Chapter 35

Contractor.

By definition, it literally means someone who has made a contract.

This was why people with superhuman abilities that appeared alongside monsters were called Contractors rather than awakened ones or ability users.

Contractors all made contracts with certain beings and borrowed their power and abilities.

Depending on who they contracted with, they could become warriors, mages, or ability users with unnatural powers after contracting with non-human entities.

This was why Seo Chang-hoon chose to bring a pool cue despite having access to many other items that could serve as spears.

[The spear master reproaches you for not being able to find a better weapon]

The being he contracted with was a warrior who used spears.

They say he created his own unique spear style called Four Principles Spear Method after being inspired by the lost Four Principles Sword Method, making his name known in the martial world. While the truth of that was uncertain, one thing was clear – the Four Principles Spear Method required a thin and light spear.

Swoosh!

Along with the sound of cutting wind, the pool cue shot forward.

Though aimed to pierce the eye, it only managed to leave a slight scratch near it.

“Kwiiik!”

Seeing the orc charging with a roar, Seo Chang-hoon grit his teeth.

When he first made the contract and gained martial arts and internal energy, everything felt fun and amazing. He felt like he’d become the protagonist of novels he enjoyed reading and thought he could easily defeat monsters to gain wealth and fame.

However, the moment he faced actual monsters, he realized just how naive those thoughts were.

Tremble.

Hands shaking beyond his control, legs that felt glued in place and wouldn’t move.

Even if it wasn’t human, he never knew targeting someone’s life, having his own life targeted, could be so terrifying.

Though he gained internal energy, spear techniques, footwork, and mental techniques through the contract, that was all.

He gained spear techniques but not the experience to properly utilize them, gained footwork but not the courage to stand firm against life-threatening attacks, gained mental techniques but not the enlightenment to freely control internal energy.

Though he could somehow deflect attacks using internal energy and the mysteries of the Four Principles Spear Method, that was his limit.

“How dare you, being just a beginner monster!”

Rogers, who had contracted with a holy knight, was gaining the upper hand while swinging his faintly glowing sword, but couldn’t land a decisive blow due to his weapon’s limitations. When Seo Chang-hoon unconsciously looked around for someone else to help, the orc’s eyes turned red as it charged.

“Keeeeek!”

Seeing the axe falling toward his crown, Seo Chang-hoon instinctively squeezed his eyes shut sensing death.

Swoosh!

“Move!”

At first he didn’t realize the words were directed at him and kept his eyes closed.

But hearing the next words, Seo Chang-hoon realized they were meant for him.

“Open your eyes and move!”

The axe stopped just a paper’s width from his crown.

Finally noticing the vines firmly binding the orc’s forearm, Seo Chang-hoon took a step back then immediately lunged forward.

Sun Wheel First Appearance.

Hitting an immobile target was easy enough.

Looking at the orc collapsed on the ground spewing bloody foam, Seo Chang-hoon let out a relieved sigh and turned his head to thank Yuseong who had helped him in that difficult situation, only to freeze at a sight completely different from what he’d imagined.

* * *

After confirming the orc in front of Seo Chang-hoon had fallen, Yuseong swung more vines to snag the ankles of the orc fighting Rogers and trip it.

“Human! You dare!”

Were they enraged at his seeming to pay attention elsewhere, or angry at being unable to inflict even a scratch despite attacking in numbers?

While the reason wasn’t clear, the orcs were definitely charging more fiercely.

However, even before this fierce assault, Yuseong remained completely unscathed.

‘So slow.’

Though he couldn’t know exactly how much power stats of 99 could demonstrate, one thing was clear – he could handle orcs with plenty of room to spare.

‘Come to think of it, even with agility of 27 I didn’t feel outmatched in speed, and now it’s increased fourfold, so getting hit would be strange.’

Though agility increasing fourfold didn’t mean he could move four times faster, all speed-related abilities like internal force, reaction speed, and thought speed had increased noticeably.

Even without using Asura Perception Way, he could dodge attacks from orcs without much difficulty.

‘Got a feel for agility, now…’

Crack!

“Kwiik!”

Using Flash Step to instantly get inside, he struck with Rock Piercing.

While the orc was momentarily distracted seeing its companion fly back with a chest caved in like it had been hit by a hammer, Yuseong followed up with Snake Shadow technique.

A light Mist Kick shattered leg bones while Rock Piercing pierced through soft flesh to skewer the throat. However, despite instantly taking down two orcs, Yuseong’s expression was subtly rigid.

“They don’t die easily.”

Though they received fatal wounds, they didn’t die immediately.

This was natural if you thought about it.

Unless you had strength far beyond common sense, instantly killing something with simple strikes was harder than expected. In terms of lethality, weapons were far more efficient than punches or kicks.

Of course, that condition only applied to normal people.

Crack!

Getting inside and using Tree Twisting to instantly snap the neck.

Shadow Moon Style 16 wasn’t martial arts or combat sports but Security Bureau killing techniques made purely for actual combat. When showing no mercy, taking a life wasn’t particularly difficult.

“Phew, are you hurt?”

“N-no!”

Looking at Lee Ha-young who had been snippy earlier but now stood at attention to answer, Yuseong tilted his head. He couldn’t understand why she suddenly became so disciplined after he’d protected her from charging orcs.

‘Is she shocked from seeing real monsters for the first time?’

Nodding in rough understanding, Yuseong spoke to Seo Chang-hoon who was staring at him blankly:

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You’re much stronger than I thought.”

“Compared to people on NewTube I’m nothing special. Don’t praise me unnecessarily. And instead of admiring me, you should reflect. How could you look away when there’s an enemy right in front of you?”

“Sorry. It’s my first real combat so I was flustered. I’ll be more careful from now on.”

Seeing him even bow his head to apologize, Yuseong felt it awkward to scold further and turned to Rogers. He planned to praise the only one who had pulled his weight in this fight, but seeing him muttering something while looking down at the dead orc gave him an ominous feeling.

“Hmm, possible.”

“……”

Not wanting to know what exactly was “possible”, Yuseong quietly turned away to ignore Rogers.

“Um, what do we do now? I read posts saying there are magic stones somewhere in their bodies, do we need to dissect them?”

“I heard orcs don’t have those. We just need to sell the corpses.”

“T-then do we have to carry them?”

“Hmm, if I’d known this would happen I would’ve brought a truck.”

“Let’s just leave them.”

“You want to just abandon what we worked to kill?”

Meeting the bewildered gazes of the two, Yuseong calmly continued.

“I looked into it, and normal orcs don’t have magic stones or particularly useful body parts, so they don’t sell well and prices are low.”

“But we can still sell them, right?”

“We didn’t come all this way just to kill one orc and go back, did we?”

“I-I want to go back now…”

Seeing Lee Ha-young’s weak protest, Yuseong desperately continued persuading.

He couldn’t end the hunt with just this since he needed to find monsters that could plausibly have gold coins and magic stones.

“Besides money, you also need to get used to fighting monsters. I was able to help this time, but I won’t always be able to help you. If you want to fight monsters together or alone in the future, wouldn’t it be better to gain more combat experience?”

Hearing those words, Seo Chang-hoon and Lee Ha-young firmly decided to continue hunting.

They instinctively realized how valuable it was for them now to be able to safely gain experience while protected by a powerful being.

“First, shall we change your weapons?”

* * *

As the number of battles increased, the group quickly grew accustomed to fighting, making their awkward performance in the first battle seem like a lie.

While it would have been impossible for normal people, these were superhumans.

As beings who could demonstrate power and abilities surpassing human limits through supernatural forces like internal energy, holy power, and magic power, once combat experience accumulated and fear and hesitation decreased, they could handle orcs without much difficulty.

Bang! Bang!

While Rogers drew aggro from the orcs by wrapping his body in holy power to buy time, Seo Chang-hoon steadily thrust his spear to take them down one by one.

Sometimes orcs would lose aggro and ignore Rogers to charge at Seo Chang-hoon, but Lee Ha-young interfered with their movements. Though she couldn’t cut their bodies or deal fatal blows, just creating strong winds to momentarily disrupt balance or sending debris around their eyes was more than effective enough.

Soon enough, the six orcs were laid out on the ground.

“Looks like we can handle this level easily now.”

“It’s all thanks to your help. Thank you so much.”

This wasn’t just empty words – Yuseong had truly helped devotedly so the three could get used to fighting. He created 1-on-1 situations with wounded orcs so they could safely gain experience, suggested formations suitable for their group, and taught ways to better utilize their abilities.

Naturally, from their perspective, they couldn’t thank him enough.

“Ahem.”

Of course, since Yuseong had provided care not out of pure intentions but for the impure purpose of preventing them from fleeing in terror from combat, he couldn’t help feeling somewhat guilty.

“By the way, how far are we going? We’ve come quite deep, shouldn’t we head back soon?”

“We’re almost there.”

“Almost where?”

“Ah, I meant let’s look around a bit more.”

After covering up his accidentally slipped words, Yuseong carefully moved forward while looking around.

‘These humans are strong! We can’t defeat them! Call the warrior!’

Words from a dying orc.

While ordinary people would only hear pig squeals in orc sounds, Yuseong with his ‘Primal Language, Babel’ skill could interpret orc language, and from their conversations he learned there was a being called a warrior nearby.

‘A warrior-class should plausibly have gold coins or magic stones, right?’

After changing locations several times based on the orcs’ words, Yuseong finally found the orc warrior as planned. Now he just needed to defeat it and casually act like he discovered a pouch containing gold coins and magic stones.

Just one step remained to reach his goal.

“…Doesn’t that one look really strong?”

“……”

The orc warrior had a body half again larger than other orcs and was accompanied by over ten followers.

That final step seemed a bit difficult.