched the hand that had been stretched out. Blue mana scattered from her pale fingers.
Boom!
As the mana she had gathered spread out from her hand, ice shards swept through the area like a tsunami.
* * *
Reaper Scans
Translator – Bob
Proofreader – ilafy
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* * *
Vwwwm!
As Aedla returned from the dungeon after clearing it, the reporters at the Association showered her with flashes from their cameras.
Snap! Snap!
"Are you thinking of participating in the International Competition? If you are, are you of South Korean nationality or Italian nationality…"
"You're the first transfer student of Gaon Academy to be first in the student ranking! Do you have a secret to your success?"
"Please give us your thoughts on being second in the Dungeon Raid Competition!"
"What is your opinion on the Chinese team…"
The reporters swarmed towards her like a wave of ants, mics outstretched. Adela didn't answer them and looked at the scoreboard.
[1st — Liú Jùn (Skyscraper Academy)]
[2nd — Adela (Gaon Academy)]
[3rd — Unclaimed]
The names of the leaders of the teams that had passed were written on the electronic display alongside the academy they were attending, but Shin YuSung's name was not up there.
'It isn't there…'
The disciple of the Fist King.
The thought that Shin YuSung was of equal skill had been rapidly growing in her.
Vwwm!
As the portal next to her activated, Adela smoothly turned her head towards it.
'…Shin YuSung?'
But the party that came out of the portal was not the one Adela had been thinking of.
—Third place is Seiji from Choten Academy!
The Japanese team's students walked out of the portal as the voice of an organizer rang out.
Kuroki Seiji, with a stiff expression on his face.
Hanasaki Sakura, amiably smiling and waving at the reporters.
Kirishima Isshin, fingering the blade holstered to his waist.
"Please give us your thoughts on being third in…"
The reporters lying in wait also pointed their mics towards the Japanese team, but Seiji was looking at the electronic display.
"…Another loss," he muttered.
Gaon Academy.
A hunter from Korea was second place, once again. Sakura tried to comfort the self-deprecating Seiji.
"Don't get too broken up about it. We still beat one of the teams."
She was talking about Shin YuSung.
He had still not placed in the rankings.
"Is that so," was Seiji's cool reply.
Right then, something began to change. The spectators watching the monitors began to whisper amongst each other.
"H-he's going to defeat the Dullahan and go back to her? Are they trying to do a double raid?"
"Two bosses for the competition? That's crazy, right? They'll just fail and not even place in the rankings…"
The attention of the party leaders was drawn to the unbelievable conversation that the spectators were having. Among those, the one who was the most sensitive about it was Liú Jùn.
'…A double raid?'
The act of aiming for two bosses during the Dungeon Raid Competition was unheard of. This was due to the fact that one could lose their chance to get the artifact prize from the Association if they tried to do an unnecessary challenge like that.
It was the first time that anyone had attempted such a thing since the beginning of the Association.
A change, unnoticeable to most, appeared in Adela's blank expression as she watched the monitor.
'…He really is interesting.'
Even his thoughts were different from most people.
Of course, if it stopped at just an attempt, it would all be for nothing. If he wanted to call it a success, he had to place 4th in the rankings. With faint anticipation, Adela watched Shin YuSung teams' monitor.
* * * *
Fogged Forest…
Shattered scraps of armor lay in front of Shin YuSung.
'I really have a bad affinity with undead monsters.'
First of all, the undead did not have any weaknesses on their body. There was no such thing as a fatal blow to them, and in the case of the Dullahan, he had to destroy the core being protected by its armor.
It was an impossible feat for a regular student.
Shin YuSung, with the skills of the Fist King, had accomplished that very feat.
Battle God Style – Savage Dragon's Boulder Crushing Palm
The Dullahan had been reduced into nothing, as if representing proof of the skill's destructive force. The only thing Shin YuSung had to do was defeat the 'Immortal' and return to the Association.
As his strides became more urgent, a certain face appeared in Shin YuSung's thoughts.
'…Sumire should be doing well.'
Next was Sumire's turn—Shin YuSung's ace up his sleeve.
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