Chapter 1 · 14 min
Chapter 1
Infinite Skill Copying with EX-Grade Interpretation Chapter 1
It had already been hundreds of years since the Tower appeared in the world.
That enormous structure, soaring as though it would pierce the heavens, was both a blessing and a curse to humanity.
The monsters that poured out of the Tower ravaged civilization, but the mana stones and byproducts harvested from their corpses ushered in a new golden age for mankind.
People praised those who entered the Tower and risked their lives fighting, calling them ‘hunters.’
But beneath those dazzling lights, there was always a deep shadow. Guys like me were that shadow.
Bottom-of-the-barrel lives with no talent, no background, not even any luck when it came to awakening.
There was always debris left behind on the battlefields hunters swept through.
Tiny mana stone fragments they had failed to collect, discarded equipment, materials abandoned because they were worth too little.
We picked those things up and sold them, scraping by from one day to the next.
People called us ‘scavengers.’
A derogatory name given to us because we picked through the scraps of battlefields like rats rummaging through leftovers.
It was no different from being treated like garbage, but what could we do? If you wanted to survive in this damned Tower, you had to have sold off your pride along with the mana stones long ago.
─Click.
I scraped the floor with the tip of my dagger and picked up a mana stone no bigger than a fingernail. Judging by its dull color, it would barely cover the cost of today's meal.
“If I'm going to pick stuff up anyway, isn't there anything bigger?”
With practiced movements, I combed through every corner.
Beside the slimy traces left where a monster had melted away, a chipped dagger was lying on the ground.
“Interpretation.”
[Activating the ability ‘Interpretation.’]
When I activated my ability, information about the dagger was faintly engraved into my mind.
[Worn Dagger]
─A crudely made dagger.
‘Garbage, just as I thought.’
It looked like some newbie who had come in yesterday had gotten exhausted and thrown it away.
Floors 1 through 10 of the Tower were the section commonly known as the ‘Newbie Zone.’ The monsters were low-level, so there were plenty of idiots who charged in barehanded without even properly equipping themselves.
It was also a place where beginners entered full of dreams, learned the cruelty of reality, and most left as corpses without ever learning how to properly use a weapon.
I had once been just like them.
I thought I would become a hero too. But the wall of talent was high. While others made names for themselves by cutting down monsters, I had to pick up mana stones from between the spit and bloodstains they left behind.
“Hey! Lee Yeonwoo! Aren't you going to hurry up and clean this place out? Is it not enough that your ability is garbage? Are your fingers crippled too?”
As my thoughts wandered for a moment, a harsh voice came flying from behind me.
When I turned my head, a fat man wearing leather armor soaked in the stench of sweat was grumbling.
Mr. Park. A typical rat who had been crawling around this business for years.
“Bullshit... Like your awakened ability isn't garbage too.”
Instead of answering, I snorted.
He wasn't wrong. There wasn't a single person with a respectable ability among the people doing this kind of work.
Because the world of hunters was a cruel class society where everything was decided the instant you awakened.
Strong abilities with high growth potential guaranteed a bright future along with invitations from guilds, while failures like us could only wander the lower floors and barely scrape together a living.
“A few mana stones again today, that's it. How are we ever supposed to save money like this?”
Another man beside Mr. Park spat and muttered.
“Exactly. It's this hard just getting from the third floor to the fourth. I'll probably never even see the ninth-floor boss in my life.”
“Of course. If you can't kill the ninth-floor boss, you can never go higher. They say it's a completely different world up there. The major guilds have taken over, so people like us can't even go near it.”
The structure of the Tower was straightforward. Every ten floors, a powerful boss monster stood guard, and unless you overcame it, you couldn't advance to the next level.
The lower floors, with their low barrier to entry, were crawling with failures like us, but the floors above were privileged territory enjoyed only by a chosen few.
“If only my parents had been hunters too. Ha, things would've been a little easier.”
“Idiot. How much better do you think it'd be even if you inherited a decent ability?”
“Even if you inherited one, they'd all be about the same anyway.”
Abilities could apparently be inherited genetically, and the more generations they were passed down through, the more proficiency accumulated, making them even stronger.
In other words, the world was only a decent place to live if you had bloodlines and talent.
For someone like me, the first in my family to awaken, living like this forever with nothing to my name was simply the truth of this city.
“Hey, I've been thinking about something.”
At that moment, Mr. Park spoke in a secretive voice. Vile greed settled in his eyes.
“What if we just rob the guys coming down from the upper floors?”
“What are you talking about?”
“What do you think? Exactly what I said.”
The air froze for a moment. I stared at him blankly.
“Honestly, isn't that faster than picking up mana stones? If we just catch one exhausted hunter at the right time...”
“Don't talk crazy.”
I cut him off flatly. Mr. Park raised his eyebrows and growled.
“What? You need money too. Stop pretending to be righteous. All we'd have to do is stab one of those guild youths in the back...”
“Fuck off, dumbass.”
Without hesitation, I raised my middle finger at him. This wasn't a matter of good and evil. It was a matter of survival.
“It's not about pretending to be righteous. If you've got a brain, use it. What happens if we mess with guild youths and a major guild starts hunting us down? Or if they put bounties on our heads? Then it won't be mana stones we'll have to hand over. It'll be our lives, you brain-dead bastard.”
The deeper you lived in the shadows, the more important it was to know which lines not to cross. The moment we crossed that line, we stopped being rats and became prey.
I couldn't believe he was enough of an idiot not to understand even that...
Getting involved with lunatics like these would obviously only shorten my lifespan.
“Forget it. If you want to commit suicide, do it by yourself. Let's just say goodbye here.”
I turned around and walked out of the passage.
If I stayed exposed to this disgusting atmosphere any longer, I felt like I would go insane too.
Still, I'd basically come up empty today, so I was thinking I should at least search another sector before leaving.
─Thk.
Suddenly, my side burned hot and went numb.
I saw a dark-red liquid spreading below my field of vision.
A penetrating wound. The worn dagger I had picked up and tossed away earlier was buried deep in my side.
“Huh...?”
“Y-you bastard... Who the hell do you think you are, acting all high and mighty? Hurts, doesn't it? You pathetic asshole.”
I heard Mr. Park's voice. His eyes had already lost all reason.
“You crazy... bastard... You think this'll be fine...”
“If you die here, won't everyone just think a monster killed you? We should get rid of the witness beforehand, right?”
“Yeah, this actually works out. Let's call it practice beforehand.”
I already knew they were lunatics, but these bastards were genuinely out of their minds.
─Crunch!
The dagger twisted once more.
The agony nearly made my eyes roll back, but I clenched my teeth, pulled the cheap harvesting knife hanging at my waist, and swung it.
─Slash!
“Y-you fucking bastard!! My eye!! My eye!!”
Maybe because I'd swung so quickly, the blade grazed near his eye.
Unfortunately, it didn't seem to cut very deep, but I had no time to check.
I immediately started running.
I want to live. No matter how miserable and shitty my life is, I refuse to let it end at the hands of trash like them.
─Tat-tat-tat!
And sure enough, angry footsteps came chasing after me from behind.
“Get him!! If that bastard gets out and reports us, we're finished!! Kill him no matter what!!”
I had lost too much blood. Every time I ran, it felt as though life itself were leaking out through my side.
How long had I been running like that? As I fled, I somehow found myself cornered at the edge of a sheer cliff.
A cliff behind me, murderous rats in front of me.
“Got you, bastard... Huh? As if you could get away from us.”
“Heh heh, hey, get on your knees and beg. Maybe we'll spare you then, right?”
I knew perfectly well they weren't the kind of men who would spare me just because I begged. Men who had already decided to kill someone weren't going to show mercy.
At that moment, my damned miserable life flashed before my eyes like a revolving lantern.
At rock bottom until the very end... It was so unfair I could almost cry.
But.
“Since... it's come to this.”
I squeezed out the last of my strength and raised my middle finger toward them.
“Rather than let bastards like you kill me for nothing, wouldn't it be a hell of a lot more honorable to end it with my own two feet? Fuck you, you morons!”
The moment I finished speaking, I threw myself backward.
Even as I fell, I spat toward the idiots staring at me with dumbfounded expressions. The violent wind battered my eardrums, and I quietly closed my eyes.
Until the final moment, there was only one thing I could see.
‘What are these things?’
It felt as though strange things were floating around me.
Something like worms was crawling across the wall.
[The ability ‘Interpretation’ is reacting.]
[Language from another world discovered.]
[Attempting interpretation.]
.
.
.
[Unable to interpret]
[Your ability is insufficient to interpret something of a higher dimension.]
[Interpretation evolves.]
─Boom!
_____________
“...Uuugh.”
The metallic stench of blood and cold dirt pierced my lungs.
How am I alive? The question flashed through my mind, but the excruciating pain boring into my side immediately paralyzed my thoughts.
I should have fallen off the cliff, yet somehow the body I'd thrown down fully expecting to die was still alive.
“Ha, haha...”
Suppressing a hollow laugh that threatened to burst out, I clutched my side.
Something hot gushed between my fingers. My desire for revenge forcibly dragged my survival instinct to the surface.
I'll get out of here alive somehow. And once I do, I'll put the exact same holes in those bastards' sides.
But the moment I raised my head after swearing revenge, I was left speechless.
“What the hell is this...?”
Spread out beneath the cliff was an enormous canyon. And the walls and floor of that canyon were completely covered in bizarre symbols.
At first glance they looked like scribbles, but they shimmered while emitting a strange energy.
It happened at that moment.
[The ability ‘Interpretation’ is reacting.]
[Interpreting languages from another world.]
[Interpreting.]
[Interpreting...]
[Interpretation proficiency has increased.]
“Ugh...!”
Pain surged through my head as though tens of thousands of needles were being driven into it.
My ability went berserk on its own and began indiscriminately scraping together information from my surroundings. I clenched my teeth to keep from screaming.
Soon, the hazy characters became clear sentences and burned themselves into my vision.
[I want to live. I want to return home to my younger siblings...]
[Those fucking knights. I found the treasure first.]
[I should've lived a better life. If I'd known I'd die in a pit like this.]
Words I had never seen before. Yet somehow, I could read them.
“These are all... last words?”
As though entranced, I began walking. The farther inward I went, the more desperate the sentences became, and the colder the air grew.
Deep within the canyon, at its very end, I witnessed an unbelievable sight.
Dozens of corpses.
Some had long since become skeletons and crumbled into powder, while suits of armor that had decayed under the passage of time lay everywhere.
The Tower had appeared only a little over a hundred years ago. Yet the things scattered around this place wore the garb of knights that looked as though they belonged in a fantasy novel from hundreds of years ago.
And from there, I thought I could hear something... something like voices.
Slowly, I listened to those voices.
And interpreted the words burrowing into my mind.
[Recognizing the souls of the knights.]
[Interpreting the souls.]
‘Interpreting souls? That's possible?’
It felt completely different from the Interpretation I knew.
Originally, all it could do was read objects or writing.
And now it was interpreting souls.
What the hell was this... Before I could even finish that thought, something began appearing before my eyes.
[Interpretation complete.]
[Interpreting the memories engraved upon the souls.]
─Boom!
It happened at that moment.
Something enormous burrowed into my mind and began mixing together in chaos.
Knights.
Scenery from the medieval era.
And battles.
Their experiences.
All of it began spreading through my mind and into my entire body, until finally.
[The knights' experiences are being engraved upon your body.]
The moment those words appeared.
[You have acquired the skill ‘Regeneration.’]
[You have acquired the skill ‘Light Footsteps.’]
[You have acquired the skill ‘Grip Enhancement.’]
[You have acquired the skill ‘Flexible Body.’]
[You have acquired the skill ‘Perception.’]
[You have acquired the skill ‘Presence.’]
[You have acquired the skill ‘Trained Body.’]
[You have acquired the skill ‘Hard Claws’...]
[...acquired.]
[...acquired.]
.
.
.
“Uh, uh... huh?”
I couldn't continue speaking.
Skills...?
Even veteran hunters supposedly couldn't obtain skills because they were unable to elevate decades of accumulated experience into them.
And I was getting them?
I became so overwhelmed that my body started trembling.
And it wasn't just one. So many skills that I couldn't even count them on one hand began pouring into my body one after another.
This isn't a dream, right?
Yet as though proving this was real, I felt the pain in my side beginning to fade.
I lowered my gaze.
“Ha, this is actually real?”
[Skill ‘Regeneration (D)’]
─Increases physical regeneration.
As though I had drunk a potion, the hole in my waist was slowly closing.
Seeing that, I knew instinctively.
This wasn't a dream.
“Holy shit.”
That was all I could say.
How could something like this happen?
But that wasn't the end of it.
Gulp.
At the edge of my vision were piled traces of battle, and atop them lay a hooded skeleton.
Above that skeleton, a pure-white sphere floated while giving off a faint glow.
My hand moved before I could even question it. As though pulled by a magnet, I touched the white essence.
At that moment.
[You have come into contact with the soul of the assassin, ‘Nameless Shadow.’]
[The unique ability ‘Interpretation’ interprets the soul's memories.]
‘So it's the same as before.’
I smiled as memories flowed into my head along with the message saying they were being interpreted.
─Whoooosh!
A massive essence of memories scattered and seeped into my body.
Small waves of pain passed through me, and places I had never visited and sensations I had never experienced flashed through my mind like a panorama.
A man who suppressed his breath in the darkness and aimed for his target's heart.
An assassin who became all the more legendary because he had not even left behind a name.
Even the memories of the man who had entered this Tower to take the head of a knight commander, only to ultimately fall asleep here.
The instant the fragments of memory ended, a cold system voice rang in my ears.
[The interpreted soul awakens its latent ability.]
[The memories of the interpreted soul bloom within your body.]
[You have acquired the skill: Shadow Step (A)!]
─Effect: Conceals your body within darkness. Distorts the opponent's perception, allowing you to target enemies from within the shadows.
“...Holy shit.”
A hollow laugh escaped me.
A-rank. And that wasn't all.
That strange sense of incongruity I'd been noticing for a while.
Carefully, I looked down at the dagger embedded in the wound below.
[Worn Dagger]
─A crudely made dagger.
There are bloodstains on the tip of the blade.
Owner of the blood: Lee Yeonwoo
‘It's more detailed.’
The information it broke down, analyzed, and displayed was far more detailed than before.
The ability that had only been capable of interpreting languages I'd never heard before or interpreting objects well enough to tell me their names had taken another step forward.
‘How... No, could it be?’
But interpreting souls?
Elevating memories?
The ability I had used my entire life without it ever changing had transformed because of things from another world.
I knew instinctively.
This was the path I had to follow.
And the only power that could keep me alive.
“Ugh...”
Was it the result of taking in so much information and so many souls all at once?
A headache struck along with the exhaustion.
The pain kept pricking at my head, yet even so, a smile spread across my face.
Because I could feel that this very moment was the moment my life... no, my destiny was changing.
“Uuugh...”
I hadn't even stopped the bleeding, but it didn't matter. Now I finally had a proper weapon of my own.
I needed to get back up quickly. And then.
I slowly rose to my feet.
The shadows of the dark canyon wrapped around my body like living creatures.
When I activated the skill, my presence began disappearing from reality.
“You fucking bastards... Just you wait.”
It was time to make the trash who had tried to kill me experience the exact same hell.
Infinite Skill Copying with EX-Grade Interpretation
Author │
Gasi Dodeoji
Publisher │
Choi Won-young
Editorial Director │
Lee Ho-jun
Editor │
Jo Jeong-beom
E-book │
Park Han-sol
Published by │
D&C Media Co., Ltd.
Registration │
April 25, 2012, No. 20-260
Address │
Unit 1301-8, Kolon Digital Tower Villant 1, 30 Digital-ro 32-gil, Guro-gu, Seoul
Main Telephone │
(02)333-2513 Fax (02)333-2514
Email │
papy_dnc@dncmedia.co.kr
Homepage │
blog.naver.com/gnpdl7
UCI G720:N+A092-20261014100
*This book was published by D&C Media Co., Ltd. (Papyrus) under a contract with the copyright holder, and its contents may not be used in any form or by any means without the permission of the company and the author.