novelraw Chapter 214 : Status Ailment (3)
Chapter 214 : Status Ailment (3)
Chapter 214: Status Ailment (3)
The pace of the raid picked up.
Places that already had a set answer—namely, those with countermeasures for status ailments—were no longer a problem.
Sophia didn’t worry out of caution or concern about the possibility of delays.
She trusted Sanghyun, and because of that, everything passed without a hitch. She even yawned midway.
With Sanghyun’s consent, Sophia carefully organized the raid content.
It was something they had already discussed, and Sanghyun didn’t particularly mind.
Anyway, if you raid with someone, you have no choice but to reveal your skill repertoire.
So writing down what skills were used in which situations didn’t feel like a heavy burden.
In fact, he thought it could be an appealing point to the Nobility Guild.
And considering Frederick Villain’s personality and principles, he wasn’t the type to go blabbering about it.
It might become a valuable reference material for him.
Since Sanghyun held the majority share in the strategies being compiled, the profits would also be favorable.
Then it happened.
There was a slight shift in what had been a smooth march toward the ghost slaughter battle.
A completely different type of monster appeared, as if acting as a mid-boss gatekeeper.
Its name was Stone Killer.
As the name suggested, it was a golem in the form of a rock. However, this one had no prior data.
“Will you be okay?”
“A swordsman only judges after crossing blades. Whether it’s okay or not—we find out then. Let’s go!”
But Sanghyun charged at the Stone Killer without any hesitation.
What he had just said was also his usual mindset when entering dungeons or gates.
In the end, you can’t know anything until you fight. Even information is only obtained through combat.
Unless you’re planning to ignore the Stone Killer and walk past it, there’s no avoiding a fight.
He opened the attack with Full Bash.
As he closed the 15-meter gap in a flash with a straight charge, the Stone Killer flinched and froze.
Sanghyun’s position had suddenly become so close it was as if time had jumped.
Of course, that moment of surprise was short-lived.
With its solid body, it wasn’t about to fall prey to a petty intruder.
However—
Pow!
“Ugh…?”
The moment Sanghyun’s Full Bash hit, the Stone Killer felt a change in its body.
It was Stiffness.
And not just brief—it was a complete immobilization, leaving it wide-eyed and helpless.
“Wow, it’s just a chunk of rock, huh?”
Sanghyun chuckled.
He hadn’t expected Full Bash’s stiffness to work, but the resistance was surprisingly low.
It seemed to be specialized purely in physical defense.
For something like that, basic swordplay would take forever, but it went down easily with skills.
Of course, its basic durability—its stamina—was high, so it would still take some time.
He didn’t waste his strength needlessly.
The creature wouldn’t go down from a few pokes while stiffened anyway.
So he waited patiently for the status effect to wear off, looking for the next appropriate move.
After 3 seconds of stiffness, 1 second of freezing followed.
He tested physical attacks during the freezing, but the Stone Killer remained unaffected.
“So stiffness and freezing aren’t the triggers.”
He continued testing further.
This time, to test Silence, which only activated on the fourth consecutive use of Full Bash.
Since the Stone Killer clearly had low skill resistance, he casually stuck one hand in his pocket.
Sophia, watching from behind, was momentarily shocked.
She was worried something unexpected might happen, as the Stone Killer had that kind of intimidating presence.
“Yaaawn…”
Time flowed with a yawn.
After experiencing the hellish 4-second stiffness and freezing combo four times—that’s a whopping 16 seconds—
Pfft!
Silence was triggered on the Stone Killer.
And then—
Crunch! Crack! Smash!
Sanghyun saw cracks spread across the Stone Killer’s entire body.
So without thinking twice, he struck with the flat of his blade. There was no need to even use a skill.
Crackkk!
And just like that, the tough and massive-looking Stone Killer crumbled like a sandcastle.
Sanghyun looked back and smiled.
“Stone Killer goes down with Silence. Make a note. The dumb rockhead bows to Silence, got it.”
The strategy ended far too simply.
Sophia nodded with unfocused eyes, as if entranced, while organizing the notes.
But right then—
Sanghyun gestured into the air.
A dark red aura began swirling, and then the dead Stone Killer was visibly being reassembled.
It looked as if time had rewound and the Stone Killer was returning to its original form.
Undead Revive skill.
Since all the battles had focused on ghosts until now, he hadn’t needed to use it—but this was its first activation.
The effect was clear.
The Stone Killer that had just faced him came back exactly as it was.
It consumed a significant amount of mana, and the skill continuously drained 1 mana per second.
It would be a lie to say there was no burden at all, but since he had ways to restore mana, it wasn’t a big concern.
And if managing the mana ever became too difficult, he could just abandon the skill.
It wasn’t like there was a contract of eternal servitude with the minion or anything.
“Wait a second. Did you just use a necromancy skill? Is there even an Artifact like that? I mean, how is this…?”
Sophia couldn’t hide her shock at the sight unfolding before her.
Necromancy was an extremely dark and obscure type of magic—even among mages.
It was incredibly hard for ordinary magic-user players to tap into necromancy.
You’d have to choose the dark mage path from the very beginning and reach the depths of darkness to even come close.
But Sanghyun wasn’t that kind of mage—and more than that, he was a swordsman focused on physical combat.
For someone like Sanghyun to use necromancy was like calling someone a slender obese man or a handsome ugly guy.
The traits were so contradictory that coexistence should’ve been impossible.
“Yes, I happened to acquire the skill by luck.”
“This is absurd.”
“I think that from time to time myself.”
Sanghyun joked lightheartedly.
Thanks to the great Artifact he obtained from the Ashtaroth Dungeon, he could now wield abilities like this.
By securing high-level dungeons early, and gaining the first-clear or rare probability rewards—
He gained a level of distinction that others couldn’t even compare to.
If one didn’t have the ability or connections to challenge them, it was something they could never even dream of.
However, Sanghyun had been able to enter the Ashtaroth Dungeon thanks to his abilities and connections, which was how he came to use the Undead Revive skill.
Meanwhile, Sanghyun picked up the reward that had dropped where the Stone Golem had fallen.
It was a talisman.
A silver-grade talisman—one that could easily be dismissed as junk by anyone who saw it.
Since he already knew he could reobtain it later, Sanghyun casually tossed it toward Sophia and said,
“Want this talisman? It dropped from the Stone Golem.”
Sophia checked the talisman.
But the moment she read its options, any sense of desire vanished.
Despite its underwhelming effects, the talisman came with the condition that no other talismans could be equipped while using it.
“No, I’m good. Not that I’d ask you to use it, Sanghyun, but still—you should keep it.”
As expected, the talisman came back to Sanghyun.
Sophia, completely uninterested, focused on jotting down the details of the battle just now.
In the meantime—
Sanghyun turned naturally, beginning his talisman meal.
The forced single-slot talisman restriction meant nothing to him. He could just eat it, right?
‘F**k.’
Sanghyun swore internally when he saw the materialized form of the food.
Probably because the Artifact came from the Stone Killer, the food was made of stone. He had to eat rocks.
‘Is this even possible…?’
There was no time to hesitate.
Time didn’t stop while he ate the materialized food.
To Sophia, it would just look like Sanghyun zoning out for a moment.
So if it took too long to eat, it might look extremely unnatural.
‘Screw it.’
Sanghyun shoved the bowlful of rocks into his mouth without hesitation.
It wasn’t actual eating in the literal sense. The texture and feel were real, but it wasn’t actual stone.
So he decided to force his way through it.
Even if some of his teeth cracked or his tongue tasted like rock, he had to chew or swallow it somehow.
“Ugh…”
As he chewed, as his tongue touched it, and as he breathed—he was overwhelmed by the indescribable, musty smell unique to rocks.
Still, he managed to finish the meal, and the previously useless talisman’s effects were reborn meaningfully.
『Breath of Nature - Stone』
■ Skill Level: Stage 1 (0.0%)
■ Skill Description: Use mana to camouflage yourself in the form of a stone.
Rock Golem-type monsters may perceive the skill user as one of their own and fail to recognize their presence.
However, this does not transform the user into an actual rock—only their appearance resembles one.
‘Not bad. For a situational skill, it’s quite fitting.’
Sanghyun looked pleased.
With this skill, he could deceive monsters like the Stone Killer.
That meant he could eliminate them unilaterally—achieving a clear strategic advantage.
“Let’s go! We’ve come pretty far—if we don’t hit any big obstacles, we might even reach the end.”
Sanghyun strode confidently ahead, leading Sophia.
Holding the master key of various status ailments, the gate raid wasn’t difficult at all.
What had been hellish for other players was, for Sanghyun, a showcase.
At that moment—
“Hoo… Hoo…”
Under a single light illuminating only the center of the training room, Shin Taeri was training amid the dim glow.
Normally, she trained alone and never allowed outside spectators, but today was an exception.
Jo Jinho was there.
He was one of the few people Shin Taeri interacted with casually within the guild.
The other was Kim Miso, who was currently overseas.
Lately, she'd been focused on dungeon raids, and it had been a while since she’d contacted Kim Miso.
As Shin Taeri walked toward the observation area to catch her breath, Jo Jinho handed her a towel and said,
“You’re such a maniac. Twelve hours a day—just doing repetition drills. Don’t you ever get tired?”
“I don’t want to be a sloppy assassin. I don’t want to look vulnerable.”
“What’s been lighting that fire in you lately? Is it Shin Sanghyun?”
“Well… yeah.”
Shin Taeri nodded.
She had always taken pride in her assassin skills—at least until she met Sanghyun.
But after meeting him, after he saw through her gaps and dismantled her techniques, her mindset changed.
She realized she was still an incomplete assassin, full of flaws that needed fixing.
And Sanghyun was the first to ever make her feel that way.
What made it even worse was the objective level difference between them.
He was significantly lower-level than she was—and yet she had shown him her weaknesses.
Even considering how outstanding his skills were, it still stung.
‘We promised to spar regularly once a week…’
They had definitely made that agreement.
But for some reason, Sanghyun hadn’t contacted her lately.
Why? Was he just busy?
Or did he think there was nothing more to gain from her, so he was distancing himself?
Part of her wanted to see him again, to spar with him, to show how she had changed.
But there was also a strange emotion mixed in—one she didn’t quite understand.
When she thought of Sanghyun, her heart would race.
What was that feeling?
Shin Taeri wanted to know.