Specter

'Simple.'

I sheathed my sword after defeating four Specters.

I'd been a little worried about managing alone, but faced with a weapon imbued with a holy attribute, they were nothing more than scraps of paper.

'That said, all ghost-type monsters really do have identical corpses.'

I lowered my gaze.

On the floor lay a Specter's corpse that looked like transparent jelly, or perhaps pudding.

When I placed my hand on its moist, squishy corpse, it felt like aloe gel.

I chuckled as I watched the transparent jelly crumble in my grasp.

'There were even people who once planned to use this as a cooking ingredient.'

Its texture was astonishingly similar to jelly.

When scooped up with a spoon, it showed off a bouncy, jiggly appearance, and if properly plated, it would have looked good enough to serve at a high-end restaurant.

But it never saw the light of day and was discarded for a simple reason: eating too much of it filled your stomach but ravaged your mind.

'The stronger the resentment, the greater the strain on the mind.'

Of course, since this was only the first trial, eating it for a few days wouldn't cause any problems, but it was somewhat unsuitable as food in higher-difficulty trial areas.

[Would you like to use the corpse separately.]

[Yes / No]

I reset the corpse.

A little stone resembling an opal, white at its base and flecked with vivid colors, dropped to the floor with a clack. I picked it up and clicked my tongue softly.

"Tsk, figures."

<Item>

Name : Specter's Soulstone

Grade : Low

Description : A stone formed from condensed ectoplasm. Contains a faint spiritual energy.

It was a junk item—in other words, loot that wouldn't make me any money. I'd expected as much, but….

Whew... no. It was too soon to decide. Maybe it would give me something besides this?

So I searched for more Specters and went hunting again, but….

Plink.

'A dud.'

Plink.

'…Another dud.'

As expected, all that dropped were fake opals the size of a thumbnail.

'Ghost-type mobs don't make money in any trial.'

Of course, it wasn't a completely useless item, but….

Wondering if there might be other monsters, I searched through the pews as I climbed one floor at a time, but sadly, there were only Specters.

'No making money here.'

Skeletons really were the answer after all. In fact, I'd left Shin Seoyeon and the Saintess upstairs because I had a feeling things would turn out this way.

'Though if we're talking troublesome, Specters are worse than skeletons.'

Specters basically used magic attacks and inflicted debuffs, and they could even pass through walls, making them monsters you had no hope against if they surrounded you.

'Is that all?'

Not only did physical attacks fail to work on them, just as they did against skeletons, but while a skeleton's movements were at least restricted until a battered body part could regenerate, these things had no such delay.

They took no damage at all, as if I were slashing at empty air.

If someone came down here without any preparation at all, they'd end up just like the countless mummies strewn around nearby.

'Should I leave the middle levels to Lee Sera and head down to the depths?'

It was while I stood at the railing by the fourth-floor pews, looking over the chapel with its stage below, that it happened.

Tat-tat-tat!

Hurried footsteps rang out from the floor above.

"Wh-what do we do?! There are too many!"

"Damn it, we drew too many!"

"Can we make it out the door?"

"We've got to run for it. We've survived this long—we can't die here! Hey, you too! Don't just stand there—run! If you dawdle, you're headed straight to the afterlife!"

It seemed like they were in quite a dangerous situation.

'The sensation of cold biting into my skin is certainly intense.'

The chill brushing against my skin was enough to raise goosebumps.

Ghost-type monsters radiated cold around them, freezing the air.

You could never know when or where one would pop out through a wall, but you could at least sense in advance whether one was approaching through the cold it emitted.

'There seem to be quite a few.'

Even though I was on the floor below, I could clearly feel the cold they were giving off.

Even by a rough count, it seemed more than twelve of them had gathered.

'It's been a while since I've seen a normal-looking player. Should I go take a look at their faces?'

I immediately stepped onto the railing, leaped up, and caught hold of the railing on the floor above.

One mistake could send me plunging all the way down to the first-floor drop and leave me badly injured, but anyone who spent a year or two getting put through the wringer in trial areas could develop this level of nerve and parkour skill like an expert.

'The top floor seems to be laid out more like a balcony than rooms.'

Thanks to that, although there were divisions between the rooms, I could see the entire floor.

I leaped up and safely reached the fifth floor, where two women were hurrying past right in front of me.

'Those two look safe.'

There were four survivors altogether. Two had already passed, but the other pair were still lagging behind, running breathlessly from farther back.

"Aaaah! S-save me! Please, let me come with you…!"

The woman at the very back screamed for help. Whether her stamina was low or her agility lacking, the group of Specters had already overtaken her and begun blocking her path.

"Ngh!"

Seeing that, the woman hurriedly swung her weapon, but seven Specters had latched onto her.

Was that why?

"N-no! Gaaah…."

Her swings grew slower and slower, and the strength left her grip until the weapon dropped with a clatter.

The woman who had lost her weapon tried somehow to escape, but her legs gave out too. She flailed before collapsing heavily onto the floor.

"P-please…."

The hand she stretched toward her companions soon lost all vitality and withered like a dry branch, freezing in place.

'A Specter's method of attack is energy drain.'

They absorb mana and stamina, and once they've drained those completely, they even suck away vitality.

If you're surrounded by several of them like that, you literally become a mummy in an instant.

"Damn, a curse of all things…!"

They even occasionally inflict curses.

While the seven Specters greedily sucked the vitality from the woman they'd just grabbed, the others rushed at the next-closest target and unleashed a barrage of curses.

Several streams of red energy rapidly closed in on the hooded woman.

Sssaaa-

I watched the curses closely. The curses used by ghost-type monsters differed from trial to trial.

'This one slows movement.'

The area-wide curse had slowed movement too…. The hooded woman's movements slowed dramatically, nearly by half—an excellent combination with the area-wide curse.

"Get off me, you bastards!"

「Aah…!」

The woman somehow swung her sword despite her slowed movements. It didn't seem to be an ordinary sword; every time it moved, the Specters shrieked and parts of their forms were sliced away.

But that was all.

There were no fewer than five Specters rushing at her.

Sssash-

The instant she swung her sword, the Specters surrounded her.

"!!"

There was no chance to escape. The Specters had already finished preparing to drain her energy.

「Heehee.」

A blue glow spread through the Specters' transparent forms. It was a precursor to the phenomenon that occurred when they stole energy from their prey.

"Ah."

As despair gathered at the woman's lips and spilled out as a lament, I abandoned my role as an observer and moved.

Tat-tat-tat—I shot forward.

'Well, I'd watched enough by this point.'

All I needed to do was keep an eye on the Specters' curse. I'd planned to avoid it if it was something troublesome, like blindness, but if it only slowed movement, that was no problem.

"Get down."

"!!"

For an instant, a spark of light flickered in the desperate woman's eyes.

Whip.

She flattened herself on the ground with astonishing speed. I couldn't help admiring her decisiveness and reaction speed as I approached the pack of Specters surrounding her and swung my sword.

Whoosh-

No precise swing was necessary. Unlike hard-boned skeletons, Specters were no more substantial than a handful of wind.

Sssash-

Rather than bothering with precision, I felled them in a rapid flurry of strikes.

「Aaaaaaah…!」

The Specters screamed and stiffened, then turned into sticky jelly and rained down onto the floor.

「!!」

The seven Specters that had just drained the player's vitality and were looking for their next prey all turned toward us at once.

"H-how? In one hit?"

The hooded woman, who had been lying flat on the floor, looked up at me with an expression of disbelief.

"It's simple. In short, it's all thanks to my gear."

"…Gear advantage?"

「Aaaaaah…!」

The Specters charged all at once. Seeing that, the woman shouted.

"Danger…!"

Well, being attacked by seven at once would normally be dangerous.

<Status Window>

Name : Kang Minjun

Level : 1

Strength : 34 (+4)

Agility : 26 (+5)

Vitality : 30 (+8)

Intelligence : 36 (+20)

My Vitality and Intelligence stats were already well over three times those of an ordinary person. It would take them quite a while to drain all my stamina and mana.

Was that all?

Bang!

I pushed off powerfully from the floor, and my body shot straight through the pack of Specters in an instant.

「?!」

Four of the seven Specters immediately turned into wet lumps of jelly and rained down onto the floor.

"F-fast?"

Fast, yes. My Agility was high, after all. And needless to say, so was my Strength.

With my current stats, I was strong enough to survive even at the third trial.

In other words, even if mere trash mobs from the first trial tried to overwhelm me with numbers, they couldn't hope to contend with me.

'All right, just three left.'

Whoosh!

I easily dealt with the last three Specters charging at me. Once everything was over, the other two women who had fled earlier also returned and stared blankly at me.

Their eyes held wonder, admiration, and greed.

"Are all three of you all right?"

"Yes, thank you. My name is Kim Yoorim."

"I'm Joo Ahyeon!"

The two women who had run ahead hurried back, introduced themselves, and held out their hands.

"Are you on your own?"

"Do you have a party? If not, would you like to join us?"

Kim Yoorim was in her late twenties.

Joo Ahyeon was in her mid-twenties.

Their stats were unremarkable, as were their weapons. I shifted my gaze and viewed the hooded woman with [All-Seeing Eye].

Then my eyes widened.

<Status Window>

Name : Han Sohee

Level : 1

Strength : 11

Agility : 17

Vitality : 19

Intelligence : 10

'I thought her face looked vaguely familiar—was she that woman from the chaebol group back then?'

Just as I recognized her, she seemed to recognize me too, her eyes trembling faintly.

Unlike when we'd first met, she was now alone, without a single bodyguard. In the environment with the most brutally low survival rate, no less.

For whatever reason, her circumstances didn't look very good.