Leveling Up Alone

The retainer beside him was confused as this guy was definitely not this kind of person.

He could not understand why he would tell them such a lie, but decided not to interfere as watching other Hunters fight was not something he could enjoy every day. Besides, they had been ordered to kill all of them anyway, so there was no harm in reducing their numbers by making them fight amongst themselves.

“Pardon… They will grant us a pardon…”

“I can’t afford to waste time doing community service…”

“I’m sorry, but you must sacrifice yourselves for us.”

These Hunters justified their surrender to Woo Han-Jong’s retainers by saying they did not wish to fight. Ironically, they were instantly willing to fight their fellow protestors when offered clemency for protesting against the government.

“What is the meaning of this?!”

The leader of the remaining Hunters, Se-Na, had shouted in anger, but her voice failed to reach the ears of the selfish ones who only cared about their own well-being.

“Damn it!”

Se-Na could not help but feel frustrated and bewildered when those she had fought together with just a while ago suddenly became her enemies.

She might be someone burning with a sense of justice, and her desire to change the country was a noble cause, but she lacked combat experience outside of hunting monsters. She did not have the capability to deal with these kinds of situations.

“What should we do, Se-Na?”

“We’re surrounded!”

“Damn it!”

“We have no other choice than to… Defend until the very end…” Se-Na replied.

“Do you have a plan in mind?” Seung-Beom asked.

“I’ll… leave that to you, ahjussi…”

“Geez… You should’ve just let me sleep peacefully at home and not dragged me out. What is this mess? Damn it… Alright, leave it to me.”

Seung-Beom was quite the lazy fellow, so he preferred to stay at home and sleep whenever he was not hunting, but Se-Na had dragged him out today of all times to join the protest. He always found it difficult to say no to her, so he followed her to the protest, and thus he eventually ended up in this hot mess.

He slammed his fists together before jumping down the window and slamming the ground.

Then, a powerful protective barrier formed around the building housing the fifty Hunters who did not surrender.

Seung-Beom was one of the few Hunters in South Korea who could set up protective barriers as a brawler. His class, the Barrier Brawler, specialized in using barriers while fighting melee.

“T-This is?!”

The other Hunters were shocked when a barrier suddenly enveloped the building they were in, but they let out a sigh of relief once they realized it was a protective barrier.

He did not really talk about it, but he was an S-Rank Hunter highly sought after by numerous guilds. However, he really could not be bothered to go hunting almost every day, so he worked as a freelancer who set up barriers whenever the guilds requested, and that was the extent of his involvement with them.

“I don’t have any guarantees…”

“What?”

“I’m just placing my hope in Han-Yeol-nim…”

“What…?”

Se-Na was always the level-headed and logical one among them, but she was suddenly saying something that completely went against common sense.

“Who are you?! You’re not my Se-Na! Give her back to me!”

“What’s wrong with this ahjussi?”

“I didn’t hit you that hard.”

“What part of that wasn’t hard?!”

Seung-Beom ended up getting slapped by Se-Na once again.

Se-Na had been a professional volleyball player before awakening as a Hunter. She already possessed good physical abilities as an athlete, which were only further enhanced after she awakened as a Hunter.

The ability she awakened with was a very unique and peculiar one. Her ability allowed her to conjure an orb the size of a volleyball with her mana, and she would throw it up in the air before spiking it at her target. The damage she dealt grew stronger the more powerful her spike was.

Thus, it was only understandable why Seung-Beom would scream in agony after getting slapped on the back by Se-Na.

Actually, Se-Na could be considered cruel for slapping the back of someone close to her despite fully knowing what kind of ability she possessed.

The Hunters who surrendered and were blinded by the pardon offered tried to do whatever they could to destroy Seung-Beom’s barrier.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian Master-Rank Hunters and Woo Han-Jong’s Master-Rank Hunters clashed numerous times without ceasing until they were now finally at a standoff.

Both sides were extremely exhausted after the fierce fighting.

“These brats are quite impressive… They managed to last this long against us.”

“These kids are quite the fighters.”

Woo Han-Jong’s retainers tried to act as if they had the upper hand, but they couldn’t hide that they were equally exhausted, judging by how rough their breathing was.

Their master was a member of the secretive Freemason organization, and that organization developed a certain drug that explosively increased their mana. The drug had already completed all necessary tests, so it did not come with any side-effects, and they felt themselves becoming more powerful every time they took the drug.

This was the reason the retainers could not believe that they could not easily win against the Egyptians.

However, it was the same for the Egyptian trio as they found the retainers to be quite the tricky opponents to fight against.

“…”

“Tayarana-nim…”

“C-Can you calm down a bit, noonim?”

The Egyptians were shocked by the fact they could not win against their opponents.

Tayarana had fought alongside Han-Yeol, and she knew she was stronger than most Master-Rank Hunters now. She was confident that she was already stronger than most Hunters on Earth after traveling to another dimension with Han-Yeol, but it seemed that her confidence was being tested right now.

The fact that she could not win against three Master-Rank Hunters and had to spend more than twenty-four hours fighting them frustrated and irritated her. Then, those emotions slowly started boiling and turned into anger.

“I don’t like this…”

“N-Noonim!”

“T-Tayarana-nim!”

Mariam and Mujahid were shocked at what they were witnessing.The source of thɪs content is novelenglish.net . Fir(e).nᴇt

Tayarana’s mana was blue like all other Hunters—no, it was more like blue was the normal color of mana, and a person’s mana having any other color aside from blue meant that there was a problem with that person’s mana, according to the exporters.

Of course, some Hunters possessed red, white, or green mana, but only a handful of them existed.

However, Tayarana’s mana color right now was not blue.

“H-How can this be…?” Mariam muttered as she fell to her knees.

Tayarana’s anger changed the color of her mana to radiant gold.

The radiant gold color symbolized Egypt’s chief deity, the Sun God, Ra, and was also the color beloved by all Egyptians.

“N-Noonim?” Mujahid called out to his sister.

However, she was already in a trance, so his voice failed to reach her.

“D-Damn it! Mariam!” Mujahid shouted after realizing what kind of situation Tayarana was in.

“Yes!” Mariam hurriedly replied. She was still on her knees, but she immediately moved her hands to activate her telepathic powers and tried to enter Tayarana’s mind.

Her plan was to knock Tayarana out to stabilize her mana before it ran amok and went rampant.

The golden aura she was emitting indeed looked beautiful, but just because it was beautiful did not mean it was good.

Mariam was about to enter Tayarana’s mind when something forced her out of her mind.

“Mariam!” Mujahid hurried over to her.

Entering someone’s mind was a very sensitive and tricky job, and the feedback from the shock caused Mariam’s nose to bleed as she lost consciousness.

He wished somebody could give him some answer right now. Both Tayarana and Mariam were incapacitated, so he was left all alone to defend them against their opponents.

“Hmm?”

The retainers noticed there was something strange about the three Egyptians.

“What’s that golden mana?”

“Was there such a thing as golden mana?”

“I’ve seen Berserkers possess red mana and white mana used by clergymen… but this is my first time seeing golden mana…”

The retainers also had no idea what the golden mana was about as this was their first time seeing it.

However, they soon realized that the color of Tayarana’s mana was the least of their problems.

The middle-aged man and the Chinese lady exclaimed out of surprise.

“Damn it! She’s coming!”

“What?! Doesn’t she get tired?!”

“…”

Meanwhile, the dark-skinned man had a bad feeling about what was happening. He was not concerned about the Egyptians as he was confident they could win, but he was concerned about something else right now.

Lee Han-Yeol was indeed a strong Hunter, but he was definitely not strong enough for the chairman to take this long. He knew that the chairman was not fond of prolonged battles due to his old age, and most would conclude within mere minutes.

However, twenty-four hours had already passed, and the chairman had yet to return.

He felt nervous, but he did not think even for a second that Woo Han-Jong would lose. Woo Han-Jong was a living god to him, and he was an absolute being without an equal in this world.

How could a god lose to a mere human? That was impossible!

Lee Han-Yeol was nothing but an upstart greenhorn who was lucky enough to have awakened with good abilities, but he was nothing when compared to Woo Han-Jong, who was the first person to awaken as a Hunter.

“What?! Why is she flying all of a sudden?”

“She can fly?!”

“This is problematic… Our firepower will be limited if we fight in the air…”

The retainers were starting to get the hang of fighting as a group, but their opponents threw a curveball at them once again.