Chapter 15 - The Status Window Is Too Unfriendly (2)

“Thank you so much for saving us. Is there anything making you uncomfortable?”

“...”

I’d explained that those guys had actually been planning to kill them, and I’d just saved their lives.

But things were still awkward.

Was anything making me uncomfortable? I desperately wanted to say, “Yeah, the way you’re treating me.”

The survivors were friendly enough, giving me water to wash off the blood and even sharing what little food they had, but they flatly refused my request to join their group.

To find a fitting comparison... they were like students dealing with their principal.

They respected his age and position and treated him politely, but... if the principal suddenly asked, “Want to go to an internet café together after school?” they’d be desperate to turn him down.

By the same logic, there probably weren’t any female students who wanted to date their principal.

Meaning I had to let the pretty woman in front of me go.

I gave up on my ulterior motives early and decided to focus on gathering information.

“Anyway, what’s your name?”

“Ahn Gyeongnam, sir.”

“... Ahn Gyeongnam?”

“Yes. Ahn, of the Sunheung Ahn clan. Please, just call me Gyeongnam.”

Amazingly, the man I’d been calling Glasses Guy was actually named Ahn Gyeongnam—which sounded exactly like “glasses guy.”

Did people follow the destiny written in their names? He’d grown into a fine glasses guy, just as his parents had wished.

For the record, they’d asked me to speak casually. Apparently, my being polite made them even more uncomfortable.

I wasn’t some rude bastard like Choi Jiwon, who dropped the formalities without asking first.

“So, Gyeongnam. The golden orbs. Where’d you get them?”

“The golden orbs... right.”

Ahn Gyeongnam fiddled with the two golden orbs in his hand.

His mouth worked as he carefully chose his words. He seemed unsure how to broach the subject.

“I’m not sure where to start... but I actually have a trait.”

He’d kept it secret from the scrawny guy and the punk, but apparently Ahn Gyeongnam had a trait too. He’d only hidden it because it wasn’t combat-related.

“It’s rank A. Its name is... ‘Analysis Complete.’”

Ahn Gyeongnam nudged his glasses up with his index finger.

I could practically hear the sound effect as they flashed.

“The trait’s level is still too low for me to analyze other people’s levels... but I can determine how dangerous monsters are.”

“... And?”

“There was one particularly dangerous goblin. Its clothes and weapons were different from those of ordinary goblins, too.”

Yesterday morning, his group had encountered a special goblin while searching for clues about the orbs.

“It looked about the size of an adult woman. It had strange tattoos drawn in blood on its face. And instead of some shoddy wooden spear, it carried one with a steel tip.”

Apparently, the goblin had looked strong as fuck at first glance. Its physique put it on par with the Francis Ngannou or Jon Jones of goblins.

“... How did it compare to ordinary goblins?”

“If a normal goblin has a danger rating of 1, that one looked like at least a 5.”

I still didn’t know exactly how those danger ratings were calculated...

But even a rating-1 goblin, weaker than a child, could seriously wound you if it caught you off guard.

They were monsters. Insane beasts that charged without caring whether they got hurt.

Yet these people had encountered a rating-5 goblin and come away with golden orbs? Something didn’t add up.

“Actually... two people accounted for more than ninety-nine percent of our party’s fighting strength.”

Ahn Gyeongnam gestured with his eyes toward the scrawny guy, who was still prostrating himself and trembling.

“That bastard’s ability... lets him control a monster if he keeps his hand on its head for ten seconds. There’s a limit on the rank he can control, of course...”

“... Hmm.”

So that was how he’d taken control of the goblin army prostrating themselves beside him.

“But is it even possible to keep your hand on a monster’s head for ten seconds?”

You’d think it would scratch, bite, and go completely fucking wild.

“We had someone with telekinesis.”

“Oh.”

I could more or less picture it.

The punk would immobilize a goblin that had strayed from its group with telekinesis.

Then the scrawny guy just had to come up behind it and lay a hand on its head. One goblin soldier, ready to go.

“Controlled goblins look exactly like ordinary ones. We ambushed the big goblin.”

They’d pretended to be normal goblins passing by, then launched a surprise attack with their wooden spears.

With telekinesis backing them up, even a rating-5 goblin couldn’t have escaped unscathed.

“Unfortunately, he couldn’t control the giant goblin, so we had to kill it... Though perhaps I should consider that fortunate? If he’d succeeded, they might have killed all of us right then and there.”

Ahn Gyeongnam chuckled self-deprecatingly. He seemed to have remembered how close he’d come to dying earlier.

“When we killed the big goblin, we leveled up, and it dropped food and two golden orbs.”

“... You leveled up?”

“Yes. We all managed to reach level 10.”

“... I see.”

I stood and brushed off the seat of my pants.

“Well, okay. Thanks for the information. I’ve got somewhere to take that scrawny guy now.”

“Oh, I see.”

The three survivors made a big show of being sorry to part, but none of them actually tried to stop me.

They thought I was impressive, but I also made them uncomfortable.

Still, it wasn’t like I could’ve picked fear. I’d just have to think of this as the best possible outcome.

Once I’d confirmed the survivors were far enough away, I spoke to the scrawny guy, who was still lying face down.

“Hey, Scrawny. Come with me.”

“Y-yes! Understood!”

He sprang up immediately and trailed close behind me.

His face was as stiff as a new recruit with military discipline drilled into him.

“...”

The emotions he felt toward me were fear, disgust, and awe.

Since I’d chosen Awe from among them, that feeling must have grown even stronger.

“This should do.”

I’d brought him to a spot with relatively little grass and plenty of soft dirt.

“Scrawny.”

“Y-yes!”

“Write out your Status window here. On the ground.”

“Yes!”

He hurriedly picked up a twig and began writing in the dirt.

[Name: Choi Junwoo] [LV:1] [Level:22]

[Traits]

-Monster Domination [S]

[Stats]

[Strength:9] [Agility:13] [Intelligence:18] [Constitution:11] [Mana24]

“... What the hell is this?”

“Pardon?”

“Stats. What are these?”

Sure, I’d asked him to do this to check whether other people’s Status windows were different from mine... but I’d never imagined they’d be this different.

There were more than a couple of things I wanted to point out.

For one, he had a stats panel I’d never seen in my life.

For another, he had two levels.

And while the others had said they were level 10, he alone was level 22.

For comparison, here was what my Status window looked like.

[Name: Kim Junho] [LV:5]

[Traits]

-Regression [EX]

-Awe [C]

Compared to that bastard’s, my Status window was downright pathetic.

“... I’m not sure what you mean.”

But the man himself seemed to have no idea what was wrong.

Okay, I was starting to realize I was the unusual one here.

“First off, why do you have two levels?”

“Oh, that...”

He started to explain, then stopped and frowned.

“But... what should I call you?”

“Whatever the hell you want, you little shit.”

“Then I’ll call you Boss...”

He drew a circle around [Level:22].

“Well, you’d have this one too, Boss...”

This time, he circled [LV:1].

“This one. You’re asking about this one, right...?”

It was actually the other way around, but I kept my expression under control and nodded gravely without a word.

“I got this one... after defeating the big goblin. I actually landed the last hit.”

“... Explain in detail.”

“When I defeated it... a message saying ‘Legendary Venture!’ appeared, and I got a second level. All my stats went up by five, too...”

“...”

“Oh, when I press this, it says ‘First to Slay a Mutant Goblin.’”

“...”

I was speechless.

What I’d thought was my level all this time wasn’t actually a level.

Legendary Venture. A legendary adventure. Apparently, I’d earned five achievements without even realizing it.

Thinking about it, that did make sense.

No matter how many goblins I killed, my level hadn’t budged, only to go up by one at the most random moments.

But what pissed me off was, why wasn’t I being notified?

It wasn’t like I’d turned off app notifications. Why wasn’t it telling me? Why was I the only one who had to learn how his Status window worked from other people?

“When did you get your regular level?”

“Well... after killing a goblin in the grass when we first left the clearing?”

“... Really? Hang on a second.”

I knew something was seriously wrong, but I couldn’t be sure until I checked for myself.

With trembling hands, I opened my Status window and pressed firmly on the empty space beside [Name: Kim Junho] [LV:5].

Messages flooded my vision as though they’d been waiting.

[The disparity in standing between you and the monster is too great. You cannot gain experience.]

[The disparity in standing between you and the monster is too great. You cannot gain experience.]

[The disparity in standing between you and the monster is too great. You cannot gain experience.]

[The disparity in standing between you and the monster is too great. You cannot gain experience.]

[The disparity in standing between you and the monster is too great. You cannot gain experience.]

[The disparity in standing between you and the monster is too great. You cannot gain experience.]

[The disparity in standing between you and the monster is too great. You cannot gain experience.]

...

The wall of messages continued all the way down.

A splitting headache made me press a hand to my forehead without realizing it.

The regular levels and stats everyone else got.

There was only one reason I alone couldn’t get them.

“Fuck...”

[Regression], with its fancy EX rank.

It was all because of this motherfucker.

A Word from the Author (Author’s Afterword)

The truth, finally revealed after fifteen chapters...!

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