The reason he was looking for the mage was simple.
'If my theory is right...'
He needed to confirm whether the conclusion he'd drawn in the Penalty Zone was correct. THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD! The knights were charging at him ferociously. Calmly, Jin-Woo stepped on the shoulder of the nearest knight and launched himself into the air. That gave him a full view of the interior.
'Where's the mage?'
...Found it! There was a mage not too far away.
'Just as I thought!'
What he had witnessed earlier was correct. He hadn't seen it wrong. Back when he was surrounded by knights and could barely extend a single hand outward, Jin-Woo had glimpsed something through that narrow gap that defied all common sense.
'...'
It was the mage, endlessly muttering and casting something. A mage chanting a spell. At first glance, it seemed like nothing out of the ordinary. But Jin-Woo had felt a strong sense of something being off.
'Then why...'
Had not a single spell ever been fired? The attacks came exclusively from the knights. The mages kept chanting their spells but never actually completed them to exert any power. Except for that one time — when he had used the Gaze of Detection skill to dispel concealment. And at that moment, the movement of the nearby knights had stopped. At first, he thought they had stopped because their target had vanished. But while hunting the giant centipedes in the Penalty Zone, he had belatedly realized an important fact. Around the eighth one, maybe? It was when the Level Up message appeared after killing a centipede and he clenched his fist.
[Level Up!]
His stamina had been fully restored. But after that brief joy, a nagging feeling of something being wrong followed.
'If Level Up is this easy, then why didn't I level up in there?'
The System had said it would block the recovery effects of leveling up, not that leveling up itself wouldn't happen. In fact, he had gained five levels on the way to the boss room. Yet during the job-change quest alone, no leveling occurred — even though he had survived six minutes and destroyed nearly a hundred knights. Mages who didn't use magic. Knights who gave no experience points. The moment he stopped thinking of the strange behavior of these two groups separately and placed them on the same page, a certain possibility flashed through Jin-Woo's mind.
'Could it be...'
Could it be that the knights there were all fakes? The reason every knight had stopped when the mage used the Gaze of Detection skill — it wasn't because the mage had vanished, but because the casting had been interrupted.
'If my theory is correct!'
He had to verify it now. Jin-Woo ignored the knights reaching for him and ran toward the mage, stepping on their heads and shoulders along the way.
'...!'
He could feel the mage panic upon noticing him. The casting accelerated. The knights, who had been attacking without rhyme or reason, were now converging around the mage to protect it. His hunch was turning steadily into certainty. Thud! Jin-Woo landed in front of the mage. And without a shred of hesitation, he drove the short sword in his right hand straight through the mage's heart.
'Rend!'
Thwock! The mage silently dissolved into black smoke and vanished.
[You have slain a mage.]
And at the same time — RRRRUMBLE — hundreds of knights that had been charging at Jin-Woo collapsed all at once. Like puppets with their strings cut. The knights crumpled to the ground were nothing more — and nothing less — than armor without a master.
'That was the answer!'
Jin-Woo shouted silently in triumph. He had finally found the answer only after barely surviving death multiple times. The knights meant nothing. The ones controlling the knights were the mages. Slaying them was the objective.
'The very first kill with Knight Killer was a mage...'
Jin-Woo let out a wry laugh at the sight of the lone robe left behind. He had enough composure to laugh now. But there was no time to keep lounging around. The quest wasn't over yet. THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD. The ground rumbled. Jin-Woo turned around. A mass of knights had already gathered around him, black as night. It meant there were other mages somewhere else commanding them. The knights lunged at him. Jin-Woo's right hand moved so fast it was nearly impossible to make out its form. Shlk! The knights nearby were sliced clean through in a straight line. Jin-Woo's eyes went wide.
'Wow!'
The 2.8 million gold had been well spent.
The blade of Knight Killer pierced and cut through the knights' armor as easily as paper. It probably wasn't just because of its serrated edge. True to the item description — a short sword designed specifically for anti-knight combat — Knight Killer radiated a powerful magical force.
'Shop weapons aren't bad, huh?'
That was a bit different from popular perception. Generally, people thought of shop-bought weapons as a last resort when you couldn't find anything decent.
'This means gold can't be ignored either...?'
At the very least, they looked far superior to Hunter-exclusive weapons. At the same time, the idea crossed his mind that he could buy weapons from the shop and resell them to Hunters for a hefty profit. Unlike consumables, weapons didn't have any restriction on transfer attached to them.
'Focus, focus.'
This was no time for idle thoughts. The knights charged ceaselessly, never taking a break. Shlk! Shik! Jin-Woo dodged left and right, carving them up in chunks. But.
'This is never going to end.'
Even if he glanced away for a moment, far more knights were already closing in than the ones he had cut down. Skth! Another knight lost its head.
'I need to find the mages.'
Jin-Woo stepped on the shoulder of the headless knight before it could fall and leaped upward once more.
'Concealment!'
Ssssss. Jin-Woo's form grew hazy. Of course, the point wasn't to hide himself. What Jin-Woo was aiming for was—
[A mage has used 'Skill: Gaze of Detection'.] [A mage has used 'Skill: Gaze of Detection'.] [A mage has used 'Skill: Gaze of Detection'.]
Ding! Ding! The warning chimes rang from every direction, piercing his ears. Jin-Woo hopped across the tops of the knights' heads and quickly identified where the eye-shaped marks were located.
'Total mages: five.'
Jin-Woo targeted the nearest one first.
'...!'
The moment Jin-Woo turned, the mage hastily pulled knights to its side — but Shik! 'Kasaka's Fang' left Jin-Woo's left hand and flew in a straight line, striking the mage dead center in the forehead. Krk!
[You have learned 'Skill: Dagger Throw'.] [You have slain a mage.]
Rumble. Another several hundred knights collapsed.
'Four left!'
Jin-Woo stepped on the knights' heads and shoulders, advancing toward the next target. Glance. Jin-Woo's eyes shifted to Kasaka's Fang, which he had not yet retrieved. Time to use his new skill.
'Touch of the Ruler.'
Jin-Woo extended his hand toward the fallen Kasaka's Fang, and as if pulled by a magnet, the short sword flew back to him on its own.
'Nice!'
Jin-Woo snatched the Fang. No more need to retrieve each short sword individually — his movement was optimized. In the next instant he arrived in front of the next mage.
'...!'
Before the mage could even attempt anything, Jin-Woo cleaved it at a diagonal.
[You have slain a mage.]
Knights collapsing. Now fewer than half the knights remained. The tide had turned. Jin-Woo's eyes gleamed.
'Three more.'
Sensing the danger, the mages began clustering together. And it wasn't just the mages. The knights they commanded were bunching up with them as well. Right after, the mages began chanting. Their eerie voices echoed through the cavern, and soon a single spell was completed. Crrrk, crrrk. The numerous knights guarding the mages started crumpling as though pressed in an industrial forge. Then they merged and were reborn as a single massive iron golem, glaring at Jin-Woo. OOOOOH—
'This is no joke!'
Jin-Woo gasped in genuine admiration at the overwhelming pressure radiating from it. But he wasn't scared. After surviving so many brushes with death, rather than tension, he felt excitement. Boom, boom, boom! Every time the golem took a step, the ground shook. It was an imposing sight. WHOOOSH—! The golem swung its fist, and Jin-Woo dodged by lowering his stance. Krk! Just from a grazing blow, the pillar behind Jin-Woo was cracked in half.
'Well, it's terrifying, all right...'
Jin-Woo grinned. If he hadn't known its true nature, he would have been beside himself wondering how to deal with such a monster, but now there was no dilemma whatsoever. GRAAANK—! When the golem brought its interlocked hands down to smash the floor, Jin-Woo didn't retreat — he activated Sprint and charged forward. Then, sliding—! In the blink of an eye, he slipped right between the golem's legs. While the golem fumbled around, Jin-Woo arrived in front of three mages who were defenselessly chanting away.
'...!' '...!'
The mages' shoulders trembled in panic.
'Checkmate!'
Jin-Woo flashed a winning smile. People said stick together and you survive, scatter and you die — but this time it was different. Bunching up had only made them easier to clean up. Jin-Woo swung the two short swords in his hands freely.
[You have slain a mage.] [You have slain a mage.] [You have slain a mage.]
The three mages dissolved into black smoke, just like their companions. The golem, which had been desperately trying to grab Jin-Woo, crumbled back into scattered pieces of armor. But Jin-Woo did not let his guard down.
'Is it over? Or is there another...?'
On guard against any unexpected development, he heard a chime. Ding. Jin-Woo swallowed hard. But contrary to his fears, the System announced the quest's conclusion.
[All monsters inside the Trial Room have been slain. Job-change quest is now complete.] [Your class will be determined shortly.] [Based on the promotion points you have earned, you may advance to a higher-tier class.]
Only then — only then — could Jin-Woo finally let out a sigh of relief.
"Hah."
It had been a brutal fight. If he had been fixated on the Instant Return Stone until the very end, he never would have realized how to fight these quest monsters.
'He would've just been waiting for a chance to escape.'
In some ways lucky, in other ways unlucky — losing the Instant Return Stone had forced him to focus entirely on the battle itself. The result was an overwhelming success. Now it was time to collect his reward. Jin-Woo's gaze moved to the timer.
[04:29:16]
The timer's numbers were frozen. He had survived a full four hours and thirty minutes. But that wasn't all. In a quest that only required him to survive, he had killed every monster and ended the quest outright. His heart started to race thinking about how many points he would receive and what class those points would afford him.
[Analyzing the Player's record to assign a fitting class.]
'Good.'
If the class was determined by his actions so far, there was no risk of being stuck with a mismatched class and suffering through it. Music to his ears.
[The Player's presence is forever accompanied by the breath of the Reaper. Corpses pile along the Player's path, and the stench of blood lingers in the air.]
...The wording was a bit over the top, but thinking about it, he really couldn't argue with any of it.
'Even if it was just for leveling up...'
He had gone into instance dungeons and bashed monsters until leveling was no longer possible. In Dungeons, he had hunted down even the last hidden beast and put it down. And while unintentional, he had also fought Hunters on multiple occasions. Reaper, corpses, the stench of blood.
'No matter how you interpret it...'
It looked like he was being locked into the Assassin class, just as he had initially predicted.
[Furthermore, the Player yearns for great power, relies on no companion, and carves a path with strength alone.]
Nod, nod. Jin-Woo generally agreed with the System's assessment.
'After all, I've never had a reliable companion in the first place.'
But he didn't immediately grasp why this was being mentioned in the aptitude analysis for his job change. The System's explanation continued.
[Your yearning for power is so powerful that it can draw forth the restless dead wandering the valley of death. And the army of the deceased who obey your command will carve a path for you alone, without anyone else's help.]
'...An army of the deceased?'
Only then did Jin-Woo sense that something was going terribly wrong. But—
"Wait!"
Before he could even voice his protest, he had no choice but to listen as the System delivered its result in its usual, impassive tone.
[Your class is 'Necromancer'.]
"...What?"