14 The Assassin Lair
As the dust cleared away, a hand burrowed out of the rubble that was spread everywhere, followed by a person.
It was Jin Woo who was unsteady on his feet and breathing heavily.
"That was the worst…"
He grumbled while face-palming himself.
Realizing where his mistake lied was not a hard task. It all started from the moment he assumed the opponent's strength without any evidence to support his assumptions to the point where he failed to react properly when his assumption was proven wrong.
"I will have to be more careful in the future."
Jin Woo had been progressing through the dungeon with relative ease and monotonously, thus making the mistake of underestimating his opponent. After all, no matter the stage number, a boss monster was a boss monster and could not be lumped in the same class as normal monsters.
Jin Woo checked his HP and found it to be flashing red while being less than even 20%.
"I got lucky in the end, otherwise I could have died…"
Truly, if the situation had continued to progress in the same way, without the wall breaking and resulting in him being thrown somewhere unknown, dying was not an unimaginable outcome.
While Jin Woo believed Luck to be one of the strengths of a person, completely relying on it in a life and death situation was not a pleasant gamble for him. After all, it could backfire at any moment without your control.
Being cautious and careful while preparing to retreat at any moment, was how he had survived as the weakest hunter in the world, and he didn't feel ashamed about it. Not to mention, the one time he took the gamble, it only led to a tragedy, regardless of the fruitful encounter he had because of it.
All of his thinking only took less than a minute as Jin Woo began to observe his surroundings.
It was dark, with no lights in sight, and Jin Woo could barely see anything.
After he focused a bit, thanks to his eyes adjusting to the darkness as well as his high sense stat, he could see dark silhouettes before they became clear.
Currently, he was standing in the middle of a circular clearing, on top of the debris that fell alongside him. There was no other passage connecting to the clearing than one wide tunnel at one side which appeared to be darker.
'This really feels similar to that time…'
Jin Woo commented inwardly.
The stone statues lined the corridor as well. It felt like someone was playing a bad joke.
It reminded him of the double dungeon incident.
Technically speaking, every Room in the castle could be said to be a double dungeon, and as such, calling the current place Jin Woo found himself in Triple Dungeon would be quite apt.
Taking a high-grade recovery potion from the inventory that had been bought from the item shop and fully recovering his HP and MP, Jin Woo turned his attention to the system notifications he had been ignoring up till now.
[You have discovered a hidden area!]
[A Hidden Quest will be generated!]
[Hidden Quest: You have found the lair of the assassin division of the castle. This is information outsiders aren't allowed to be aware of. Pay attention to your safety.
Quest Goal: Escape the lair alive.
Quest Rewards: A medium-grade rune stone.]
Ignoring the generous reward, Jin Woo's attention was piqued by one word.
'Assassins…'
Hunters with the class Assassin, although rare, were plenty in his own world and as such, he knew their characteristics. Assassins were mostly people having high agility and stealth skills.
Because he hadn't fought any assassins before, Jin Woo decided to be as careful as he could be and prepare accordingly.
"Profile."
[<Status>
——————
Name: Sung Jin-Woo
Level: 38
Class: None
Title: The One Who Judges[+1]
HP: 4575/4575
MP: 470/470
Fatigue: 35
——————
Strength: 75
Agility: 67
Sense: 47
Vitality: 61
Intelligence: 47
——————
Remaining points: 21]
'21 additional points…'
As a counter to stealth or similar skills, his only bet, for now, was the Sense Stat as he lacked any skills related to it. Thus, he decided to put 10 points in Sense.
As for the rest 11, he added 6 in Agility and 5 in Vitality.
For assassins that generally had low defense but higher attack power, investing them in such a way that his ability to dodge or tank their strikes would increase was quite normal.
As for the Strength and Intelligence, he did not see any use for the latter as of yet and trusted the former to be enough for now.
To an outsider, it might feel like he was doing the same mistake as he did against the boss monster from before, but that was not the case.
Here, not investing the additional points accordingly to the most probable situation would be considered repeating the same mistake. Not to mention, this time, he was in no way underestimating his enemies.
Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
He could only hope the assassins here were similar to what he knew, which was most likely the case, and if they weren't, he only had to stay flexible and deal with the situation appropriately.
[<Status>
——————
Name: Sung Jin-Woo
Level: 38
Class: None
Title: The One Who Judges[+1]
HP: 4950/4950
MP: 470/470
Fatigue: 42
——————
Strength: 75
Agility: 73
Sense: 57
Vitality: 66
Intelligence: 47
——————
Remaining points: 0]
After allocating all the stat points, Jin Woo could feel it visibly. He felt lighter and healthier, and his senses were sharper than usual.
"Let's get started."
He lightly cranked his arms and neck, held the dagger, and headed into the tunnel.
From the outside, the tunnel appeared to be covered in darkness, and it was the same when Jin Woo entered.
Sight was almost impossible, and one could only rely on other senses to grasp their surroundings in the extremely dark environment.
Jin Woo couldn't help but frown slightly, being unable to see was quite an unsettling feeling. Not to mention-
'This environment is a bit too perfect for assassins...'
This was the home-ground advantage for the monsters, which was not all that strange since this was almost always the case.
The situation seemed highly unfavorable to Jin Woo, but he was at least somewhat glad that he had invested into the Sense stat before entering, thanks to which he wasn't that helpless.
He could tell that there was no one around him, at least no one he could perceive and that the tunnel was quite wide with only one path leading straight.
'There might also be trap-'
Just as he was thinking, he could feel the ground where he had stepped sink slightly as something shot at him with high speed, while his senses tingled.
Jin Woo almost failed to react on time and barely dodged the projectile, a shallow cut appearing on his cheek.
[Poison has been detected!]
[Detoxifying in 3…2…1…]
[Detoxification complete!]
'Great, that's one way to jinx myself...Heh, at least I don't need to worry about the piston.'
Chuckling inwardly, he took a deep breath and focused.
Since he couldn't see well in the dark, he naturally could not avoid the traps spread around him.
As such, he decided to not waste much time trying the almost impossible and getting doomed but rather decided to challenge the even more impossible, that was triggering the trap and then dodging or blocking it.
For anyone else, it might be a foolish choice that would cost their life but that was not the case for Jin Woo. Even right now, it was only due to the suddenness of the situation that he didn't manage to respond properly, otherwise, it wouldn't have been much difficult. It was not Jin Woo's overconfidence speaking but rather his confidence in his own skills.
Just as he planned, Jin Woo proceeded. There were a few close calls at first but eventually, he got the hang of it after a few times.
As he moved through the passage, dodging, or deflecting the projectiles aiming at him while completely relying on his senses, Jin Woo noticed something abnormal.
He did not know how much time had passed, although he was sure that it had not been more than a few minutes but other than the irritating number of traps, let alone any attacks, he could not even feel any presence of an enemy around him.
'Either there really aren't any or…Let's try this.'
While making it seem natural, Jin Woo left a gap open in his defense as he deflected yet another projectile headed towards him.
Sure enough, as he had expected, his danger sense blared, warning him of the imminent danger. A dagger with his head as its aim flew with great speed towards him from the darkness. Its speed and the force behind it was incomparable to the abundant traps from before.
'As expected, they were waiting for a clear opportunity. Still, to think I couldn't notice them until the moment they attacked…'
*Clang!*
In the dark tunnel, sparks flew around as Jin Woo's dagger clashed with the dagger targeted at him, lighting up the surroundings for a brief moment.
At the same time, Jin Woo felt a presence appear behind him.
Jin Woo wasted no time in reacting. With one feet firm, he dragged his other feet in a half-circle and knocked the 'person' behind him, breaking its balance, and swung his dagger straight through its chest to head in a straight line.
Following his senses, in the next instant-
[Skill <<Sprint>> has been activated!]
[All movement speeds will increase by 30% while 1 mana will be consumed per second.]
-kicking the ground, he accelerated in the direction from which the dagger had come.
The figure hidden in the shadows was clearly startled. Not being prepared, Jin Woo's dagger pierced straight through its heart as it dropped lifelessly.
[You have slain your enemy!]
[You have gained experience!]
[You have slain your enemy!]
[You have gained experience!]
Jin Woo ignored the notifications, not having the leisure to relish the fall of two enemies.
In his perception, several presences ignited around him one by one as the air was filled with a thick bloodlust.
'Now they are coming all at once…'
Jin Woo's eyes flickered as he held the dagger high.
'Well, it's fine. It will be much faster this way.'
