Leveling Up Alone

Most people already acknowledged that Sahas, despite his status as an S-Rank Hunter, could be considered a Master-Rank Hunter when only his close combat abilities were taken into account. It went without saying that this was credited to his background as an elite soldier, and this caused the South Korean government to make schanges to its own military.

They were currently deliberating the benefits of creating a training center solely to train soldiers into Hunters, and the role model they used for the debate was none other than Egypt’s system. The Egyptian military and the Egyptian Hunters worked extremely well together, and they were the best in the world when it cto integrating both parties.

“I-I have to fight, but…”

Meanwhile, Jo Ye-Rim was hiding behind the trees. She wanted to fight alongside everyone else, but Han-Yeol had explicitly instructed her to hide.

She flinched or screamed whenever an arrow flew past her, but instead of running, she felt the urge to burn the archer monster and teach them a lesson. Of course, she would not have even thought of doing that in the past, but awakening as a Hunter gave her the urge to burn everything she identified as her enemy.

She did not want to hide any longer, as the urge to fight slowly started to gnaw away at her reason. She wanted to help and be acknowledged as someone useful to Han-Yeol, and the only way she could do that was to fight.

She swallowed a hard lump stuck in her throat and carefully emerged from behind the trees.

However, the archer monsters were adept sharpshooters. They possessed the ability to think and pick their targets almost instinctively, and they identified Jo Ye-Rim as easy pickings. She did possess a massive amount of mana, but the archer monsters thought she was probably a Healer or Buffer.

They aimed their arrows at her and unleashed a volley simultaneously.

Dozens of arrows coated with mana and poison rained down from the sky.

However, not a single arrow managed to hit her.

“H-Huh?”

She expected to turn into a pincushion and experience excruciating pain due to the hail of arrows, but she slowly peeked out after noticing that she did not feel pain anywhere. She was certain sof the arrows had struck her face, but when she looked back, she realized they had passed right through her.

The archer monsters were shocked at what they were witnessing.

They seemed to have failed to realize what was going on and decided to fire another volley of arrows.

Another volley of arrows rained down from the sky, with Jo Ye-Rim as their sole target.

However, the arrows went through her body once again, and sof them even burned down this time. It went without saying that she was left completely unharmed.

“W-Wow…” Ye-Rim muttered in awe while looking down at her body. Her body was definitely made of fire now, judging by how the arrows went through her, but her sense of touch felt normal for sreason.

She smirked when she finally realized what was happening. Then she covered her hands with flames.

“You’re all dead!” she exclaimed while smirking confidently.

She was still at a loss as to what was happening, but she was certain that she could burn all of the archer monsters while they could not hurt her.

Ye-Rim kicked off the ground, and the archer monsters pulled their bowstrings, prepared to unleash another volley.

Once again, the arrows failed to deal any damage to her as they helplessly flew right through her.

“Eat this!”

One of the monsters cried out to the other monsters that they were up against a monster.

***

The archer monsters ended up becoming sacrifices for Ye-Rim’s growth. Her flames devoured her while they were utterly helpless against her. The monsters desperately tried to shoot down their enemy, but it was all to no avail.

Their attacks were nothing but a joke to her.

Han-Yeol grimaced at the stench of roasting flesh. He had already killed all of the monsters around him, so he had the luxury of spectating Ye-Rim’s performance in battle. After all, he was a Transcendent Master-Rank Hunter, so killing these kinds of monsters was nothing to him.

The situation was about to wrap up with Ye-Rim burning the last of the remaining monsters, but…

“Huh?”

The crew members were hiding behind the Shurarmors holding shields, but the captain suddenly ran out, threw his mana rifle aside, picked up a sword on the ground, and stabbed the heart of one of the monsters on the ground that was barely alive.

“Oh?”

Karvis seemed to be impressed by the captain.

Most Porters would not be brave enough to attempt killing a monster. This was not a simple matter of bravery or whatnot, but rather a matter of life and death. A Porter lacked mana protection like Hunters, and it was difficult for them to pierce through a monster’s protective mana barrier with a single attack—unless the monster was greatly weakened.

Thus, most Porters would die before they could even kill a monster, which was the reason why most were reluctant to even attempt it.

Also, there was no guarantee they would awaken after killing a single monster, and most Hunters would refuse to hire a Porter who stole their kill. On top of that, word would spread about what that Porter did, and most parties would be reluctant to hire someone like that.

To sum it up, most Porters would be reluctant to attempt something that required them to risk their lives while also risking losing their job in the future.

Shockingly, he did not have to voice out his praises, as the captain was rewarded in another way for it.

“H-Huh?”

The captain had been envious of Ye-Rim after seeing the powers she awakened with, and he was starting to feel scared he would be abandoned along with the others. His envy and desire to be useful to Han-Yeol gave him the courage to pick up the monster’s sword and pierce it through its heart.

He did this without any expectation of awakening, but he was shocked when he managed to awaken after it.

Another person shocked by the sudden awakening was none other than Han-Yeol, who was left scratching the back of his head.

Karvis tried to console him, but he still could not shake off the feeling that he was wronged.

“Oh! Congratulations, captain!”

“T-Thanks, Ye-Rim.”

The captain was finally able to look at Ye-Rim properly again. Well, it still felt a bit awkward for him, as she awakened as a Master-Rank Hunter when he was more senior in rank than her on the airplane. After all, any Korean man would feel uncomfortable if one of their subordinates suddenly got promoted to a higher rank than them.

“Congratulations, but what’s your name?”

“Thank you, Han-Yeol-nim! My nis Lee Ki-Jang!”

“Huh? What?”

“My nis Lee Ki-Jang!”

“…”

Han-Yeol was in disbelief after hearing the captain’s full name. [1]

“Y-Your nis Ki-Jang…?”

“Yes, that is my name.”

Han-Yeol composed himself and inspected the captain’s mana, but Karvis beat him to the punch.

“W-What?!”

Han-Yeol ended up screaming after hearing what Karvis said. He would usually reply to her in his thoughts when there were others around, but he was so surprised that he ended up letting it out.

“Yes, sir!” Lee Ki-Jang replied.

He did not pursue the matter, as he was used to not asking questions. He had graduated at the top of his batch at the military academy, and both of his parents were soldiers too, so he was trained at an early age not to question authority.

That was indeed the best word to describe the current situation. Jo Ye-Rim and Lee Ki-Jang’s awakening basically added two Master-Rank Hunters to South Korea within the sday.

Han-Yeol felt wronged that not only did he make it easier for others to awaken, but they were awakening as the most powerful rank a person could achieve. It was ironic how this did not happen when he put in all that effort for the Gurkhas, but he decided to think that it was probably not him but this island that was causing this.

Still, that was only his suspicion, and he had no definite proof that this island was the reason.

Sighing was the only thing he could do, and seeing him sigh numerous times consecutively made Lee Ki-Jang extremely nervous.

He was hoping he would at least be an S-Rank Hunter since Ye-Rim awakened as a Master-Rank Hunter, but that did not seem to be the case judging by Han-Yeol’s reaction.

“Hey, Ki-Jang.”

“Sir!”

“Don’t tellyou forgot?”

“Pardon me, sir?”

“You’re supposed to check your own ability when you awaken.”

“Ah!”

Han-Yeol was able to gauge their rank and mana density, but he could not guess what kind of abilities the person awakened with. He did enter Ye-Rim’s mind to examine her abilities, but that was only possible as he peeked at her memory of reading the message that appeared in front of her eyes.

They did not have the luxury of testing out their skills one by one on this island, so it was imperative that they paid attention to what they were capable of.

“Alright, giveyour hand.”

“Yes, sir!”

Ki-Jang was decades older than Han-Yeol, but he had no issues listening to each and every single one of the young man’s commands.

1. Tokki here to explain! Ki Jang means captain (pilot) in Korean. People are usually called by their surname, like Captain Lee, so his ntranslated into English literally means Captain Lee or Lee Captain. ☜

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