I Gave Up Being Stronger

Cha Jin-Hyeok went camping with Elly in a deep part of the Taebaek Mountains, [1] a place untouched by Players.

“Elly, you look really cute.”

Flames engulfed Elly’s face. If she were a normal child, it would be a big deal, but such acts were nothing for a Fire Spirit. It was quite cute how she expressed her embarrassment in such a way.

With her face wrapped in fire, she excitedly asked, “Really? Am I cute?”

“Of course, you are.”

Right now, Jin-Hyeok was not livestreaming and just recording what was going on. Since he was not quite adept at creating this type of everyday content yet, he planned to edit and upload it later with the help of Wang Yu-Mi and Kang Cheol, his editor.

“Thank you for saying I’m cute! I’m so happy!” Elly twirled around, with a yellow flower in her hair, looking even cuter.

Jin-Hyeok did not fully have his guard down even around Elly. All beautiful and cute things in the world had to be handled with care, after all. However, since he was filming, he thought it was okay to express how cute she was to his heart’s content.

“Elly, thanks to you, starting a campfire is incredibly easy.” Jin-Hyeok grabbed her wrist and pointed at the stack of firewood. “Elly, fire!”

“Yap!” A ball of fire flew from the tip of Elly’s finger, igniting the firewood. “Camping is so fun! The best!”

Jin-Hyeok could not help but smile. He did not know why he was smiling, which made him wonder if she had a Trait that made people smile.

Elly squatted and rested her chin on her hands, blankly staring at the flickering flames. She then asked, “Is it okay if I dive in?”

At Jin-Hyeok’s approval, she excitedly jumped into the campfire. Elly transformed into a fireball and laughed for a while. The campfire seemed to dance. Soon, she returned to her human form. Then she cover to Jin-Hyeok and sat down, leaning against him.

“Dancing with the campfire madetired…” Seeming exhausted, she leaned on his shoulder and dozed off for a while. Even though she could have continued to sleep, she woke up as she wanted to watch the fire till the end. Jin-Hyeok felt a different kind of warmth in watching her than he felt while watching the Seo sisters.

They were somewhere in the Taebaek Mountains, and Jin-Hyeok was not exactly sure of the exact location. Occasionally, monsters living deep in the mountains would attack them.

The monster that had just attacked him was a bug monster, resembling a cockroach about three meters in size, which was a delicacy when roasted over fire.

Living in damp and dark places, these monsters had incredible vitality and were often found deep in Dungeons. They were a welcsight when food supplies ran low. Although they looked somewhat disgusting, they were nutritionally perfect. As long as they were cooked over a fire, there were almost no side effects. However, if a Player cut them or made them explode, the monsters sprayed foul-smelling blood. Hence, Players needed to pierce these monsters properly.

Jin-Hyeok had killed the monster properly. It had been a while, but killing these monsters was fun.

Coming across a Hidden Dungeon or an Event Boss while relaxing would be more interesting.

Just when Jin-Hyeok was feeling a bit bored, he sensed something strange.

Something was rustling in the darkness. He kept hearing weird sounds that resembled animal cries.

[Violence… redeems… all things.]

Jin-Hyeok thought it sounded similar to a human’s voice.

[Violence… redeems… all things.]

***

Kang Il-Nam and Kang Yi-Nam were brothers who had turned forty-two and forty-one, respectively, this year. Il-Nam, who was unemployed, had accidentally killed their father, who was over seventy years old, in a fit of rage while demanding more allowance. Subsequently, he had Awakened as a Black Mage of Patricide. Seeing his brother Awaken as a Player with a hidden class, Yi-Nam had killed their mother and Awakened as a Black Mage of Matricide.

Afterward, they becvery interested in Playing.

Initially, they found the thrill of not being punished for killing people fascinating, but later, they enjoyed growing stronger. The local residents who once scorned them for being jobless alcoholics began to fear the Kang brothers.

“We need to becstronger.”

“We must grow stronger.”

Their growth rate was considerably faster than that of other Players, thanks to their ‘Joy of Murder’ Trait, which allowed them to gain massive amounts of experience points from killing. The elder brother, Il-Nam, chose to grow as a summoning Black Mage, and the younger brother, Yi-Nam, beca crafting Black Mage. They were a well-matched duo.

Yi-Nam regretfully said, “It would be nice if there was a child here.”

He was disappointed that this village only had elderly people.

“Look, there’s one.”

“Where?”

The Kang brothers had gathered the villagers in front of the village hall, forcing them to kneel. Four beheaded corpses lay there, and the villagers, unable to resist, merely pleaded for their lives. Il-Nam pointed to a woman with a noticeably big belly; a pink badge indicating her pregnancy was attached to her bag.

He approached the pregnant woman with a dagger emitting black energy. As she screamed and tried to flee, Il-Nam’s summoned plant monster caught her with its vines. The bound pregnant woman struggled. “P-Please! Don’t kill me!”

“Don’t worry. We don’t need you, just the child.” He brought the dagger close to the woman’s belly, but an elderly man threw a stone at him.

“You despicable fiends! Aren’t you afraid of heaven—”

The plant monster extended another vine, grasping the old man’s neck and lifting him into the air.

The man’s neck snapped, and his body went limp. The people kneeling in front of the village hall covered their mouths, barely holding back screams. No one could stop the rampaging Kang brothers, and the brothers achieved their goals.

“Good. We have got the fresh blood of a child, and now we just need to melt down a Spirit. Hyung, you said you could catch one, right?”

“Of course.”

The only ingredient they needed now was a Spirit. The Taebaek Mountains, being a place of strong natural energy, were ideal for Spirits. So, the mountain range had a strong presence of Spirits, who occasionally revealed themselves in the mountains.

“The Carnivorous Flower I summoned last tshould be able to consa Spirit,” Il-Nam said.

“You mean the one I helped you summon with the ingredients I gathered?”

“Let’s get our facts straight. You always take all the credit.”

Il-Nam frowned and glared at his brother but then shrugged. “Sorry, my bad.”

Suddenly, they saw something they had never expected to see in the deep mountains. It seemed a father and daughter duo was camping in this remote location. Upon closer observation, the young girl seemed to be a Fire Spirit.

Yi-Nam chuckled. “It seems heaven is on our side.”

“Hold on.”

“Why?”

“Doesn’t that guy look familiar?”

“Maybe he's just a celebrity look-alike.”

The father was quite handsome. Il-Nam tilted his head. “Is he skind of K-pop idol?”

“Do you even know any K-pop idols? Do you know VTS?”

VTS was a globally famous Korean idol group. They had dominated the Billboard charts multiple times and had hundreds of millions of fans worldwide. Even Il-Nam was familiar with their name.

“I know the group name.”

“Do you know what they look like?”

“...No.”

“Then how can you say that guy is a K-pop idol? There are so many people who are that handsome. I’m sure you’re confused with someone else.”

However, Il-Nam felt inexplicably uneasy. “I feel like he knows that we’re here.”

“What the hell are you talking about? We’re hiding our presence with our black magic!”

“Still, this doesn’t feel right.”

“You always say that, Hyung.”

“Let’s just watch the situation for a bit. There is no harm in being cautious. If he is camping so leisurely in a place where powerful monsters appear often, he must be someone powerful.” This was merely a hunch. “We should probably summon the Yeti of Salvation to take a closer look.”

Yi-Nam frowned. “We need five human hearts to summon that.”

Black magic was very powerful, but it required numerous offerings and ingredients. The more life the offering had, the more potent was the effect of the magic spell. The Kang brothers often used human hearts as offerings.

“We can get more hearts later. I’ll get them after this.”

“If you get the ones from teenagers, I will agree to summon the Yeti of Salvation.”

“Fine, I’ll do that.”

“Promise me. Last time, you brought the hearts of twenty-year-olds and said they were teenagers.”

“I said I got it.”

Il-Nam summoned the Yeti of Salvation. Among the creatures he could summon as a Black Mage, this was the most powerful. It was a gift from a cult leader who had made the Kang brothers what they were.

[LV 177/Yeti of Salvation/Beauty of Violence]

The monster’s nand Level were in red even in Il-Nam’s eyes, signifying how strong it was.

[Violence… redeems… all things…]

Even Il-Nam could not control it precisely. He could only designate a target and command the monster to attack the target.

“Kill that man first.”

They decided to kill the guy with the handsface first to make the job easier. It did not matter if he was someone significant.

“While that guy fights the Yeti of Salvation, we will abduct the Spirit.”

That was the moment Jin-Hyeok recognized the Kang brothers. He had sensed them earlier but had not paid much attention. He had almost not noticed them. It was kind of like not noticing all the bugs in a massive forest.

When going for a therapeutic picnic, one would not particularly care about the number of flies flying around, where they were going, or what they were thinking. However, the situation changed if the bug was actually harmful, like a mosquito. A fly flying around far away was ignorable, but a blood-sucking mosquito had to be eliminated.

“Now that we have summoned the Yeti, we must kill that man,” Il-Nam said.

“Yes.”

Jin-Hyeok also saw the Yeti of Salvation.

He didn’t know much about it because he had slain the followers of this cult without questions each the had encountered them. The Truth of Violence was one of the official state-designated villainous organizations, and the Yeti of Salvation was a target for unconditional extermination.

Jin-Hyeok could not quite remember. It was like trying to recall the brand of a punching bag he used. In keeping with his calm vlog style, Jin-Hyeok calmly and serenely said, “Ah, I think it’s tfor sgenuine therapy.”

1. Taebaek Mountains are a mountain range located along the eastern edge of the peninsula and runs along the eastern coast of the Korean Peninsula. ☜

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