Level Up Inquisitor [EN]: Chapter 184

184. Rank In (3)

KWA-BOOM!

“Ugh…!”

Fay, thrown back by the explosion, gasped for breath.

Eile stood before him, having shattered the traps activated from both sides.

‘I thought it was over, but how…?’

The damage he had just taken wasn’t significant in itself.

However, Eile’s movements had surpassed the ordinary.

Even he, who had been watching closely, had momentarily lost track of his movements, and the moment Eile broke through the traps to attack was truly dizzying.

He had risked taking damage to activate the explosive trap beneath his feet, barely creating distance again, but if he had been even slightly careless, thinking it was over, he might have been finished.

‘Certainly… that wasn’t the level of a rookie semi-ranker. But even so, nothing will change.’

Eile was already affected by the poison.

He seemed to be mitigating the damage with his self-recovery skill to buy time, but if he couldn’t drink the antidote, his victory was inevitable.

Whoosh!

As Fay tried to hide back into the forest, Eile rushed at him again.

But before he could reach him, the thread connected to his feet snapped.

Poisoned needles shot out from both sides, flying rapidly.

A trap that forced him to retreat due to its speed and number.

However, Eile, seeing it, charged straight ahead.

Having seen the paths of all the flying poisoned needles, he only swung his sword to deflect those he couldn’t avoid.

“Eek.”

Clang!

Eile and Fay’s swords clashed.

Despite the level difference, Fay’s arm trembled from the heavy weight, and the flickering white flames before his eyes were eerie.

It was difficult to last long in close combat against Eile, whose stats were exceptionally high for a level 220 user thanks to Madness and Favor [buffs or enhancements].

Clunk!

As he was pushed back, he triggered two traps simultaneously by guiding Eile to their location.

But just before the revealed traps activated, Eile stretched out his sword, piercing the mechanisms and neutralizing them.

‘Crazy…!’

Fay gaped in horror.

It was impossible to visually confirm the traps he had set.

He was disarming all the traps, which he hadn’t even identified in advance, with mere reactions.

Among the rankers he had faced, only a few were capable of such a feat.

‘Dangerous!’

Seeing Eile closing in, Fay put away his dagger and quickly drew his bow.

Thwack, thwack, thwack!

Fay spun around, firing several arrows at Eile.

The ‘Evasive Shot’ skill allowed him to evade while attacking.

As a Hero-grade active skill, it not only allowed him to evade but also enhanced the power of the arrows.

Approaching carelessly would result in being countered.

Therefore, Eile stopped in his tracks and swung his sword wide.

Whoosh!

A torrent of fire accurately aimed at Fay.

It was an attack that Fay, a nimble hunter ranker, could have easily avoided, but he couldn’t now.

Just as there were no perfect skills in Warlord, the weakness of Evasive Shot was that its evasion motion was fixed.

He could choose the direction to retreat while activating the skill, but the distance, speed, and landing point remained constant.

And Eile, having identified the direction of Fay’s Evasive Shot, immediately unleashed a wide-area skill towards his landing point.

Fwoosh!

“Ugh…”

Fay frowned, caught in the torrent of fire and suffering burns.

He had reacted late, avoiding a critical hit, but the steadily decreasing health due to the Holy Fire’s enhanced burn from his passive skill was burdensome.

Eile seemed to have anticipated and countered it.

‘Okay, he probably knows my skill set to some extent. That’s to be expected for a ranker. But…’

Clang!

Fay blocked Eile’s sword as he charged in.

Then, he immediately launched a counterattack towards Eile.

Fay’s dagger aimed for his chest.

Reading the movement, Eile immediately used the Reverse Skill to exploit the gap in his rear.

But at that moment, the corner of Fay’s mouth twisted slightly.

“I’ve watched your videos too, you know.”

KWA-BOOM!

The explosive arrow that Fay had left behind detonated.

It wasn’t improvisation; it was a situation Fay had planned, anticipating Eile’s use of Reverse Skill.

Certainly, Eile’s activity period was short, so his power exposure was much less than that of other rankers.

However, since he uploaded videos himself, his play style could be analyzed to some extent, and no matter how well he edited the videos, there were limits to hiding things without making them look unnatural.

Especially in the eyes of a ranker watching the videos.

‘When he aims for the upper body with big movements and a gap appears, he mostly uses the Reverse Skill. And as a result…’

Eile was pushed back, and the smoke and dust from the explosion prevented him from chasing Fay.

‘I’ve created distance.’

Fay, having concealed himself in the forest, breathed a sigh of relief.

He had suffered a setback due to the unexpected attack, but he had managed to hide again.

He wanted to drink a healing potion while hidden, but judging from Eile’s skill, he would swallow the antidote if given even the slightest opening.

He didn’t let go of the bow and arrow in either hand.

‘The burn isn’t fatal, and I’m much more advantageous now. There’s no need to give him a chance to return to square one.’

Fay’s gaze pierced through Eile, who had stopped.

* * *

‘That’s a trick I didn’t know about.’

He knew a few skills among the archer class that exploded arrows, but he had never seen a skill that detonated arrows at will.

As expected, hiding key skills and power was the same for other rankers as well.

‘But I’ve roughly understood the hunter’s attack pattern.’

He had become anxious at the fact that he had encountered a Warlord ranker as an enemy in an unexpected moment.

‘I was thinking a bit wrong.’

Certainly, he couldn’t ignore the fear of a hunter who had already taken position.

The dominant opinion among users was that there was no answer in a head-on fight.

But Fay had already met numerous opponents as a hunter ranker, and they all would have shown the same reaction.

Running away was an expected reaction, and it meant playing into Fay’s hands.

The more he tried to escape, the more he would fall into the quagmire, leading to a more one-sided situation.

‘I need to break the expectations.’

That’s why Eile chose a frontal breakthrough.

He intended to defeat him within the stage prepared by his opponent.

Whoosh!

First, Eile extinguished his Holy Fire that had begun to spread in the forest due to the Fire Torrent skill by flicking his hand.

Even though he didn’t know a personal ranker was chasing him, he had been as careful as possible, and those actions weren’t in vain.

The opponents were Apollion and his numerous affiliated guilds and mercenary guilds, as well as third-party forces brought in from the outside.

In this situation, he couldn’t loudly attract attention in the middle of enemy territory.

In particular, causing a commotion with noticeable white flames was no different from advertising his location.

The opponent he was facing now wasn’t someone he could easily shake off just by setting a little fire.

Swish.

Having seen Eile’s skills, Fay was completely hidden in the forest.

Since he had struggled to escape from close combat just now, he wouldn’t try to reveal himself recklessly anymore.

‘Then he’ll use the beasts.’

Whoosh!

In a very short time, Eile, having finished his thoughts, immediately reached for the antidote in his inventory.

He wouldn’t give Fay time to comfortably detoxify, but he intended to always keep his hand on the antidote, preventing Fay from drinking healing and burn potions as well.

As expected, a sharp arrow flew in immediately.

Thwack!

Eile, having dodged, clearly remembered the direction from which the arrow had come.

There were always traps between the place where Fay was hiding and the path he would take, and he had roughly identified their locations in advance.

Woof, woof, woof!

At that moment, hunting dogs appeared from the bushes.

As expected, they were beast-type monsters, another specialty of the hunter.

Whack!

Eile defeated the hunting dogs rushing in from all directions.

It was annoying that Fay, who had concealed himself, was constantly moving and trying to shoot arrows into the back of his head, but the beasts he had summoned weren’t that great.

He was just trying to buy time and erode his health with poison.

Eile now had 25 percent of his health remaining.

Considering the poison, it was definitely not a sufficient amount.

However, Eile aimed for a moment rather than moving rashly.

‘With this, 30.’

The existence of Eile’s ‘Mad Zealot’ skill.

He was gradually accumulating fear and intimidation stats while cutting down the hunting dogs.

‘Wait…’

Fay, noticing something strange, paused.

The bowstring had begun to tremble very slightly for some reason, and Eile, who should have been in a hurry, was focused on dealing with the hunting dogs.

Suspicion turned into certainty, and he pulled out all the summoned beasts.

‘Phew, there was a way like this too. That was close.’

‘He noticed…’

Eile felt regret as the hunting dogs no longer appeared.

But that alone was enough.

He had accumulated even a little bit of intimidation stats, and above all, he could feel his movements gradually changing.

He wouldn’t be able to tell from the outside, but a clear change was occurring within him.

Whistle! Thump!

As Fay sent a signal with a whistle, another beast appeared from the bushes this time.

A huge ‘Grim Bear’ and a multicolored wolf ‘Kurogumasu.’

As expected of a ranker, he had summoned two of the most rare beasts at the same time.

This was a summon that was conscious of Eile’s fear stats, and it meant that it was his real power, not just buying time.

Kwa-kwa-kwang!

The two large beasts rushed in, driving him into a corner.

The trajectory of the flying arrows had also changed.

The carefully and sharply flying arrows accurately targeted only Eile’s vitals.

In addition, the deadly traps that were activated from time to time pushed Eile into an even more extreme situation.

The pressing time and the seized space.

It was an environment where even the most skilled could fall precariously at any moment.

But even so, Eile did not fall.

‘What… what is it?’

Even Fay couldn’t hide his bewilderment at how well he was enduring.

Eile’s movements had noticeably begun to improve.

But the change had occurred even earlier.

‘I see it.’

Eile’s eyes, stirring through the forest, darted back and forth.

Breaking the activated traps, dodging the arrows, and dealing with the beasts didn’t feel difficult at all.

His synchronization rate exceeded 100 percent, activating ‘Overdrive’ [a hidden game mechanic].

It was a system provided in all virtual reality games, starting with East-Horn, as a means to protect users when the synchronization rate soared above normal levels.

Of course, it was only a story for the developers.

Since no user had ever exceeded 100 percent, users didn’t even know it existed.

Swish!

A strange sensation enveloped his entire body, and the synchronization rate gradually increased through combat.

The light flickering in his eyes gradually deepened.

[Current Synchronization Rate 111.4%]