Leveling Up Alone

“Yeah! This is what I’m talking about!”

He had always wanted to have his own army of golems or hordes of undead. He did have his pets and the demons he contracted with, but what he wanted were subordinates he could summon with his own powers and freely control.

He never got the opportunity to realize this dream of his, but he finally obtained a skill that allowed him to summon an army of golems with his powers alone.

The skill’s requirement was quite straightforward—it allowed him to summon as many golems as he wanted as long as he had the mana to do so. However, the downside was the immense amount of mana required to summon them. The mana required to summon the golems was so immense that even Han-Yeol could potentially deplete his mana if he carelessly summoned them.

In other words, this was a skill that he could freely use when summoning them in small numbers, but he would have to be cautious if he tried to summon them en masse.

Han-Yeol shrugged it off. He knew the skill would becstronger the higher its level became, so he did not let the skill’s mana requirement bother him.

“Alright! My Lava Golems! Let’s go!”

Stewart started to wonder if he had to continue serving Han-Yeol. He had never once doubted his assignment, even though he had completed countless of them in the demon world, but he was starting to be skeptical about whether he should keep doing this.

Demons fed off of negative energy, and being able to produce it was probably the only silver lining of this assignment.

The party continued their expedition deeper into the mysterious island. Things proceeded much smoother this tas Han-Yeol’s Lava Golems and Stewart’s Shurarmors took up the roles of scouting and carrying their baggage.

The Pacific Ocean might not have extrtemperatures, but it was currently January. On top of that, Han-Yeol was flying to New York from Seoul, so the route he took was through the northern hemisphere, which had similar temperatures to the peak summer season in South Korea.

“Water…!”

But what was wrong with the weather inside this forest? The temperature was sweltering, and it most likely easily exceeded forty-seven degrees Celsius—no, Han-Yeol could sense that it was indeed more than forty-seven degrees here.

Most people could not withstand a temperature of forty-seven degrees Celsius and one hundred percent humidity. Smight be able to withstand the sweltering heat, but the humidity was the problem.

Breathing itself would be a challenge at that level of humidity, and even slowly walking for a short distance would drain one’s stamina. Of course, the heat and humidity were not a problem for Han-Yeol and the others, as they had long transcended the limits of a normal human.

“Ga-Yeon!”

However, the scould not be said for the others who were normal human beings.

The cabin crew that Han-Yeol had hired were the most elite in the industry. Actually, Han-Yeol did not personally hire them. The human resources department of the HY Group had hired them with the best pay and benefit package the industry had ever seen.

The HY Group believed that they were far greater than the mighty S Group, and they believed that their leader, Han-Yeol, deserved to be surrounded by the best of the best. Having a good academic background was only the least of their requirements, as one needed to be good in sports or martial arts too to join the HY Group.

The cabin crews with Han-Yeol had trained in either a sport or a martial art for more than ten years and were quite physically able people in their own way.

Still, this harsh climate was too much for them to handle.

Another one collapsed from dehydration, and it seemed that pushing through any further would prove to be difficult. The only way Han-Yeol could proceed with this expedition was just to leave them to die and continue with those able to do so.

“What should we do?” Stewart asked.

“Hmm…” Han-Yeol contemplated.

“I could heal them with magic, but the main problem is this heat and humidity. It will be impossible for us to continue like this if we do not find a solution.”

Han-Yeol pondered for a while before he opened his skill window. Then he scrolled until he found a skill that was perfect for this situation.

The ability to control the weather was something only possible for the Dragon Race, who were rumored to have created magic. Han-Yeol might have the ability to create skills, but controlling the weather would be impossible even for him, as far as Stewart knew.

“W-What?”

“It suddenly beccooler!”

“How is this possible?”

“Ah! T-That’s right! Han-Yeol-nim has the ability to freeze things around him!”

“Oh… huh? But doesn’t that mean everything around us will be frozen soon?”

“T-That means…!”

The cabin crew was happy after the temperature suddenly cooled down, but they soon trembled, not from the cold but from fear after remembering that most of Han-Yeol’s skills were used for combat.

The captain stepped forward and said, “Calm down, everyone. If Han-Yeol-nim indeed wanted to put us in danger, then he would not have saved us from the wreckage in the first place. Also, he would have left us at the beach to fend for ourselves too without even training or arming sof us.”

“C-Captain…”

As expected, the captain was truly the leader of the cabin crew, judging from how he managed to calm them down instantly.

“Can you think before you speak?”

Of course, he did not forget to scold them too.

They might have calmed down by now, but Han-Yeol was not pleased by what he witnessed.

He had used his skill to protect them, but they thought he was trying to harm them. Others might say that they were currently scared, so it was understandable for them to feel that way, but Han-Yeol had feelings, too.

In fact, anyone with feelings would feel offended if they did something good only for the other party to treat them as they did to him.

Thanks to that, they were relegated a step lower in Han-Yeol’s priority, and he was only going to protect them now if he had the luxury to do so.

Han-Yeol was not a good person. The only reason he toppled the government, gave to the poor, and helped those in need was not because he was a good person but purely because it made sense to him.

He believed that the rich helping the poor was not an act of kindness but rather a duty the rich had toward society, and these kinds of things that others would consider acts of kindness were not acts of kindness at all for him.

“Let’s go, Stewart.”

“Yes, Han-Yeol-nim.”

No one saw Stewart smirk as he followed Han Yeol. It was extremely easy for a demon like him to hide himself from humans, and smirking like this without being seen was a piece of cake.

Han-Yeol’s negative emotions were a treat for Stewart.

Stewart initially thought that Han-Yeol was just a powerful human, and it was a mystery how a mere human like him was so strong. He could not help but wonder why Lucifer would obsess over a mere human like him.

However, he finally understood after getting a taste of the negative emotion Han-Yeol exuded just now.

A demon’s source of power cfrom the negative emotions they fed off, and the stronger or higher quality the emotion, the more powerful they became.

He had lost most of his powers after coming to the human world, but Han-Yeol's negative emotions just now empowered him enough to make him feel as if he was back in the demon world.

“What are you doing, Stewart?”

Han-Yeol was suddenly behind him with his hand on his shoulder.

“Nothing, Han-Yeol-nim. I was just wondering which direction we should be heading,” Stewart replied calmly.

“What do you mean, direction? We’re just going to wander around this island. It’s our first there, so how can you tell what’s the right direction?”

“That is proof that… you are a moron, Han-Yeol-nim.”

“What did you say?!” Han-Yeol grimaced and retorted.

However, Stewart could sense it.

In other words, Han-Yeol was only pretending to be angry but was not really angry. If he had been really angry, Stewart would have gotten another taste of that ecstatic negative emotion from him.

He shook his head and rid himself of that thought before saying, “I smell something rotten from this direction.”

“What? When did your nose becso sensitive? Are you secretly a dog or something?”

Han-Yeol immediately stopped joking around after sensing that Stewart was already at his limit.

“Let’s go! Let’s go!” he said while hurriedly walking away.

“Wait for me, Han-Yeol!”

“You hurry up too, Scarlett!”

Han-Yeol used Scarlett as a shield before Stewart could lash out and nag at him. He knew that the demon was unlikely to express his emotions in front of other humans, so he used that fact to his advantage.

Tia followed after them, but she muttered to herself just loud enough for the captain to hear her.

“Ma’am?”

The captain wanted to ask what she meant by that, but Tia had already walked away.