I could see Eaton running quickly after hearing my voice.

I needed to make at least 2 minutes of time for him. That should be enough time for even Eaton to safely return to the main party.

The fire marbles should keep running until then too.

My surroundings were suddenly full of new monsters.

"What are the names of these ones?"

They were monsters I never saw in the draft plan. Overall, they looked like monkeys, but their skin was like a frog"s skin. If you leave the naming to me, I would probably call them, "Frog Monkeys."

Those monsters were jumping like frogs, and they jumped forward about 6 to 7 meters every time they jumped. At that speed, they shouldn"t be much slower than the Big Cats.

Thankfully, they seem to really hate fire. A bunch of them tried to come forward, but as they moved while trying to avoid the fire pillars, sometimes they ran into each other as well.

But I don"t have a good feeling about this.

No wonder.

Papat!

"Ugh!"

They were just like the Death Frogs. Once I slashed them with the cutla.s.s, their poisonous blood spurted out.  

Some of it landed on my face. If it landed in my eyes, it would have been dangerous as I would have been blinded for a moment.

I quickly took an antidote from my wrist belt and put it in my mouth.

Thankfully, other than their jumping skills and poisonous blood, they didn"t have much other strengths. I just needed to stand the pain.

Since I am a master of tolerating pain, this shouldn"t be a problem. I told myself, "this is all experience," and swung my cutla.s.s even harder.

Papat!

But things were getting more difficult the longer I stayed. While I was taking care of the Frog Monkeys, a bunch of other monsters caught up to us. I felt like I was stuck in a pile of monster bean sprouts.

I almost didn"t even have room to move.

No matter how high my intuition is, I still only have two eyes.

And my 91 intuition isn"t even that high. For example, I can"t see the attacks that are flying at me from the back.

I was twisting my body left and right, but the injuries continued to increase.

Papat!

"Ugh!"

It hurts.

Not only did it hurt, it was also quickly lowering my HP. My HP was quickly filling back up thanks to the potion I drank earlier as well as my endurance stat, but it was going down at a much faster rate.

If it wasn"t for the multiple fire pillars I created earlier, I probably wouldn"t be able to handle it at this point.

But I could not retreat just yet. I had to create a little more time for Eaton.

I did not get nervous. I still had something up my sleeve.

Isn"t that the difference between a beginner and a veteran? Danger management and situational awareness.

Although I haven"t spent many years in Royal Roader, I was an extremely experienced veteran of the game.

"First, a combo!"

Papapat!

Since there were so many monsters around me, my combo instantly went up past 60 hits.

65 hits, 66 hits, 67 hits……

……
[540,892]
[632,844]
[740,427]
……

A strong damage that seemed to be impossible from such a thin cutla.s.s.

Thanks to that, monsters were falling down with every hit.

I was starting to hunt three to four monsters in a second.

But I can"t believe there are so many monsters.

"Ugh!"

I received a pretty heavy damage from the back. That one hit lowered my HP by 30.

But I was finished with my preparations as well.

[Bladestorm!]

I stabbed my cutla.s.s into the ground like I was planting a flag.

A strong hurricane  instantly appeared with me in the center.

Kwakwakwa-

The monsters nearby were swept away by the strong hurricane and fell backwards.

But wind is still only wind. You can"t defeat monsters with just wind.

"This should be enough for Eaton to reach safety, right?"

I started to run while the monsters were down. Since I took care of the Big Cats and Frog Monkeys, there should not be any monsters that can catch up to my speed.
I quickly arrived at the fork where the main party was waiting with their shields held up.

But I did not merge with them. My battleground was the pretty large area in front of them.

I threw multiple fire marbles in all directions.

Once ten fire pillars shot up from the marbles, everything seemed to be dyed red.

As I did that, the monsters arrived along with the rumble.

Tang tang tang!

A volley of arrows shot out from behind the shields. All of their levels were low, but their continuous shooting speed was pretty fast.

Crackle-

These monsters would not fall down dead from a couple arrows. These monsters were at least level 150 after all. But do you think we only prepared arrows?

Crackle-

We also had a Fire Wall. In fact, we had three layers of Fire Walls.

Fire Magician is the most common cla.s.s! Even our clearing squad had three of them.

All of their levels were low so the heat wasn"t that strong, but it was enough to lower the monsters" morale.

The rest was left for me. I maneuvered around the fire pillars and gave the monsters a taste of my Drake"s TBSA.

Papapat-

As my combo went up, the monsters wee falling down like hay. It almost felt like not enough monsters were making it past the Fire Wall.

I would have used the Bladestorm skill if I needed to, but I don"t need it at this level of difficulty.

My confidence was shooting up.

I was excited.

It was like I was subconsciously going crazy for blood.

The party members were the same. Their arrows did not stop, and whenever a fire pillar was starting to get weaker, someone accurately threw a new fire marble to create a new fire pillar.

I lost all my consciousness at some point. I forgot about everything else and was absorbed in my battle with the monsters.

That message came up every so often.

I didn"t care about it and continued to swing my cutla.s.s.

Papapapat-

I even forgot about putting the bonus stat point into agility. No, I thought that the message in my head was part of the battle.

I moved around to the monsters that made it past the Fire Wall and used my Drake"s TBSA like I was crazy.

I finally came back to my senses.

It was because there were no monsters left to hunt.

Haa. Haa. Haa.

Now that I think about it, I was out of breathe. That just showed how much I had moved.

How much time must have pa.s.sed?

When I looked at my magic watch, it was about 30 minutes later.

For me to be this out of breath after just moving for 30 minutes.

It was because I was extremely excited. Excitement alone is enough to make you breathe faster.

I was also moving vigorously. I hunted a lot of monsters as proof.

I estimate I hunted about 30,000 of them.

I probably received about 50% of the total experience. The rest should have gone to the support magician and fire magician, and then the party members who shot arrows at the monsters should be after them.

How much did my level go up?

I do remember hearing the level up message pretty frequently.

[Kang Hwi Ram, Level 164]
Dexterity: Advanced Level 3, 32%
Strength: 153
Agility: 749
Stamina: 90
Intuition: 91
Magic: 50
Vitality: 36
Mana: 422
HP: 549
Endurance: 33
Reinforced Toughness: 100
Available points: 27

My level went up 5 times while I was crazily absorbed in the fight. The number of available points proves that to be the case.

Demon Caves really are the best places to raise your level.

If I could guarantee my safety, I would go in them all the time.

While I was doing that, my teammates approached me.

"Wow. You really are amazing! I was curious to know how well you can fight as a Chaos Battle winner, but you are pretty much a War G.o.d."

"But are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?"

Can"t you see for yourself? My body was covered with injuries.

But the injuries can be healed in less than 5 minutes with healing potions.

The problem is my armor.

The Skywolf Leather armor became a mess. It was ripped and broken in multiple locations from blocking monster attacks.

In this state, the stealthy approach probably won"t work either. I don"t even know if it can be fixed because it is so damaged.

Anyways,I can"t wear this anymore.

Of course I had many other armors to use. I had prepared them prior to entering the Demon Cave.

It was about time to change out of the Skywolf Leather Armor anyways. Stealthy Approach was important until now, but defense and attack strength will be important from here on.

I took out a new leather armor from my bag.

[Green Ogre"s Leather Armor]
Made of Ogre leather. The set contains armor, pants, and gloves.
Durability: 196/196
Defense: 84
Restriction: Level 150
*Special abilities:

It cost a whole 170,000,000 won for it.

Ogre Leather Armors are usually expensive to start. They have the best defense of all leather armors and the special abilities are good as well.

I managed to buy it cheap because it was a Green Ogre"s Leather Armor. If it was a Battle Ogre"s Armor, with the power-up at the S-Grade, it would have cost at least a billion won.

Not that I could wear the Battle Ogre"s Leather armor since the level restriction was level 300.

I changed into the Green Ogre"s Leather armor.

The party member"s responded to my appearance.

"Oh! Isn"t that an Ogre set?"

"Wow, he must have a lot of money as well."

"Let us be close friends."

All of them must have plenty of energy. They can waste their energy with a stupid joke like that.

I guess I was pretty much the only one to run around.

I need to always maintain enough stamina. I don"t want to do it, but I may need to prepare to fight not just the monsters, but the other party members as well.

"Let us rest a bit before starting again."

"Huuuu."

My whole body was covered in sweat.

But I was still feeling good. After battling four times, there were not many monsters left to hunt.

Of course there were still a couple hundred monsters left in the hall.

I left them there on purpose. I needed a decent amount in order to use them as stepping stones for combo.

I rested for a hour once more.

I slept peacefully for 8 hours and then fought for 30 minutes, so this short rest was enough to restore all of my stamina. I should be able to respond to any emergency situations effectively.

"Shall we go now?"

"Huuu, I guess it is finally the boss monster."

"Whatever, let"s go. We will need to fight it at some point."

We headed to the large hall together.

"Where is the Cave Octopus?"

"I can"t see anything."

They were whispering.

Of course they couldn"t see it. The hall was really wide and dark. The magic lights on their foreheads were just too weak.

They also turned those off around the hall. The monsters would run toward us if they were irritated by the light.

It was finally time to make a decision. What decision will the Hansen posse make?

I first laid out the bait.

"The Cave Octopus is deep inside. Is there anyone who wants to attempt to hunt the boss monster?"

I looked around before resting my eyes on Hanka.

If he was also part of Hansen"s posse, and if Hansen"s posse had the final boss monster as their goal, Hanak would definitely step up.

But Hanka did not step up.

It was the same for the rest of Hansen"s posse. They were all looking at each other, as if they were trying to pa.s.s the responsibility off to someone else.

Someone suddenly spoke up at that time.

"I will try."

It was a prisoner named Gazni. I thought the Hansen posse would step up, but I surprisingly got a prisoner volunteer.

His abilities were pretty good. I"ve been watching him, and the way he moves his sword is very sharp and formulated compared to the others.

I guess he looks like a well-trained soldier?

Although I don"t know why such a person would be among the terrible criminals.

But this was not the time to dissuade him. It wasn"t like he was going to listen anyways, but it would also only bring trouble.

"I understand. We will all try to distract the Cave Octopus. Is everybody ready?"

Everybody bit down on their lips and nodded their heads.

"Turn on the light and approach!"

Everybody turned on the magic lights on their foreheads. We all ran into the hall with me in the lead.

Gazni entered last.

He was also moving in a different direction. While the rest of the party was trying to distract the Cave Octopus, he was aiming for the Cave Octopus"s blind spot.

"Aah, what is that?"

"Is that a monster or a giant boulder?"

The party members finally saw the Cave Octopus in front of them. It"s overwhelming size.

"Watch out. Those tentacles stretch out further than you"d imagine."

The Cave Octopus had over 30 tentacles. As the party members started to approach it, it started to pressure them by stretching them out. There were so many tentacles that it was hard to find a gap to approach it.

But it still only has two eyes. No matter how many tentacles it has, if you approach it from a blind spot, it won"t be able to attack you.

Crackle-

A Fire Wall was created between us and the Cave Octopus, and a Fire Pillar was created on top of its head as well.

Of course that wasn"t enough to do much to the Cave Octopus. The magician"s magic levels were too weak for that.

But our plan was still a success. Our goal wasn"t to hunt it, but to draw its attention. The Cave Octopus only looked at us while moving around.

The other monsters were only staring at us from past the Fire Pillar. None of them were paying any attention to Gazni who was moving behind them.

Well, that"s what I thought.

But suddenly.

"Aah. Sa, save me. Aaaah."

Gazni, who was sneaking up behind the Cave Octopus, was screaming.

"What? What happened?"

"Why……?"

I"m sure they can"t understand.

But I had already antic.i.p.ated it.

It was because of the parasitic monsters around the Cave Octopus. The large ones are the size of soccer b.a.l.l.s, and the small ones are the size of a fist, but there should be over ten thousand of them.

Weak monsters that less than level 10.

But even those monsters can injure you if they bite you with their teeth. You would at least receive 1 damage from them.

So if tens of them all attacked you at once?

Even if each of them only attacked once, you would receive a ton of damage. If they attack once every second, in ten seconds, you would receive hundreds of damage.

Someone with a couple thousand HP would still not be able to last more than a minute.

But would a warrior who is not even level 150 have that much HP?

Gazni"s scream did not last more than 5 seconds. He shouted because of the parasitic monsters, and that scream made the other monsters and the Cave Octopus attack him as well.

"Retreat!"

We quickly ran out of the hall.

The minion monsters did not chase after us. They stayed close to the Cave Octopus, as if they were his own set of guards.

"It is as I expected."

Everybody"s eyes turned large at my words. They were filled with fear.

"As you expected?"

"There are many parasitic monsters around the Cave Octopus. I think Gazni-nim was attacked by them and killed."

"Parasitic monsters?"

"s.h.i.t, then what are we supposed to do?"

"Should we burn them all with fire magic first?"

It was possible.

But there were too many places to burn up. And if we use the fire magic like that, we won"t be able to retreat to the Fire Wall to defend against the monsters.

There was no reason to do that either. I had a better idea.

"If n.o.body wants to attempt it, I will do it."

"It is too dangerous."

Honestly speaking, I am not too worried about the Cave Octopus. I know how to catch it.

But it is Hansen"s posse that I am worried about.

They still haven"t made a move. I feel like they are aiming for the end of the Cave Octopus hunt.

It is also possible that I have made a big misunderstanding.

Either way, we still have to hunt the Cave Octopus first.

Then they should show their true colors.

The ones to pick death and the ones to pick life.

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