Chapter 2

Infinite Skill Copying with EX-Grade Interpretation Chapter 2

Before the blood had even cooled.

The two rats rushed toward the corpse as though they had been waiting for this moment.

They were so consumed by greed that their eyes already had the look of beasts. Their hands busily began rummaging through the bloodstained pockets.

Weapons, bracers, mana stone pouches.

One by one, the items that still retained their owner's warmth fell into their greedy hands.

In the end, they had lured a hunter descending from the upper floors into a trap and killed him. They had waited until his mana was depleted and his strength had run out.

They were so excited that they scattered evidence everywhere, caring only about their spoils.

What consequences their actions would bring, what future awaited them... They didn't seem to have the brains to consider such things in the first place.

“Haha, yeah! I told you this was the way, didn't I? One big score can change your life, right?”

“This really was the right answer. We shouldn't have bothered suggesting it to that idiot. He would've just been dead weight anyway.”

“Seriously, what use is a guy whose only ability is a garbage skill like Identification? Good thing we killed him.”

The two chuckled as they checked the mana stones inside the pouch.

But apparently that wasn't enough to satisfy them, because their eyes burned with even greater greed.

“Hey... Wanna catch just one more? Seems like a waste to stop after only one.”

“Hmm...”

“We've already killed one, so what's the difference if we kill two? Once we finish collecting this stuff... we can leave this shitty city, and nobody will ever know.”

“Should we? Doesn't sound bad.”

The two rats were still living in a dream rather than reality.

Unaware that their dream was about to turn into hell.

─Slash!

“Fuuuck!!”

“What?! What the hell?!”

In an instant, blood burst from both men's eyes simultaneously.

Clutching their faces, they realized what had happened only after it was too late.

Something had slashed their eyes. Without a sound, without the slightest trace of a presence.

From where? Who had done it?

Only then did terror wash over them.

In the silence, where not another sound could be heard, only a few extremely faint footsteps echoed.

And then.

─Slice!

“Aaaaaagh! My leg!”

His leg had been severed.

And as though that weren't enough, a thin red line continued down to his heel, which was sliced open in an instant.

─Swish!

“Aaaagh!”

“Which bastard is it?! Stop hiding and come out! ──Gack!”

The attacks did not stop.

Little by little, ever so slowly, their limbs were cut apart.

As each tendon was severed, even their hope of escape was mercilessly cut away.

Eventually, they fell to their knees.

“You son of a bitch! What did we ever do to you?! At least say something!”

─Click.

At that moment, the footsteps stopped in front of them.

“Did you miss me, you fucking bastards?”

“Huh...?”

“L-Lee Yeonwoo? You... How the hell...?”

A familiar voice reached them through the pitch-black darkness that had consumed their vision.

The moment they heard it, their entire bodies began trembling like aspen leaves.

They had definitely sent him falling off the cliff. He should have been dead.

Yet here he was, alive and well, dragging them down into the abyss.

There was no way this bastard had possessed such power in the first place──.

But reality was merciless.

As though he had no intention of waiting for an answer, Yeonwoo merely moved the hand holding his dagger.

“Guh! Gack!”

The men screamed and swung their arms wildly, but their resistance struck nothing but air.

The dagger slipped between their flailing arms like a ghost, slowly but surely severing the threads of their lives.

─Thud.

At last, their necks twisted sideways.

They could no longer move.

Yeonwoo looked down at them for a moment.

“Huff, huff... Fucking bastards.”

He was completely out of breath.

Even though he had done nothing but attack them one-sidedly, he was exhausted to the point of death.

If he hadn't acquired the Shadow Step skill, he probably wouldn't have been able to deal with them so easily.

Being invisible was, in itself, an overwhelmingly powerful advantage.

At that moment, something flashed through his mind.

─Crackle!

[Experience has accumulated for the skill ‘Grip Enhancement (F).’]

[The skill has advanced to ‘Grip Enhancement (E).’]

─Your powerful grip can even shatter stone.

‘Well, I suppose it was bound to improve.’

After all, he had climbed all the way back up that cliff with nothing but the determination to take revenge on those bastards.

It would've been impossible not to accumulate experience.

Having never possessed a skill before, he hadn't known, but thanks to this, he had learned something.

Skills could eventually evolve as well.

‘So this is why hunters are so strong.’

He felt as though he had taken one step closer to those who lived in an entirely different world from him.

Once his thoughts settled and his head cooled, his gaze naturally began to wander.

“Haha...”

He discovered another corpse lying beside the two rats whose bodies were slowly growing cold.

It was the hunter they had killed. Resentment and terror remained mixed together on his stiffening face.

So you really went through with it, you idiots.

What was done could no longer be undone.

As though offering a brief moment of mourning, Yeonwoo closed the dead man's wide-open eyes. That was all he could do for him.

And then.

“Well, I still have things to take care of...”

With a sigh, he placed his hands on the corpses sprawled across the ground.

Those who were still alive had to keep living, didn't they?

More importantly, the wound from being stabbed earlier was still there.

If he didn't treat it, he would be in danger himself.

“Let's see... These bastards really did have a potion hidden away.”

As if proving just how thoroughly greed had driven them mad, an ampoule containing shimmering blue liquid was tucked deep inside their clothing.

He had noticed it when they reached into their clothes despite panicking under his attacks.

He immediately removed the cap, drank half, and poured the remainder over the hole in his side.

The bleeding stopped, and his vision, which had been blurry from blood loss, gradually began to clear.

Once his body felt a little better, he carefully collected the remaining items.

[Using the ability ‘Interpretation.’]

[Interpreting the item.]

[Rosco Combat Knife]

─A knife bearing the touch of a master craftsman.

─The fingerprints of its previous user, Robien Behim, are present.

[Silver Guardian]

─A new-model wrist-protection bracer. It has a small, recently acquired scratch.

─Standard defensive equipment belonging to the Aram Guild.

...

...

.

Every single item was of good quality.

Apparently, the victim had been a newbie belonging to a fairly respectable guild.

In fact, several of the items bore the guild's emblem.

‘I'll leave these out.’

Those greedy bastards had taken everything without considering such things, but I threw all those items away.

Taking something like that would only get me tracked down. Besides, even trying to dispose of them would be complicated and require more effort than it was worth.

While I was sorting through the materials and relics collected from the Tower.

─Thud.

─Clatter, clatter.

An object rolled out of the dead man's pocket.

A strange structure made of brass.

It had no particular decorations, nor was it shaped like something that could be used as a weapon. It was simply a collection of intricately interlocking brass rings.

I didn't know what it was, but something this elaborate would probably fetch a decent price.

I carefully picked it up, brushed off the dust, and was about to stuff it into my pocket.

─Crackle!

[The ability ‘Interpretation’ has activated.]

[Key of the Sage]

─The final key left behind by the last sage, ○○○○.

─Fragments of memories are contained within the key.

‘Fragments of memories?’

As the skill activated, previously invisible characters engraved upon the relic slowly began to emerge.

Then countless memories began forcibly pouring into my head.

[Interpreting the fragments of memory contained within the key.]

[I left the final workshop on the fifth floor. Until the age of oppression comes to an end, our wisdom shall not sleep within this place.]

A final workshop? Oppression? Research?

It was an unfamiliar combination of words, the kind rarely heard in everyday life. But I instinctively understood what they meant.

“Writing. Could this be? Just like before...”

Just as I had obtained a skill through the assassin's memories beneath the cliff, perhaps this relic would also lead to something?

─Gulp.

I swallowed nervously and looked at the brass object once more.

Just obtaining the Shadow Step skill had allowed me to overpower two grown men in an instant. If I could seize another extraordinary opportunity this time...

“I can change things.”

Perhaps I could put an end to this damned life and move on to somewhere better.

My feet began moving. My instincts were telling me that the choice I made now would become a turning point in my life.

And so I ran.

I had hardly ever gone beyond the third floor, known as the tutorial, but at this moment, all I could do was take one step after another toward the floors above.

─Tap!

_____________

‘It's been a long time since I came above the third floor.’

The moment I left the far edge of the tutorial section of the Newbie Zone, the air changed.

For starters, the density of monsters was different.

If the first through third floors were old battlefields filled with garbage and desperation, the scent of beasts began growing stronger from the fourth floor onward.

The goblins encountered here didn't wander around stupidly like those in the newbie area.

The way they held their weapons was different, and so were their eyes.

One careless move, and I'd quickly be surrounded and turned into a cold corpse.

But.

[Using the skill ‘Shadow Step.’]

I'm different now.

Using stealth to avoid the monsters' eyes, I carefully slipped behind one and drove my dagger down into its head.

─Kieeeek!!

Purple blood sprayed everywhere from the sudden attack, but I paid it no mind and kept attacking.

Until it died. Until it could no longer put up the slightest resistance, I continued driving my blade into it.

Eventually, perhaps because its health had run out, its battered body melted away like black liquid, leaving behind only a small gem.

“Phew, that's another one...”

Thanks to my newly acquired skill, I was finally able to hunt properly for the first time in a long while.

Without stealth, I would've had to confront it head-on, and if that happened, I wouldn't have been able to avoid getting injured.

To hunters with combat skills, it would be nothing more than a minor monster, but for Yeonwoo, whose offensive options were poor, even dealing with a single enemy took an eternity.

‘I really don't have enough firepower.’

I could feel that deficiency keenly. There were clear limits to a fighting style that relied on hiding and launching surprise attacks.

The moment I was discovered, or the moment I encountered an opponent that couldn't be killed in one strike, it would be over.

I needed to be extremely cautious.

‘Well, it doesn't really matter, since hunting isn't my objective this time anyway.’

The only reason I was climbing the floors now was to obtain the reward connected to the relic. In other words, there was no need to go out of my way to kill monsters.

And for that purpose, stealth was the perfect tool.

So I moved quickly while my stealth remained active, launching surprise attacks before it wore off.

I killed whatever I could handle, avoided groups that were too numerous, and made my way through the maze.

I had visited the fourth floor before, and even aside from that, I had heard plenty of stories about it, so finding my way was easy.

After passing through the fourth floor and setting foot on the fifth, the atmosphere changed once again.

────.

Silence. Unlike the fourth floor, which was centered around a forest, the fifth floor was a space littered with what appeared to be collapsed stone structures.

Beneath the smell of dust and ancient stone lingered traces of something old.

The scent of something that had lain dormant in these depths for a very long time.

“The fifth floor, huh? This is quite something.”

I let out a hollow laugh as I remembered the time I had climbed to the fourth floor with nothing but reckless determination, only to nearly get killed by a goblin and flee.

At that moment.

Bzzzzzzzz.

The brass structure inside my pocket began vibrating faintly.

The relic was reacting.

I took it out and followed the vibrations. Like a compass, the strength of its reaction changed whenever I turned in a different direction.

It was guiding me.

And the place the relic eventually led me to was... a wall.

A dead end.

No matter how I looked at it, it was just an ordinary stone wall of the Tower.

Yet the relic clearly pointed toward it.

This way.

Unconsciously, I reached out and ran my hand over the wall.

─Whoosh!

[The interpreted relic is reacting.]

At the same time that message appeared, characters began engraving themselves into the previously empty wall.

[The ability ‘Interpretation’ is activating.]

[Deciphering writing left by a sage of the labyrinth in the past.]

Yeonwoo traced the characters on the wall with his fingers, reading them one by one.

[You who have fled the persecution of light, prove your identity.]

“Hmm, persecution...”

At the end of the characters he was tracing with his palm, his fingers caught on a small indentation.

Proof of identity? Could it be?

[Key of the Sage]

─The final key left behind by the last sage, ○○○○.

He immediately brought the brass structure to the indentation.

Click. It fit perfectly, as though it had been made for precisely this purpose, and the relic quietly sank into the wall.

Then a strange sound, like machinery beginning to move, echoed out.

─Rumble!!

A tremendous vibration traveled up through the soles of his feet. The wall and floor shook together, and an enormous door slowly began to open.

It's opening.

The sage's workshop that no hunter had ever discovered.

I had opened it.

A smile spread across my face as I looked at the wide-open door and the dark staircase leading downward.

“Good.”

I stepped forward, one foot at a time. If I had obtained stealth from the assassin's soul, what would I gain from the sage's workshop?

As I descended the stairs, the Tower's characteristic rough cavern texture gradually disappeared, revealing an artificial space that had been shaped by someone's hands over a long period.

It was an old workshop.

A place that resembled both an alchemist's laboratory and a wizard's study.

The walls were packed with books and research records.

Ancient books that looked as though they would crumble if held, and research notebooks written in languages that couldn't be read in this world, stood in rows beneath layers of accumulated dust.

Naturally, I picked up the old notebooks and examined them.

[The ability ‘Interpretation’ is activating.]

[Interpreting the research notebook.]

[Magic-Inscribed Research Notebook]

─A copy of the magic researched by the sage.

─Due to severe damage, the research contents cannot be fully understood.

‘Magic, huh... There are an awful lot of formulas.’

The research contents visible among the interpreted characters and languages concerned magic.

However, just as the Interpretation description had stated, the damage was so severe that I couldn't properly understand what was written inside.

Magic existed in the city too, but seeing it researched like this for the first time felt strange.

“I guess I'll take it for now.”

My scavenger instincts reacted first.

Old books like these would probably fetch a decent price from a fence...

Besides, they might come in handy later, so there didn't seem to be any harm in keeping them.

And then.

─!!

Small, soul-like things began appearing before my eyes.

This was also similar to the knights' graveyard I had seen earlier.

Small souls approached me.

I gently brushed them with my fingertips and quietly took in their forms.

[Using the ability ‘Interpretation.’]

[Interpreting the souls of nameless scholars.]

[Their experiences are being engraved upon your body.]

‘Scholars, huh...’

I could feel something like the lingering resentment of those who had been persecuted and died here slowly embedding itself deep within my chest.

I closed my eyes and gathered my thoughts.

Gradually, the experiences that seemed to pierce through my entire body began settling into place.

And at the end, I faced the experiences quietly wrapping themselves around me.

[You have acquired the skill ‘Crude Mana (E).’]

[You have acquired the skill ‘Elemental Affinity (E-).’]

“Mana? What the hell is this...?”

A shiver ran through me at the word mana.

The mana I know?

I had heard that successful hunters used mana to activate magic skills.

Or that they used it to strengthen their bodies.

And now I'd been given something like that?

I was so astonished that my body gradually began to tremble.

‘It's faint, but I can feel it.’

[‘Crude Mana (E)’]

[Proficiency is 0.]

─Houses a small amount of mana within the body.

Just as the skill described, I could feel another kind of power within my body.

It was so small that I couldn't even describe it properly, but simply knowing that I possessed it made me incredibly happy.

I was moving forward, little by little.

It meant that I, too, could slowly advance like the hunters I had always wanted so desperately to become.

But this wasn't the end.

Traces of souls, as though trying to guide me, pointed toward a room.

A narrow room containing nothing but an old quill pen and a research desk. In its center, something pure white was slowly floating.

It was the same as what I had seen before.

A soul. Probably the soul of the sage who owned this place.

I extended a trembling hand.

─Tap.

─Whoosh!

[You have come into contact with the soul of the Sage of the Labyrinth.]

[The ability ‘Interpretation’ is interpreting the soul's memories.]

At that moment, an enormous flood of memories surged into my mind.

An enormous Tower.

Wizards who called it a labyrinth and lived within it.

Images of them establishing workshops, hunting monsters, and conducting research were engraved into my mind. Their faces as they laughed and cried whenever they completed a new spell.

And finally, the monster attack that came at the end, and the fall of the labyrinth.

─Snap!

The memories suddenly cut off, and sparks flashed before my eyes.

[The interpreted soul awakens its latent ability.]

[Latent experiences are being engraved upon your body.]

[You have acquired the skill: Weakening (B)!]

─Weakening (B): Greatly reduces the target's stamina and strength. A certain degree of the effect applies even to targets of a higher rank.

“...”

I remained silent for a moment.

It felt different from when I had obtained stealth. As though a new circuit had formed somewhere inside my body, I could feel an unfamiliar energy at my fingertips.

Simply hiding and launching surprise attacks hadn't been enough.

But now I could weaken my enemies. Wear them down while remaining hidden, then finish them off with a surprise attack.

A smile spread across my face.

“With this...”

I was certain.

From this damned hell of quotas, from the clutches of the debt collectors.

I could finally escape.