Published at 8th of May 2019 7:29 pm

Chapter 99: Dwarf of Steel (1)

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Deep in a forest in Golan Park.

Huff. Huff.

I could feel my extremely heavy breathing. My stamina was low even though I have not been moving that much. It is because of this really rough terrain. The mountain slopes were all steeper than 45 degrees and full of boulders and trees to avoid.

I’ve already been walking this type of path for half a month. Golan Park is the mecca of leveling up, so there are a lot of people, but this area is desolate because it is a really isolated area of Golan Park.

I climbed up on top of a boulder and looked around.

‘Over there is Elephant Mountain, that is the Falcon Boulder, that is the General Boulder. That should mean that down there is Allan Creek. It should be around here.’

It lined up perfectly with the locations in the draft plan.

Now I just needed to wait.

I walked down toward the bottom of the creek.

It was going to take more than just a couple of days, so I built a small tent. Afterwards, I put out the female fox fragrance I prepared outside of the tent.

And then the waiting began.

Shadow Foxes only move in the night anyways.

I roamed the area hunting monsters by day and arrived before dark to wait for the Shadow Foxes.

Once it become completely dark, I came out of the tent to wait. I was trying to make it easy for the Shadow Foxes to attack me. That was the only way to make the Shadow Foxes take the bait.

Late at night on the sixth day.

‘I can’t fall asleep.’

I tried biting my lips and widening my eyes to push away the sleepiness, but it just kept coming back.

‘Just when are these things going to appear? Are they even really here?’

Not everything in the draft plan was carried over to the game. It is just a draft after all.

If this did not carry over to the game, I just wasted all of this effort for nothing.

But I had already put in so much time and effort for this.

‘Let’s just wait four more days. I need to at least fill ten days.’

Anyways, I can’t let my guard down. Shadow Foxes are really skilled in, ‘Stealthy Approach,’ meaning that it would be difficult to notice them approaching even if I was fully alert.

Furthermore, they have an attack that is deadly. This attack is the reason it is really difficult to hunt Shadow Foxes.

But I have at least three trump cards.

First is Dragon Fear. I hunted quite a lot of monsters on my way here. Thanks to that, my level was exactly 300, and I successfully raised my magic to 70.

Second is The Unicorn Horn Flute.

But both the Dragon Fear and Unicorn Horn Flute are useless if I am asleep. I needed to remain fully alert.

I tried my best to prevent my eyes from closing as I looked around.

Suddenly.

Swiiiiiiish-

The darkness suddenly surrounded me. It was so dark that even I could not see in front of me with the Owl’s Eye.

‘Shadow Foxes! It’s here!’

But I recognized it too late. The moment I noticed the deep darkness, there was an impact that shocked my entire body.

Pow!

“Ugh!”

At the same time, I heard an ominous voice in my head.

The strong attack of the Shadow Foxes!

I was hit by the, ‘Dark Force.’ It is a skill that gathers all of the darkness in its body to shock the opponent. It also ignores any of the opponent’s defenses.

The result is stun.

This is the reason humans can’t hunt Shadow Foxes. No matter how high your level is and how good your equipment may be, you can’t avoid the Dark Force.

If you are caught you will definitely become stunned, and you will be a punching bag until the stun disappears.

This is the reason Elves and Dwarves can hunt the Shadow Foxes. The two tribes have the endurance stat and can easily get out of the stun status.

That is my last trump card. That is also the reason I was confident that I could hunt the Shadow Foxes.

In addition, I also have the reinforced toughness. The attack should impact me less than any other person. The Dark Force ignores defenses, but it cannot ignore my reinforced toughness because it is a stat.

I soon heard a welcoming voice.

Once the stun was removed, my stiff body became loose again. Of course there was still the aftereffect, but it was still enough to pick up the cutlass and swing.

But I did not move. I pretended to still be stiff from the stun.

I just moved my eyes to look around.

‘Over there!’

I did not see a fox. But I did see a fox-like shadow blob.

There was no way to describe it other than a shadow blob. It felt like a blob of darkness was moving around.

Around 5m in front of me. The size was the size of a cow.

The Shadow Fox should be hiding underneath that shadow blob. The draft plan said the size of the Shadow Fox was about the size of a wild boar.

I thought about using the Dragon Fear, but that was my last trump card. Even if it is the same Dragon Fear, there will be a difference when I use it compared to when the Bone Dragon used it.

In addition, the Shadow Fox is at least level 300. Using it at the wrong moment can make the Shadow Fox run away without achieving any result.

The Shadow Fox did not rush. It just watched me as if it was trying to verify that the Dark Force worked.

I was waiting for the perfect opportunity. I continued to act like I was stunned.

After feeling that its attack had succeeded, the Shadow Fox flung its body toward me. It was a quick and sharp attack.

Swiiiiiiiish-

At the same time, I grabbed my cutlass and swung.

‘It should be around here?’

The Shadow Fox seemed to be completely shocked. It stopped the attack and quickly changed directions to run away. It was as cautious as Chief Kobbit.

But I was a bit faster. No, I should say I successfully aimed for the moment the Shadow Fox let its guard down.

I could feel the end of my cutlass hit something.

The noise of a fox soon followed. (TL: What does the fox say…)

Whimper-

But it will not be over until it was dead.

I swung the cutlass again. There was less than 0.3 seconds of a difference between the first and second attack because I used Drake’s TBSA.

I felt something at the end of the cutlass one more time. I’m confident I landed a good hit.

Thanks to that, I could feel the Shadow Fox slowing down. I can’t verify for sure while just staring at the shadow blob, but I feel like it is staggering.

‘The final hit!’

I continued my combo and stabbed my cutlass toward the spot that seemed to be the middle.

Stab-

It felt right once more.

At the same time, the shadow blob started to get weaker and I could finally see the real body of the Shadow Fox. I didn’t even need to use the Dragon Fear.

It wasn’t the size of a wild boar, but it was still pretty big for a fox.

It was still staggering.

I stabbed the cutlass into its neck and made sure it was dead.

‘Huuuuuu, can’t believe it was this hard to hunt a single one. This is the end of the Shadow Fox hunt.’

I sat down and started to skin the fox.

It really is a unique type of leather. It was still letting out blobs of darkness even though it was dead.

I will be able to use this ability when I turn it into a leather armor.

I’m already getting excited just thinking about it.

‘It’s time! On to the Dwarf Village!’

***

I could see multiple animal skulls hanging on trees.

It was a warning sign. Starting from here is the Dwarf territory. ‘Stay away.’

I was starting to feel a bit nervous. I had the introduction letter from Bachu and Pichu, but the Dwarves are a really rough and aggressive race. I really don’t know what might happen.

Furthermore, the introduction letters do not guarantee 100% that I will not die. But I needed to go. There are too many things I need to earn from the Dwarf Village. I also have something other than the introduction letter to protect my life.

I started to walk once more.

The Dwarf territory was really wide. The terrain was really rough as well.

I guess it makes sense since this is the border to the human territory. I walked like that for around two days. I suddenly heard a weird noise in my head.

It is a message from the temple that only people with, ‘Guard,’ points can hear.

I quickly checked the coordinates.

‘It’s nearby!’

It seems to be about 3 km from here.

I quickly started to move. Of course there was a desire to monopolize the monsters coming out of the Demon Cave, but more importantly, I wanted to meet a dwarf. Since the Demon Cave information was announced, someone should definitely appear to clean up the monsters.

The terrain was rough, but it was not much issue for me. Once my agility passed 1,000, I could run across rocky terrains and dense forests like the wind.

I ran across the 3 km in an instant and arrived by the Demon Cave.

As soon as I got there, my eyes became extremely wide.

‘Wow! A Golden Alligator!’

It looks pretty much the same as the Midnight Black Alligator. The only difference was that it was a bit bigger and golden in color.

Of course it was harder to hunt than the Midnight Black Alligator.

But you hunt the Midnight Black Alligator around level 170. With my level at 300, this was not a very difficult opponent.

This was also not a Demon Cave. It was a rough mountain path with sharp rocks and large trees. There were too many obstacles for the Golden Alligator to move freely.

There were also many monsters nearby to serve as stepping stones.

I need to hurry if I want to get rid of it before the Dwarf hunters arrive.

I grabbed my BachuPichu Twin Blades and ran toward the herd of monsters.

***

Crackle – Crackle –

My bonfire was burning well.

Next to it was alligator meat on wooden skewers starting to sizzle.

‘Wow. I get to try Golden Alligator meat.’

You can’t eat most monster meat. But every so often, there are ones that are edible. Golden monsters in general tend to be edible.

Among the golden monsters, the Golden Alligator meat is said to be one of the top class meats. If you are lucky, it is said to even raise your magic.

I turned the meat on the skewers around and continued to skin the Golden Alligator hide.

‘Why is this so difficult?’

The side of the Golden Alligator hide was already damaged. Each hit created a large injury because I was using high level combos.

But it was almost impossible to skin this thing without using the strength of my combo. No matter how much strength I put into it, I couldn’t even cut it 1cm.

At this rate, it is going to take a couple months just to skin this thing.

‘Whatever, give up!’

It was a bit disappointing, but my time was worth more. If I earned money instead of skinning this thing, I can even earn enough to buy 10 Golden Alligator hides.

Of course Golden Alligator hides were not easy to buy.

I heard a loud voice from the side at that moment.

“Human! Why is a human here?”

“Is it a crazy person?”

I turned my head.

I could see a group of dwarves. There seemed to be around 15 of them.

‘But is he a dwarf as well?’

People think that the Dwarves are a short race.

But in reality, they are not that small. They just have really broad shoulders and their lower body is short compared to their developed upper body. That is why they feel short.

They are actually about the same height as humans.

But that one was different. He was at least three heads taller than the rest of the dwarves. In fact, he seemed more like a troll than a dwarf.

Thanks to him, I could not see any of the other dwarves.

It made me think of a name.

‘Is that dwarf perhaps……?’

“Isn’t that a Golden Alligator?”

“Did that human hunt it?”

“Impossible! It was a super large Demon Cave. How can a human hunt all of those monsters and the Golden Alligator as well?”

“His level must be high.”

The Dwarves were talking amongst themselves.

At the same time, they were approaching me and seemed to be trying to surround me. It was as if they were trying to hunt me instead of the monsters.

I need to be alert. With my current strength, I will not be able to win against the Dwarves.

I needed to make the first move in a time like this.

“Are you the Great Patriarch Bangart-nim’s son Goonto?”

The dwarves all flinched. They all then looked toward the troll-like large dwarf.

The large dwarf put some strength into his eyes as he asked.

“Do you know me?”

I subconsciously started to smile.

‘He really is Goonto! The Dwarf of Steel!’

End

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Translator : Miraclerifle

Proofreader : Borderline Masochist

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