Chapter 59: Hwiryong (1)

Two hours had passed since Taejun began his simulation training.

“Team Leader,” a team member monitoring the system’s status in real-time finally spoke up. ”…The mana synchronization detection function has malfunctioned. The dummy implementation rate is also steadily declining. It looks like the entire system’s circuitry is failing.”

“The Training Room itself isn’t going to explode, is it? Is user safety compromised?”

“No, the safety features are still functioning properly.”

“Then leave it be. Let it run until it completely breaks down.”

Team Leader Lee Gwangmin sighed and nodded. He picked up his smartphone and sent a message to his superior.

The repair costs alone would easily run into the billions of won.

Yet Lee Gwangmin nodded as soon as he saw CEO Cha Yerin’s reply.

“This should be enough,” I muttered, surveying the scene in the Training Room and nodding.

The room was filled with the remnants of undead creatures, their forms sculpted from mana. A dense fog, saturated with holy mana, hung like a heavy cloud over the decaying swamp below.

And was that the faint metallic tang of burning circuits lingering in the air?

Must be my imagination.

Forcing myself to ignore the acrid smell of burnt metal tickling my nostrils, I spoke.

“Good work.”

A blue glint flashed within the holy mist.

Iratu.

The lich stood with one foot planted on a fragment of a corpse golem, shrugging nonchalantly. In his hands, he held a crossbow radiating holy light, gripping it like a rifle.

”…Thank you, Master.”

His very presence exuded the aura of an exceptional undead hunter.

Of course, the irony of him being an undead skeleton himself wasn’t lost on me.

“You’ve truly overcome the Undead barrier,” I said, clapping for him with genuine admiration.

“I do feel like I’ve grown in several ways,” Iratu muttered, his voice tinged with unease.

Indeed, he had.

Three hours had passed since I ordered him to hunt undead using only Holy Attribute items. Through repeated training, the skeleton had evolved. Now, summoning him required 100 Mana.

The ‘Evolving Skeleton’ trait had actually activated.

Just like my own Remarkable Growth, Iratu also grew through experience, developing in ways directly related to what he experienced.

The Skeleton had acquired the Weapon Mastery (B) Skill.

The newly acquired Skill was:

A fitting ability for its name, indeed.

But what truly made me grin was the line beneath:

“Additionally, Iratu can activate the unique skills of equipped items, ignoring their stat requirements. However, the potency of these skills is reduced by 50%.”

“Now this is a game-changer,” I muttered.

Item skills, especially those on weapons, often demand ridiculously high stats to activate.

No wonder people hunt for skill books instead of skill-imbued items.

But Iratu was completely free of such penalties.

I had certainly been training him in hopes of acquiring a new skill, but I never imagined he’d gain such an extraordinary one.

“Alright, since you’ve completed the training so well…”

I closed my Status Window and began to speak.

The blue light in the Skeleton’s eye sockets flickered with anticipation.

Now that he had even acquired the Weapon Mastery skill, there was no need for further hesitation.

I retrieved the item I had listed on the Parsley Market’s temporary auction site.

Whoosh.

I grabbed the hilt protruding from the Gear Magic Circle, pulled the sword free, and handed it to Iratu.

“Take it.”

Iratu narrowed his glowing eyes, scrutinizing the blade in my hand.

A crude, gold-plated longsword, its blade snapped in the middle, made for a sorry sight.

At first, I thought, “How impressive could such a shoddy sword possibly be?”

Analysis revealed that the sword’s capabilities were befitting of its Unique-Grade status, surpassing even S-Class items.

The real jackpot was the attached skill:

While S-Class Holy Attribute skills aren’t uncommon, most are large-scale healing spells like Chain Heal.

There were barely one or two Holy Attribute skills that met the S-Class criteria and weren’t defensive or healing-based.

Hunters or items possessing such offensive Holy Attribute skills were treated as ultimate weapons against the Undead.

Therefore, even without fully assessing its capabilities, it was easy to anticipate the power of the Star Cluster of the Holy King.

However, the lack of precise Mana consumption information and the unknown debuff applied after activation posed significant drawbacks.

These penalties make me hesitant to use it myself.

“Hmm, this reward is rather underwhelming… hmm?” Iratu took the sword with a hint of disappointment, but his eyes suddenly widened.

“M-Master… are you really giving this incredibly precious item to me?”

It seemed he had checked the item’s capabilities using Weapon Mastery.

“I’m not very skilled with swords,” I admitted.

To be honest, that wasn’t the only reason.

“This item doesn’t affect my Synchronization Rate at all.”

Unlike items I had personally acquired or upgraded, such as the Remnants of the Great Evil or the Mimic Crystal.

Even after equipping the Star Cluster of the Holy King and claiming its bonus stats and skills, my Synchronization Rate remained unchanged. Not even by 1%.

Manager Mi explained this phenomenon.

No matter how many items I indiscriminately purchased and equipped, the Synchronization Rate wouldn’t budge.

In other words, trying to grow through easy shortcuts wouldn’t work.

The reason for the limited increase in my Synchronization Rate was attributed to my “Remarkable Growth.”

Honestly, considering the significant gains I’d made from such rapid advancement, it didn’t seem entirely unfair.

Regardless, that was the explanation.

“You’d be better off learning swordsmanship and using it yourself.”

“But this precious item…”

“You may only use it when I tell you to. If you pull it out just because you feel like it, I’ll take it back immediately.”

“No, uh… Now that I see it, it doesn’t seem like a sword one can just use casually. Anyway, I’ll gratefully accept it.”

“Then go back now.”

A pitch-black Dimensional Gate opened, swallowing the creature clutching the golden sword and vanishing.

With Iratu dismissed,

Finally, after six grueling hours, I initiated the reset of the Training Room’s field.

Or rather, I tried to reset it.

But…

”?”

What’s going on?

Why isn’t it resetting?

The mana should be dissipating cleanly, reverting the training room to its default metallic state.

I tapped the holographic control panel floating before me, but it remained unresponsive.

In fact, the more I pressed the “Reset Field” button, the stronger the acrid smell of burning metal became.

Just then—

Knock, knock!

A knock echoed from behind me, near the seemingly empty space where the entrance to Training Room S-2 should be.

The air rippled, and a man with dark circles under his eyes, dressed in a white dress shirt, stepped through.

“Hunter Taejun, have you finished your training?”

It was a familiar face: Team Leader Lee Gwangmin, the maintenance supervisor for the Myth Training Room.

“Yes, the training is finished, but the Training Room’s field won’t reset.”

“Ah, right.”

“I was worried I might have broken something…”

The Training Room reeked of burnt gunpowder, and everything pointed to me having caused some kind of malfunction.

But before I could voice my concern, Team Leader Lee Gwangmin replied with a reassuring smile, “Not at all. We disabled the function for a demonstration test on our end, so there’s no need to worry.”

Phew, that’s a relief.

I was afraid I’d done something far worse than just scorching the wall with a Fireball last time.

“You’re working late. You must be tired.”

“Haha, it’s just part of the job. Please head back safely.”

After bidding farewell to the Team Leader and leaving Hwiryung Headquarters, I stood on the main street in front of the building, took a deep breath, and stretched. Even the smog-choked air of downtown Seoul felt refreshingly clean after spending hours immersed in the simulated stench of a swamp.

Just then, my smartphone buzzed.

What was CEO Cha Su-hyeon doing contacting me at this hour? I thought he’d left for an international expedition to Japan today.

After a long silence, I sent another text.

Of course, the training had been a resounding success. It couldn’t have gone any better.

Until now, CEO Cha Su-hyeon had never contacted me personally just because I rented the training room.

For him to go out of his way during his busy schedule to offer this encouragement…

I smiled faintly and slipped my phone back into my pocket.

“Looks like someone’s in a good mood,” he said.

The President’s office at Hwiryung Headquarters.

Guild Leader Ko Youngmin bit his fingernails as he marked an ‘X’ on the calendar square labeled “Lee Taejun.”

This was the day that could decide the fate of the Hwiryung Guild.

For the past few days, he had lived with the dread of a pig being led to the slaughterhouse, consumed by the question: [ How can I escape Taejun’s clutches? ] He had spent sleepless nights agonizing over how to maintain his position within the guild.

Naturally, finding a solution had proven impossible. His only hope lay in Taejun falling into his own trap and self-destructing.

Knock, knock.

Suddenly, a knock echoed through the room.

“Guild Leader, I’m coming in,” Vice Guild Leader Jo Yongtae announced as he opened the door and stepped into the office.

“I just received a call from Lee Taejun,” he continued. “He’ll be at Hwiryung Headquarters in ten minutes.”

“Already?” Ko Youngmin exclaimed.

The grandfather clock in the corner of the office showed 11:00 AM, much earlier than the scheduled noon sparring match.

Shit, he’s here way too damn early.

Oblivious to the Guild Leader’s seething frustration, Jo Yongtae nodded with a faint, sardonic smile.

“Yes, he insisted on starting the spar immediately, so I readily agreed. I’ve already gathered the members in the sparring arena.”

”…Why the rush?”

“Pardon?”

“Never mind,” Ko Youngmin muttered.

Heaving himself to his feet, Ko Youngmin felt as if his body weighed a ton.

Now, Yongtae was their only hope of escaping Taejun’s clutches.

Hwiryong Guild Leader stared at the bald Vice Guild Leader and said, “Yongtae.”

“What?”

“You’re confident, right?” Hwiryong Guild Leader asked, his eyes pleading.

Jo Yongtae grinned savagely and thumped his massive pectoral muscles. “What the fuck are you worried about? Do you know who I am? I’m Jo Yongtae, the fifth-ranked necromancer in the country! You think I’d lose to some rookie who just got promoted to B-rank?”

Rookie hardly seemed the right word for someone with such a dazzling record of behind-the-scenes achievements.

Ko Youngmin swallowed his words, a conflicted expression on his face.

Taejun had single-handedly annihilated an A-rank Lich during his rigged promotion examination.

He’d mercilessly slaughtered the villains who tried to harm him without batting an eye.

Jo Yongtae remained completely oblivious.

It’s okay. This isn’t just a regular spar, is it?

He forced himself to calm down.

If this were a full-power duel, where they could unleash all their strength, Yongtae’s victory wouldn’t be so certain. But today, they were restricted to using only their Undead Skills.

In that case, Yongtae’s overwhelming victory is assured.

Even as he desperately tried to maintain this positive outlook, Yongtae opened his mouth with a slightly reluctant expression.

“Ah, and hyung, there’s one more thing I need to tell you.”

“What is it?”

“Besides Lee Taejun, we have an unexpected guest. Well, I’m not sure if ‘guest’ is the right word…”

”?”

Click!

Before Jo Yongtae could finish speaking, the president’s office door suddenly burst open. Ko Youngmin, glaring irritably at the intruder, snapped, “What kind of rude jerk barges in without even knocking? W-wait, what?!”

His face froze, turning deathly pale as he recognized the person standing in the doorway.