Chapter 23 (1/2)

First things first, I needed to figure out my end goal.

What was it that i wanted?

If I go unprepared, even if I might have thought I was prepared, I’ll die. What I needed was the ability to run away. Yeah.

That was easy.

I needed the speed to be able to outrun an animal that had four legs. No. I needed to have the kind of speed that would outrun a cave wolf boss and not get caught in a chase.

Tap. Tap.

I tied my shoelaces and tapped the ground with my feet. I’m not that fast of a runner to begin with. I could do about 100 meters in 13 seconds…ish? It was pretty fast for an average person, but I would be considered slow if compared to sprinters. I’d be cave wolf snack in seconds if I tried to run away like this. I need to be able to do under 10 seconds if I might have a prayer of outrunning that beast.

I dida light sprint back and forth in the left trail to get a feel for the terrain. I don’t know if it’s because of my up in endurance, but I wasn’t winded in the least.

Now it was time to sprint like hell. I went down and got in position…then kicked the ground to help me get a running start. I almost fell a few times since the ground wasn’t really level. After I did this about five times, I could feel my body get a bit lighter.

“Yes.”

Tap. Tap.

The sound was different. Every time I took a step, it almost felt as if the length of the ground was shrinking. But I couldn’t be happy with just this.

I needed to feel lighter. I needed to be faster.

Woosh!

I could hear the sound of wind whipping past my ear. I could taste the humid air filling my lungs. I could feel my heart pumping the oxygen throughout my body. I could hear he bu-bump of my heart and blood vessels pumping the blood. It now felt as if my body was floating through the air.

More. A little more. As fast as I can. No, more than that.

“Huk. Huk. Huk.”

After I snapped back to attention, I realized everyone was staring at me with wide eyes.

****

[0,5,850]

I saw that I upgraded twice. The first time, I used up 500 reward points..and the second time, I used up 1000. There was no way for me to find out exactly how much faster I was now but, seeing everyone’s reaction, it should be enough for me to outrun that thing.

“Uh…you…what the hell was that just now?”

Manager Kim stuttered as he tried to get the words out.

“What do you mean?”

“Whoa. SunbehOppa. Did you know you were just flying?”

“I flew?”

“Well, you weren’t exactly flying. But it almost looked like it.”

“We heard a loud noise behind us so we looked back, and we saw you kicking the ground running at us. You were taking a few meters every step. It looked like you almost like you were stepping on air.”

Glasses girl said.

“Wait wait?”

“That you were stepping on air…?”

“No, not that. You said that you heard a loud noise?”

“Yeah. At first it was just stomping noises, but later it sounded almost like an earthqua…”

“Damn! Everyone run into the right trail right now! Jung Sooah! You take this and if the wolf starts heading towards the left trail, throw it!”

I didn’t have the time to revel in my new upgrade. I handed one of my pepper bombs to her.

“Why all of a sudden?”

“The wolf is going to come! Hurry!”

There was no way the wolf wouldn’t have heard something that sounded like an earthquake.

“Over…over there.”

Cho Youngoo said with a stammer in his voice.

Grrrrrr.

The sound of growling rung throughout the dungeon.

Luckily it didn’t start running at us. It was staring at us…probably observing us at first.