Level Up Inquisitor [EN]: Chapter 15

15. Apostle (2)

[Sentence of Punishment], [Designation of Heretic].

These were the two new active skills that Aile had acquired.

Both were Apostle-exclusive skills. Although they weren’t direct attacks, reading the skill descriptions made it clear they were far more useful than simple attack skills.

He wanted to learn more about them right away, but he could do that later in actual combat. First, he needed to collect the loot.

He had defeated the Träguul with great difficulty and had left it unattended for too long.

– You have acquired an item!

[Magic-Infused Corpse Chunk (Superior) x 14]

[Dagger of Lament (Rare)]

[Cross Pendant (Common)]

[Casano’s Sealed Letter (Quest)]

[Unidentified Red Skill Book]

[52 Silvers, 98 Crowns]

The item list popped up.

Normally, the loot would have to be divided among the team members after a good discussion, but Aile, having taken it down alone, could take it all for himself.

‘Isn’t this a bit too good…?’

Aile scratched his head at the better-than-expected rewards.

The amount of money alone was considerable, and a rare-grade weapon had even appeared.

Unlike most games that overuse the terms ‘rare’ or ‘epic,’ in Warlord, a rare grade meant a truly rare item.

For ordinary players, completing a full set of superior equipment was a major task, and rare equipment was out of the question.

Even defeating a boss didn’t guarantee a skill book, but this one was a red skill book, two levels above a normal skill book.

And there was one more thing that caught his eye.

‘A quest item…?’

Casano’s Sealed Letter.

A quest item usually meant an item that would start a conditional quest—one that couldn’t be obtained by just anyone. These often led to very useful quests with specific requirements for accepting them.

On the other hand, if it was easily obtainable by others and the quest rewards weren’t good, it was sometimes treated as a useless item that only took up space.

In other words, you couldn’t figure anything out just by the name ‘quest item’; it was a case-by-case situation.

However, judging by the fact that Aile had never heard of the name ‘Casano’s Sealed Letter,’ it definitely wasn’t a common item that could be found anywhere.

Since there had never been any information about dropping quest items while hunting Träguuls, the possibility of it giving a common, repetitive quest could be ruled out.

‘These are usually either a jackpot or a complete bust…’

There was no separate grade indicated, so he couldn’t check it right away. Seeing that the description box told him to go to Queen’s Blonde, it seemed he would have to head there to gather information.

Queen’s Blonde wasn’t very large, but it was geographically convenient and had many good hunting grounds nearby, so it was a city that players often used as a central hub.

There were two or three hunting grounds that Aile could use at his current level, so there was no harm in heading there.

‘First, this…’

[Dagger of Lament]

– Grade: Rare

– Type: Dagger

– Restriction: Level 12 or higher

– Physical Attack Power 19

– Strength +2, Agility +4

– Special Effect ‘Curse’: Slows the movement of the attacked enemy and increases the damage taken by the wounded target by 5%.

Aile was inwardly impressed when he checked the information of the newly acquired equipment.

As befitting a rare grade, it boasted very good stats.

First of all, the high attack power itself was a plus, and it also had 6 additional stats and a great special effect.

Of course, even if the attack power was the same on paper, greatswords and longswords naturally had a stronger impact, but the stats themselves were so formidable that it wasn’t even worth ignoring, and he almost felt bad for getting it.

It wasn’t like he was a rogue class with an advantage in daggers, and the reach was too short for his taste, but it was too good to sell without using a weapon with such options.

‘I should get a new longsword too… and use this as a secondary weapon.’

In Warlord, no matter how many weapons you carried around, only the stats of one main weapon that you were directly holding and using were applied.

Therefore, the concept of a secondary weapon was rare in Warlord, and the most common example was an archer carrying a dagger in preparation for close combat.

Of course, there was a way to use two weapons properly, and although it was a rather difficult method, Aile was confident.

With the equipment check finished and the ordinary pendant around his neck, he now had the highlight left.

The shabby-looking skill book.

It looked the same as the one he got from Ratma, but the contents were not.

“Please, let me get something good just once…”

Aile took a deep breath as if he was nervous and carefully placed his hand on it.

The first skill after limiting the basics; if he could get off to a good start here, he was confident that he could snowball the gains.

Then, the skill book emitted red light in all directions.

Flash!

[Reversal (Rare)]

– Class Restriction: Melee Class

– Instantly turns to the side to get behind the enemy.

– After moving to the rear, speed is temporarily increased by 15%.

‘Yes!’

Aile cheered inwardly and clenched his fists.

Getting an advanced skill as the first one was already a jackpot, but he ended up hitting the jackpot.

He had expected it since he decided to catch the Träguul, but he was even happier that it actually appeared.

Moreover, he had heard of the skill Reversal several times.

Even if it wasn’t to the level of teleportation, it was a skill that allowed him to instantly turn behind his opponent and counterattack, so it could be used effectively in all situations as well as PVP [Player versus Player combat].

In addition, the acceleration buff given immediately after turning around, even for a fleeting moment, made it easier to land follow-up attacks.

Aile squatted down with a happy expression and took out his dismantling knife.

It was time to get some extra income from the corpse.

Unlike ordinary monsters, dismantling the corpse of such a boss monster had a very high probability of yielding additional useful items, so even users who didn’t usually dismantle monster corpses didn’t just pass it by.

There was no need to mention the disposal of a boss’s corpse for Aile, who meticulously dismantled even ordinary monsters.

But at the very moment he was about to happily stab the knife down.

Thwack!

An arrow suddenly flew in and pierced Aile’s shoulder.

Aile staggered from the strong impact felt from behind, and his health bar decreased rapidly.

“This is…”

Aile’s eyes, which had been full of smiles, instantly turned sharp.

The Forbidden Ruins was a simple hunting ground with only zombies as monsters, and there wasn’t a single monster that could shoot arrows.

Then there was only one thing left.

Users.

Judging by the direction the projectile came from, it was clear that it had come from the rooftop of the abandoned building where the users were gathered to hide, and there was no need to turn around to confirm.

“Haha, these guys are crazy.”

Aile laughed as if he was dumbfounded and grabbed his sword.

* * *

Thwack!

The arrow stretched far from the hand of the archer who had tightly drawn the bowstring.

The sharp arrow that flew that way hit the man who had taken down the boss.

“Uh… ?”

“Hey! What are you doing?”

Then the users who were on the building together were also embarrassed, and their eyes were on the man who shot the arrow.

But the archer raised one hand as if to calm them down, and continued to speak as if it was nothing.

“Everyone, wait. Everyone here lost out because of the boss monster that suddenly appeared, right? We shouldn’t have been wasting time here when we should have been hunting.”

“So… so what?”

“There’s no need to help, so just shut your mouths. Then I’ll share the spoils that guy monopolized. There’s still the boss monster’s corpse left, so we can dismantle it and divide it, and there should be quite a bit of money and items to drop, right? And this level of PK [Player Killing] is common in Warlord. It’s not like we’re killing a user who was just walking down the street, but a guy who harmed us.”

The man spoke as if PK was natural.

Even while persuading, his eyes were still on Aile, and his busy hands were loading an arrow onto the bowstring.

The users next to him couldn’t easily move at the tempting offer.

They would get a share just by staying still.

To be honest, there was no one who didn’t want the items from the field boss monster.

Thwack!

As the second arrow flew and then the next arrow flew, the users who had been looking at each other decided.

To remain silent.

It was bystanderism.

“Everyone thought well.”

The archer grinned when there was no answer or dissuasion.

He felt a slight pleasure in the situation where no one stopped him even though there were seven users behind him.

Then he confidently fired an arrow.

“Hehey, he dodges well. He’s definitely a skilled guy.”

The archer clicked his tongue when the arrow missed again.

But there was no impatience in his expression.

He was hiding behind cover or rolling on the floor to dodge for now, but it wasn’t a situation that would last long.

No matter how skilled he was, he thought he could easily catch him because of the archer’s relaxed safe distance and geographical advantage, and because the opponent’s health had dropped significantly due to the boss fight.

In fact, if you only looked at the battle situation between the two, it was a very good judgment.

Against a melee class with low health, it was possible to hunt unilaterally with an open view and distance, so it was like eating a piece of cake.

But there was one variable he hadn’t anticipated.

Whack!

A dull sound rang out, and the archer, who was about to shoot the next arrow, staggered back from the impact and looked back.

There was a woman in a white robe, holding a staff tightly with both hands.

“Ugh… what is this on top of a done deal…!”

“You shouldn’t do that, no matter what.”

Alisa said as if she was lecturing.

Since Aile had perfectly taken down the boss monster Träguul alone, she no longer considered it a nuisance, and of course, she thought that there should be no reasonless PK.

Of course, it was a sound that the archer, who had suddenly been hit in the head, would not listen to, and he drew his dagger with a ferocious look.

“How dare you, a healer, act up? I’ll kill you first!”