FVN Chapter 385: Synergy (2)
Chapter 385: Synergy (2)
Kang-hoo maintained a perfect distance.
With Park Dong-jae continuously keeping the buffs up without a single gap, their early advance sped up.
The dungeon’s recommended level was high, but there was no answer like luring out enemies one by one and taking them apart.
Since this was their first time in the dungeon, they did not overdo it.
It was not a time-attack dungeon, so there was no reason to risk dangerous pull-and-burn tactics.
Throughout the entire battle, not for even a second—no, not even for the briefest moment—did the buff window flicker out.
After finishing an engagement with a completely one-sided victory, Kang-hoo spoke to Park Dong-jae with a satisfied expression.
“I’d heard you’d been training hard for a long time, but... you’ve perfected it. There’s not a single gap.”
“Hyung, I’m Park Dong-jae. I built this solo routine for you. How could there be a gap?”“Honestly, I’m really impressed.”“Just like a damage dealer feels ecstasy when they hit their peak damage, a buffer feels the thrill when the hunter they support fires at maximum efficiency and power.”
“You’d think you’d be running out of mana.”
“It’s fine. I went all-in on my items in that direction.”
“And your toughness and magic resistance?”
“If those were fine too, I’d be ‘a named’ by now, wouldn’t I? I just threw them away. I’ll just run a bit harder.”
“Are you planning to live only for today?”
“These days there aren’t many hunters who even manage to live well today. It’s no time to be worrying about tomorrow. Anyway! You’re someone who gives me a lot of motivation, hyung.”
Listening to Park Dong-jae, Kang-hoo felt a warmth in one corner of his chest.
To think his existence had become a source of motivation to someone else. It was a grateful yet unfamiliar feeling.
If he compared it to the mindset he had when he looked at Celestial Assassin, it roughly matched.
He felt something similar every time he saw his master.
Because Celestial Assassin existed, he wanted to grow more as an assassin; he wanted to earn his master’s affectionate praise and encouragement.
“Good. I’ll pop a Solarkium and we’ll get moving again. My body definitely feels loose now.”
“Wait, that was just your warm-up?”
“Normally, I’d be sleeping at this hour. I dragged this clammy body out here; it takes a while to get it warmed up.”
“Ah... true.”
Remembering the time when he’d called Kang-hoo, Park Dong-jae scratched the back of his head. It really had been late.
He was grateful that Kang-hoo had come without complaint. To this day, not once had Park Dong-jae seen Kang-hoo lose his temper.
It was true he did not smile often, but conversely, he was also someone who almost never grumbled or snapped at others.
“Let’s go. We’ve got a long way ahead of us.”
Kang-hoo picked up the pace.
Knowing that even a moment’s hesitation would leave a gulf of distance between them, Park Dong-jae cast a speed buff on himself.
When you raided a dungeon with Kang-hoo, there was no such thing as stopping to rest. The only “break” was when they slowed to a walk.
The thought that the real raid was only now beginning made his heart pound.
A raid with a hunter who had great synergy with him was pure fun. It did not feel like grueling labor or thankless service at all.After that, throughout the entire raid, Park Dong-jae could not stop the words of admiration from spilling out as he watched Kang-hoo.
He had seen Kang-hoo’s skill enough to be sick of it before; there was no need to doubt it. A true master did not disappoint.
What stood out now was how much his fighting style had changed.
In the past, his main attack pattern had been to lure enemies to the rear and counter-attack after repositioning—a stereotypical assassin’s pattern.
Now, it was different.
He evaded forward, disarmed the enemy with minimal strikes first, and then inflicted lethal wounds.
Instead of trying to land the perfect killing blow from the start, he now spent far more time on preliminary setup.
Even when he inflicted a wound close to lethal, he always made sure to target the cervical spine, crown of the head, or under the jaw— never forgetting the “confirmation kill.” He cut off their breath completely before turning to the next target.
It felt like watching a seasoned hitman at work—he dismantled his enemies one by one.
‘Yeah, this is that “Shin Kang-hoo high” I signed up for.’
Darkness and killing.
Staying true to his role while at the same time displaying destructive power—Park Dong-jae was utterly taken with Kang-hoo’s fighting style.
Before meeting Kang-hoo, every assassin he had worked with had been disappointingly subpar.
“I’m an assassin, you know...?”—with those sorts of excuses, they always stayed as far back in the formation as possible. They made him sick.
How many battles in the world were fought in the comfort of sitting down at a perfectly laid table and just picking up a spoon?
It was far easier to count the cases where that wasn’t true. The number of times they had entered dungeons with imperfect parties was countless.
But for some reason, the assassins Park Dong-jae had met so far had all been strangely reluctant to stand in the front.
It was not just them.
It was a trait—almost a “racial characteristic”—of the assassin class.
Each linked strike used for assassination was powerful, but they were so obsessed with setting up that one strike that they overprotected themselves.
As a result, they could not proactively create situations—they simply waited for situations to be created. It was enough to make his blood boil.
“Hyung Kang-hoo’s never complained once. He creates his own situations and measures unseen angles on his own.”
From Park Dong-jae’s perspective, words like passive, dependent, or defensive did not suit Kang-hoo at all.
Words like proactive, leading, and aggressive fit much better. Thanks to him, the situations on the field kept evolving in diverse ways.
Eye candy.
What else could he call it?
No matter where he worked, Kang-hoo would always come to mind. He could not help but keep being impressed.
“Hyung!”
“What?”
During a brief break—the time they spent moving on foot—Park Dong-jae called out to him. There was something he wanted to ask.
“Hyung, have you ever thought about forming a guild or joining one? I’m sure there are more guilds than we can count trying to recruit you.”
“No, not really.”
“That was firm.”
“I like things the way they are. At least on this point, I don’t feel any need to force a change.”
“Do you just not want to be a leader?”
“It’s not about responsibility. It’s about whether I really need a guild. And the answer is no.”
“That’s a shame. With your level, not just in Korea but overseas, a truckload of places would be calling for you.”
“For me, joining a guild would bring overwhelmingly more loss than gain. There’s no need to take a losing deal.”
The most important core of his answer was left unsaid.
It was the thought that he did not want to create an affiliation and then drag the people at his side into danger with him.
The moment he stood as a clear enemy of the Jeonghwa Guild—of Jang Si-hwan—he would become Evil, with no room for nuance.
If at that time there were an organization or officially recognized comrades standing at his side, their fate would be the same as his.
He did not want to burden them. This was a harsh world where it was hard enough just to take care of your own skin.
Because the topic of guilds had suddenly come up, as if there was something else lurking behind it, Kang-hoo asked back.
“Did something happen?”
“Mm... actually, the Myeongga Guild has shifted its main base of activity to Gangwon Province, so we don’t cross paths as much anymore.”
“Yeah, figures.”
A guild that had mainly operated in the Gyeongsang region had moved up to Gangwon; of course they would grow distant.
According to rumor, they were already taking over areas in Gangwon where existing guild influence was weak.
“Taking over” basically meant seizing ownership of dungeons the others had held... which, for hunters, was what mattered most.
Because of the frequent inter-guild battles over that, their contact with an outsider like Park Dong-jae had naturally become rare.
“But it’s not like I want to join the Myeongga Guild. My skill might fit, but my personality doesn’t.”
“So you don’t have any other place in mind either?”
“I’m thinking about going abroad. I heard Japan has a serious shortage of buffers. If I go there, I feel like I’ll sell well wherever I go.”
“So you’re short on partners, huh?”
“Yeah. I don’t know if it’s because I’m shy with strangers or what, but I don’t have a hunter I move with on a fixed basis. And I’m in the middle of wrapping up the fixed parties I did have.”
Once you changed countries, no matter how much you tried, it was not easy to create opportunities to build connections.
Even if Japan was right next door, it was hard to be optimistic and say they would see each other often.
Once you joined a guild or organization, your ability to move externally was naturally restricted.
Park Dong-jae was a talent too valuable to let drift far away. But he could not just tell him to stay put and wait only for him, either.
‘I can’t go to North Korea with Master every time. Maybe in times like that, Dong-jae would actually be the better match.’
Thinking it through, there was a use for him.
In the short and long term, North Korea was a place he was going to have to visit far more often than now.
He could not always ask Celestial Assassin to guide him; he needed to open the way proactively with Park Dong-jae too.
In a place like North Korea, where variables abounded, team play depended entirely on “coordination.”
If their coordination and pace did not match, that misalignment could immediately equate to death in the North.
“Dong-jae.”
“Yeah?”
“Would you be willing to go to North Korea?”
He brought it up directly.
He was not asking if he wanted to go on a relaxing trip; he was talking about North Korea, a place that boasted an extreme survival environment.
Because going there depended entirely on his own will, he asked for Park Dong-jae’s thoughts.
If he agreed, they would see each other far more often. Naturally, that would also ease some of his loneliness.
“North Korea? Even if it’s not North Korea but straight-up Hell, I feel like I’d still go if it’s with you, hyung.”
The answer came back immediately.
The word “Hell” made him flinch for a moment, but he knew it was being used as a dictionary metaphor, so he did not dwell on it.
He wondered what kind of reaction Park Dong-jae would show if he knew there was a way to visit actual Hell through Infernus.
Kang-hoo suddenly found himself curious about what “Hell” would be like.
Would the Hell where the divine soldiers created by the Wind of God gathered be the Demon King’s resting place—or a forward base?
In any case, he had confirmed that Park Dong-jae truly wanted to go anywhere with him.
He seemed more lonely than he had thought.After that, Kang-hoo and Park Dong-jae attacked the dungeon in full-on annihilation mode and pushed their levels up rapidly.
Because this was the first raid of a newly spawned dungeon, and because it was only the two of them, the experience gains were insane.
His level climbed all the way to 395.
He had been 385 right before entering the dungeon, so it had gone up by a full ten levels. It was pure explosive growth.
Assuming you concentrated all the preferential treatment and favorable conditions for growth in one place— for hunters around level 400, the average time needed to gain a single level was one day.
And that did not mean a day of leisurely resting and sleeping; it meant 24 hours of pure combat time.
So it was only natural to be astonished that a ten-level increase—which should have taken a solid ten days—had happened in just four hours.
Maybe that was why, during a brief maintenance break, Park Dong-jae could not stop exclaiming as he stared at his status window.
Kang-hoo also felt the huge jump in growth, so even though he did not say it out loud, he was just as pleased.
If this goes well, I might hit 400 before we leave this dungeon.
Once he reached level 400, there were two things he was looking forward to.
【Master of Shell Games】
【Every 100 levels, a roulette wheel appears that grants a random reward. There are no blanks or bad rewards.】
First, he would be able to call upon Master of Shell Games, the constellation he had stolen long ago from Jeon Jong-du.
One skill copy.
A random skillbook, Flames of Death.
Stage 1 subspace.
He had already had plenty of fun with the roped-in roulette at levels 100, 200, and 300. With no blanks, his expectations were high.
But what he was anticipating even more was the Assassin’s core skill that he would obtain at level 400.
A skill that would broaden his strategic options far beyond what he had now— that was the one waiting for him right at the threshold of level 400.