Free Web Novel"Hey."
"Why."
"There is a way to break a Covenant."
Well, of course there is. Joo Seowon has a skill that breaks Covenants. Or he could just smash an A-rank item with brute force.
He glanced at me, like he was testing the waters.
"It’s kind of a loophole...."
"If it’s a loophole, I’ll pass."
"What?"
"I don’t trust that. At all."
Seeing his dumbfounded face, I shrugged.
I hadn’t expected him to break my Covenant anyway. Breaking someone else’s Covenant means redirecting the risk meant for them onto yourself. I didn’t think he liked me enough to show that level of favor.
'Besides, I can’t exactly hand him a Covenant that doesn’t exist.'
He shot back, incredulous.
"...What? Why? Why not?"
'Huh. That’s actually a surprisingly thoughtful offer....'
"I never planned to break it in the first place."
"Just who did you make it with—what terms are even on it?"
"Beats me. I don’t really know either."
He didn’t like that answer; he figured I was hand-waving him again.
And if I grabbed him now and said there’s a Status Window, I’m a possessor, you’re from a novel, blah blah—penalty or not, the risk on my end would be massive.
When he opened his mouth like he was about to say more, I cut in first.
"I’m telling you everything I can tell you."
"...What a load of crap."
Such pretty words.
I put my hand on his knee, and his thigh twitched. I closed my fingers around his knee.
"If I say it, you should believe me, Seowon."
I met his eyes and smiled.
***
In the end, Joo Seowon promised to help me find Tae Hyunjin’s sword. He also told me to go ahead and break the Covenant if I ever could.
'...If you can talk about the Covenant later, will you tell me first?'
'Since when were we this close? This is stressing me out. Let’s keep some distance.'
'You son of a bitch. Even when I’m worried....'
Was that worry? He worries in such a weird way. Well, with Joo Minha involved, he can’t help it.
He hadn’t cleared all his doubts, so he looked conflicted, but around others he’d act as dopey as usual, so I wasn’t worried. He’s not the type to slack on work, either.
He did his assigned tasks, and I had my own errands. I dropped by Sung Eunha’s lab, handled what Song Hwayoung had given me, and, while watching over Do Yehyun’s training, I ran my own.
And training was even ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) harder than I’d expected.
'Fuck, this keeps grinding down my personality.'
Getting proficient with the Cave Giant’s ability took double the effort. If it were my skill, I could handle it; instead I had to coax the thing, pick the right ability, then copy it and make it behave like it was my own. Not exactly a walk in the park.
And above all, the penalty kept triggering.
Mimic (S) is activated.
A penalty occurs due to the rank gap between you and the target. freewebnøvel.com
Duration of Mimic (S): 450 seconds
The good news was that going from F to E had given me 150 more seconds. Even so, that only gave me 7 minutes 30 seconds of use, and when that time ended, my mana hit empty.
I could reduce duration further and bump a B-rank ability to A or S—but then the timers were an absurd 75 seconds and 2.5 seconds respectively. Maybe you could use it for a last hit—but in regular dungeon runs, you can’t blow one skill and collapse.
'I’m not clearing a dungeon alone like this.'
I found myself wishing for some steady-use skill, even if it was only E-rank.
'Fuck it. Focus.'
Yeah, now’s not the time to drift. Whether I have to blow money on bulk mana potions or whatever, solutions appear once you look for them.
I opened my right palm and slowly traced the white mark with my left thumb. The mark sent a ripple through my whole palm, vivid mana thrumming.
'Got it.'
I targeted a training dummy and pressed down on the floor.
Whoooosh—
Ice traveled from my hand, flash-freezing a narrow strip straight to the dummy, climbed it, and froze its lower half solid.
The dummy, fused to the floor in one go, stood ramrod-straight in place. As I rose, I shaped a sharp shard of ice in my palm and fired it. The keen, honed spike punched straight through the dummy’s heart area.
—Thud!
Ssshhhhh—
The sand-packed dummy poured out in a rough cascade.
'Feels like I’m the protagonist of an anime.'
I immediately shifted the attack, smashing three nearby dummies and sculpting precise ice constructs. Since my ice was mana-formed, it had a short lifespan. I needed to find as many use-cases as possible during Mimic’s window.
By the time I froze even the spilled sand on the floor, my mana was already gone. I downed a mana potion I’d set aside and began cleaning up the mess.
Right then, Do Yehyun opened the training room door.
'He comes at this hour?'
As I dumped the burst dummies into a bin, I greeted him.
"Hey."
We’d seen each other this morning too.
Do Yehyun’s eyes dropped to the ice scattered across the floor. Come to think of it, this was the first time I’d shown him my training.
"...Hyung, why are you here?"
"To train."
He looked at me like I’d wandered into a restricted area. What?
"Am I not allowed in here?"
"No... I mean... no, you are. But why...?"
"What are you even saying. You here to train?"
"Yeah...." freёwebnoѵel.com
He came closer and almost slipped on the ice.
"Careful."
"Hyung, your skill’s a freeze type?"
"Kind of turned out that way."
"You said you were F-rank."
Yeah, I hadn’t expected my rank to change in a month either. And while the growth time had been absurdly short, E-rank itself was still laughably low compared to the dungeons I planned to hit.
"Got a bit better from the quest-type dungeon rewards last time."
"Your rank went up?"
"More like a slight correction. Isn’t it similar for you?"
"Ah, yeah. A little...."
Besides awakening a skill in the quest-type dungeon, he’d received a minor bonus.
Name: Do Yehyun
Age: 20
Rank: D(+)
Title: —
Main Skills: Blessing of the Moonlight (S), Surging Wave (B), Poison-Cures-Poison (A)
Growth Limit: A
His Status Window was almost the same as before, but there was a small + next to his rank. Not a full bump to C, but a subtle correction.
And maybe because he trained hard, his skills were improving day by day. He could probably pull his own weight in a dungeon right now.
"Hyung."
"What?"
"Could you... show me the skill once? It’s fascinating...."
I’d just burned all my mana and barely refilled with a potion. But it wasn’t a request I couldn’t grant.
After asking to see it, he weirdly looked like he was the one getting nervous, watching me.
"Huh?"
I looked past him and made a deliberately puzzled noise. The moment he turned his head, I flicked a fine spray of ice toward the ceiling.
From the sealed ceiling, small flecks fell like it was snowing. I made the particles a bit bigger so he could see—pretty much like confetti.
"Wow, it’s snowing."
Grinning like a brat and pretending to be impressed, I called to him. He made an “I’ve been had” face and still reached up to catch the slowly falling snow. As if.
"...You did that on purpose."
"Yeah."
"This is snow, not ice! How are you going to attack with this?"
"Exactly. Guess I’ll open a ski resort."
When I sent up a few more flurries for good measure, he pretended to be annoyed and then ended up grinning anyway. Fun, huh?
I kept it up a few more times, then smirked and let the skill die. My mana was basically empty anyway.
"Like it?"
"......."
"Maybe I should quit being a hunter and run a ski resort. Nice and safe."
"Yes."
I was joking, but he answered seriously. Is he good at skiing? He doesn’t have the face of a skier.
"You like skiing?"
"I’ve never tried."
"Figured."
"...Still, I’d like it if you did. Quit hunting."
"So now that I paid off your debt, that’s it? Where do I make money then?"
"You’re already rich. I’ll be the only hunter. You run the resort."
Come on. He wants all the cool parts for himself. But he had enough of a decent temperament that I could just ignore his ridiculous dream.
"I’ll earn the money."
"Wow, and where’s that going to go?"
"...I’m not that useless. I’ll get decent pay from dungeon runs...."
"I’m going to spend a billion a month. Can you make twelve billion a year?"
"...Twelve billion?"
The idea that spending a lot is hard is bullshit. If you want to burn money, you can burn it on anything. Earning it is the bitch.
I half-listened as he muttered to himself and finished cleaning the floor.
"Hyung. Do you have anything scheduled after this?"
Scheduled? Today was all training. I shook my head.
"If you don’t mind, could you take a look at my gear? I wanted your opinion."
"Sure, why not."
I agreed readily. We’d be running a lot more dungeons soon; time to buy and slot in whatever gear he needed.
His face lit up instantly.
