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Solo Leveling Novel Chapter 6 Average 5 / 5 out of 1
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Summary
It happened then.
Shururururu…..
Suddenly, the sandy ground next to him caved in and a deep pit formed there.
“Huh? Uh, uh!”
Jin-Woo desperately ran away so he could avoid getting sucked in down there. The sandy pit grew wider and wider, and eventually, Jin-Woo had to crawl on all fours just to pull himself out.
“Pant, pant, pant….”
He plopped down on his butt, panted heavily and stared at the bottom of the pit. Quite bizarrely, he could see that the sand at the bottom was ‘boiling’.
Realising that just one misstep would have resulted in him falling in there sent shivers down his spine.
“Hang on a minute….”
Jin-Woo’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“….It’s not actually boiling, is it?”
When he took a closer look, he spotted ‘something’ pretty big wiggling down there.
Jin-Woo instinctively forced himself up. He was getting a really bad premonition right about now.
Sure enough, just as Jin-Woo took a step back, the sand within the pit suddenly exploded upwards.
Phushu-!!
The falling sand emitted the roar of a waterfall.
Jin-Woo’s eyes went extra round in the meantime.
“An… an insect?”
The identity of the thing that exploded out from the sand was a giant centipede.
Kiiiieeehhhk!!
When fully revealed, the d*mn thing’s head almost reached the height equaling that of a five-story building.
Jin-Woo anxiously swallowed his saliva.
‘This is unreal….’
For sure, the b*stard was unrealistically huge. He had never heard of a centipede this big existing in the world before. But the size of the centipede wasn’t the only thing that shocked Jin-Woo.
“Why is there a… name floating on top of that monster?”
Was he dreaming again?
Jin-Woo closed and opened his eyes again, yet nothing had changed. Even now, there were five red words floating on top of the monster’s head.
….Just like a monster from a video game might have.
‘The Poison-Fanged Giant Desert Centipede.’
Just like its horrendous and bizarre appearance, its name too was something he’d like to avoid at all cost. What drew his attention the most was the two letters “poison” and “fanged”.
He spotted a pair of fangs as large as a child jutting out just below the b*stard’s jaw. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what might happen if he got stabbed by those fangs simply from its name alone.
Seeing those large fangs and its jaw constantly opening and closing, it was as if….
“It’s busy licking its lips, right?”
It was then, the sound went off in his head again.
Tti-ring.
[Penalty Quest: Survival]
Goal: Please survive until the end of the time limit.
Time limit: 4 hours
Remaining time: 4 hours 0 minutes 0 seconds
‘Are you kidding me….?’
However, as soon as the ‘remaining time’ changed to 3 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds, the centipede parted sand and rushed towards him as if it couldn’t wait any longer.
*SFX for sand parting ways*
“Wha-what the hell?!”
Jin-Woo hurriedly spun around and ran for his life.
There was no time to deliberate on things.
If he wanted to live, then he had to run!
That was the only thought racing in his head.
However, even before he had taken several steps, another pillar of sand exploded upwards not too far from his position.
Boom!!
“Euh-ahhck?!”
Jin-Woo fell on his rear from the powerful shockwave. He rolled on the sandy ground before urgently getting back up. He swiped the sand off his face before his eyes shot open even wider.
This time, it wasn’t just one or two of them.
Boom!!
Booooom!!
Before he had even noticed it, there were seven sand centipedes jutting out from the sand and they were all glaring at him.
Kiiieeechhk!!
Kiieeek!!
As the centipedes issued shrill cries, Jin-Woo’s complexion changed for the worse. A lot worse.
“God d*mn it….”
***
Jin-Woo reappeared in the hospital room exactly four hours later.
Plop.
Jin-Woo keeled over on the floor and painfully wheezed out.
“Cough, cough!! Ptooi, ptooi!!”
His mouth felt full with this coarse, grainy taste. His eyes stung badly too, seemingly like sand particles got in there.
Jin-Woo whimpered and groaned for a long time, before powerlessly falling flat on his back. He didn’t have any energy left to lift even a finger.
“Pant…. Pant…. Just…. What was that….?”
Jin-Woo continued to pant heavily when a new message appeared before him.
Tti-ring.
[You’ve completed the ‘Penalty Quest.’]
Jin-Woo’s expression crumpled into something unsightly.
A ‘Penalty Quest’?
Did he do something worthy of being punished?
Jin-Woo carefully retreaded his memories until he recalled the [Daily Quest] he abandoned mid-way yesterday.
‘Could it be…?’
Now that he thought about it, it definitely said that if the quest was not completed, he’d be hit with a corresponding penalty.
“Pant, pant, that…. That was not a hallucination?!”
Indeed, it was not a hallucination nor was it a dream.
There was no need to pinch his cheeks to confirm whether this was a dream or reality.
When he was running around, the shortness of breath felt so suffocatingly harsh, and the pain he felt when he got grazed by the centipede’s leg still felt fresh in his mind.
Everything happened for real.
He nearly died back there.
“This is way too much…. Pant… pant….”
The so-called penalty turned out to be him being throwing into a d*mn execution ground!
At the same time, another ominous premonition rushed into his mind. If this event was indeed caused by the ‘Daily Quest’ thing, then without a doubt, this would not be the last time.
Sure enough, he got to hear yet another mechanical beep going off in his head.
Tti-ring.
He flinched in surprise, but thankfully, it was not about another quest or anything like that.
[Rewards for completing the Penalty Quest is now available.]
[Would you like to confirm the rewards?] (Y/N)
‘Rewards….?’
The word ‘rewards’ jumped right out. Too bad, the problem was, he currently didn’t have any energy left whatsoever to confirm this and that.
His situation simply didn’t allow that.
‘Never mind giving me rewards or not…. Let me take a break first….’
His sights gradually blurred.
Soon, Jin-Woo fell into a deep slumber akin to a blackout.
***
“Oh my gosh?! What happened in here?”
Next morning.
A nurse entered Jin-Woo’s room, only for her eyes to open up wide in surprise.
The patient was lying sprawled on the floor, while sand was everywhere as far as she could see. Not only that, the patient too was full of sand as well.
She threw the medical chart on the bed and urgently pressed the emergency buzzer.
“Please, someone get over here right away!”
Soon, the doctor in charge rushed into the room.
“What happened? What’s the matter with Mister Seong Jin-Woo?”
“I don’t know. Everything was fine until last night, yet this morning….”
“For now, let’s relocate him back on the bed. One, two!”
Two people lifted Jin-Woo off the floor and placed him back on the bed. During the process, the back of Jin-Woo’s hand got scratched by the edge of the medical chart left on the bed and his skin tore just a little, but no one noticed that.
“Let’s take a look.”
The doctor then carefully examined Jin-Woo’s condition. However, he couldn’t find anything wrong with the youth.
“What the heck…. Isn’t he just in a deep sleep?”
The doctor spat out a sigh of relief.
The Hunter’s Association had requested the hospital to pay a special attention to this particular patient. Understandably, the doctor was scared almost out of his wits while thinking that something bad had happened here.
“For now, let’s let him be. Looks like he’s in a really deep slumber at the moment.”
The doctor in charge spoke to the nurse and was about to leave, but then, he took a look around the room and scratched the side of his head.
“By the way, this room… might need a thorough cleaning. Miss Yu-Rah, please take care of tidying this place up.”
“Yes. I shall, doctor.”
The doctor left the room and the nurse, Choi Yu-Rah, patted her chest down.
What a relief that it turned out to be nothing to worry about.
Sure, they might not be the patient or the relatives of one themselves, but you wouldn’t find a doctor or a nurse who wished ill on those they were in charge of.
The Hunter’s hospital especially saw many heavily-injured patients every day. At the bare minimum, she’d like to never see another one of patients she was looking after get worse under her care.
“Whew…”
She had calmed down a little now, and began worrying about where should she start tidying this room up, but then, her eyes spotted drops of blood on the floor.
“Oh my?”
The blood droplets were coming from the tip of patient’s hand that fell outside the bed.
She got stunned by this and hurriedly searched for the wound on Jin-Woo’s hand, before flipping it around.
“What’s going on here….?”
There definitely was a trace of flowing blood, but she could not find a single wound. She wiped the blood clean, yet the expected wound was not there.
‘Wait…. Could his injury heal in that short time?’
Yu-Rah’s heart began beating faster as she cautiously studied Jin-Woo’s complexion.
He was still submerged in a deep, deep sleep even now.
Part 7: Daily Quest
Tti-ring.
[Daily Quest is now available.]
Jin-Woo’s eyes shot right open.
He quickly raised himself up and the first thing he did was to check the time. The needles of the clock just went past 16:30.
Meaning, there was the leeway of seven hours and thirty minutes before midnight.
‘Good.’
Jin-Woo opened the mailbox.
Tti-ring.
[Daily Quest: Preparations to become strong]
Press-up, 100 times: Incomplete (0/100)
Sit-up, 100 times: Incomplete (0/100)
Squat, 100 times: Incomplete (0/100)
Running, 10 km: Incomplete (0/10)
※Warning: Incompletion of Daily Quests will result in appropriate levels of punishment.
“It’s the same thing, again?!”
He groaned out almost reflexively.
No, perhaps this was for the better. Rather than a quest with impossible or hard-to-understand goals, this was far more preferable, instead.
Well, as long as he had enough time, he’d be able to complete this quest after all, although his body might suffer for a bit. Jin-Woo got down to the floor this time and began the press-up.
“One.”
Obviously, he was not planning on being dragged to yet another suspicious place and get almost killed there.
“Two.”
He got lucky the previous night and survived, but there was no guarantee that would happen tonight as well.
“Three.”
He raised his head a little and confirmed the contents of the quest, and noticed that every time he performed a press-up, it was being recorded in real time as well.
Tti-ring.
[You’ve completed one press-up.]
[Press-up 100 times: Incomplete (7/100)]
Tti-ring.
[You’ve completed one press-up.]
[Press-up 100 times: Incomplete (8/100)]
He wanted to make sure, so he only went down half-way and got back up, but as expected, that didn’t count. Now he finally realised why the so-called press-ups of yesterday didn’t count. He had to perform the proper press-ups or it wouldn’t be counted at all.
‘Huh…. Gimme a break.’
Jin-Woo was dumbfounded, but didn’t stop the exercise.
He still had 50 more press-ups to go.
After that, sit-ups, squats and running were waiting for him.
….And, three hours later.
Press-up, 100 times: Complete (100/100)
Sit-up, 100 times: Complete (100/100)
Squat, 100 times: Complete (100/100)
Running, 10 km: Incomplete (9/10)
“Pant, pant, pant, pant…”
Jin-Woo lapped the outer perimeter of the hospital once and arrived back in front of his room. He was currently bent over and panting out heavily. His heart felt like it might explode at any second, but he couldn’t give up yet.
‘I worked so crazy hard until now, so no way I would….’
He somehow managed to open the door and took a step forward.
When he did that….
Tti-ring.
[Total distance ran: 10 km.]
[You’ve completed Running, 10 km.]
It was finally over.
“Pant…. Pant…”
Jin-Woo fell down to his knees. His breath reeked of something sweet and bitter. His face and back were soaked in sweat.
“Pant…. Pant….”
As Jin-Woo tried to regulate his heavy, rough breathing while thick sweat drops continuously dripped down, a familiar message popped up in front of his eyes.
Tti-ring.
[You’ve completed ‘Daily Quest: Preparations to become strong’.]
[Completion rewards have arrived.]
[Would you like to confirm?] (Y/N)
Jin-Woo momentarily thought about forgetting about everything and simply laying down in defeat, but quickly changed his mind. At least for now, he wanted to confirm what these reward things could actually be with his own eyes first.
“Confirm.”
Tti-ring.
[The following rewards are available.]
Reward 1. Full recovery of the current physical condition
Reward 2. Three additional Stat points
Reward 3. One random box
[Would you like to collect them all?]
‘Why are there so many of them?’
That was the first thought to enter his dazed mind after he took a gander at the contents of his rewards.
But, when he thought about it a little deeper, one of those rewards seemed rather useful right now, and there was also one that made him curious about what it could actually mean.
For now, he urgently needed the first reward available. He was on the brink of collapsing here.
Since there really was a penalty for failure, the odds of completion rewards being real were pretty d*mn high as well.
Well, trying wouldn’t hurt anyways, right?
Seriously, this ‘thing’ wouldn’t throw him back into the penalty zone again after it said it’d give him the rewards, now would it?
As soon as he muttered that out, a gentle blue aura enveloped him.
‘Uh… isn’t this sensation…. that?’
Right away, he recalled Yi Ju-Hui’s face. When he was getting healed by her, he felt the sensation similar to what he was feeling right now.
If he were to put this feeling into words, then it’d be like a refreshing blast of air entering his lungs before leaving again – something like that?
Shu….
He felt the blue aura slowly dissipating. For some reason, he kinda felt a bit rueful.
Jin-Woo got up from the floor and lightly jumped up and down on the spot and stretched his body this way and that.
“How can this be?!”
His heart that felt like it might explode was beating calmly now, and his rough breathing had stabilised as well. He didn’t even feel a speck of fatigue. His body that was on the brink of collapsing, felt refreshed as if he just got up from a night of good rest.
The effect, in other words, was top-notch.
‘Isn’t this really amazing?’
Jin-Woo’s eyes now resembled circles. He wasn’t sure whether this was some kind of magic or not, but this phenomenon could change him in the most astonishing way, without a doubt.
In that case, would those ‘Stat points’ be the same?
When Jin-Woo shifted his gaze around, he spotted a small box resting on top of the bed as well as his own Stat Window floating in the air.
‘I guess that thing over there is the random box….’
The important thing was his Stat Window, though. This window displayed simple information about himself.
Name: Seong Jin-Woo
Level: 1
Class: None
Title: None
HP: 100
MP: 10
Tiredness: 0
[Stat]
Strength: 10
Stamina: 10
Agility: 10
Intelligence: 10
Perception: 10
(Available points to distribute: 3)
[Skills]
Passive skills:
– (Unknown) Lv. Max
– Tenacity Lv. 1
Active skills:
– Dash Lv. 1
The stat he saw was quite similar to a starting character from an online game he used to play many moons ago.
‘Is this my current Stat value?’
His current level was 1. All of his stats were also at the bottom of the heap, too.
If he thought about the current reality of what he was like, the one where he was ranked as the weakest even among the rank E Hunters, then there was nothing to be surprised about there.
What he paid attention to was the ‘Skills’ column.
A passive skill called ‘Tenacity’ and an active one called ‘Dash’.
For some reason, he felt rather familiar with them.
“Ah. I remember now. Yesterday….”
Yesterday, or to be more precise, back in the early dawn of this morning, he remembered hearing those words while being chased around by the centipedes in the penalty zone.
It happened probably after three hours of him constantly running for his dear life. He was suddenly greeted by a couple of new messages.
[‘Skill: Dash Lv. 1’ has been learned.]
[‘Skill: Tenacity Lv. 1’ has been learned.]
Back then, he was far too busy running to think about what they could mean, but it was a different story now. Jin-Woo confirmed the explanations available for the skills.
[Skill: Dash Lv. 1]
Active skill.
Mana required to activate: 5
The constant running fortified your legs. When this skill is activated, your movement speed will increase by 30%. During its activation, 1 Mana will be spent every minute.
[Skill: Tenacity Lv. 1]
Passive skill.
Mana required to activate: None.
You possess untiring tenacity. When your stamina drops below 30%, this skill will automatically activate and reduce all damage received by 50%.
‘Did I learn ‘Dash’ and ‘Tenacity’ because I stubbornly ran around like there’s no tomorrow?’
That seemed to be about right.
In other words, if he kept on repeating a certain action over and over again, and happen to meet the requirement conditions, he would be able to learn new skills.
“Holy cow!”
Wasn’t this an incredible advantage?
The thing was, the skills individual Hunters used were acquired when they went through the Awakening process, or learnt through the items called ‘Rune’ Stones that dropped very rarely from monsters ranked A and above.
Understandably, the prices of these Rune Stones would start from the lowest of several hundred thousand Won to dozens of billion Wons at the top end.
At the last auction, the most expensive Rune Stone was sold for around ₩70,000,000,000. (TL: over $62 million)
Apparently, this Rune Stone contained a skill that could revert many injured people back to their original conditions in one go, and it was snapped up by an anonymous overseas rank S Healer who had reputedly emptied out his entire life savings.
Jin-Woo’s heart began beating faster.
A skill that increased his movement speed, as well as another that decreased the amount of damage received.
Sure, they weren’t as good as those skills that sold for billions of Won, but they were still amazing to him regardless. And he got to learn those for free, too!
His overall magic energy value was too low, so it’d be hard to use them properly, but still, it was better than not knowing them, wasn’t it?
‘Besides, the Tenacity skill doesn’t even need Mana to activate, too…..’
It seemed that this Mana thing was his magic energy. If that was the case, then even though he didn’t have a lot of magic energy, he’d be able to freely use the Tenacity skill. That alone was a huge gain.
“By the way… what could this ‘unknown’ thing be?”
[Skills]
Passive skills:
– (Unknown) Lv. Max
The ‘Unknown’ that occupied one whole slot of the passive skills column.
Since it was located in the passive column, that meant it activated automatically, but there was not one explanation or any information on it.
‘Not even a single clue, huh.’
The amount of information he could learn was just too limited. Even if he burst his brain trying to figure it out, he knew there wouldn’t be any answers. So, Jin-Woo shifted his gaze to elsewhere.
‘Stat points, is it….?’
Three additional Stat points he got as a reward remained there, still to be distributed.
[Stat]
Strength: 10
Stamina: 10
Agility: 10
Intelligence: 10
Perception: 10
(Available points to distribute: 3)
‘I’m sure this means I can increase any one of my Stats by three points, right?’
There were five categories in the list of Stats. Maybe because he was a mere level 1, the values of each stat were ‘simple’, to say the least. However, if he considered how reality operated, he couldn’t take these stats lightly at all.
If his abilities changed for real with a moment’s decision, then who in this world would be able to casually make such choices?
Jin-Woo’s expression became serious.
‘Strength is no doubt talking about my physical power….’
He could more or less figure out what ‘Strength’, ‘Stamina’ and ‘Agility’ could mean. After all, those were the kind of ‘Stats’ one would often encounter in video games.
The question was with the last two Stats, ‘Intelligence’ and ‘Perception’, then. And just like before, the unfriendly System didn’t provide any answers whatsoever.
If he increased ‘Intelligence’ would he get actually smarter, for instance? And, if he increased ‘Perception’, then would he become more sensitive?
Whatever the case may have been, he felt that those two Stats didn’t really seem all that useful to him right now.
He was a melee-type Hunter, to begin with. What he needed was power, speed, or even stamina.
‘If you were to ask me to choose between the three, I’d inevitably go with Strength.’
If he got physically stronger, many things would become that much easier for him.
Also, he wanted to find out what kind of change would take place with his body once the Stat values had been increased. Since he thought that this change would be much more prominent with the increase in the Strength stat, he ended up investing all three points on it.
“All three points to the Strength stat.”
Tti-ring.
[Stat]
Strength: 13
Stamina: 10
Agility: 10
Intelligence: 10
Perception: 10
(Available points to distribute: 0)
‘Is that…. all?’
Indeed, it looked like it.
The only change he could tell was the Strength stat value floating in front of his eyes like hologram projection changing from 10 to 13. Unlike how it was in cartoons or movies, his body didn’t feel like it was overflowing with uncontrollable power or anything like that.
“Did anything actually change or not?”
He decided to use his muscles to find out. Jin-Woo stood next to the bed and lifted it. He felt a bit of weight, but he was able to pick it up easier than he thought. However, he found it impossible to tell whether this was because of the bed being light, or his Strength having been improved.
‘I should’ve lifted the bed first before spending the d*mn points….’
Since he had already spent all the points before confirming, it was hard to tell the difference between ‘before’ and ‘after’.
‘Only if I had some more points to spend….’
Jin-Woo licked his lips in regret only for a certain memory to jump out at him.
“The rewards from the Penalty Quest!”
Today wasn’t the only time he got to ‘complete’ the Daily Quests. He might have nearly died, but he sure as hell did complete the Penalty Quest, and he remembered seeing the message about the rewards being available as well.
Jin-Woo hurriedly opened the mailbox.
[Rewards for completing the Penalty Quest is now available.]
[Would you like to confirm the rewards?] (Y/N)
“I knew it!”
Jin-Woo clenched his fists tightly.
Of course, it’s a resounding “Yes!”
[The following rewards are available.]
Reward 1. Three additional Stat points
Reward 2. One random box
[Would you like to collect them all?]
Unlike the Daily Quest rewards, the option of the full status recovery was absent, but well, what he needed right now was the additional Stat points anyways.
He was momentarily worried about there being a huge difference in rewards since they were from a Penalty Quest and all, but he was relieved to find three points waiting for him.
Jin-Woo hummed joyously to himself.
“Add all three points to the Strength stat.”
Tti-ring.
[Stat]
Strength: 16
Stamina: 10
Agility: 10
Intelligence: 10
Perception: 10
(Available points to distribute: 0)
His Strength jumped up from 13 to 16.
Jin-Woo stood next to the bed again and put some strength in his arms. And he was able to lift up the bed a lot easier than before. He could definitely tell the difference now.
“It’s for real….!!”
His physical strength had really improved.
If he were to consider the change purely through the Stats alone, then the starting value of 10 had increased by 60% so how could he fail to notice the improvement?
Now feeling completely elated, he went around the room and began picking up not just the bed, but everything he could lay his hands on, and generally made a mess of things inside.
Only after the chief nurse passing by heard the commotion and scolded him did he stop his tomfoolery.
“….I’m very sorry.”
As soon as the chief nurse left his room, Jin-Woo spat out a sigh of relief.
“Whew.”
However, he couldn’t calm down at all. His heart was beating like crazy.
Thud, thud. Thud, thud!
As a matter of fact, his chest actually hurt.
The Daily Quest that would continue to show up every day, and the Stat points as the reward!
As long as this unexplainable phenomenon didn’t come to a sudden end, he’d be able to live a completely different life to the one he’d been leading until now.
This was an unbelievable opportunity for him.
Besides that, the Stat Window also showed his ‘level’.
‘Does this mean I can also increase my level, too?’
Eventually, though – Jin-Woo shook his head.
‘Eiii, there’s no way.’
Now that would be too good to be true. He wasn’t hoping that far, anyway. The rewards from the quests alone were plenty enough for him.
He’d use the Stat points to increase his abilities. Every day he’d grow to be stronger – compared to yesterday, he’d be stronger today; compared to today, he’d be stronger tomorrow.
‘Me, getting stronger? The rank E Hunter, and also, always mocked as the weakest weapon?’
He didn’t even think about climbing up as far as the rank S or A. Even the notion of getting to rank C or D, like those Hunters he’d been working with, would surely be seen as a laughable one.
Indeed, they’d disparagingly point their fingers at him and guffaw their heads off.
Seong Jin-Woo was getting stronger? That Seong Jin-Woo, the one and only on this planet?
However, he didn’t care if they laughed at him. No, he was already used to being the butt of many jokes. He was just happy that an opportunity had fallen on his lap, that was all.
Suddenly, a question mark floated over his head.
‘Could this be the process of my Re-Awakening?’
Although extremely rare, the cases of bottom-tier Hunters climbing up to the top through Re-Awakening had happened before, for sure.
If so, then could those Hunters who got stronger through Re-Awakening experience a similar sort of situation as he was in?
‘Let’s find out.’
Feeling genuinely curious now, Jin-Woo settled down in front of a computer located at the corner of the hospital room.
Since he was staying in a VIP room provided free of charge by the Hunter’s Association, this computer wasn’t the only item of convenience found here.
Taptaptaptap….
Jin-Woo’s fingers typed rapidly on the keyboard.
Searching, searching, and then, more searching…..
He visited countless websites.
He even entered those websites that one couldn’t even get anywhere near without a Hunter’s licence. He even resorted to paying for information and continued to rummage through every document and article he found.
However, rather than finding similar events as his, he couldn’t even find a single mention of a precedence, either.
‘It’s different….’
His Re-Awakening was completely different from the normal ones, as it turned out.
Most other Hunters who underwent Re-Awakening process gained their new found strength through roughly the similar process as their first Awakening as a Hunter.
Not one of them had experienced hearing weird voices at the brink of death, nor did they get to increase their strength through Stat values and such.
< Chapter 6 > Fin.
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