Copying Runes to Become the World's Strongest - Chapter 17

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 17
“Aaaaaah!”
Nalssaendoli charged through the camp, bellowing at the top of his lungs.
“Kerrrr!”
“Kerrk!”
The goblins spotted the intruder and leapt to their feet.
Goblins who had been sleeping in the worn-out tents spilled out one after another, drawn by the commotion.
‘I never told him to shout.’
An unplanned move, not part of the instructions.
Still, it had drawn aggro, and drawn it well.
‘There you are.’
Hyeonjun spotted a horn whistle hanging from the waist of another goblin.
Like the archer goblin he had just killed, this one was carrying a bow.
‘Doesn’t look like it plans on setting anything on fire.’
Seeing that it was facing a lone opponent rather than a group, the goblin’s hand shifted from the whistle to its arrows.
That much, too, was exactly as expected.
‘I don’t need to assassinate it, but I’d better be as careful as I can, just in case.’
There was always the chance that a third whistle existed somewhere.
With this few of them, I doubted they’d be carrying that many whistles, but there was no harm in being cautious.
-Kerrk!
Goblins with clubs gave chase to Nalssaendoli, while the archers took aim from the rear.
The one holding the horn whistle stood at the back with its arms folded, seemingly having earned more seniority than the others.
-Kerk! Kerrk!
It barked orders while glancing around restlessly, as if searching for something.
‘Is it looking for the other one that had a horn whistle?’
The goblin broke away from the group and began heading back toward the camp.
With every goblin having rushed out, the camp was eerily quiet.
Hyeonjun dropped low, nearly crawling, and went after it.
‘There’s no one else around, right?’
He checked again and again, then pushed off the ground.
The gap closed in an instant.
Thunk!
The dagger he had thrust forward with all his strength punched through the archer goblin’s back and pierced its heart.
“Krk!”
The archer goblin’s pupils widened at the sudden ambush.
It tried desperately to reach for its waist, but its senses had already grown hazy, and it flailed at empty air without managing to grab the horn whistle.
“Hup!”
Hyeonjun twisted his wrist with force, spinning the dagger inside the wound.
The goblin’s eyes, once burning with rage, went glassy and lost their life.
Thud.
The archer goblin collapsed, all strength gone.
Hyeonjun caught its body and quickly stepped backward.
-Kerrk!
He meant to slip out of the camp right then, but he sensed a presence nearby.
With no other choice, Hyeonjun dragged the corpse into one of the goblins’ tents.
“Kerk! Kerk!”
Before long, the goblins passed through the spot where Hyeonjun had just been standing.
Bloodstains still marked the ground, but they walked right past without noticing.
“Phew. That was close.”
Hyeonjun caught his breath for a moment and scanned the inside of the tent.
And there, he found something he had never expected.
‘A bear head?’
A bear’s head, looking monstrous even at a glance, sat in a corner.
‘That’s a Blade Bear.’
A bear distinguished by claws as sharp as blades.
It mostly roamed the Mountain Area, and though it wasn’t boss-class, it ranked as a considerably powerful monster.
‘What’s this doing here?’
Could the goblins have actually taken down a Blade Bear?
‘No way.’
It wasn’t impossible, but it was not something they would normally attempt.
Even if they’re a combat unit, they’re still goblins.
Against a monster like Blade Bear, the losses would be heavy, so avoiding them altogether was the sensible choice.
‘Unless there are far more goblins than there are now. A party of only twenty wouldn’t dare take this on.’
Had there been more of them to begin with?
Had they been whittled down to this number in the fight with Blade Bear?
‘Doesn’t seem that way. The smell of blood is still fresh.’
A lingering smell meant the fighting hadn’t been over for long.
If dozens of their allies had died in battle, the goblins should have been in considerable disarray.
But the scene Hyeonjun saw in the camp was anything but chaotic.
‘If anything, it was peaceful.’
Hyeonjun soon arrived at a different hypothesis.
What if there was a goblin here capable of killing this on its own?
‘Not all goblins are the same.’
Goblins come in many varieties.
From the Goblin Lord, who could be called the leader of the goblins, to Mage Goblins specialized in magic, Warrior Goblins, and Hob Goblins, there were many kinds.
‘Who is it? What on earth is it?’
No, that wasn’t what mattered right now.
‘This is dangerous.’
He had to retreat.
Whatever the creature was, there was no chance of winning if he clashed with it using the strategy he’d originally laid out.
‘I need to pull back for now and rethink the plan…’
-Aaaaagh!
Just then, a scream rang out.
Hyeonjun rushed out of the tent at once.
Far off, he could see Nalssaendoli, caught in something’s grip and thrashing in midair.
A massive frame, twice the height of a human. A body so brutally muscular it was hard to believe it belonged to a goblin.
‘Hob Goblin!’
If an ordinary goblin is a monkey, a Hob Goblin is a gorilla.
Against novice F-Rank Hunters lacking experience and skill, it was a creature that could take on a hundred of them at once.
‘Why on earth is a Hob Goblin here?’
In human terms, a Hob Goblin was on the level of a general. It was no creature to be lurking among a mere scouting unit.
Only then did Hyeonjun realize the fact he had been overlooking.
‘These bastards… they weren’t a scouting party to begin with.’
They hadn’t simply set out on an expedition recklessly to expand their territory.
For instance, they had had a clear target from the very beginning: Blade Bear.
“Damn it.”
Hyeonjun bit his lip.
It was a misstep.
There’s no such thing as a sure thing in a dungeon.
He should have gathered more intel on the enemy and moved with greater caution.
-Help me!
Nalssaendoli’s desperate voice echoed in his ears.
Hyeonjun shook his head hard.
‘Now is not the time to waste on self-reproach.’
Blaming and reflecting on himself could wait; it wouldn’t be too late.
Right now, he had to save the ally who had been captured because of his own mistaken judgment.
-Aaaaaaagh!
The Hob Goblin began to tighten its grip.
If he didn’t hurry, Nalssaendoli’s head would be crushed.
[Activating .]
A blue-glowing arrow appeared in front of Hyeonjun.
Hyeonjun fired the arrow in a straight line and, in the same instant, kicked off the ground.
***
“W-what do we do?”
“We can’t just charge in recklessly…”
The Hunters exchanged anxious looks as they talked, their eyes fixed on the captured Nalssaendoli.
With Hyeonjun, the one who had directed everything, absent, they couldn’t make a proper decision.
‘Should I step in?’
Baek Jehyeok stood behind the Hunters, arms folded, watching the scene unfold.
The reason the guild had placed one of its own Hunters in each party.
It was all to ensure the safety of the Hunters.
Baek Jehyeok was here for the same reason.
‘Let’s wait a little.’
In a normal situation, he would have stepped in.
But right now, he had something to look forward to.
‘What are you going to do, Go Hyeonjun?’
Hyeonjun, who had consistently shown a side unlike any ordinary F-Grade Hunter.
How would he handle the unexpected ambush of a Hob Goblin?
‘Thirty seconds. If it gets dangerous before then, I’ll step in right away.’
Baek Jehyeok thought to himself, readying himself to attack at any moment.
The moment the Examiner intervenes, the Entrance Test is over.
Not only for the sake of his expectations for Go Hyeonjun, but also to give everyone else a better chance, waiting that long was only right.
-Help me!
A more desperate scream rang out.
The party members’ unrest grew even louder in response.
“This isn’t going to work. At this rate, he’s really going to die!”
“We can’t move recklessly!”
“Where on earth did this guy go…!”
That was when it happened.
Thwack!
An arrow came flying from somewhere and struck the temple of the Hob Goblin.
A sneak attack.
Though it hadn’t sunk deep, the attack caught it completely off guard, and the Hob Goblin staggered.
At the same time, its grip loosened, and Nalssaendoli, who had been held in its clutches, dropped down with a thud.
Right after, a figure shot out from beyond the bushes like an arrow.
‘Go Hyeonjun?’
To the other Hunters, it looked like an afterimage, but Baek Jehyeok was the only one who actually saw him.
‘He’s holding a dagger?’
It was a rather baffling sight.
The trait he had awakened was Bird Hunter.
Earlier, he had introduced Magic Arrow as his main means of combat.
‘I assumed he’d be a Ranged Dealer, of course.’
And yet he’s choosing close combat with a dagger?
No matter how high his strength or agility, giving up the strengths of his own trait was pure madness.
‘He was talking like an expert all this time, so what kind of stupid move is this suddenly?’
“Kkrwaaaah!”
As Hyeonjun charged forward, the Hob Goblin roared and thrust out its fist.
Baek Jehyeok clicked his tongue, *tch*.
‘It’s a Hob Goblin. The ambush had some effect, but it didn’t deal any serious damage.
Unless Magic Arrow pierced its head, that is.
Trying to take it on with a half-hearted approach like this won’t work.
‘He’s done for.’
An ordinary F-Grade Hunter would have been caught off guard by that counterattack.
But the scene that followed completely defied his expectations.
Whoosh!
The Hob Goblin’s fist sliced through empty air.
Hyeonjun twisted his body in midair in a strange motion and dodged the blow.
Swish!
A sharp, cutting sound followed.
In an instant, a blade flashed, and the Hob Goblin’s arm was slashed several times.
‘…?’
Baek Jehyeok’s brow twitched.
His wide eyes were filled with doubt.
‘What did I just see?’
Fine, let’s say dodging the counterattack was possible. With theory so thoroughly ingrained, he could have anticipated it.
But the attack that came after simply didn’t make sense.
The time spent dodging and hanging in the air was barely a second.
In that fleeting moment, he had carved three red lines across the Hob Goblin’s arm.
And not just surface scratches, but cuts that were quite deep.
“Kkrwaah!”
The Hob Goblin roared, glaring at the blood dripping from its wound.
Enraged, it snatched up the club leaning beside it and swung it at Hyeonjun.
Just then.
Thwack!
A Magic Arrow whistled in from the blind spot and buried itself squarely in the Hob Goblin’s eye.
“Gwaaaah!”
The Hob Goblin clutched one eye and howled in agony.
In that moment, Hyeonjun hoisted the Nalssaendoli, who had been knocked senseless by the fall, onto his shoulder and slipped away from the scene.
“Kkerrk!”
“Kkeuk!”
The goblins lunged after them, but Hyeonjun quickly put distance between them.
“Huff.”
He retreated all the way back to where the party was waiting.
Breathing hard, he laid the Nalssaendoli down.
“….”
The party members who had watched the whole sequence stood with their mouths hanging open, unable to move.
Baek Jehyeok was no different.
He scrambled to piece together what had just happened in his head.
‘Exceptional physical talent and the ability to put Traits to use. He handles weapons pretty well too…’
He had figured the man was skilled to some degree.
But this was beyond anything he had imagined.
‘This is F-Rank? I’d believe him if you said he was E-Rank, or even better than that.’
Talent hidden behind a Rank.
He had assumed no such thing could exist.
Yet here it was, laid out right in front of him.
A rough gem of talent, buried in the dirt.
“What are you all doing!”
Hyeonjun bellowed.
The Hunters who had been standing there dazed looked back at him, still bewildered.
“Prepare for battle!”
When Hyeonjun shouted again, the Hunters finally snapped back to their senses.
Their eyes turned toward a single point.
“Krrwaaaah!”
The enraged Hob Goblin was charging toward them, club in hand.
Armed goblins followed close behind.
“Kkerrk!”
“Kkeuk!”
The menacing aura radiating from the goblin force could be felt even from a distance.
At once, shadows fell across the Hunters’ faces.
One of them was already down.
That left five allies.
And one of those five wasn’t even a combatant.
Could four of them really take on a goblin force led by the Hob Goblin?
“C-can’t win.”
Namumkkun muttered and stumbled backward. The axe he had been gripping dropped to the ground with a clunk.
Hyeonjun spoke to him.
“We can win.”
This was an F-Rank Dungeon from the start.
It was a place where only Monsters that even F-Rank Hunters could kill would appear.
Even without one person, it was more than possible to clear it.
“H-how can you be so sure!”
Namumkkun shouted.
There was certainly no time to explain that.
Hyeonjun cut it short with a single answer.
“If you’re going to die whether you run or not, isn’t it better to at least flail on till the end?”
Namumkkun’s legs abruptly stopped.
The common wisdom was that a Hunter left behind in a dungeon never survives for long.
The logic that followed from that was painfully simple.
“Right. Let’s see it through to the end.”
“We haven’t even fought yet.”
The other hunters chipped in as well.
Namumkkun hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
Fear still lingered on his face, but he bent down and picked up the axe that had fallen to the ground.
Having confirmed the Party’s willingness to fight, Hyeonjun briefly laid out the plan.
“The Hob Goblin is probably the boss here. I’ll take it on, so you all just focus on the Goblins.”
At the word “boss,” the hunters’ faces went pale.
Only the Tank, who seemed to have some experience, asked Hyeonjun with a worried look.
“Can you handle it alone?”
“I’m sure of it.”
Hyeonjun answered with an easy smile.
He had confidence.
The experience he’d built up until now and the runes he had absorbed were the basis for it.
“Kroaaah!”
The Hob Goblin had already closed the distance in no time.
Hyeonjun gathered his thoughts.
‘It’s lost one eye. I’ll go after the remaining one to break its guard while attacking from its blind spot.’
The Magic Arrow he had now wasn’t strong enough to pierce the Hob Goblin’s hide and bone in one go.
So Hyeonjun repeated the attack that had worked effectively just moments ago.
Shwoosh!
The newly summoned Magic Arrow streaked toward the creature’s remaining eye at high speed.
“Hmph!”
The Hob Goblin snorted and turned its head to dodge.
In that brief moment, Hyeonjun had moved to the opposite side and pressed in without missing the opening.
Shk!
A dagger thrust forcefully from the creature’s blind spot struck the Hob Goblin in the side.
Hyeonjun immediately pulled back the dagger and created distance.
Whoosh!
The Hob Goblin’s counterattack came late and cut through empty air.
Hyeonjun didn’t give it a chance to recover; he fired another Magic Arrow. At the same time, he lunged at it again.
Shk!
While the Hob Goblin was busy dodging the Magic Arrow, Hyeonjun left another wound across its body.
“Kwoooooah!”
After being struck the same way again and again, the Hob Goblin let out a fearsome roar.
But the situation didn’t change.
The Magic Arrow kept flying at its remaining eye every time, and the Hob Goblin had no choice but to dodge.
“Clever, isn’t it?”
Baek Jehyeok let out a chuckle.
As the saying goes, it was an attack that couldn’t be guarded against.
Dodge, and you get hit.
Take it and hold out, and a strike to a vital spot would be fatal.
It tried to block belatedly, but the arrows changed their direction and angle to match.
“Wow…”
Baek Jehyeok admired it sincerely.
An incredible burst of speed that responded to the opponent’s movements in real time.
Especially using a magic skill like that was no easy feat.
Even the simplest spell has a casting delay, after all.
“What on earth is that guy?”
A Hexagon Hunter who could do everything on his own.
He was a rare talent, the kind you seldom came across.
Thud!
Before long, a deafening crash rang out.
The Hob Goblin’s massive body had sprawled across the ground.
Its huge frame was covered in countless stab wounds.
[You have cleared the Closed Gate.]
A System message appeared before everyone.
Hyeonjun grinned as he looked at the message.
“So it really was the boss.”
It was a boss that fit perfectly with an F-Rank Dungeon. If the Hob Goblin hadn’t been the boss, the Gate’s rank would have had to change accordingly.
“Is this good luck or bad luck?”
We won, so is it good?
Hyeonjun grinned and pulled the dagger free from beneath the Hob Goblin’s chin, where it had pierced clean through.
“Keuk!”
“Keureureuk!”
With their leader dead, the goblins still left alive scattered in a panic, fleeing in every direction.
The Hunters stared at their retreating backs, and only belatedly did they read the System message.
“Whoa, whoa-ahh!”
Cheers rose and rolled through the valley.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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