Chapter 727: Week 9–10 Midterms (6)

Some skills and traits are not assigned ranks in the first place, so rank-related restrictions do not affect them.

★All-Poison Immunity★ was the same.

It did not matter whether all my ranks had been adjusted to E or whether this place was a B-rank fixed zone. It could still display its original performance in full.

There’s no way for us to get poisoned even if we tried.

The sweet scent kept tickling the tip of my nose, but we continued walking forward without a care.

Eventually, the flowers and plants seemed to realize that paralytic poison did not work on us.

RUSTLE...

More pollen scattered, and this time, a spicy smell stabbed into my nose.

Apparently, they had changed the type of poison.

It was still just as useless, but Seo Ye-in hunched her shoulders slightly.

“...Spicy.”

“It probably would be spicy for you.”

“Spicy...”

“Hold your breath for a bit.”

“Good idea...”

Seo Ye-in nodded, then puffed her cheeks full of air.

Seeing that, I tossed out a question.

“Does that let you hold it longer?”

“...”

— You’re not supposed to talk to me.

“I was being clueless. My apologies.”

Well, if she talked, the air would leak out.

I decided that made enough sense and kept walking, and puff-cheeked Seo Ye-in followed behind me.

Judging by the way her shoulders kept twitching, she was still inhaling spicy pollen, though.

Fortunately, it did not take us long to reach our destination.

All kinds of plants and flowers were clustered together in what looked like a wide square flower bed.

I watched the sight for a while, then gripped the crow tree and started whacking the flowers without mercy.

THWACK! SMACK!

“Clear out while I’m asking nicely.”

“My spot.”

CLANG!

Seo Ye-in swung the pot the same way.

She did not really know what was going on, but she was copying me for now.

RUSTLE...

The flowers resisted by spewing all sorts of poisonous powder, but they soon seemed to realize that none of it worked.

In the end, unable to hold out, they slowly withdrew.

What appeared beneath them was a wide stone slab.

However, nothing was written or drawn on it. It was completely blank.

“We have to fill it in.”

“How?”

“We’re going to get the pieces now.”

I took Seo Ye-in and left the spot again.

We occasionally whacked flowers and threw our weight around as we went.

THWACK!

“Ahem. Step aside for a moment.”

“Ahem.”

We looked exactly like a pair of thugs, but there was a reason for this behavior.

CLANG!

After the continued beating, a purple flower slowly folded its bud shut.

Hidden beneath it was something that seemed to be made of the same material as the stone slab, and for some reason, it reminded me of a Tetris block.

“Looks like we just take these, right?”

“Puzzle solving.”

— I understand perfectly.

Sloth and Fast-Luckless nodded at the same time.

The idea was to collect the pieces scattered around the area and fit them into the stone slab.

Soon, we split up to search efficiently.

THWACK!

Another innocent plant was struck by the staff and slowly retreated.

As I dug out the Tetris block buried underneath, I thought,

This is originally a hidden piece you give up on even if you know about it.

The standard strategy was to raise your rank to B first, then enter with countermeasures for status effects prepared.

But even that was not one hundred percent safe.

Poison came in almost every step, so whether you were using skills, traits, or item cards, your cooldowns would start spinning and your resources would be exhausted in no time.

Even [Purification], the most commonly used option, had a cooldown measured in minutes.

Therefore, the key to this hidden piece was finding all the pieces and completing the puzzle before the poison got you.

That’s the standard way, anyway.

If your countermeasure against status effects was S-rank, that was a different story.

We gathered the Tetris pieces almost absurdly easily.

CLICK, CLICK.

The empty stone slab gradually filled in.

When we slotted in the final puzzle piece, it opened to both sides like sliding doors with a heavy rumble.

What appeared inside was a thin box the size of a palm.

[High-Quality Card Box(B+)]

▷Obtain 1–3 random cards upon use.

I offered it to the honorable Lucky Charm with the utmost courtesy.

“It’s been a while. Please show us your skills.”

“Very well.”

As always, Seo Ye-in accepted the box as if it were nothing.

Without the slightest hesitation or tension, she flung it open.

CLICK!

Naturally, the number of cards that came out was the maximum: three.

Not only that, one of them was incredibly valuable.

[Plunder(B)]

[Map(C+)]

[Fullness]

▷Adjusts the user’s grade to match the fixed zone.

▷Duration: 3 minutes

▷After the effect ends, the user’s grade drops by 1 stage.

Our current rank was E.

But if we used [Fullness], it would adjust us to C in a C zone, and B in a B zone.

It was a one-person card, lasted only three minutes, and afterward, the backlash would drop your rank by one more stage.

Even taking that into account, it was a powerful effect.

Seo Ye-in seemed to be thinking along similar lines, because her eyes sparkled as she looked at the card.

“Revenge possible.”

“Against who?”

“King Sloth.”

She seemed to mean the field-boss sloth.

I looked back and forth between Seo Ye-in and mirror-image Seo Ye-in.

“But what did it do wrong to you two?”

“Rejected alliance.”

— I wanted to be friends.

“Sloth Rider too.”

— It attacked the diplomat mercilessly.

“Great betrayal.”

— If we cannot have it...

“We simply destroy it...”

The two of them recited those lines with deliberately tragic expressions.

For me, it was not exactly easy to sympathize.

After all, they had hovered around an opponent minding its own business and gotten smacked once.

Still, I started running the numbers in my head.

Would it be better to use [Fullness] or not?

I was planning to save it for a while.

It was a joker card, and a highly useful one at that.

If used well in a high-grade zone, it could not only get us out of danger, but even reverse the situation. Unless there was a good reason, holding onto it was the right choice.

Of course, using it now isn’t bad either.

The higher your rank got, the more the required experience increased exponentially.

Going from C to B was far harder than going from F to E.

That meant the loss from dropping was also greater.

Right now, we were E-rank anyway, so even if we dropped to F, we could quickly make it back.

And if we can take down the field boss...

There would be dropped items too, so the card would more than pay for itself.

The most important question is whether we can actually do it.

Could one of us use [Fullness] and defeat the sloth within three minutes?

If I had to classify that thing, its class would be warrior.

With one gesture, it had knocked down and torn apart B-rank monsters. It possessed monstrous strength.

On top of that, its various defenses and resistances were extremely high as well.

You could tell from the way it leisurely took hits even when monsters launched the first attack.

It feels like it would be a little tight if I did it.

If I poured in all my skills and traits, including prohibited skills, for three minutes, it might barely be possible.

But there was also some chance of failing and wasting the card for nothing.

My conclusion was that saving it would be better in the long run than making a gamble here.

Then I brought my fist-microphone to Seo Ye-in’s mouth.

“A word, please. Can you take it down?”

“Possible.”

“Within three minutes?”

“No.”

Seo Ye-in slowly shook her head instead of giving a longer answer.

Then she raised her index finger, and what that probably meant was...

“You don’t need as long as three minutes. You’ll finish it within one minute?”

“No.”

“Then?”

“One punch.”

“What’s with that confidence? Are you going to use your super finisher?”

SHAKE, SHAKE.

Seo Ye-in shook her head again and looked straight at me.

“Believe in me.”

“Excellent. Let’s go.”

There were some parts I still found suspicious, but if she was that certain, I had to let her try.

We had only come this far thanks to Lucky Charm Radar in the first place.

So we said goodbye to the flowers and started moving.

As we retraced our route, a house-sized lump came into view in the distance.

“It’s still here.”

“Deep-sleep mode.”

The sloth was sprawled in the same spot, still asleep.

A fair amount of time had passed since we left to obtain the hidden piece and returned.

It even looked like it would sleep for a long while yet.

“...”

“...”

Seo Ye-in and mirror-image Seo Ye-in stared at it for a while, then repeated what they had said earlier.

“...Deeply regrettable.”

— I wished to be friends...

“If we cannot have it...”

— We simply destroy it...

The price for refusing to join the Sloth Club was terribly steep.

Soon, the two of them began preparing for battle with brisk movements.

When they took travel carriers out of their inventory and lined them up in a row, the cases all opened wide at once.

CLACK, CLACK.

Then they repeatedly combined and transformed, revealing a long gun barrel.

This was the new weapon Hyeseong had supplied when Seo Ye-in learned [Mirror Image].

It was for two-person use, and its firepower was more than twice as high.

We had used it to great effect when catching the Feathered Serpent too.

However, its appearance was a little different from when it had been an anti-air cannon.

A mortar.

Soon, the two Seo Ye-ins skillfully operated the new weapon, adjusting its direction and distance.

Then, as they placed their hands on the gun mount and poured mana into it,

WHOOOOOOOM—!

With a high mechanical whine, the charge gauge filled one bar at a time.

From red to green, then to yellow.

At the same time, when they used [Fullness], the card scattered into particles of light and seeped into the two of them.

FLASH—!

Their presence swelled sharply, as if their rank had risen to B.

And that was not even the end.

SHHHHH...

Seo Ye-in’s gray hair bleached pure white, and a faint radiance settled over her entire body.

For me, this was somewhat puzzling.

She said she wasn’t using her super finisher.

She would take it down, sure, but the problem was the week-long unlucky-sloth penalty.

There was still a long way to go before midterms ended, so using it already felt wasteful.

But soon, I realized Seo Ye-in had not changed her mind.

WHOOOOOM—!

SHHHHH...

While the new weapon finished charging to maximum, her white hair had returned to gray.

However, in Seo Ye-in’s hands was a shell blazing with dazzling white light.

That’s definitely not her super finisher.

The way it manifested was different.

Her “super finisher” launched a cluster of stars, then used them to attack the enemy, but the shell before my eyes had compressed the power of a meteor into a single point.

Before the decisive battle with the Blood Demon, I had thought Meteor Dragon was teaching her all sorts of things. It looked like she was bringing one of them out now.

SHHHHH...

Soon, when Seo Ye-in brought the shell to the new weapon, it smoothly seeped inside as though melting into it.

The gun barrel, which had been carrying the blue light of mana, turned white.

As if all preparations were now complete, Seo Ye-in and mirror-image Seo Ye-in looked at each other and jerked their chins.

FLASH—!

A pure-white star shot out from the barrel.

It glittered for a while high up in the sky, then slowly began to fall.

Like a shooting star.

And it reached the sloth, which was still fast asleep even then.

FLAAAAASH—!

A blinding radiance dyed everything white.

After a long while, when the Great Forest regained its original appearance, the enormous sloth was nowhere to be seen.

▷Objective 4: Defeat field bosses (1/2)

“You really got it in one shot.”

“One punch.”

Seo Ye-in proudly raised her fist.