Chapter 4….
A short while later, in the sewers of the tutorial zone.
Jang Sunam and Aria emerged from the sewers and began walking along the river.
“Originally, this is where I found Aria’s corpse.”
Thankfully, in this round, that had been avoided.
But at that moment—
“…Hm?”
At the far end of the sewer, a slime quickly slithered away.
“……”
Sunam narrowed his eyes in the direction it had fled.
“Is something there?”
Aria, noticing his gaze, turned to look as well.
But the slime had already vanished.
“…No, nothing to worry about.”
Together, they left the sewers and climbed up onto a nearby walkway.
There, Sunam sat on a bench under a tree and breathed in the fresh air.
Since slimes were rare in this area, it was the perfect place to rest.
“Waaah~ Nothing beats the fresh air outside.”
Aria stretched and plopped down right beside him.
After spending the whole day together earning coins, the distance between them felt noticeably closer than before.
For Aria, this was probably the first real human connection she had made in this world.
“Hey, Sunam. Can I ask you something?”
She leaned toward him, sounding friendly.
“What is it?”
“I’ve been holding back my curiosity for a while now.”
After hesitating briefly, she finally spoke.
“…That summoning skill of yours—what exactly is it?”
Just because she was an NPC didn’t mean she knew everything, especially when it came to skills or artifacts.
“…Hmm.”
Sunam paused in thought.
“Aria’s an NPC I’ll need later on… better to earn her trust by telling her now.”
He had already shown it openly anyway.
For the future, he needed her trust.
So, Sunam explained briefly what his Illusory Summon skill could do.
“…It’s rare, but you can even bring back the dead? As expected of an EX+ skill.”
“Strictly speaking, it’s not resurrection. The summoned don’t have free will.”
If the summoning failed, the soul would even come back as a berserker.
“Even so…”
Aria’s expression turned thoughtful. Then she looked him straight in the eyes.
“Could I ask one favor…?”
“I was waiting for that.”
“If I die… could you summon me? There’s something I absolutely must accomplish.”
“…The chances of success are very low. Even if I try, I can’t guarantee it’ll work. And again, you wouldn’t be alive—you’d be my summon.”
“That’s fine. As long as I can come back, I’ll accept it. Besides, keeping me as your summon would benefit you too.”
“Specifically?”
With a serious face, Aria replied:
“The vast majority of NPCs in the Rainsis Empire will side with you.”
Bingo.
That was exactly why Sunam wanted to maintain trust with her.
NPCs from the Rainsis Empire would keep appearing later. Having ties with the imperial princess would be an enormous advantage.
Aria clearly understood her own value and offered it outright.
“I’m the empire’s last hope. Alive, I can still do something—but dead, the empire ends with me. For the sake of the empire and its people, I cannot die. Please… I’m begging you.”
Her eyes were filled with sincerity.
And Sunam knew it wasn’t a lie.
In the past month, he’d come to see how deeply she cared for her people.
As she said, the princess was the very embodiment of hope. If word of her death spread, countless Rainsis NPCs would despair—or fall to corruption.
Simply by living, Aria was invaluable to both the empire and to him.
Sunam chuckled.
“Alright. If you die, I’ll make summoning you my top priority. I swear it. But in exchange, I have a favor too.”
“Yes, anything!”
Sunam spread out his Absolute Map, checking for any ???-marked anomalies nearby.
“…As I thought.”
Then he leaned close to Aria’s ear and whispered.
So close and gentle that any bystander would mistake them for lovers.
“…I’m going to tell you something important. Don’t forget it—make sure you act on it.”
Deliberately making it look that way, he quietly shared his secret.
A little later, in the city square.
Dozens of hunters and the leaders of each faction had gathered for a meeting.
Thirty days had been enough for people to adapt to this changed world.
They had formed countless organizations, established rules suited to the new era, and united under them.
“Today, we kill the tutorial boss.”
“Hundreds of hunters have died to that thing. It’s time for revenge.”
The food supply within the tutorial zone was limited.
Nobody wanted to remain trapped here for a hundred days just for some unknown system reward.
And according to NPCs, there were countless tutorial zones.
The group that cleared theirs first would monopolize resources and gain an enormous advantage in the new world.
“We’ve got 60 people this time. We can do this.”
Through repeated skirmishes, they had analyzed countless attack patterns.
Everyone here had memorized them thoroughly and was prepared to risk their lives.
But just as the meeting ended and people began preparing—
“Leaders! A hunter already headed for the boss’s lair!”
“““What?!”””
The representatives jumped to their feet.
“Who dares act alone…!”
“Wait. It’s not necessarily bad. If he fights first, we benefit.”
“Yeah. We might even get information, or at least he can soften it up.”
So far, hundreds had lost all their extra lives to the boss.
Now, only those with spare lives even dared to approach. If one more reckless death occurred, it wouldn’t change much.
They thought they knew every hunter in the area, so the fact that this was a newcomer was odd—but not worth worrying about.
“Alright. Let’s go watch.”
Following their men, they arrived to see a strange-looking hunter striding boldly toward the boss.
“…A crow mask?”
He wore what looked like a cheap plastic crow mask from a party supply shop.
Judging by his build, he was male—but appearance didn’t matter.
What they wanted from him was simply information about the tutorial boss and any damage he could deal.
The crow-masked hunter walked straight toward a massive slime that dominated the center of the field.
A twenty-meter-high mound of corrosive ooze.
<Giant Slime> (F+)
“Kyuurik!”
The slime rippled, sensing his approach.
Its core could be seen darting deep inside, but it was buried too far within.
Without a weapon or skill capable of penetrating more than ten meters of slime, defeating it seemed impossible.
“Hey there, big guy.”
A familiar voice echoed from inside the mask.
It was Jang Sunam.
“To kill the real boss, I need to take care of you first.”
“Kyuurrr!”
The giant slime heaved its massive body forward to strike.
At that moment—
[The luck of <Poles Apart> has activated.]
“…Perfect timing.”
Sunam grinned and activated his Illusory Summon skill.
Flash!
A dazzling crimson magic circle appeared, and a grotesque entity emerged.
It was the result of a failed summon—the outcome 99.99% of the time.
Failed summons turned berserk, attacking everything nearby—including the caster.
Even other anomalies.
“…Which means I can turn it to my advantage.”
“Kyaaaahhh!!”
The monstrous fishman glanced between Sunam and the giant slime…
Then suddenly lunged straight at the slime.
“Exactly. Failed summons attack indiscriminately.”
With the luck effect in play, Sunam’s odds of being targeted were much lower.
The EX-ranked <Poles Apart> luck didn’t apply to the EX+ skill itself, but it did affect the results.
In other words, failed summons could serve as disposable decoys.
He had figured this out after thirty days of trial and error.
“Kyiiiek!”
The fishman was instantly dissolved by the slime, but it had stalled for precisely one minute—the cooldown time.
“Next one.”
Sunam laughed and cast Illusory Summon again.
“Kuooohhh!!”
Another failure. This time, a massive humanoid beast appeared and rushed the slime.
It too was melted within a minute.
Sunam didn’t care. He kept summoning again and again.
Then—
Flash!
A far larger magic circle flared to life.
“There it is.”
It wasn’t a success.
But this was the failure he had been aiming for.
“Grrrhh…”
Thud!
Out lumbered a hulking mass of powder, nearly as large as the slime itself.
Slow, but massive—packing heavy blows.
The Salt Giant.
And all of Sunam’s failed summons shared a pattern:
They always resembled what he had originally tried to summon.
“Even failures follow a pattern.”
If he tried to summon a zombie, some form of undead would appear.
If he tried a robot, some mechanical creature.
Failures weren’t useless. If used wisely, they could be powerful.
“Kyurrr!”
“Grooohh!”
The two colossal monsters glared at each other—
Then clashed.
BOOM!
The shockwave echoed across the battlefield, making hunters watching from afar tremble.
Splat!
Where the slime touched the salt giant, its body immediately began to melt.
“Kyiiiek!!”
The slime tried to recoil, but its body was dissolving too quickly.
“Grkkk…”
“…Wait! That white powdery body—could it be…?!”
A hunter cried out in realization.
“The slime’s weakness is salt!!”
Correct.
In his very first run, Sunam had once been cornered by slimes while carrying food.
He had thrown a bag of salt to scare them off, only to watch the slime melt instantly.
Now, the mighty terror of the early game was dissolving before their eyes.
“That crow-mask hunter… incredible…”
Murmurs spread.
Not only had he discovered the slime’s weakness, he wielded an array of summoning powers.
Right now, most hunters were barely scraping by with blades.
Of course guilds and factions coveted someone like him.
“Kyurrrk…”
Finally, the giant slime shrank down to the size of a normal one.
The salt giant, also dissolving, dwindled to human size.
Tap!
Seizing the moment, Sunam charged forward and swung his axe.
Whack! Crack!
Both cores shattered with a crisp sound.
“Kyiiik!”
“Grooohh!”
Both monsters vanished completely.
“““Uwoooaaahhh!!!”””
Hunters erupted in cheers.
After a month of torment, the boss had finally fallen to a single hero.
But the celebration didn’t last.
“…Huh?”
“Why isn’t the tutorial-clear message appearing?”
Puzzled, all eyes turned toward Sunam.
He tapped his shoulder with the axe handle and replied:
“Of course it’s not over. That was just the mid-boss.”
His words spread like ripples across the square.
“““What…?”””
So the foe they had been struggling against all month… was only a mid-boss?
“Then how strong is the real boss…?”
While everyone reeled from the revelation, Sunam calmly tapped his shoulder again, waiting.
“…At least I prevented the worst-case scenario this time.”
In his second run, he had ignored the mid-boss and gone straight for the boss.
The result: the un-defeated mid-boss had merged with the boss mid-fight—
Creating a monster with two cores.
That had been a nightmare.
This time, he had prevented it by clearing the mid-boss first.
“Now then… time to begin the real plan.”
