Chapter 161: The Price of Victory

This meant that every bird that still possessed functioning instincts had already escaped long ago.

The only ones that remained were the undead creatures that had completely lost their sense of danger.

There was apparently a pet shop somewhere nearby because among the Zombie Birds were even several parrots and other similar species.

Joo Joowon ordered them to remain still before lowering his head and speaking to Hwi.

"Hwi, hurry up and eat!"

He was worried that once the fifteen minute control duration expired, the remaining birds would simply fly away.

Because of that, Joo Joowon also stepped forward himself and began smashing open the heads of the Zombie Birds with the Fire Axe as though he were cracking walnuts.

Ordinary zombies like these had very little health to begin with.

Most of them died with a single swing of the axe.

With the Bird Whistle controlling them, even if they wanted to flee, their movements became sluggish and uncoordinated.

Only then did Joo Joowon realize that the Bird Whistle could not completely control the behavior of birds.

It merely forced them to obey commands.

During that process, the controlled birds were not entirely incapable of resisting.

Their resistance was simply extremely subtle and difficult to notice.

If a creature’s Mental Power was high enough, it was clearly possible to break free from the Bird Whistle’s control.

That was perfectly normal for a piece of common grade equipment, so Joo Joowon did not pay it much attention.

Fortunately, all the birds that had arrived were Zombie Birds.

The thought of fleeing simply did not exist inside their minds.

Instead, whenever Joo Joowon approached, they displayed an instinctive desire to peck at him, completely ignoring the enormous difference in strength between them.

After all fifty three Zombie Birds had been dealt with, the highest level among them had only reached Level 2.

Joo Joowon honestly had no idea how they had managed that.

According to common sense, after the rain, zombies generally increased by at least one level, so their levels should have risen significantly.

However, when he thought back to the pitiful amount of experience he had received from killing fish earlier, he quickly accepted it.

Perhaps these levels were already the result of that increase.

Otherwise, the experience they provided might have been nothing more than decimal values.

The fifty three Zombie Birds provided Joo Joowon with a total of sixty eight experience points.

Combined with the 1,536 experience points granted by the Big Belly Zombie, Joo Joowon successfully advanced to Level 8.

...

[ Ding! ]

[ Level Up! ]

[ Current Level: 8 ]

[ EXP: 1125 / 1280 ]

...

The amount of experience granted by the Level 7 Big Belly Zombie had honestly caught Joo Joowon off guard.

Not because it had given too little.

Quite the opposite.

It had given far too much.

That was right.

Far too much.

The Level 5 Boss had only rewarded him with forty eight experience points.

There was clearly something wrong with that number.

The comparison with the Level 5 Elite Monster alone made this obvious.

A Level 5 Elite Monster had provided thirty two experience points.

How could a Boss monster of the same level only provide sixteen additional points beyond that?

Clearly, just like the Elite Monster he had encountered at the very beginning of the apocalypse, that Zombie Spider had likely devoted most of its energy toward nurturing the smaller spiders around it.

Alternatively, according to the game’s internal settings, perhaps the Boss had simply not fully matured at that stage of the apocalypse.

Either explanation would account for the drastically reduced experience reward.

Following normal logic, therefore, a Level 7 Boss providing well over one hundred experience points did not seem unreasonable at all.

However, the experience provided by monsters increased in exactly the same way as the player’s own experience bar.

Each level doubled the amount of experience provided.

A Level 5 Elite Monster granted thirty two experience points.

A Level 6 Elite Monster would therefore grant sixty four.

A Level 7 Elite Monster would grant one hundred twenty eight.

Even if Boss monsters naturally provided more experience than Elite Monsters, a Boss of the same level as himself should never have been capable of filling his entire experience bar in a single kill. Yet this one Boss had almost filled his Level 8 experience bar all by itself.

Of course, Boss monsters were designed to be fought by groups of players.

Under normal circumstances, the experience gained from defeating one alone really should be quite substantial.

Even so, the amount he had received felt abnormal.

After all, it was not as though he had defeated a higher level enemy.

Was it because of that skill?

Joo Joowon thought back to the ability that had caught him in its trap at the very beginning of the fight.

He was absolutely certain that the Big Belly Zombie was not a psychic type zombie.

Even though it possessed an aura that suppressed his Mental Power and made using it feel sluggish, it definitely was not a psychic type zombie.

This was not a conclusion he had reached based on its appearance.

It was because he had fought physic type zombies before and understood exactly what attacks that category specialized in.

The skill that briefly froze his body in place later in the battle was its true application of Mental Power.

It was similar to the Cat Chimera he had encountered previously.

Both represented crude and shallow applications of Mental Power by creatures that did not actually specialize in it.

If the Big Belly Zombie truly understood how to wield Mental Power properly, then its attacks would not have manifested as elemental stone spikes.

More importantly, the experience he had gone through while trapped by that skill remained deeply engraved in his memory.

Even if a physic type ability created illusions, the illusion should have been established from the moment he entered the training institution.

It should not have waited until the boss approached him before activating.

And it certainly should not have forced him to sit there listening to the chants of cultists preaching scripture.