The power granted by the item 'Orb of Avarice' buff was extraordinary. Hwuuuk. Tusk drew in a massive breath, so forceful that the air around it turned momentarily cold. Kuuuuuu— it sprayed a colossal pillar of fire left and right, melting the enemies.
[You have defeated a Supreme-rank demon.] [You have earned 1,700 experience points.] [You have defeated a High-rank demon.] [You have earned 2,200 experience points.]
.
.
[You have defeated a Supreme-rank demon.]
Messages of slain enemies and experience gained scrolled endlessly upward. The ding, ding of the mechanical chime continued without pause for quite some time. Jin-Woo smiled.
'Incredible!'
Tusk stopped attacking—its mana must have been depleted. A single attack had evaporated most of the demons that had charged in a swarm, but a few lucky ones had escaped the flames. Jin-Woo had the shadow soldiers handle those. Tutututu—over a hundred shadow soldiers rushed out in perfect formation, and watching them from behind, Jin-Woo finally felt like a true 'Shadow Monarch.'
[You have defeated a Supreme-rank demon.] [You have defeated a Supreme-rank demon.]
The satisfying messages continued. Jin-Woo hadn't lifted a finger and had used only the shadow soldiers to wipe out every monster. Without question, the MVP was Tusk.
'That Tusk...'
Jin-Woo turned his head back—more precisely, toward the space behind and above him. The High Orc shaman turned mage, grown to giant proportions, and the 'Orb of Avarice,' scaled up to match his body, came into view. The Orb of Avarice was an item that doubled the damage of any spell its wielder cast, simply by being in their possession. It more than compensated for the nerf Tusk's power had suffered upon becoming a shadow soldier.
'I'll keep the Orb of Avarice on Tusk for now.'
Jin-Woo had limited options—despite it being magic-based, he had no skills that could benefit from the amplification effect. He opened his skill info.
[Extractable shadow count: 127/820] [Storable shadow count: 127/155]
'Shadow Extraction, Shadow Storage, Monarch's Domain.'
None of them were affected by the Orb of Avarice. The only way to increase the number of extractable or storable shadows was to raise his Intelligence stat. Jin-Woo closed the skill info. Thk, thk, thk. The soldiers who had finished combat gathered before Jin-Woo one by one. Looking at the mountain of demon corpses, Jin-Woo's lips curled upward.
'So many demons means so many items dropped.'
Ding, ding, ding. This time, item acquisition messages flooded upward in an endless stream.
'Got everything I need.'
Jin-Woo smiled as he collected the items one by one, and after finishing the gathering, climbed atop 'Tank,' the Ice Bear magic beast soldier. The item needed to progress to the next floor—the 'Entry Permit'—hadn't dropped yet. That meant more monsters to hunt. Jin-Woo gave the order to move.
"Giddy-up!"
Tank began to amble forward, and the shadow soldiers all fell in behind Jin-Woo.
***
'It's inefficient to move the entire army as one.'
He felt that keeping all 120 shadow soldiers bunched together wasn't efficient. If each individual were weak, maybe—but his existing soldiers had leveled up enough to hold their own against the demons. On top of that, the magic beast soldiers from the A-rank Dungeon had now joined the shadow army. Naturally, the overall quality of the soldiers had risen dramatically.
"Keeeeek!" "Kee-yah!"
[You have defeated a Supreme-rank demon...] [You have defeated a Supreme-rank demon...]
With the soldiers' combat power having jumped so dramatically, the time spent traveling between monsters now exceeded the time spent fighting them. The problem was that a single floor of the Demonic Castle was vast enough to rival an entire city.
'This will never end at this rate.'
Jin-Woo divided the soldiers into six squads of twenty and sent them out in all directions to hunt. He gave two orders:
'One: Kill every enemy you see.'
'Two: Notify me if you find a floor Entry Permit item.'
He couldn't communicate precisely with the soldiers, but simple signals were possible. Since the soldiers couldn't pick up items, he'd have to go get the permit himself. He'd have to leave behind every item other than the 'Floor Entry Permit,' but his priority right now was to reach the top floor as fast as possible.
"Move out."
On his command, the six squads scattered in different directions. And some time later—
[You have earned 1,500 experience points.] [You have earned 1,500 experience points.] [You have earned 900 experience points.] [You have earned 1,100 experience points.]
Experience began raining in from every direction.
'The shadows must have started hunting.'
Jin-Woo smiled with satisfaction at the climbing experience. But soon, he noticed something odd.
'The experience coming in has decreased?'
Since moving to the upper floors, he hadn't encountered the Low-rank, Mid-rank, or High-rank demons he'd frequently seen on the lower floors. The most common monster now was the Supreme-rank demon, with the occasional High-rank demon mixed in. A Supreme-rank demon gave 1,700 experience. The High-rank demon, one tier above, consistently gave 2,200. But the experience trickling in now fell far short of that.
'Could it be that experience gained decreases the farther away the soldiers are?'
Jin-Woo watched the experience messages scroll by without pause. The amount was shrinking—little by little, but steadily. The distance between him and his soldiers definitely affected the experience gain.
'Good to know.'
This was a fact that would have been hard to realize without the Demonic Castle dungeon's unique system of displaying experience information. He also felt vindicated about not sending soldiers off separately on the lower floors—fighting monsters directly had sharpened his combat instincts, and he hadn't missed a single 'Demon's Soul' quest item. Still, the reduced experience didn't sting too much.
'The per-kill experience has gone down, but...'
On such a large hunting ground, efficient monster farming meant his total experience intake had actually increased dramatically. Even now, experience messages were pouring in. With the situation like this, the leveling progress that had stalled after his first battle was reignited.
[You have leveled up!] [You have leveled up!]
Jin-Woo clenched his fist.
'Nice.'
It was a little painful to leave items behind...
'I'm catching two rabbits with one stone—leveling up and clearing floors at speed.'
Jin-Woo looked at his level, which had jumped up by two full levels in an instant, and felt deeply satisfied.
***
The plan was working. He'd climbed to the 80th floor much faster than expected. The moment Jin-Woo arrived at the 80th floor, he summoned his soldiers again. Srrk. 199 soldiers appeared all at once. Each had been hunting monsters separately and gaining experience, so their levels had climbed steeply as well.
'Huh? Tank leveled up ten times without me even noticing?'
Jin-Woo's eyes went wide. Seeming pleased by its master's attention, Tank—who had just reached level 28 the day before—stood on its hind legs and let out a 'vooo' toward the sky. Jin-Woo wasn't the only one benefiting from the efficient hunting. He grinned.
"Alright, let's go!"
He divided the soldiers into six squads and sent them off as before, then set out alone. He was used to moving solo and didn't need the soldiers' help. If he excluded Tusk—the one shadow soldier with the Orb of Avarice buff—he was confident he could defeat every other shadow soldier combined. But...
'What if I included Tusk?'
Hmm... Adding Tusk to the mix would definitely be interesting. Still, it was an impossible fantasy.
'Was it about a week ago?'
Once, as a joke—or perhaps as an experiment—he had ordered a shadow soldier to attack him. It was the first time a shadow soldier had refused his command.
'I don't know if it's loyalty or some other force at work, but...'
In the end, the shadow hadn't moved. Well, as their commander, it wasn't exactly an unpleasant result. But...
'Why can't I see any demons?'
Jin-Woo tossed and caught 'Baruka's Dagger,' which he'd retrieved from storage, searching for any sign of monsters.
'Should be around here somewhere...'
Jin-Woo looked around. He could definitely sense presences nearby, but no monster was visible. When had this happened before? Hadn't he experienced something like this once already? Back then, the ground had trembled a few times before a mound of earth suddenly erupted upward.
"Hehehe." "Kihhihi—"
Three High-rank demons burst from the ground simultaneously, surrounding Jin-Woo and letting out unpleasant laughter. Jin-Woo scowled. Seeing this, the demons concluded their prey was frightened and one after another thrust their gaping maws toward his head, all trying to claim the most delicious part first—the human's head. But the prey leaped into the air, spinning once—and before Jin-Woo's feet even touched the ground, the demons' heads had already fallen to the floor. Tuk. Tuk.
[You have defeated a High-rank demon.] [You have defeated a High-rank demon...]
"Ah."
Jin-Woo clapped his hands together. When was it? The last time he'd run through a C-rank Dungeon with Yoo Jin-Ho.
'The Stonemen had hidden underground like this before popping out.'
His expression, momentarily darkened by the forgotten memory, brightened. It felt like a weight had been lifted. Jin-Woo cheerfully collected all the items from the monster corpses and continued walking. But after just a few steps, he stopped.
"..."
Jin-Woo's gaze was fixed downward as if nailed to the ground. Staring at his feet, he spoke.
"So why aren't you guys coming out?"
Whether the tremor had been caused by the demons or by something else, no one could tell anymore.
***
Jin-Woo couldn't easily leave the 80th floor.
'Are there strong ones somewhere?'
Another squad had turned into shadows and returned to him—Jin-Woo had recalled them because they were taking so much damage, cycling between destruction and regeneration beyond what their mana could sustain. This was a first. From the 76th to the 80th floor, the split-up-and-hunt approach had been working at peak efficiency across those four floors.
'Is it because High-rank demons are too tough?'
From the 80th floor onward, High-rank demons had replaced Supreme-rank demons as the main threat. High-rank demons even used tricks like hiding underground. Still, they didn't seem powerful enough to corner his soldiers like this.
'And another thing...'
There was something else strange. Every squad that had been attacked was one without a captain-level soldier. The squads with Tusk, Igrit, Iron, and Tank were fine—only the two squads lacking captain-level soldiers had been targeted.
'Are they deliberately picking off the weaker squads?'
If so, that meant there existed monsters intelligent enough to identify their opponents' weak points. Strong and smart. Whatever they were, they were certainly troublesome. Four squads remained—or five, if he counted himself.
'If they've figured out the soldiers' movements, the next target is obvious.'
The instant Jin-Woo reached that conclusion, his figure vanished.
=