Level Up Inquisitor [EN]: Chapter 10

The Blasphemer (2)

“Is this the place…?”

Aeil muttered as he arrived at his destination.

The hunting ground, ‘Forbidden Ruins,’ located slightly west of Dubel, was a desolate ruin, true to its name.

The village, which appeared large enough to have housed a considerable number of residents in the past, was destroyed in many places, leaving no area intact and creating an overall dirty and gloomy atmosphere.

Usually, low-level field hunting grounds are quite crowded. However, due to the nature of virtual reality games, hunting grounds with such scary or depressing atmospheres were relatively unpopular. Moreover, if the monsters appearing there were undead with gruesome appearances, it was even less appealing.

“Ugh…”

The ‘Forbidden Ruins,’ which outwardly appeared to be a collapsed village, was essentially a graveyard filled with grotesque zombies, making it a thoroughly avoided hunting ground for most beginners who weren’t yet accustomed to Warlord.

Even after Aeil spent a considerable amount of time exploring the terrain in advance, he only saw about four or five people.

However, being avoided by others meant that there was plenty of space, allowing him to hunt without running into problems and enabling him to hunt to his heart’s content.

Sure, the zombies looked disgusting, but Aeil, who would only chuckle even when watching horror movies known for being scary, didn’t feel anything special when looking at them.

He simply thought that they were amazingly well-implemented corpses walking around.

‘I’ve roughly grasped the layout… should I start preparing?’

Having scouted out a suitable location, Aeil moved without being noticed by the monsters, digging holes in various places around the hunting ground and burying items inside.

He had investigated the zombies’ recognition range in advance, so he was able to move without being detected.

However, what he was doing was difficult to understand from a normal perspective. Besides, this was not a place for a level 5 user to come.

The ‘Forbidden Ruins’ was a hunting ground where level 15 zombies appeared in great numbers, and it was known for being tricky, so people didn’t easily come here unless they were confident in their skills to some extent.

Furthermore, due to the Warlord system, users with levels significantly lower than the monsters they were facing would have their stats reduced overall due to the ‘Weakness’ debuff effect during combat, making it nearly impossible for a mere level 5 to settle down and hunt here.

On top of that, the reason this hunting ground was notorious was that the gruesome-looking zombies inflicted a ‘Fear’ debuff that greatly reduced the opponent’s speed. Low-levels had no way to increase their debuff resistance, leaving them with no choice but to endure it while dealing with the monsters.

[Due to the extreme level difference with the monster, you are affected by the ‘Weakness’ debuff!]

– Overwhelmed by a powerful enemy, overall stats are reduced.

[Due to the numerous repulsive monsters, you are affected by the ‘Fear’ debuff!]

– Your body stiffens, greatly reducing speed.

Aeil, who stopped his strange behavior and confidently stepped forward, met the zombies’ gazes, and status windows appeared before his eyes.

However, before long, another status window appeared, covering the previous ones.

[Due to the effect of the skill ‘Fanatical Martyr,’ all psychological abnormal status effects are nullified!]

[The ‘Weakness’ debuff has been removed!]

[The ‘Fear’ debuff has been removed!]

Aeil no longer cared about the zombies’ gazes and began to stir up the ruins.

Without fighting them, he only ran around, gathering the monsters swarming inside the ruins.

As a result, an enormous number of zombies were rushing at him as if watching a scene from a zombie movie, and a user who happened to look in Aeil’s direction while hunting on the hill was horrified and stepped back.

“C-Crazy! Is that a troller [someone who intentionally disrupts the game for others]?”

Intentionally driving monsters to overwhelm other users or perish together.

Perversely, there were those who felt joy in such actions, and they were one of the players to watch out for in the field, no less than griefers [players who harass other players].

But soon, the man realized that this was not the case at all.

Kwaaaang!

The ground that the pursuing zombie stepped on bulged and swelled, and a huge explosion occurred.

The powerful force swept away the zombies within range, and shattered corpses fell in droves.

[Level Up!]

Dozens of zombies died at once, and Aeil’s level increased.

A sudden, powerful explosion that occurred out of nowhere, as if a landmine had gone off.

It was the power of the magic explosion crystal he had obtained from the previous quest.

Originally, this type of consumable attack item had very poor efficiency in terms of both cost and effect, so no users used it for hunting.

Considering the wallet situation of a level 20 consumable item, even for players of that level, they would have to use very expensive items to barely take down a level 10 monster in one shot, so there was no way anyone would actively use such a trash item.

However, the quest that Aeil cleared yesterday, which required ‘Red Eyes Filled with Magic,’ had an average clear level of 28, and since it required items that could only be obtained with a low probability by catching specific monsters, the reward was also strong.

In other words, all 12 of the red crystals he obtained were consumable explosion items that exceeded level 30, and they could easily blow up level 15 zombies.

Of course, due to the nature of the repeat quest, the reward experience was extremely small, but it was enough to raise Aeil’s level, which had just entered level 4 at the time.

[You have acquired the title ‘Explosives Expert!’]

[You have acquired the title ‘One Hit, Over Twenty Kills!’]

[Multi-kill bonus experience +25%]

Since he had killed over twenty monsters in one shot, several system messages popped up, but there was no time to check them one by one.

They were just miscellaneous titles that didn’t measure up to the ‘One Who Chose the Difficult Path’ title anyway, and there were still many monsters he was herding, so he had to keep running away.

“Uwoooo!”

The zombies, with their extremely low intelligence, continued to chase even after seeing their comrades explode.

The tattered corpses were surprisingly fast, which frustrated many users, but Aeil, who completely ignored the speed-reducing ‘Fear’ debuff, was able to slip through the gaps without being caught, even with his reduced level.

Thud! Kwaaaang!

The moment Aeil lightly jumped over the fence and landed on the other side, an explosion occurred again behind him, and the zombies were torn apart.

Seeing the yellow experience bar filling up, Aeil grinned and started running.

Boom!

Explosions echoed several times in the quiet ruins.

* * *

On the rooftop of a half-destroyed building in the ruins.

Aeil was sitting comfortably in front of a burning bonfire.

Below, zombies were swarming, but the place where he had settled was definitely outside their aggro range [the distance at which a monster will start chasing a player].

“It’s a shame I couldn’t properly recover the items… but I’ve profited enough.”

Aeil leaned against the railing and mumbled, smacking his lips.

It was inevitable that he couldn’t meticulously loot items because he chose the method of mass-killing monsters using consumable items.

He was grilling and eating rabbit meat that he had collected in advance from the previous hunting ground, and the reason he had to do that was that there were no ingredients to be obtained from the undead zombies.

He could get rotten meat if he wanted, but it wouldn’t fill him up much, and he would get food poisoning, which would greatly hinder his hunting.

Aeil’s current level was 9.

Originally, it was impossible to raise 4 levels in such a short time, but in the very early stages when the level was low, there were a few ways to quickly raise the level by adding various strokes of luck, just like Aeil had done.

After finishing all the meat skewered on the skewer, Aeil drank the cold water in his canteen and turned his eyes to check the remaining items in his inventory.

‘There’s not much left now.’

Out of the 12 explosion crystals he had in total, he used 8 for hunting, and he had used up all of the magic explosion crystals.

Only 4 divine explosion crystals remained in his inventory, and he had to save them as much as possible for his next plan.

Aeil dusted off his seat and stood up, then jumped over the railing and down to the zombies below.

“Uwoooo!”

The zombie wandering around under the building rushed at Aeil as soon as it saw him.

The sharp teeth in its grotesquely wide-open mouth aimed for him.

However, its attacks repeatedly missed Aeil, and instead, the wounds on its body gradually increased.

Stab!

Aeil’s longsword pierced the zombie’s neck, and the zombie, whose health had already been reduced, fell to the ground from the fatal blow.

It was a battle between a level 9 user and a level 15 monster, but the intimidation effect based on level did not affect Aeil at all, and he could easily make up for the remaining stat difference with his skill.

[Level Up!]

[You have surpassed level 10! One basic job skill is activated. Please select a skill to learn.]

[You have learned the ‘Blade of Hatred’ skill.]

– Damage of all attacks against heretics is increased by 25%.

After passing level 5 and reaching level 10, he could choose a new basic skill again, and he immediately selected the skill.

Unlike the common case of choosing ‘Sanctification’ first because of its excellent performance, Aeil’s choice was the last, reversing the order.

But he didn’t show any hesitation.

[The skill acquisition limit has increased as you reached level 10. You can learn a new skill. (0/1)]

Next to it, a new system message was floating.

As the level increased, the limit on acquiring new skills as well as basic job skills also increased.

Since the limit on the number of skills that can be possessed increases by one for every 10 levels, now was the first point at which the limit increased.

However, he couldn’t fill in the skill right away because he didn’t have a skill book yet.

Usually, skill books could be obtained through hunting, quest rewards, or purchased through various routes, and if you had faith, you could also purchase them through the contribution of your affiliated order [a group of players with a common goal].

However, transactions between users, whether through the auction house or by meeting in person, were definitely impossible.

Skills could only be obtained directly by the person, regardless of the route, and the skill books sold by NPCs [non-player characters] at high prices were at most rare grade, so there was a limit to obtaining skills above a certain grade with simple cash spending alone.

The saying that ‘character development is also a skill’ is especially emphasized in Warlord, and this is where it starts.

‘It was definitely this way…….’

Aeil began to move, recalling the surrounding geography he had checked in advance.

It was time to get his first skill.