Solo Leveling

Chapter 14

The Lycan that had flown over his head was now looking at him with fear. Its tail lowered, the wolf began to step backwards.

“Huh…?”

Was this the result of putting all of his points into strength?

As he stared at his fist with an open mouth, the headless body of the Lycan convulsed with a finality then stopped moving. A familiar electronic sound rang through Jinwoo’s head.

ring~

You’ve defeated the Steel-tooth Lycan.

You’ve leveled up!

“I’ve leveled up?”

Make sure he didn’t mishear, Jinwoo quickly opened his status screen.

Name:Sung Jinwoo

Level:2

Class:None

Title:None

HP:205

MP:22

Fatigue: 0

Stats

Strength:32

Constitution:11

Agility:11

Intelligence:11

Sense:11

(Available stat points: 0)

Skills

Passive Skills

-(Unknown)(Lv. Max)

-Unyielding Spirit(Lv. 1)

Active Skills

-Sprint(Lv. 1)

[1]

He really had leveled up. With it, all of his stats had increased by 1 point. Jinwoo realized that the quest rewards were not the only way to raise his attributes. It was apparent that leveling up increased them as well.

‘To think that I could level-up!’

Something that he had only dreamt about was now a reality before him.

His heartbeat quickened.

‘And the total points I’ve gained is bigger than the daily quest.’

The stat points he received from quests were 3.

The stat points he gained from leveling up were 5.

Although he could not freely distribute these 5 points, the total benefit from a level-up was much bigger than the quest reward.

‘And I leveled up after taking down just two of them.’

In a video game, low level characters were able to level up quickly.

Jinwoo was currently level 2. You could say he was at the bottom of the barrel. But his level did not properly reflect his strength. After all, his strength was already above 30; if you treated one level-up being equivalent to one point of strength, Jinwoo already had the strength of someone above level 20. And when a level 1 character hunts with the strength of a level 20?

‘I think they call this “power leveling”?’

The destructive power of his punch that surpassed all expectations was a testament to his progress.

‘I’ve tripled the strength attribute, but I feel more than just three times stronger than before.’

Jinwoo’s original strength stat was 10. The difference between 10 strength and 30 strength was a factor of 3, but his power felt much greater than that.

‘Maybe…’

What if value of his attributes became weighted as they increased[2]? That would explain this destructive power. On top of that, his movements had also become faster. If it was the old him, he could not imagine dodging the beasts’ fast attacks or make the wind howl when he made a punch.

“I suppose increasing my muscles would make me faster.”

It seemed that increasing the strength stat increased both his ‘strength’ and ‘speed’. His battle with the Lycan was the proof.

But what about the agility stat? If not his mobility, what would it increase?

Jinwoo knew he could not satisfy his curiosity without more stat points.

‘Even if I had some…’

It felt a little wasteful to use up the points from quest rewards in agility. If he could raise both his power and speed through the strength stat, why put points into agility?

If that’s the case, there was one answer.

‘Increase my level as fast as possible.’

He would obtain points in the agility stat through leveling up, gathering clumps of dirt until he had a sizeable hill. Surely the result of the incremental increases would be noticed eventually.

‘Then, shall I get started?’

He remembered the remaining Lycan.

“But, where did that bastard go?”

The Lycan that had cowered nearby had disappeared. Jinwoo looked around but could not find traces of the beast. It appeared to have ran away while Jinwoo was focused on his status screen.

“Bleh.”

He rolled his tongue in his mouth, disappointed at the loss of experience points. As he began to walk away,

‘Wait, do these things drop magic cores?’

He stopped himself in thought.

Every magic beast found in Gates had a magic core in their body; sometimes, a single magic beast could carry multiple cores. If you were lucky, you might even find a Runestone. The magic cores, which had many uses, and the Runestones, which taught valuable skills, could be sold for a high price. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the primary objective of most Hunters in a raid was to obtain magic cores.

Jinwoo was a Hunter. Walking away from a hunt empty handed made him feel disappointed. Just in case, he had cut open the belly of one of the Lycan but found nothing. It seemed like these things were something different than a magic beast.

In his Hunting experience, Jinwoo did not recall hearing anything about a wolf-like magic beast that resembled these Lycans.

As Jinwoo wiped his hands and got up to leave,

“Hmm?”

He saw something shining in the Lycan’s mouth. Jinwoo opened its jaws. One of the Lycan’s teeth was sparkling with light. When he reached out to it, a message appeared.

You’ve found a “Lycan’s canine”

Would you like to acquire it?

“Acquire.”

Lycan’s canine

Rarity: None

Type: Junk

A Lycan’s large and sharp canine.

You may keep this item in your inventory.

You may sell this item in the shop.

Jinwoo read the canine in his hand and was taken back.

‘There was a shop?’

Where in the world did this unhelpful System come from? To think that it would force the user to figure out everything on his own. Jinwoo recalled how it had given him no explanation about the penalty quest; it just threw him in the penalty zone and expected him to run from death until his body gave out.

Jinwoo gritted his teeth and called the shop.

“Shop.”

He half expected an NPC shopkeeper to popup out of nowhere. He was disappointed to find that the ‘shop’ just ended up being another information screen floating like a hologram. As if that wasn’t enough, the green letters on the screen displayed just two words.

Buy

Sell

“...”

Wow. What an amazing shop.

Jinwoo selected “buy”. Although he had no money in his pockets, he was curious on what kind of items could be found in this shop. But of course, the System was not very kind.

Your level is insufficient to use the “buy” function.

He was used to being turned away from places that needed money.

“Yessir, yessir.”

Not paying mind, he turned his eyes toward the other function.

Would you like to sell the Lycan’s canine?

“Sure.”

With a sound of coins dropping, his inventory opened up. At the base of the inventory screen, the section that said “Gold” was now displaying 20. Yesterday, it was 0.

‘20 gold.’

Unable to use it in real life or in the System, he was not sure what the value of this amount was.

‘I doubt anything from an E-rank Dungeon would be useful.’

Even if there was a difference between a Dungeon and an Instant Dungeon. Still, Jinwoo started to head over and collect the other Lycan’s teeth. He facepalmed.

“Right. I blew off its head…”

Disappointed, he turned to leave. He was disappointed at the loss of 20 gold, the value of which he wasn’t even sure about, but he was not about to waste the time to look for a tiny tooth that could’ve flown off to god knows where. As he turned around, his disappointment melted away like snow.

grrrrrrrrl

grrrrl

grrrrrrrl~

The Lycan that had ran away had returned with many more wolves!

Jinwoo’s face bloomed into a smile. At a glance, there were more than 20 of them.

“Eureka!”

‘Wait, that’s not the word…. Whatever.’

What was certain was his happiness. He squeezed the hilt of his sword.

“Thank you for the meal~”

At his greedy gaze, the Lycans cowered and trembled.

Jinwoo leaped toward the beasts.

You’ve leveled up!

You’ve leveled up!

You’ve leveled up!

As expected, his level rose quickly. Having ran around the entire first floor looking for Lycans, Jinwoo’s level had already increased to 7. A rather large leap of 5 levels.

whimper-!

As he took down the last remaining Lycan, a strange message appeared.

ring~

You’ve obtained the title, “Wolf Slayer”

“Title?”

Wolf Slayer

All stats increased by 40% against beast type monsters.

A title given to a hunter experienced in slaying wolves.

His status screen reflected the new title as well:

Name:Sung Jinwoo

Level:7

Class:None

Title:Wolf Slayer

HP:766

MP:81

Fatigue: 3

Stats

Strength:37

Constitution:16

Agility:16

Intelligence:16

Sense:16

(Available stat points: 0)

Skills

Passive Skills

-(Unknown)(Lv. Max)

-Unyielding Spirit(Lv. 1)

Active Skills

-Sprint (Lv. 1)

A stat boost against beast type monsters. Although the effect was limited against certain types, a 40% boost was nothing to scoff at.

‘There’s a lot of beast type magic beasts out there, wonder if it works against them?’

If it did, it would help a lot in Raiding. Still, the loot so far was rather disappointing.

‘34 canines, two rusty daggers, an adventurer’s clothes and a return stone.’

Every once in a while, a wolf’s belly would contain items. However, most were not particularly useful. The rusty daggers had lower attack power compared to his steel sword, and the adventurer’s clothes ended up being junk items that he could not use. After selling all the junk he had picked up, Jinwoo had earned about a thousand gold.

Current Gold: 1,060

“...I can’t tell if that’s a lot or little.”

No matter how much he collected, there was nowhere he could spend it.

Ignoring the gold, the only other item that he had now was the return stone. He recalled the invisible barrier that stopped him no matter how much force was applied. The System had told him he required one of these to exit. So, now he knew he was able to leave.

Jinwoo was at a crossroad.

Ahead was the stairs descending to basement level 2.

In his hand, the return stone.

‘Forward or retreat…’

If it was his old self, he would’ve ran away without a second thought. After all, it was the only way he survived the many Raids with his weak abilities. Others called it a miracle, but he knew it was due to his clever movements.

But it was different now.

He did not want to turn back.

If he left now, he felt like he could not return.

“I’m sick of running away.”

It was about time he faced danger head on. He put the return stone back in his pockets.

His footsteps down the stairs were light.

Notes:

[1]: Oh sh*t, I just realized I can stack the stat screens horizontally… I had to keep making page breaks when I had them vertical. Hope it doesn’t impact the mobile readers too much.

[2]: Sorry, I’m actually not a 100% sure what the original phrase is referring to (능력치가 올라갈수록 가중치가 붙는다면?). Lit would be “as attributes go up” “weighted value” “is applied”. From context, I just gathered it to mean that the increases in his abilities were not arithmetic (straight line progression) but geometric (increasing progression).