Pleased by the compliment? Raydel thought. Who would have thought that a compliment could heal bosses? He now could feel the Plague Doctor getting better and not as weak as a few minutes ago. Next time he needed to think of some other compliments. He might even be able to keep the health points of the Plague Doctor full at all times.
Can I summon them any time? Raydel suddenly wondered. After standing still for a moment, he got the answer. The act of summoning the boss alone had already drained so much of his energy. If he kept the boss here longer, it meant that his energy would be used till they're all gone. He needed to use the summoning skill like he turned his phone on and off to save the battery.
"Well, you can go now," Raydel said. The Plague Doctor disappeared after that.
It seemed that summoning a boss could be done via thought communication. He just imagined the scene of him taking something out of his pocket. Then, would it be possible to summon Cthulhu in the same way? Raydel tried it right away.
However, nothing happened.
I can't summon Cthulhu this way?
"You look so cool when you think," Jinny said.
Raydel smiled shyly when he was suddenly attacked with a compliment. He staggered because of the tiredness from summoning the boss. He summoned the Plague Doctor for just a few minutes, but it took so much of his energy. From now on, he needed to practice when he got some free time.
"Now that we defeated the miniboss, I think the boss room must be nearby," Raydel said. "Jinny, have you figured out the characteristics of the boss yet? I'll teach you how. It's actually not that hard."
He raised his index finger.
"Normally the arena reflects the identity of the dungeon. We need to look at the buildings in the arena and at the monsters. Also, along the way to the boss room, we may find some conditions that are related to the dungeon. When we gather all the information, we'll be able to tell what the boss of the dungeon will be."
"So, knowing what the boss will be is necessary?"
"For me it is because it'll help prepare us for the dungeon's traps. But for strong hunters, sometimes they don't need to know what the boss will be and still can kill it. Well, what do you see now?"
They walked through the cold wind, thinking that the direction in which they were going was the right one because the trees started to spread out.
"For example, the last dungeon I went in was an underground graveyard," Raydel said. "There were so many skeletons in the walls. The monsters I found inside were giant rats with cooties. Judging from the arena, the boss must have something to do with corpses or skeletons. But when I met the miniboss holding a rake and a broom, I could eliminate other possibilities right away."
Jinny tilted her head. "Why?"
"It's a legend about the Black Death. If you meet an old lady with a rake and a broom, the broom means that everyone will die like the way the broom brushes everything while the rake means that some will survive through the space between the prongs," Raydel said. "But I should have known since the giant rats with cooties… I forgot all about it."
In fact, if he had been stronger and smarter than this, he would be able to save several more hunters.
"The Black Death, the disease from the Middle Ages?" Jinny asked. "There's a dungeon from something like that?"
"Yeah."
"I want to know… how? Like how can a dungeon just appear? And some of it is also related to incidents in our world. Don't you find it strange?"
It was strange, but the novel never explained why.
"So, this dungeon…." Jinny looked around, "Forest, winter, snakes, black bear… oh."
They stopped when they saw a body lying in the snow.
"A corpse?"
A hunter's corpse was lying in the dried-up puddle of his blood on the snow-covered ground.
White snow covered most of the body, indicating that the body must have been here for a long while now. Raydel tightened his lips. He felt like vomiting but tried to swallow it. He slowly stepped closer to the corpse and squatted down to look at the injuries that killed this person.
From his neck down was filled with gaping wounds. There was also an open huge cut on his stomach that Raydel could see something red inside.
Raydel heard Jinny vomiting behind him.
"Eat… he was eaten?" she asked with a trembling voice. "By a monster? That miniboss?"
"No…." Raydel shook his head. "A corpse killed by a bear doesn't look like this."
Raydel pulled the corpse's shirt up.
"These are human teeth marks."
"Human? There are zombies in this dungeon? Like in that hospital? Brother, look! Another corpse over there!"
Raydel looked in the direction and suddenly saw several corpses of hunters scattering in the area.
Many lifeless bodies were left on the ground. They all looked malnourished and had fatal human bites on their necks. The flanks of some bodies were bitten so deep their internal organs were slipping out. Raydel frowned at the smell of blood and the disgusting wounds. However, he started to connect the dots in his head.
'...Han inspected the rawboned corpses in front of him. He saw human bites on them. The bites left behind traces of an unknown energy. It told Han that some hunters had been doing some unforbidden things. He was confident it must have been something that violated the Hunter Guild's rules.'
It was an incident in the novel.
Raydel swallowed the sickness coming up in his throat one more time. He got up and walked back to Jinny.
"The arena is a forest but not just a normal one. It's a forest with oaks and pines. If I remember it correctly, it's the type of forest that can be found in the western countries like America on its eastern part," Raydel said. "Monsters like Garter Snakes and Black Bears can also be found in this type of forest as well. But the things that will tell us about the dungeon are the corpses, the winter season, and the conditions we got when facing the miniboss."
Raydel tried to delete the images of the corpses from his head. It kept bothering him.
"The condition is to satiate the boss' hunger and these corpses are so skinny that it looks like they died of malnourishment. There are also clues on their bodies indicating that they might have gotten eaten," he said. "Winter and famine so severe people began to eat each other. Can you guess what legend it is from?"
Jinny blinked. She had not even opened her mouth yet when she heard 'crunch' sound.
Both Raydel and Jinny pulled out their weapons at the same time. They pointed theirs at the source of the sound. The area was hidden behind shadow, making it hard for them to see what it was. But when Jinny whispered the name of the boss, they heard the 'crunch' sound again.
"...Wendigo?"
The smell of blood intensified.
"Right, it's Wendigo," Raydel said.
"Does that mean we have to fight against the boss that wants to eat us?"
"It's probably not just to eat us," Raydel said. "You have to answer us, Mr. Cadane."
The person who stepped out of the shadow was Cadane. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Raydel saw bloodstains on it, but it was not Cadane's.
"Huh?" Jinny frowned, "not Wendigo?"
"Wendigo can possess a human."
"So, he's possessed?"
"He let it possess him."
Cadane smiled. "Why do you think so?"
"You have in fact killed Wendigo, taken the artifact, and already used it. What you're doing right now is 'enhancing' the artifact's power by feeding it human flesh."
To use a gaming vocabulary, it probably equaled to the word 'farming.' It was an act of repeating something for a reward. What Cadane was doing was farming the dungeon again and again to enhance the power of his artifact without thinking about what was right or wrong. Wendigo got stronger by eating human flesh, so Cadane lured other hunters in to kill and eat them.
This was one of the characters that were so wicked they could not be forgiven.
The protagonist encountered this kind of character so many times and every time it ended with him killing them because these people could never get any better. Actually, the protagonist started to wonder if these villains had any connection to one another at one point, since it felt like there was an organization behind all of them. But Raydel died before he reached that part.
However, Raydel remembered the incidents where these characters appeared because…
"I was ordered to strengthen this dungeon to test the power of a hunter," Cadane said. "I don't know if you've seen him before, the one with white hair that was called the Solo Player. That's why no high-ranking hunters came to exorcize this mutated dungeon. I even killed the boss."
"Did employer tell you to eat human flesh too?"
Cadane smiled even wider.
"That's not from my employer."
In conclusion, this was the event to level up the protagonist's strength.
But he's not even here, Raydel thought.
Cadane must have known that Han had not arrived here yet, so he sighed.
"As I wait for my target, I'll eat both you and the girl" Cadane's smile reached his eyes. He swallowed. "You look… delicious."
After he finished speaking, all the scattering corpses slowly stood up.
Raydel cursed. This must have been one of Wendigo's skills. He looked through them all, counting the numbers. Including Cadane, they had around ten hunters. This man killed this many people. It made it impossible for Raydel to estimate how stronger he became with Wendigo's power. However, there was one thing he did in time.
Just by thinking, the Plague Doctor suddenly appeared while Raydel felt like his strength was just sucked dried.
He almost collapsed onto the ground. His heart pounded like a drum as if he had just run a marathon. Raydel tried to control his breath before saying to the Plague Doctor.
"Protect Jinny with your life."
"A boss-summoning hunter?" Cadane said. "But you have no rank, so you're just a beginner then. Like a baby learning how to walk. Your boss won't be able to do much even if it came from a high-ranking dungeon."
He summoned a dagger as red as blood.
"I'll deal with you first. Then it'll be her turn."
"...!"
Raydel almost did not parry the attack in time with his dagger. He did not know why Cadane could approach him this fast, but that was probably the result of wrongly farming the dungeon over and over again. It was like some kind of black magic, something that the Hunter Guild prohibited because it was a shortcut to immense strength.
The punishment of it, if caught, was an execution.
That was why Cadane had to kill Jinny and him to leave no witness.
"It doesn't matter if you kill me. When you register your artifact in the hunter system, the government will know in the end," Raydel said.
"And why would I be so stupid to let myself get caught?"
Clang!
Their daggers crashed, creating sparks. Raydel fixed his feet on the ground and cursed when he noticed that all of the corpses were heading toward the Plague Doctor.
I have no time. I have to deal with Cadane as fast as I can.
Raydel could only think about how it felt as if he had accepted the life of a hunter.
When he accepted his fate, he suddenly recalled many scenes from the novel.
The only way to defeat Cadane was to have a higher dagger skill than the other.
It was basic knowledge for everyone that skills would only increase after they cleared a dungeon, which was when the natural system would distribute rewards to hunters. However, Raydel remembered that in the novel, Han learned one thing that was not widely known; hunter's skills were always upgraded. The distribution at the end was just a summary in the status page.
That meant as he was fighting in this dungeon, he could also increase the level of his dagger skill.
And skills could only be upgraded when one used it.
He needed to fight and searched for the feeling described in the novel.
'...Han swung his sword at the monsters. The moment his sword sliced through the enemies' flesh and skin; he felt an explosion of power in his own arms. It was like a ball of light that shone so bright. It covered his entire body in a warm embrace.'
He just needed to focus and looked for that feeling!
Raydel turned his eyes away from Jinny and the Plague Doctor that were fighting with zombies and focused on Cadane. He took a step forward and slashed his dagger at Cadane's face!
Cadane dodged it and thrusted his dagger back at Raydel who held his weapon up to block it.
"You're bleeding," Cadane said.
Raydel gritted his teeth. Cadane's dagger slit his hand, leaving a long cut and a stinging pain behind. Still, Raydel held on tight to his dagger and kept attacking Cadane nonstop. Their weapons clashed into each other and became the only sound in the area. The one thing that Raydel was looking for was the feeling that his skill had upgraded.
As Raydel was attacking Cadane, he suddenly felt a wave of warmth flooding all over his body. He waited for none and slashed at his enemy even faster. If upgrading the skill meant he had to get hurt and struck this shitty villain hundreds of times, he would do it…
Suddenly, Cadane took his wrist and pulled him closer.
He licked the blood on Raydel's hands like a madman. The man's beard rubbed Raydel's bruised skin.
"I told you you look tasty."
Raydel felt so disgusted that he pushed himself away from him!
Pluckkh!
Cadane kicked Raydel in the stomach and hit his chin with an uppercut. Raydel could taste blood in his mouth. He heard Jinny screaming as if she tried to run in and help him but was stopped by the Plague Doctor and zombies. All she could do was slash at the zombies furiously. She looked around like she was trying to find a way to get to him.
Raydel coughed before he saw a flickering message box appearing in front of him.
[Hunter Attraction Skill has been upgraded.]
[You have acquired a new skill: 'Unlocking Potential']
Raydel gasped. "Huh?"
[Skill: 'Unlocking Potential'
Description: the user can enter into the other people's minds for a short moment. If the user can complete the person's missing memory, then the memory owner's potential will be unlocked. This potential may result in an upgrade in strength or make the memory owner be more affected by the Hunter Attraction Skill.] The moment Raydel finished reading the description, it was as if he got sucked into another realm.
He saw a child… Cadane in his younger self was standing in front of a kitchen.
Cadane had a knife in his hand. He looked up and turned his head around to look at Raydel.
"I changed my mind. I like you, so I won't kill you." Cadane's voice yanked Raydel back to reality.
He pulled out human flesh from his pocket.
"Wanna try human flesh? I'll give you a portion of Wendigo's power." Cadane smiled, his hands covered in blood. "It tastes good I guarantee you."
"...!"
Raydel almost threw up. Cadane tried to push the flesh in his mouth.
"If you eat it, I'll tell you why I'm not afraid of being caught by the government," he said. "Don't you want to know who's behind all this?"
The smell of blood filled up every corner of his nostrils to the point he began to sense its taste. It was so disgusting that Raydel could not bear it, so he kicked Cadane with every last drop of his strength. Then, when he pushed the other's face away from his, he suddenly remembered a line from the novel.
Raydel gave Cadane his bandaged middle finger and shouted.
"I only like takoyaki, not human flesh!"
Something immediately struck Cadane, sending him flying away!
Cadane's eyes went wide open. His heart was pounding because of the immense power that threw him away. He looked at Raydel and saw him slowly trying to stand up. Behind him were… several octopus-like tentacles.
Each tentacle was larger than a human body. It had a threatening deep dark shade. They emerged from underground and behind Raydel looking like fox tails that moved with its own thoughts.
Cadane froze in confusion because of the scene in front of him.
What rank is he again? Isn't he a no rank? he thought.
The tentacles twisted, the suction cups widening. They pressed themselves on the owner's body like a huge dog.
Raydel spat out the blood in his mouth. His heart raced because he did not even expect the summon had actually worked. He just recalled the two steps needed to summon an S-rank boss from the novel. Firstly, he needed to use a word related to the boss. Raydel tried to avoid saying what the boss was outright because he did not want to risk Cadane realizing its identity. Secondly, he needed to use an organ that represented the boss, which in this case, was the middle finger that he sacrificed to Cthulhu.
He turned around to look at the tentacles before noticing a message box.
[Cthulhu doesn't like that you summoned him so late.]
[Cthulhu doesn't like being compared to 'takoyaki.']
For God's sake, Raydel thought.