Chapter 69 (2/2)

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creaaaak-.

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He had not touched the door, but the giant gates swung open on their own . .

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Clunk!.

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‘Huh…?’.

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Jinwoo was taken back . Even though his senses were focused, he did not sense any monsters past the doors . .

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‘No monsters?’.

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He had prepared for the exact opposite . His worst case scenario visioned a scene where a ton of monsters jumped him the moment he opened the door . It was this pessimistic thought that had carried him to the penalty zone for training . .

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‘But…’.

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Just what was this? It seemed like his efforts were in vain . The inside of the castle was almost pathetically devoid of any monsters’ presence . .

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‘Huh… What now?’.

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With a disappointed feeling, Jinwoo returned Baruka’s Tanto to the inventory and stepped into the Demon Castle . As these things usually go, that first step into the area triggered the response . .

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ring~.

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Jinwoo reflexively called his two daggers to his hands in a flash . .

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‘What! What is it?!’.

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A quest has arrived . .

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‘A quest?’.

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And it’s not the daily quest? Well that would’ve been weird; he had already made sure to complete the daily quest before coming here . Then this must be… just a quest . .

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This was the first time he had received “just” a quest . .

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‘Every other quest up until now was hidden, emergency or something . ’.

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Jinwoo checked the quest with a tilted head . .

Ordinary Quest: Collect the Demon Souls! Part 1.

The Demon Castle is full of demons . Please hunt them and collect their souls to earn a special reward . Normal demons contain only one soul, but the upper floors will have demons with multiple souls . .

Quest Requirement: Enter the Demon Castle.

Quest Goal: Demon Souls 0 / 10,000.

Rewards:.

Pick one item from every item possible.

Stat points +20.

Unknown Reward.

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20 Stat points! As always, the first thing that grabbed Jinwoo’s attention was the stat point reward . .

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‘I can raise my intelligence by 20!’.

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He could not help but smile . The disadvantages of low mana could not be understated . .

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‘I need a ton of mana to keep my soldiers regenerating . ’.

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And mana wasn’t the only benefit of the intelligence stat . Jinwoo was finally able to learn that as his intelligence increased, the number of shadows he could extract and store increased as well[1] . Because of all this, increasing his intelligence was urgent . .

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‘There’s a limit with just level-ups and daily quests…’.

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If he could earn 20 bonus stats through the quest, it would take care of a large problem . .

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gulp.

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‘And…’.

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Jinwoo looked up from the stat reward . .

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“Pick one item from every item possible”.

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Just the bonus stats were an insane reward, then there was this . .

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‘Really? Every item possible?’.

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Jinwoo remembered the absolute highest-class equipments from the shop . .

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‘There were even…’.

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S-rank equipment that cost billions, some even tens of billions, of gold . Jinwoo looked at Knight Killer in his left hand . This powerful dagger cost nearly three million gold, and he was still using it . .

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‘If a B-rank dagger costing nearly three million is this good, just how good are the S-rank daggers costing tens of billions?’.

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He became curious . Looking at just the first and second rewards, even ignoring the unknown third reward, this was an incredible quest . .

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‘Considering the rewards, taking down few monsters will be as easy as eating-’.

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Because Jinwoo’s eyes fell on the quest rewards first, he had not taken a closer look at the quest goal . The man finally looked at the number of zeros and was shocked . .

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“Ten… thousand?”.

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Jinwoo could not help but exclaim loudly . This was not just “taking down few monsters” . .

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‘It’s really, really not an ordinary quest . ’.

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No matter what kind of monsters these demons were, killing ten thousand of them would be an ordeal . However, the Hunter smiled widely . .

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‘That is… if I was alone . ’.

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The current number of soldiers was 50 . They each just had to take down 200 demons . Yes, with those soldiers, this quest would be doable . .

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Would you like to accept the quest?.

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‘Of course . ’.

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There was no way he would refuse . .

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You’ve accepted the quest . .

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If he failed, the “penalty” would be just the wasted time . .

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‘Compared the penalty of those other quests… bleh…’.

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His life was on the line for the Class Advancement Quest and the Emergency Quests . Compared to those, this was truly a blessed quest . Jinwoo raised his head,.

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‘So that’s going to keep track of my progress?’.

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The moment he accepted the quest, a counter appeared in the air . .

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Collected Demon Souls: 0 / 10,000.

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‘10,000… This’ll be a long road . ’.

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With the numbers he imagined in his head actually visualized, Jinwoo chuckled in disbelief . Suddenly, he discovered another counter to the left to the souls counter . .

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‘Huh?’.

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Exp . to Next Level: 60,000.

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The holographic letters clearly displayed a number, and it was telling him that he would level up once he filled that number . .

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‘Am I finally able to see my experience?’.

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But he was Level 61 . 61 didn’t particularly seem like a milestone level for something like this to happen . Not only that, Jinwoo didn’t see such a counter before heading into the Demon Castle . .

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‘Let’s see…’.

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Jinwoo took a step back and exited the Demon Castle . With that, both the soul counter and the experience counter disappeared . When he went back in, the two counters returned as if they were always there . .

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‘Looks like it’s only for the Demon Castle . ’.

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It was a shame he wouldn’t be able to see the experience counter on the outside, but it would surely be convenient while he was in here . On the other hand,.

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‘Does that mean it’ll take that long to conquer this place?’.

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That was certainly a possibility . Jinwoo pored over the details of the quest once more, then closed the message box . .

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‘Think I got the details down . ’.

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Finally, it would be time to explore the interiors of the Demon Castle . .

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‘Whoa!’.

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wooooooooo-.

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A ruined city lay before his eyes . Unexpectedly, it was another field-type Dungeon . .

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‘Where is this? Is this Seoul?’.

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Perhaps if everyone in Seoul died and a hundred years passed, it might look like this . A lifeless city faded to gray . Few street lights flickered on and off here and there . .

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‘To think that it’d be another field-type Dungeon…’.

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On top of that, it was using the great city of Seoul as its base . Next to the Instant Dungeons that used a subway station or a mall as their base, this was incomparable . Jinwoo’s eyes narrowed . .

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‘Where do I go first?’.

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Where was the goal? Jinwoo looked over here and there . Thankfully, he did not have to wonder for too long . From a distance, where Namsan Tower should’ve been, a giant pillar of light stood in its place . .

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‘Let’s try over there . ’.

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Jinwoo started heading towards the direction . In case he got lost, he carefully remembered the area where the castle gate was . However, he did not go too far when he was interrupted,.

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“Kik kik . ”.

“Kikikik . ”.

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Small monsters crawled out from between the buildings here and there . .

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‘Low-level Demon’.

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Jinwoo read the dark red names above their heads and understood what they were . .

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‘They look like…’.

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If the gargoyle magic beasts had wings, it would look just like them . There were eight of them . Jinwoo smiled . .

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‘Got eight souls . ’.

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Pierce!.

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One of the demons sported Baruka’s Tanto out of its forehead . .

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You’ve defeated a Low-level Demon . .

You’ve earned 100 experience points . .

You’ve earned 1 Demon Soul . .

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“Kiak?”.

“Kiek?”.

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While they were distracted by their fallen comrade, Jinwoo quickly ran over and removed another’s head . .

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slash!.

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You’ve defeated a Low-level Demon . .

You’ve earned 100 experience points . .

You’ve earned 1 Demon Soul . .

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These things gave a hundred experience points each . .

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‘And I need 60,000 experience points to level-up…’.

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Defeating 600 of these low-level demons should level him up . The remaining demons fell quickly . .

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“Kiiiiiiek!”.

“Kek!”.

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Current souls at 8 . Experienced gained was 800 . .

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‘Not a bad start . ’.

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A marathon starts with just a few steps . Jinwoo’s eyes sparkled, looking for the next prey . .

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Baekho Guild . Guildmaster’s Office . .

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After being busy for the past few days, Baek Yoonho was going through the documents and reports that he had been neglecting . .

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Beep-.

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He picked up the phone . .

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- “Guildmaster, Hunter Min Byunggu-nim is calling . Would you like me to connect?”.

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“Yes, please . ”.

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- “Alright . ”.

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A moment later, a familiar voice came from the receiver . .

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- “Baek hyung, why is your cellphone off?”.

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Baek Yoonho sighed deeply,.

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“Because of those damn reporters . I’m going dark until this damn story dies down . ”.

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- “Oh, yeah, that! Red Gate! I saw the news from Japan . Hyung, you look pretty good on the TV . ”.

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“Don’t test me . I’m not in the mood to joke around . Once I find who leaked that story, I’m going to just…”.

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- “Don’t worry about that too much, hyung . That story’s going to get pushed over by a big news soon . ”.

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“A big news? From Japan?”.

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- “Yeah . The problem is worse than we thought . It’s going to make waves in Korea soon . ”.

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“Why? What happened?”.

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A week ago, Japan secretly contacted the Korean Hunter Association and the large Guilds of South Korea . They were informed that Japan needed a consultation with Korea’s Hunters . And so, several Hunters representing Korea headed over to Japan for a meeting . Min Byunggu was one of those Hunters . Baek Yoonho had been curious about the matter,.

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“Stop messing around and spill it . This is the first time those Japanese bastards asked for our advice on something . Just what’s going on over there that could rattle those arrogant fucks?” [2].

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- “Baek hyung, you remember the ants of Jeju Island, right?”.

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An S-rank Gate underwent a Dungeon Break four years ago on Jeju Island . The Dungeon was populated by ant type magic beasts . South Korea had attempted to reclaim the island three times . They failed three times . Eventually, the government gave up on the jewel of Korea, and Jeju Island became the land of the magic beasts . .

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“How could I forget? I almost died during one of the reclamation efforts . ”.

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- “There’s been a development in that area . ”.

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“Development? Who the hell cares . Let them kill and eat each other on that island . ”.

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- “That’s…”.

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The voice on the phone became filled with worry and continued,.

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- “They discovered a corpse of a winged ant on the coast of Japan . ” [3].

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Translator’s Notes:.

[1]: Oh, here it is . The actual confirmation that intelligence increased his maximum shadows . .

[2]: Err, in case anyone’s uncomfortable with the rather blatant racism, the relationship between Korean and Japan, especially for older folks, is not that good . .

[3]: In the next arc of SoloxLeveling, we’ll be visiting the Chimera Ant Island :P.