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After mysterious towers sprouted up all around the world, hunters awakened and supernatural powers like fire and ice, wind and light became mixed into daily life.
However, there were no dramatic changes when it came to methods of transportation. They couldn’t fly through the sky, freely move between buildings, or teleport like in movies or comics, despite being able to emit fire and electricity from their hands.
The terrain expanded as they climbed higher floors, making travel time considerable. Hunters had many complaints about not being able to move quickly inside towers and dungeons. It was in the midst of this that a skill for rapid movement appeared—the world’s first, no less.
The guild members who confirmed the skill acquisition notification perked up, forgetting their fatigue.
“Crazy.”
Samin unconsciously let out a rough word while reading the text in the skill details section.
[Notification: Viewing detailed skill information.]
[- Leaping Steps (A)
Advances to a location higher than the current position.]
Just like Kim Chansol had said, it was clearly a movement-type skill to anyone who looked at it. Just as Samin was about to use mana to test the skill, a sudden dull roar assaulted his eardrums.
*THUNK!*
‘What?’
The person who had been standing in front of him just moments ago vanished instantly. The ground where Doun had been standing was deeply dented, with only acrid dust and vine fragments scattering about. Panicked, Samin instinctively looked up at the sky.
“…Above?”
He muttered to himself as he looked up at the blue sky. Against the dazzling light that seemed to artificially imitate the sun, Doun was there.
Both of Doun’s eyes sparkled bright blue as if analyzing the skill. The faces of guild members watching from below as he floated leisurely in the sky, defying gravity, showed expressions of shock, joy, and excitement.
Doun moved as if walking through the air a few times, then suddenly lost his center and began falling toward the ground.
“Huh?”
“Doun-ssi!”
“Doun hyung!”
While the panicked guild members called out to Doun in urgent voices, Samin turned pale and ran straight toward him.
‘My hyung can’t get hurt!’
Unlike his own words about how getting bloodied, rolling around, and getting injured during conquests was part of hunters’ daily life, Samin reacted sensitively to each of Doun’s injuries and made a fuss. There was no way he would just leave Doun alone.
“Doun hyung!”
Doun, who had been plummeting toward the ground, looked at Samin. Among the various murmuring noises at different pitches, only Samin’s voice rang clear. Samin, whose eyes met his in midair, was running toward him. His face was quite a sight to see—completely drained of color.
‘Why does he look like that?’
Doun thought as the wind scratched his face. Even if he crashed straight into the ground like this, he’d only get some bruises at most, so why was Samin making that expression?
It was somehow cute that the guy who knew better than anyone that he’d be fine after drinking a potion or receiving healing was acting like this. A gentle smile completely devoid of any sense of crisis appeared on Doun’s face.
The moment Samin’s eyes met with Doun, who was smiling while looking at him, he felt a thrill.
Was it because the dustless blue sky spread behind Doun’s back was the exact same color as his panic-soaked eyes? It felt like the sky itself was pouring down toward him.
“Ugh…!”
Without time to savor his thoughts, he urgently had to catch Doun. Both arms that had safely caught Doun’s body tingled.
Though Samin always gushed about how cute he was whenever he got the chance, Doun was absolutely not petite by any stretch of the imagination. Despite his soft and gentle impression, he was a proper man who looked quite dependable when standing next to female hunters, who were inevitably smaller in frame.
“Are you okay?”
“I caught you, hyung.”
He murmured in a low voice and tightly embraced Doun, who had fallen right into his arms. If he had been even slightly late, this body would have been smashed into the soot-covered dirt ground.
To think he almost saw his precious prospective boyfriend getting slammed into the ground. His heart was throbbing all over.
“Thanks. It would have been fine even if you’d just left me alone.”
“What kind of nonsense is that? You expect me to just stand there watching when someone’s falling to the ground?”
“What about your arms?”
“They’re fine. They’re tingling a bit though…”
Samin trailed off as he set Doun down on the ground. When he said they were tingling, Doun’s hands carefully felt around his forearms here and there.
“Want to drink a potion?”
“No.”
Even while checking that Samin’s arms were fine, Doun’s thoughts were entirely focused on the skill. Thanks to that, both his eyes were still bright blue.
‘I feel like I’ll get the hang of it if I try just a little more…’
The ‘Thought Acceleration’ skill wasn’t omnipotent. It combined the most efficient or appropriate skills within the range the caster understood.
Though the skill combination finished in an instant, Doun used the skill habitually. Even though prolonged use would subject him to headaches and severe mana depletion aftereffects.
“Wait, it goes up that high?”
The guild members who confirmed Doun had safely landed approached and expressed their amazement. Do Hyeonwoo had used the skill far from the group and shot forward while screaming.
“Aaaaah!”
“Hey, hey! I just finished healing you and now you’re really—!”
His body, unable to overcome the acceleration, fluttered helplessly before crashing straight to the ground.
*CRASH!*
Only after burying his face in a pile of vines did Do Hyeonwoo’s screaming quiet down. Just when Doun was about to worry, thinking he might have fainted from the tremendously loud noise, Do Hyeonwoo sprang up.
“Wow. This is insane! I think travel time will be drastically reduced! My heart feels like it’s going to explode!”
His face was excited like a child riding an amusement park ride for the first time. As he ran toward the group while shouting, bright red blood streamed from Do Hyeonwoo’s nose.
“Oh, you’re getting a nosebleed.”
“Ugh, I really… Come here!”
While Seong Suyeon grimaced and healed him, the other guild members were busy sharing opinions without paying much attention.
“Has anyone seen news about movement skills appearing in other countries?”
“…No.”
“How did we get this?”
One thing was certain: the skill the group had acquired was clearly movement-type. With a name like ‘Leaping Steps,’ it would be strange to insist it was a different type of skill.
“What are the acquisition conditions? The damn system should tell us stuff like this. The description is only one freaking line too.”
Kim Siwon grumbled while reading the skill description that was only a single line. Since everyone had just acquired the skill, their proficiency was lacking and they had difficulty landing, but if they could just land well, it seemed like there would be major changes to the conquest strategies that had been established so far.
“This will be incredibly helpful when we conquer Floor 55, right?”
Hong Chan, a supporter who had lightly tried using the skill a few times, lit up. Just as the guild members were all sending agreeable looks, Kim Minhyeok widened his eyes and muttered.
“How will the other conquest team members get this? We don’t know the acquisition method.”
“Ah.”
The people gathered now weren’t strictly speaking the full strength of Yeoun Guild. They needed to include five more people—Jang Hyeonseong, Park Sangyeon, Choi Jiyoon, Dong Jiwon, and Seo Subin—to complete Yeoun’s highest floor conquest team.
“First, we have the problem of analyzing this skill, but we need to figure out the acquisition conditions first. If there’s a difference between guild members with and without movement skills, it’ll be a headache during conquests.”
Samin said while crossing his arms. Getting the first movement-type skill in the country gave him a spine-tingling sense of achievement, but he couldn’t be happy about it one-dimensionally.
“For now, let’s finish collecting magic stones and go out to think about it more. We shouldn’t be doing this here.”
He didn’t want to stay long next to the monster flesh and blood scattered everywhere. As Samin waved his hand at Kim Minhyeok to hurry up with the collection, Kim Chansol quietly approached and whispered.
“Guild Master. Can I just post later on StarStar that we got a movement skill? Without going into details, just the skill grade and name.”
“…Hmm.”
Samin was silent for a moment. The public opinion that was subtly getting on his nerves not only on the Veritas community but also in other media was already bothersome.
[Interview] Hunter Zodiac: ‘Only those who challenge intensely can move forward’
[Hunter Special┃Thrill Guild Master Lucky Day Hwang Juwon, ‘Will never forget colleagues’ precious sacrifice…’]
[Talk Issues] Solaris Apollo, moment when support and solidarity from fellow hunters needed… wants fair and good-natured competition…
Articles with a subtle nuance that Yeoun Guild was easily conquering the highest floors without damage by referencing videos from the first conquest alliance had been frequently catching his eye lately.
‘These fucking bastards paid money to spread articles.’
It was a world where anything could be turned into an article if you paid money. As Samin suspected, after Doun joined Yeoun, articles targeting Yeoun and mentions in communities had increased incomparably to before. The guild members would unconsciously be bothered by it too.
“Let’s narrow down the acquisition conditions to a few and post it once other guild members get it too. If we post it now, it’ll just cause a commotion.”
“Mm, yes.”
Even Kim Chansol, who was a dopamine addict obsessed with attention, knew how to keep boundaries. It meant he wouldn’t act eccentric enough to not adapt to guild life.
But not everything in life goes according to one’s thoughts. Unlike Samin’s plan to postpone revealing the world’s first acquisition of a movement-type skill, the Veritas bulletin board was already in chaos.
Because when the Yeoun Guild members acquired ‘Leaping Steps (A),’ a notification appeared before the eyes of all those who had awakened as hunters.
[The skill ‘Leaping Steps (A)’ has been unlocked for the first time in the Veritas System.
Acquired by: Magnetic, Slope, Bright Sol, Rain Work, Cooler, Detroit, Reject, Ppomi of Republic of Korea on Earth]
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
