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Chapter 7

The forest was dense and thick, barely letting in any light. Massive, ancient trees were slowly dying, strangled by climbing vines.

Seong Si-hyeon didn't say a word the entire way. He simply snapped branches blocking the path, cut through vines, and pressed forward.

As we walked, the sun gradually began to set. He burned some of the trees to create a clearing within the forest. The smoke from the fire he'd started filled the air, making me cough uncontrollably.

Finally, Seong Si-hyeon broke his silence.

"What monsters come out at night?"

Again with the monsters. It seemed his mind was filled with nothing but dungeons and monsters. It was my fault for hoping he'd at least try some small talk.

"Shadow panthers are the main ones."

"Right. You do remember."

He smiled in satisfaction and gathered branches to start a fire. As night fell, the wind from the mountain made it chilly, but the fire he'd lit warmed me up.

I moved closer to the fire to warm myself. The fatigue from fighting the goblins earlier was finally setting in. Sleepiness washed over me, and before I knew it, I was nodding off. Si-hyeon spoke.

"Don't sleep. You never know what might come for you."

"Yeah, yeah."

I rubbed my sleepy eyes and tried to stay awake by slapping my cheeks, but it was useless. My head kept drooping forward helplessly. Normally, a person would've given me a shoulder to lean on, but Si-hyeon was busy shaking me awake.

What a jerk. As the number one ranker, he could easily keep watch alone and handle any monsters himself—but he absolutely wouldn't.

"If you want to sleep, then I'll sleep and you take the first watch."

"...Is this also part of the training?"

He answered shamelessly.

"Of course. This is all part of real-world practice."

Regardless, he was my employer who paid me, so I had to humor him even if I didn't like it. I pouted and replied.

"Yes, thank you so much."

"You're welcome. You won't find a teacher like me anywhere else."

"...Yes."

I ground my teeth as I answered.

Looking up, the night sky was filled with stars as if they might pour down. As I was admiring them, I heard an ominous sound of wind.

Swoosh—

It might have been easy to dismiss as just a strong gust of wind. But this sound was different. I recalled a passage from The S-Class Ranker Climbs the Tower Thousands of Times:

"On plains where the wind blew unusually strong, they would appear."

A massive shadow army was slowly advancing through the forest.

Monsters that ride in through the shadows of the trees.

I stood up, clenching one fist while gripping the dagger I'd used to kill the goblin in my other hand. Si-hyeon wrapped himself in a protective barrier and watched me with interest.

C-rank monsters that ride the wind like the tide.

I murmured the novel's final line aloud.

"Shadow panthers."

As one shadow leaped down from a branch to pounce on me, I activated the skill I'd acquired.

[Skill 'The More You Work, The Stronger You Get!' (S-rank) activated.]

[Stats are temporarily altered.]

I felt power surge through my body. I struck one of the shadows hard with my blade.

"Graah!"

The shadow panther yelped as its front leg was cut, leaping far back from me. Counting them roughly, there seemed to be about five.

Even with my stats boosted fourfold, taking on five C-rank monsters at once was difficult. Judging by his relaxed demeanor, Si-hyeon likely planned to intervene only when I was in mortal danger—just the way he was casually waving at me from a distance.

In the novel, Si-hyeon's party had faced shadow panthers before. How did they handle them? I racked my brain. As their name suggested, these monsters didn't approach easily when there was fire. Probably because their bodies were made of shadows.

When they were in shadow form, even cutting their necks would only make them regenerate. But once they materialized into panther form outside the shadows, they were no different from ordinary panthers.

I needed to fight them in the dark, lure them into the firelight, and force them to materialize. Five wasn't a large number. I took a deep breath and gradually moved away from the fire.

"Now."

The shadow panthers growled, pleased that I'd distanced myself from the fire. I swung my dagger threateningly, but it didn't seem to intimidate them at all. They surrounded me.

"Good luck!"

I heard Si-hyeon cheering from afar, waving his arms. He seemed to be enjoying the show. As much as he was my employer, he was incredibly annoying. I couldn't hold back my frustration and muttered.

"Damn bastard. Go to hell."

Top-rank Hunters like Si-hyeon had superhuman hearing. He must have heard my muttering. Sure enough, I heard him laughing from a distance, clutching his stomach.

Just then, one of the shadow panthers lunged at me. Cleverly, it aimed for the arm not holding the knife.

"Damn!"

I quickly pulled my arm back and rolled to the side. Moving further from the fire, the shadow panthers grew larger. They confidently closed in on me.

I'd managed to avoid being hit, but the panther's massive claws grazed my arm, leaving long, painful scratches. I cast my healing skill on myself while glancing around.

One particularly aggressive one seemed to be the leader of this pack. Given the shadow panthers' nature, the leader's word was law—meaning if I took down that one, the other four would scatter in confusion.

I smiled and started provoking that single panther.

As a C-rank monster, it should have some level of intelligence.

"Oh, come on, come on. Scared? Tired?"

Trembling, I darted back and forth, swinging my knife. I thought I could outmaneuver them with my fourfold boosted stats—but that was my arrogance.

The shadow panthers paused for a moment, bewildered. Then they growled and began closing the distance again.

Oh, if only I could lure just that one!

I took the dagger and stabbed at one of the stationary shadows before running away.

"Graaaah!"

One of them howled and started chasing after me. I'd originally planned to lure it straight toward the fire, but panicked, I ended up running deeper into the dark forest.

"Whoa!"

It was too late to regret. I saw the massive shadow panthers chasing me and ran even harder.

As it grew darker, their size increased. From the size of a panther, they grew until they surpassed even Siberian tigers.

One of them slashed my back, another my leg. The pain gradually gave way to numbness.

"Haah..."

Running was no longer sustainable. Sprinting at such high speed, I was scratched by branches left and right—what flowed from my forehead and lips wasn't sweat, but blood.

It was time to make a decision.

In front of a large tree, I made a sharp turn and slashed at the pursuing panthers with my knife. Then I started running in zigzags back the way I'd come.

Thanks to my agility reaching 20, it was possible. The shadow panthers began chasing me through the trees. I stopped again and cut the legs of several.

"Graaah!"

I heard cries of pain. But those legs would regenerate soon enough. What I was after wasn't these ones—but the leader right above me.

I beckoned to it.

The shadow panther seemed to understand and slowly approached me.

My plan was to leap into the firelight just before my life was in immediate danger. So first, I had to hold off the leader for as long as possible.

The shadow panther approached leisurely, as if foreseeing its victory. But my stats were temporarily boosted fourfold—enough to dodge its attacks with some effort.

At the critical moment, I pretended to trip and fell toward the fire. The leader, thinking it had won, lunged at me.

But I was just faking it. I leaped up and sliced through its neck mid-air.

"Graaah—!"

The leader let out a cry of agony and tried to retreat into the shadows—but it was too late.

It had grown to an immense size that could have swallowed the forest, but now it was back to its original panther size, materialized, no longer in shadow form.

Which meant:

"Now you can finish it. Do it, Han Yu-on."

Seong Si-hyeon smiled in genuine delight and spoke to me.

"I was planning to anyway."

Without missing a beat, I pierced the panicked leader's throat.

The shadow panther let out a death rattle and collapsed. I heard the remaining ones fleeing deeper into the forest.

Ding—

[Defeated Leader Shadow Panther (1/1)]

[As a reward, your stats have been enhanced.]

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