Chapter 79: El Cuero (1)
Ring.
["Kraken's Rage" has ended.]
[You may use it again in 24 hours.]
'Amazing.'
Oh Kang-Woo looked down at the Black Pearl Coat with his eyes shining.
As expected, the coat's special effect Kraken's Rage was incredible. Although it only lasted one minute, it had pushed his Demonic Energy stat to 93, and thanks to that, he'd been able to overwhelm Cha Yeon-Joo.
'The higher the stat becomes, the better its effect will be.'
If his stats increased, the effect of increasing his stats by an absolute value would become even better.
Now he understood why people went crazy for Legendary-grade equipment.
Raising a stat by an absolute value was an irreplaceable buff for high-level Players.
'That aside, Yeon-Joo is pretty amazing.'
If they had fought before he obtained the Black Pearl Coat, he wouldn't have been able to overpower her this easily. After fighting against her, he more or less grasped how strong she was.
'She also seemed to be hiding something.'
He wasn't certain, but when he'd used Skybreaker, she had tried to do something but then decided not to. It was probably because she'd noticed that he'd used his technique in a way that would miss her.
Kang-Woo extended his hand to the collapsed Yeon-Joo.
She grabbed his hand and stood up.
"… You monster," Yeon-Joo said. At this point, she was sick of being in disbelief.
Kang-Woo shrugged.
"It was thanks to the Legendary-grade equipment."
"I also have Legendary-grade equipment." Yeon-Joo showed him her bracelet. "Are you… seriously human?"
"Why? Did you not imagine I'd overtake you in just two months?"
"Isn't that obvious? Sigh. My head hurts…" Yeon-Joo grabbed her forehead.
"But it isn't bad news, is it? I'm not your enemy, at the very least."
"… Nor can I call you a trustworthy comrade."
Yeon-Joo sighed and turned around.
Kang-Woo also turned around.
Their eyes landed on Baek Hwa-Yeon, whose face had paled. She was trembling, seemingly shocked by something else besides just their battle.
Hwa-Yeon was looking at the giant hole in the wall of the sparring room.
"D-Do…"
"Hmm?"
"Do you have any idea how expensive this sparring room is?! It cost us billions of won! How could you destroy it like this?!"
Kang-Woo looked at the wall, which had taken a direct hit from his Skybreaker. It was destroyed to the point that it was embarrassing to even call it a wall anymore.
He looked around the destroyed sparring room.
"Uhh… Mm. So…"
Kang-Woo was lost for words. To be honest, he didn't need to use Skybreaker against the wall.
Because Yeon-Joo was a high-level player, she probably could've guessed how powerful his fist had been. Therefore, the reason he'd used it anyway was out of his greed for wanting to see the power of his new Legendary gear.
Because of that lapse in judgment, he'd destroyed a sparring room that cost billions of won. He naturally felt guilty about it.
"I didn't do anything." Yeon-Joo was the first to turn a blind eye. She insisted on her innocence in all seriousness.
"What are you talking about? You damaged the sparring room too," said Kang-Woo.
"… Are you talking about the scratches on the floor that I made with my chains?"
"That's also technically damage."
"Hmph, fine. I'll also pitch in on the repair fees," Yeon-Joo said while nodding nonchalantly.
"We're both responsible, so let's each pay half," Kang-Woo remarked.
"Do you even have a conscience, you son of a bitch?"
It was harsh criticism.
Kang-Woo flinched after hearing the heavy facts, but he wasn't planning on backing off.
"I only used such a powerful attack because you were so strong."
"Okay, but still…"
"If you were someone I could win against with a couple of light attacks, I wouldn't have used an attack like that."
Fallacy disguised as logic.
"Are you trying to say that it's my fault you destroyed the wall?"
Kang-Woo nodded without hesitation.
"Your attacks were so fierce that you forced me to use such a big attack."
"Come on, let's be honest. You didn't need to use that last att—"
Yeon-Joo was right. Kang-Woo had absolutely no need to use that last attack.
"Nonsense. You know better than anyone how much refined control is required to instantly put away the energy that you'd been gathering," Kang-Woo retorted in a firm voice.
"…"
Kang-Woo looked so confident that one wouldn't think he was lying.
"As you know, it's been only two months since I became a Player. I gained great power through luck and talent, but I can't fully control my strength yet."
He was lying.
He used to control the boundless energy of the Ten Thousand Demon Core, so there was no way he wouldn't be able to control that meager amount of energy.
"Urgh!"
Yeon-Joo trembled. She suspected that Kang-Woo was lying, but she couldn't refute his words at all. After all, it was obvious that a Player who had awakened two months ago wouldn't be able to fully control their abilities.
"Son of a bitch…!"
Kang-Woo smiled.
"Alright. Let's do our best to pay the cost of repairs since we're both responsible."
"… I've never seen a person as shameless as you."
Yeon-Joo glared at Kang-Woo and let out a sigh.
The fees for repairing a sparring room made from a special alloy would easily surpass ten billion won. She could easily pay it if she used her guild's funds, but there was no way she could do that.
'I can't use my guild's funds for something like this.'
Even if she was the master of one of the five great guilds, she couldn't take tens of billions of won from the guild for personal reasons.
Kang-Woo opened his mouth and said, "I have a good idea."
While sparring, he'd thought of something good. Of course, he hadn't expected them to get into this mess when he had had this thought.
"A good idea?" Yeon-Joo asked.
"How about we hunt it together?"
"Hunt what?" Yeon-Joo tilted her head.
Kang-Woo continued, "El Cuero."
"…"
El Cuero…
It was the boss monster that appeared in Suwon's S-rank Gate that looked like a giant stingray.
El Cuero was infamous among players.
When Suwon's S-rank Gate had opened for the first time, it'd annihilated the investigation team. After that, an unspoken rule had formed that Players should never approach the lake if they wanted to hunt in Suwon's S-rank Gate.
"… Are you saying that while knowing what kind of monster El Cuero is?"
El Cuero was strong—but that wasn't the only reason why players struggled with it.
Firstly, El Cuero was a monster that lived inside the water. It came up to the land sometimes, but it mostly attacked from inside the lake by shooting poisonous needles.
Melee warrior Players couldn't even get close enough to attack it.
Just the fact that it was an aquatic monster made it hard to hunt, but it also had a very high magical resistance, so it could block most ranged attacks.
It had been five years since Suwon's S-rank Gate had opened, but no one had managed to defeat El Cuero since then.
Of course, El Cuero wasn't an undefeatable monster. If someone gathered a huge party of high-level Players, they'd probably be able to defeat it. But in the case of El Cuero, no one had ever assembled a subjugation party. To be more precise, there wasn't a need to assemble one.
Usually, large subjugation parties were formed when monsters came out of Gates to attack civilians. Because El Cuero was an aquatic monster, there was no chance it would leave the Gate and attack civilians.
These two facts—that it was hard to defeat and that there was no need to defeat it—had made El Cuero a monster that had not been killed for five whole years.
"I know that it's hard to kill."
"It isn't just hard… If you're after the money, is there a need to hunt El Cuero?"
Although tens of billions of won was an astronomical amount of money, it wasn't that absurdly high for Players like Yeon-Joo and Kang-Woo.
They could earn that much simply by diligently hunting Giant Ogres and selling their mana stones.
"It isn't only because of money."
"Then what?"
"You said that an S-rank boss monster could drop the materials required for Legendary-grade equipment although the chances are low, right?"
"That's true, but they're not easy to make even with the necessary materials… Is this all just for Legendary gear?"
"That's one of the reasons, but I thought it could be the key to breaking the level cap."
"Oh, right. You're still at your Sixth Awakening."
Yeon-Joo looked at him in disbelief. She had completely forgotten that Kang-Woo still had yet to reach the first wall for a Player, the Limit of Effort.
He was too strong compared to his level, so she'd forgotten that his level was around the fifties.
'Then does that mean I lost against a Player around Level 50?'
Thinking about it made her realize how terrible of a loss she had suffered. Yeon-Joo sighed while making a sad expression.
"But the way to break that cap varies between Players, you know?"
"I heard that killing a boss monster is the most common way to break the cap."
"Oh, that's true."
The most common ways to overcome the Level-59 wall were to kill a boss monster, experience enlightenment, or encounter life-threatening danger. Of course, there were other ways to overcome it, but most people had overcome it through one of these three ways.
The one with the highest chance of success and the one that most people tried was, of course, killing a boss monster.
Not many people were willing to put themselves in a near-death situation or train endlessly to reach an enlightenment that might never come.
"I can overcome the level cap, and we can cover the repair fees at the same time. What do you think?"
"Wouldn't you be the only one to profit from this?"
"Of course not. Isn't it all to make our alliance stronger?"
"I guess I can't argue with that."
Yeon-Joo smirked.
Killing El Cuero would also be good for her since she herself was facing the second wall that Players faced, the Limit of Talent.
"Okay. Let's hunt El Cuero."
Yeon-Joo nodded while looking at Kang-Woo. Her eyes carried hints of fear and expectation.
'If Kang-Woo overcomes the Limit of Effort and levels up even higher…'
Her desire to see with her own eyes how much stronger this monster could become boiled within her.
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