Chapter 74 – Dark Elven City (7)  

Sungjin was back in the cavern. He had half HP and MP. He wished to replenish them using his Vampire’s Ring and Moon Specter respectively.

He had spent 25 minutes on killing both bosses. He had enough time. In fact, because he had lots of time remaining, he decided to take it slow and think for a moment.

‘When I teleport... where would trolls most likely be standing?’

In about 5 minutes, the fastest Hunters would be finishing up the boss. Once that’s done, the Trolls would officially begin to appear. 1 hour remained on the clock, giving each teleport roughly 20 minutes of activity time. He would be on a tight schedule.

From realm to realm, he would need to find the trolls. The combat itself wouldn’t take as long as the search for the trolls.

And if he took into consideration of searching for those willing to grant him ‘White coins’ or comrades worthy of ‘Holy water of Baptism’, he really didn’t have much time to waste at all.

So he had to lower the time spent searching for trolls as much as possible. Sungjin pointed at a corpse of an Elf he had slain earlier and said

“Lich’s Beckon”

He replenished his mana as he took a look around the city. The best place would probably be at the temple where the raid boss was.

It was located at the center of the city, at the highest point. He would be able to see where the hunters were fighting in one glance.

Sungjin held his blades out as he began to climb the city. The Elves blocked his way back up, but they were no match for him.

Perhaps due to having concluded a fight to the death with a true blademaster, killing the other dark elves felt like he was challenging little kids to arm wrestling.

‘Whoosh’

Each time Sungjin’s swords danced, dark elven heads rolled onto the floor. As he was hunting, Sungjin asked the Operator,

“Operator, HP”

He kept on checking the HP as he slaughtered the Elves. Meanwhile, Sungjin ran across the hunter groups.

“Eh? You!”

“Adjudicator...”

It was the other four hunters he had come to the raids with. They were shocked to see him as if they had seen a ghost. It was no wonder; unlike other raids, the Cube would have randomly said

[Raid Boss Appeared]

[Boss Cleared]

[Hidden Boss Appeared]

[Hidden Boss Cleared]

Sungjin said to them

“Ah... As promised I only killed the bosses. Feel free to kill everything else around.”

The hunters fell silent at his words.

‘How are you able to do this?’

No one dared to ask. Sungjin’s words and actions were already ‘of another world’.

Especially the ‘High Level Swordsman’ was nervous thinking Sungjin might do something in retaliation for picking a fight earlier and was avoiding eye contact.

Sungjin saw his behavior and couldn’t help but grin as he walked by. There were not many enemies left on his way back up to the temple.

The four hunters must have cleared them out diligently. Nonetheless, Sungjin continued to hunt the occasional elves on his way up to the temple.

[HP Full]

The Operator said as Sungjin swung his swords, shaking off the blood on them.

“Time since raid start?”

[30 minutes 12 seconds]

It was time to move on. Sungjin resheathed his swords and took out one of three ‘Trollseeker Marble’ from his vest.

Sungjin entered back into the temple since he wouldn’t be able to take full advantage of the marble if he gets delayed by normal mobs.

One he was sure no Dark Elves were nearby, he lifted up the marble and said

“Pursuit of Justice!”

Despite being deep underground, a pillar of light came down from above and surrounded Sungjin.

[Dimensional transfer has been requested.]

[Before Dimensional transfer can be completed, Raid Reward Distribution must take place.]

[Beginning distribution of rewards.]

The Operator rapidly gave out the rewards.

[Monsters Slain. Dark Elf Civilian: 44. Dark Elven Guard: 25. Dark Elven Mage: 8. Total 728 points.]

[Boss Monster Slain: ‘Priestess’ Kerenis: 1100 points.]

[Hidden Boss: ‘Exiled Dark Elf’: 1100 points.]

[Final Point count: 9480. Distributing points.]

[Your contribution is 65.5%. 6209 Stat points, 6209 Black Coins awarded. Raid Clear Bonus 2800 Stat points and 2800 Black Coins awarded. Item effect ‘Additional 10% gained’ activated. Distributing 9009 Stat points and 9910 Black Coins.]

[And now we will distribute the items.]

Sungjin unconsciously swallowed. This part always made him nervous.

[Artemio – Mage Bane]

[Darke – Cursed Chalice]

[Mamaya – Finger of Brainwashing]

[Enhancement stone]

[Spellbook – Slow]

[Spellbook – Dark Shield]

[Recovery Potion – Large X2]

The Operator gave two rounds of congratulatory messages.

[Congratulations! You have obtained the Legendary Item ‘Artemio’!]

[Congratulations! You have obtained the Legendary Crafting material ‘Enhancement Stone’!]

Several items fell before Sungjin. Sungjin picked them up as he put them away. The one he had his eyes on was the Elegantly curved Legendary sword ‘Artemio’

‘This is definitely...’

It was Calian’s magic sword which he used to deflect Sungjin’s fireball. Sungjin wanted to pick it up to see the information screen, but the cube was preoccupied with giving announcements.

[Last but not the least, you will be awarded titles you’ve earned on this raid.]

[Assassin – Attacking unsuspecting enemies increases damage by 100%]

‘Assassin... I think someone had this title recently...’

Now that he thought of it, it was the rapist from back in Giant’s Canyon. Thanks to him, Sungjin felt a little bit of reluctance from using this title, but the effects were great. Whether it was the raid boss or trolls, if he could successfully land a sneak attack the title would come handy.

‘Equipping the title doubles sneak attack damage, not equipping it retains 1.5 times the damage... that means if I see a chance for ambush I should take it...’

As Sungjin was thinking, he recalled the existence of ‘Star of the Nameless’. It was such a good item, as it allowed adjusting title according to the situation.

The fight against Calian might have been more difficult due to having to equip ‘Adjudicator’ over ‘Master Hunter’. The 20,000 price tag was probably well worth it.

‘I don’t know how much the items I got this time are worth... but I’ll keep them in the basket for now.’

[Distribution has ended. Request for Dimensional transfer has been granted.]

[You will be teleported in 10 seconds. 10, 9]

The Operator began her countdown, and Sungjin mentally prepared himself. No mercy for the wicked. He who trolled once will inevitably troll again.

He had to eliminate them thoroughly from the raids as early as possible and prevent them from being able to reach late game. And on the side use Adjudicator passive to earn additional black Coins. For Sungjin it was like killing two birds with one stone.

[5, 4, 3]

As the countdown was finishing up, Sungjin stretched and hopped like a short distance sprinter. He wanted to reduce the time spent searching for the trolls as much as possible.

In other dimensions, tens of thousands of teams of hunters were still making their way through the Raids. Even if only one out of ten thousand dimensions contained trolls, there would be dozens of trolls to catch.

Being able to use ‘Trollseeker marble’ as often as possible was for the best. If he is able to use all three marbles effectively, he could consider getting even more of them.

[2, 1, 0]

The countdown finished, and Sungjin was teleported somewhere else.

*

All five Hunters were strong and talented. They cooperated perfectly with each other and reached the Temple where the Raid boss awaited them. Once they reached the inside of the temple

“Kaima O’ Great God, your children are preparing for war, give us your blessing.”

They witnessed the Priestess and her four guardians carrying out a strange ritual. They glanced at each other and whispered among themselves.

“It looks like we should be able to launch a surprise attack while they’re distracted.”

“Yeah, let’s start off the fight by picking off the archer and the Priestess.”

“Yeah remove the damage dealer first. That’s not a bad idea.”

They had planned to ambush the boss. But,

“Sssss”

A giant Anaconda killed itself against the Priestess’s dagger, and the ‘Elite Sniper’ who was watching couldn’t help but

‘Gasp!’

Make a strange noise.

“Who goes there disturbing our holy ceremony?”

The priestess’s voice rang out, and the battle began without successfully carrying out the ambush. The ambush failed, but the battle went favorably.

The hunters were powerful enough to reach the raid boss within 30 minutes. The problem began when she started using strange brainwashing magic.

When she extracted a rotting finger from her robes and pointed at someone, it led them to turn against their teammates.

They lost an ally and gained an enemy. And of all the targets, the one affected was the ‘Slaughterer’, a strong damage dealer.

While the hunters were in disarray due to being unsure how to respond

“Ahh!”

A casualty occurred at his hands. The other three worked their hardest to take down the source of the brainwash, but during the process

“Oof”

A second casualty occurred right at the end. The two survivors and the ‘Slaughterer’ who finally became free of the Brainwashing took down the Raidboss and

[Priestess Kerenis Cleared!]

[Returning to the Black Market in 58 minutes and 23 seconds.]

They managed to clear the raid. But the hunters weren’t happy. Of the two survivors, the ‘Destroyer’ wielding a giant hammer addressed the ‘Slaughterer’.

“This is all your fault.”

“Why is that?”

“Why? You got brainwashed like a retard and killed the tank, you know that right?”

“What? How was that my fault? That was the Boss’s skill! If you had been hit by that, then you would have been in my position! Do you think you would have been able to stop yourself if you were under the effects of it?”

“I wouldn’t have been hit in the first place.”

“Stop spouting bullshit. If you want to blame someone, blame that Sniper for ruining our ambush earlier. I fought hard. I couldn’t do anything about the Brainwashing.

The ‘Elite Sniper’ who was listening on the side also joined the argument.

“What are you talking about? What difference do you think that really made? We would have fought the same way in either case. And you would have been brainwashed no matter what. Killing your allies with your hands.”

“I didn’t kill them because I wanted to kill them!”

The three of them continued to shout and argue, and in the end, the ‘Destroyer’ couldn’t hold back his anger and finally swung his hammer.