Hoarding In Hell [EN]: Chapter 55

55. Breaking the Limit (2)

A monster, huh?

Hyeon-woo was inwardly shaken. Difficulty: Hell. Hadn’t he been wondering if what he was doing was any different from what monsters do, and it hadn’t even been a day?

Yet, Yoo-min was saying that the core that determined his rank resembled that of a monster more than a human.

However, Yoo-min quickly raised her hand, waving it dismissively.

“Ah, of course, I don’t mean you’re like a monster, Oppa [older brother or close male friend]. The shape of the core is similar, but the concentration, size, and properties of the cores in the blood are completely the same as humans. Besides, the core is just the most noticeable observation; mana has an enormous impact on the human body. Currently, it’s plausible that you have a higher rank than anything observed so far.”

Yoo-min grabbed Hyeon-woo’s arm tightly, looking excited.

“Maybe you’re the first 5-star ability user ever discovered! No, there have been rumors of 5-stars, so maybe not. Maybe even a 6-star! Anyway, it’s amazing!”

“Hmm, I see.”

Honestly, Hyeon-woo didn’t feel it and just felt complicated. But Yoo-min was shaking his arms up and down, so he had to play along.

Hyeon-woo chuckled at Yoo-min, who was shaking her body enthusiastically without music, even raising her hand for a twirl.

“Feeling a bit better?”

“Well, it’s certain that my rank isn’t 1-star.”

Come to think of it, Hyeon-woo had only received the message that his ‘body had awakened to mana’ and had never checked what his rank was.

In fact, generally, forcibly raising the rank through an environment with increased mana density only raises it by one level.

Moreover, becoming an ability user without awakening a skill meant he was a 1-star.

Hyeon-woo had obtained the Venomous Blood skill only after dying and being revived several times, so it was natural for him to make such a mistake.

Anyway, it wasn’t a bad thing. At least he could level up without worry until he hit the limit level.

‘But then why couldn’t I level up sooner?’

He could easily find the answer to that question himself. Hyeon-woo had stopped training the moment he reached level 20 and had since focused on upgrading items and enhancing skills rather than hunting.

In fact, that was why he was able to clear the trial. The Yogolem’s Trial couldn’t be cleared just by having a high level.

‘…So, I leveled up while losing my mind and fighting.’

Except for the end, Hyeon-woo had never fought properly. He had only injected his cursed blood into the enemies’ bodies, making them devour each other.

It was hard to say that he had killed them entirely with his own power. Nevertheless, it was surprising that he had leveled up six times.

“Hmm, so that’s why my level went up.”

“Oppa, you said you were level 20 last time, right? What are you now?”

Yoo-min’s eyes widened. It was impossible to level up six times in just about eleven days.

But Hyeon-woo was already breaking impossible records day by day.

He came back changed every time he returned from being missing, so there was nothing more to be surprised about.

“Anyway, I should look into it more in the future. It seems like I’ve completely passed the stage where I can figure things out on my own… Should I ask for help?”

Hyeon-woo had been thinking about that too. But he shook his head.

“I don’t want to let anyone know unless they’re completely on my side. Have you told anyone already?”

“No, I haven’t. But…”

Yoo-min’s expression wasn’t good.

“The Sejong Institute contacted me a lot while you were gone. I deliberately didn’t answer, but I think they’ve figured something out too. They probably only did a simple blood test, so they wouldn’t know the details, but they seem to have better equipment and more budget.”

“Sejong Institute?”

“The Ability Management Department. People usually call it the Sejong Institute. They oversee all domestic dungeons, mana, items, ability users, and everything related to them. They’ve never delayed the rank announcement this long except when the service first started.”

“Huh, they’re delaying the entire result announcement because of me?”

“There were a lot of Inrecruit [talent acquisition] and headhunters interested in you, so they’re using a crude method to block the interest altogether. The director of that institute is capable of doing that.”

Hyeon-woo opened his phone and looked at the call list. Countless unfamiliar numbers were listed.

“I thought it was spam.”

“Are you going to call them back?”

“I need to know what they know.”

“That’s true…”

Yoo-min nodded with a troubled expression. She seemed reluctant about the Sejong Institute for some reason. Hyeon-woo patted Yoo-min’s shoulder.

“Well, we can do that later. You keep looking into it on your own. I guess it’s hard to research this with lab equipment in the lab? Should I just buy you the equipment?”

“Do you know how much the equipment costs? And where would you put it?”

“I’ll just buy a house, then. We can move out of the officetel [a building with both office and residential units] now.”

It was a plan he had been considering for a long time. Especially after what happened today in Hell, it became certain.

He needed a wider space with fewer people around.

Yoo-min’s house was too dangerous and cramped to experiment with items or skills obtained from Hell in reality.

‘Besides, I can’t keep freeloading.’

It was a problem that had been put off for too long because it was annoying. Then Hyeon-woo saw Yoo-min staring at him intently. He felt a bit of anxiety in her eyes.

“You’re taking me with you, right?”

“What? Taking you? What are you talking about? I’m escorting you. Don’t tell me we have to renegotiate your salary?”

Yoo-min chuckled at Hyeon-woo’s words.

“Let’s postpone that until the end of the year. It’s disadvantageous to negotiate my salary now because my value hasn’t been fully proven yet.”

“You know how to negotiate?”

“You have to do these things when it’s advantageous.”

Yoo-min said that and started taking off Hyeon-woo’s top. Hyeon-woo, who hadn’t felt human warmth in the past few days, willingly stood still and slowly embraced her.

Yoo-min was briefly surprised when she saw the scars engraved on Hyeon-woo’s body after he took off his top.

Hyeon-woo realized he had made a mistake.

The wounds had been healed with potions, but this time he hadn’t died and been revived, so the scars remained intact.

“Does this hurt?”

Yoo-min didn’t ask how he got hurt. Because Hyeon-woo had said he would tell her someday.

“It’ll disappear soon.”

Well, there’s no guarantee he won’t die again next time. Yoo-min traced the rough edges of the scars with her fingers before biting his shoulder.

A small bite mark was delicately engraved compared to the terrifying scars.

“…What are you doing?”

“It smelled delicious for some reason.”

Hyeon-woo felt a bit eerie for a moment, but Yoo-min smiled brightly.

“I wanted to leave a mark on you too, Oppa.”

And that day, they left a lot of bite marks on each other.

***

In the middle of a dark gymnasium ring, Hyeon-woo was quietly waiting.

He was mentally replaying the fierce battle at the end of Yogolem’s Trial.

The reason Hyeon-woo was able to survive that battle was, paradoxically, because of the ‘Deliciousness’ curse he had received.

By spreading that blood around, he was able to confuse the low-intelligence monsters.

‘If I didn’t have the curse, I would have just died.’

But that desperate battle was a critical and valuable experience.

It was a shame that he barely remembered anything because he was out of his mind from the blood of the hungry.

Hyeon-woo was contemplating how to fight, recalling even fragmentary information. His muscles twitched every time he remembered a scene.

The Battle Helper’s passive ‘Record’ function was helping him to preserve Hyeon-woo’s experience as it was. The Battle Helper engraved the movements and instincts that raged like a beast in his muscles.

In the darkness, Hyeon-woo’s body didn’t move at all, but heat rose, and sweat beaded on his skin.

Before he knew it, Hyeon-woo’s clothes were soaked with sweat. And the fragmentary information was revealing its overall outline, like pieces of a puzzle being put together one by one.

Even the taste of blood and the sensation of chewing flesh.

“Ugh…!”

Hyeon-woo jumped up and vomited outside the ring. He had wondered if such a thing had happened, but the moment it returned as a concrete memory, an unbearable nausea surged up.

Hyeon-woo wiped his mouth after throwing up everything inside. He felt refreshed when there was nothing left to throw up.

But he still felt strange. The point at which Hyeon-woo felt nauseous was not a pang of conscience but that disgusting taste.

He didn’t feel guilt or skepticism about chewing on the raw flesh of monsters or living humans.

‘No, wait a minute.’

Hyeon-woo recalled a scene from the end of his memory. It was the moment he bit the battalion commander.

[Acquired a Fragment.]

He hadn’t remembered it because it had happened while he was unconscious. Hyeon-woo hurriedly looked at his hand.

The pattern of the tattoo engraved on his hand was slightly more complex.

He hadn’t realized it because he had so many wounds. Hyeon-woo put on Ren’s monocle and examined the tattoo.

There was information that Hyeon-woo was seeing for the first time.

[Fragment of the Star (LV 2)]

[Authority: Kinship (Absorption)]

[Annotation: ■■■■■ started ■■ to find ■■■■■■ among the ■■, especially ■■■■■■. By pushing the situation of ■ to the extreme, only one ■■ was left. This extreme situation created a good environment for the birth of ■■■■■, and created both allies and enemies of ■■■■■.]

“…What is this?”

It’s not a skill, not a title, and not an item. The ‘Authority’ tab, which he was seeing for the first time, seemed like a skill, but the annotation was a mess.

Hyeon-woo wondered if he had seen it wrong, but he took off the monocle and put it back on, but it was the same.

‘Well, the annotation isn’t important.’

Hyeon-woo felt uneasy but glossed over it and moved on to other parts. It seemed that the more the Fragment of the Star was completed, the stronger the benefits would be.

Among them, Hyeon-woo paid attention to the newly added ‘Absorption’ to the Fragment of the Star.

[Kinship (Legendary)]

[Trait: Absorption]

[Special Ability: You can make only the opponent you killed your kin. Kin can be summoned and unsummoned beyond space in any situation, anywhere. If the target’s level is higher than the caster’s, domination may not work.

The caster can absorb the kin to acquire the target’s nutrients, stats, health, mana, and some skills for a short time. The time is proportional to the calories the target has.]

“…What is this perverted trait?”

It was like a consume skill from a certain classic game. If he had this, it would have been quite convenient to pass Yogolem’s Trial.

‘No, so that’s why they gave it to me.’

Since it was an authority obtained by defeating Yogolem’s kin, he might have obtained a trait that suited it. Hyeon-woo felt like he had received an unexpected gift box.

The lights in the gymnasium suddenly flickered on.

“What are you doing? Turning off all the lights.”

It was Park Hwi-so who had entered. As always, he was wearing a neat suit and holding a cane.

Hyeon-woo took out Admiral Ren’s monocle and observed him.

[Park Hwi-so (LV 40)]

[Skills: Double Slash, Stealth (Breathless)]

It was a simple skill set without difficulty. But Park Hwi-so is basically a good fighter.

Seeing him subdue Hyeon-woo with just martial arts and strength without using a single skill, he couldn’t judge his combat ability just by the number of skills.

“What did you call me for? Seeing as it’s a gymnasium, are you saying we should fight again?”

“It’s a simple situation report, Old Man. There are things that need to be corrected about my rank.”

Hyeon-woo tried to forget what had happened in Hell and briefly explained his rank to Park Hwi-so.

He also showed the photos Yoo-min had taken. Seeing the shape of the core, Park Hwi-so seemed to already know about the field and looked surprised.

When Hyeon-woo even told him that his level had increased, Park Hwi-so looked incredulous.

This was the reaction Hyeon-woo had expected. It’s not like his rank had increased, and it was to an unidentifiable degree, so it would be strange to believe it right away.

But after a long silence, Park Hwi-so opened his mouth instead of showing a negative reaction.

“Honestly, it’s hard to believe… but I have no choice but to believe it. It’s strange to lie now, and it’s embarrassing to say the same thing every time.”

“I knew it, right?”

“Hearing that, I think I know why the Sejong Institute is silent. They’ve never delayed the announcement of the rank judgment results except when the initial server crashed. There are a lot of complaints from clans and Inrecruit groups.”

“Yoo-min was talking about that too. Are the complaints that bad?”

“The levels of ability users are reflected in their salaries in real-time. Inrecruit and headhunters can’t run their factories because they don’t have resources. Clans also have to recruit new members this quarter, so there will be problems with the schedule. It’s not a minor issue. Someone will probably contact you somehow soon.”

Park Hwi-so nodded and looked at Hyeon-woo.

“Whether you were hiding your skills or not, I now know that you are not a small vessel.”

“Are you thinking of switching lines?”

Park Hwi-so laughed softly. It wasn’t a sneer but a pleasant laugh.

“I’m grateful that you’re so interested in this old man. I like you. But me following you is a completely different matter. I have to consider my allies too. The stems connected to this old body are by no means light.”

Then Park Hwi-so narrowed his eyes.

“Perhaps… if I had plausible evidence to persuade my allies, I don’t know.”

Park Hwi-so didn’t really seem to doubt him but seemed to be expecting the same shock as the legendary weapon he had brought last time.

In fact, Kang Hyeon-woo’s existence was a fresh shock to Park Hwi-so, a veteran who had already experienced most things.

Park Hwi-so seemed to be pushing himself in step by step with his arrogant yet confident charm.

“It’s subtle to call it evidence, but…”

Hyeon-woo happened to have something that would surprise Park Hwi-so. He took out Admiral Ren’s monocle, which he had put in his pocket.

“Please judge after seeing this.”