Level Up Inquisitor [EN]: Chapter 41

41. Manners Maketh Man (4)

“Wait a second… I don’t think this is the right way.”

A user who had entered the hunting ground was sweating as he realized he was lost.

He was trying hard to read the large map in his hand, but the tall, dense trees and the overall darkness made it difficult to get his bearings.

It was a terrain where beginners unfamiliar with Warlord’s adventures and map reading were likely to get lost.

“Ugh, why is it so gloomy here?”

The man grimaced as he spoke.

He had entered Ingol Forest out of curiosity, but once inside, he wanted to leave as soon as possible.

A place filled with land and trees exuding an ominous black energy, and slimy monsters imitating human figures.

He felt that hunting in a place like this would make him depressed, even with the system’s mental correction in place.

There were so many hunting grounds with great scenery in Warlord, so why was he volunteering to hunt in such a terrible place?

No matter how useful a widely accessible hunting ground was, he couldn’t understand why he was hanging around in a place like this.

“Uh……”

While hurrying to leave the forest, the man froze.

He saw something hanging from a tree branch.

The corpses of monsters dangled from long ropes tied around their necks.

Drip, drip.

Blood dripped from the monsters, indicating they hadn’t been dead for long, and a drop of red blood soaked one of the man’s cheeks.

“Hiiiik!”

The man stumbled backward, horrified.

He was so frightened he couldn’t see anything.

As he hurriedly retreated, his foot caught on something, and he fell backward.

“Eugh…….”

The man fell, hitting his head lightly, and then stood up.

But when he looked around, he faced something even worse.

The severed heads of thought entities lined up on a plank, and next to them were monsters impaled on large skewers and displayed.

The man’s arms trembled.

His face turned white, and he looked down to see what had tripped him.

Under him was the corpse of a thought entity, its eyes rolled back and a black liquid of unknown origin drooling from its mouth.

“Kkeuaaaaaak!”

The man screamed and ran away.

* * *

[‘Luminary Judge, Lu’ expresses satisfaction with your actions.]

“Hmm? What is this……?”

Aeil looked at the sudden system message with a puzzled expression.

He was taking a break while eating, and the goddess’s message, which he hadn’t heard from in a while, suddenly appeared.

Seeing that his contribution had also increased slightly, it was definitely not a meaningless occurrence.

He would have preferred she sent it while he was hunting monsters, but this was absurd.

‘Did something good suddenly happen?’

Aeil scratched his head, unsure of what was going on.

He didn’t realize that this message wasn’t only related to his direct actions.

The traces of execution that Aeil left everywhere.

It appeared because other users were seeing those terrifying displays.

Fear and awe were essential for maintaining absolute good from the standpoint of ‘Lu’, the god of light and justice, and Aeil’s bizarre actions were increasing the goddess’s influence.

It wasn’t for nothing that the repetitive work he was doing was granting him bonus stats.

Aeil swallowed the last piece of hard bread and started hunting again.

He couldn’t think of a suitable answer, and he had no time to rest since he had finished his meal.

As a latecomer, he had to work diligently to catch up with those ahead.

As always, Aeil continued to hang the monsters he defeated by their necks, plastering the forest with monster corpses.

“It’s still not easy to level up.”

Aeil muttered, checking the experience bar.

After entering Ingol Forest, he caught so many monsters that he earned the title of Thought Splitter, but he still hadn’t leveled up.

With the experience he had gained so far, he was only halfway to the next level.

The early stages, where it was relatively easy to level up, were almost over, and he had entered a section where leveling up would be extremely difficult, as he had expected.

Even the rankers who had been playing for over a year had barely exceeded level 200.

In addition, since the skill gap was large in Warlord, even being just over level 100 meant you were considered a master among ordinary users, so no matter how long you spent in the hunting grounds, you couldn’t expect to level up several times a day.

In particular, the difference between clearing dangerous, high-difficulty dungeons and repeatedly hunting low-difficulty normal monsters was quite large.

Aeil was quite fast for someone going through normal hunting grounds.

In Warlord, where the hunting difficulty was generally quite high, even if users hunted the same monsters in the same place, the number they could catch in the same amount of time varied greatly depending on their skills and concentration.

‘It’s definitely too slow to just hunt normal mobs. Of course, I’m getting stat boosts as well, so it’s not a complete loss to keep doing this… but it seems impossible to catch up with the rankers in time with just that, so the key is the boss monster after all.’

Aeil was replenishing his stats to some extent by catching normal monsters, but in the end, he was aiming for the boss monster, the Mass of Thoughts, Batora.

In the end, you have to take high risks to get ahead of others.

However, this wasn’t true for all users, and it wasn’t always the best option for Aeil to boldly challenge high difficulty levels.

Many users, blinded by the rewards, often overlooked the fact that not dying was also a very important factor in determining the speed of growth due to Warlord’s death penalty.

If you cleared difficult dungeons several times and ended up dying even once, it would all be for nothing.

Considering the penalty time of two days, the level down, and the lost equipment, it would take a lot of time to recover.

For rapid growth, users had to accurately assess their skills and walk a tightrope by choosing the appropriate level of difficulty.

The fact that not only combat ability, but also properly developing a growth strategy that allows you to think and get ahead is one of the important ‘skills’ mentioned in Warlord.

In this way, Warlord had a very large difference in efficiency depending on skill, even if you invested the same amount of time.

That’s why high-efficiency, high-level dungeons were important just by their existence and were controlled by the dominant guilds in the area, a phenomenon common in most virtual reality games with so much freedom.

‘Anyway, it’s almost time to respawn…….’

Aeil checked the time and listened to the surrounding sounds.

It was already the fourth respawn since he entered Ingol Forest, and he wanted to finish it within the fifth if possible.

According to his initial plan, he was planning to finish it today, but it didn’t seem easy.

There was quite a bit of competition, so even if you planned your route meticulously, you still needed luck.

Kugugu…….

Aeil, listening anxiously, caught a very subtle sound.

Aeil’s eyes widened, and he immediately started running.

This wasn’t a sound that ordinary thought entities could make.

The sound he heard was so faint that it was difficult to pinpoint the exact direction, but Aeil didn’t need to estimate the location with only the given clues.

Among the many points where Batora could appear, there was only one near here.

“I found it……!”

Aeil shouted, standing in front of the monster.

The thoughts flowing out of the ground were gathering together.

The bizarrely shaped black creature was quickly taking shape, with a long torso, eight legs, and a head and upper body forming.

Combined with the gloomy forest background, the huge creature showed off its grotesque appearance and intimidated any onlookers.

But Aeil, standing alone in front of it, wasn’t at all intimidated, but rather filled with joy.

Even though the boss monster had just appeared, there were no other users around yet.

Since he was the first to discover it, the right to raid this boss belonged only to him.

The Sign of the Heretic was already stamped on the monster’s head without him even needing to use a skill, and Aeil smiled silently and picked up his sword.

Without hesitation, he immediately started the attack.

* * *

“It’s that way!”

Three players ran through the bushes in a hurry.

They were moving toward the faint sound of Batora.

If the sound could be heard right away, it meant that it had appeared in a very close location compared to other competitors, and it was definitely a lucky situation for them, who had been waiting for it.

But when they approached, another user was already standing where Batora was.

“What? There’s someone there!”

“Ah… If I hadn’t gotten lost, I could have arrived first… I’m so pissed off.”

They were sure that this time it was their turn, but they were one step too late.

They could feel their insides boiling with frustration.

“These monsters here are so disgusting, I want to get out of here quickly… Haa.”

The woman, carrying a bow, sighed deeply and groaned.

The two men next to her were silent, but she wasn’t the only one who wanted to leave Ingol Forest quickly.

Waiting for the boss to respawn was tiring, and being in this gloomy place for a long time made them feel depressed.

She had even almost died once because of an annoying elite monster.

She felt like she just wanted to give up, but she couldn’t because of the time she had already invested.

“I can’t go back empty-handed now, I’m going crazy.”

“Damn it, I thought it was all over, but to have it taken away by just one person, what is this… Hmm? Wait, one person?”

The man rubbed his eyes and looked straight ahead.

Looking closely at the figure fighting Batora, there was only one swordsman confronting the huge monster.

He didn’t seem to be particularly high level or have outstanding items, and above all, there was no guild mark, indicating he didn’t belong to any major organization.

That meant he was someone they could mess with without any problems.

“Hey, everyone, get ready for the raid.”

The man’s lips stretched into a wide smile.