Copying Runes to Become the World's Strongest - Chapter 3

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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 3.
Thud.
His legs gave out, and Hyeonjun sank straight to his knees.
“This isn’t a dream…”
A chill seeped up through his knees from the ground.
The winter air pierced deep into his chest, and a sharp wind scraped across his skin.
Every bit of it made the moment feel real.
“It’s really not a dream…”
The past five years had been a vast swamp for him.
The more he struggled, the deeper poverty dragged him under.
No matter how hard he worked, his debts refused to shrink, and his mother’s illness dragged on with no end in sight.
Even the awakening that had come to him like a miracle was nothing more than a joke: [Bird Hunter].
It was as if the world were mocking him, whispering that he should just give up on everything.
But today, of all days.
A small yet unmistakable crack had split that wall of despair.
“Hah, heh-heh.”
At first, a laugh escaped him.
But before long, his eyes stung with heat.
Hyeonjun tried to hold it in, but in the end, a sob forced its way past his lips.
On the deserted street, a strange sound rang out, a mix of a twenty-five-year-old’s grief and hope.
‘Now I can finally live like a human being.’
The ordinary life the world had stolen from him had come within reach once more.
Hyeonjun slowly got to his feet.
In his reddened eyes burned a fierce resolve.
“First, let’s finish copying these runes.”
Hyeonjun finished copying the Rune of Agility.
That made eight new Runes of Agility.
He swallowed them down with water, letting them be absorbed.
“Stat.”
While he was at it, he checked his stats.
His eyes widened slightly.
Stats▽
-Strength: 10/100
-Agility: 19/100
-Stamina: 10/100
-Mana: 10/100
-Willpower: 10/100
“My stats have changed completely?”
They said the Soul Circuit and initial stats varied depending on the trait one awakened with, but I never imagined that would apply even when the trait itself changed.
“No wonder my body feels so light.”
By this time of day, he should have been exhausted, yet he felt full of energy.
The adrenaline from this sudden re-awakening(?) might be part of it, but the effect of his stats could not be ignored either.
“Do I stand a chance as a Hunter like this?”
A beginner’s setup typically aims for somewhere between seventy and eighty runes.
He currently held fifty-nine.
Even that number included Mana and Willpower, stats that would do little to help in an immediate fight, so hunting seemed difficult.
“Still, I’d like to check it out for myself.”
Hyeonjun thought long and hard, then shook his head.
‘If I rush in and get hurt, I’m in big trouble.’
The moment he got injured, not only would his Hunter activities be put on hold, he wouldn’t be able to work either.
No day-labor agency anywhere would take on a man who was hurt.
“Just thinking about it is terrifying.”
For now, I’ll focus on absorbing runes to raise my stats.
Agility first.
Thinking about Hunter work, it would be wise to raise the other stats to balance things out, but that would cost money of its own.
‘There’s a monster I can catch with agility alone.’
Right then, one monster came to Hyeonjun’s mind.
It had no attack or defense to speak of, but its speed was outstanding: the ‘Rabbit’ monster.
‘It’ll probably be hard to catch, but if I’m going to be a Hunter, I have to be able to take down at least that much.’
What’s more, if I catch that thing, I can get a rune too.
So rather than spending money on other runes, I’ll just raise my Agility.
‘The question is how much Agility I actually need.’
Ideally, I’d push it all the way to 100.
My current Agility is 19, and even accounting for the fact that it’ll rise to 29 once midnight passes, I’d still have to wait another week.
“Do I really have to hold out that long?”
Hyeonjun mulled it over and made up his mind.
“For now, let me go for a light run and see how much my body has changed.”
Then I’ll set a benchmark for how high to push Agility before I step into a dungeon.
“If I decide that anything short of 100 won’t cut it, then I’ll just wait the week out and be done with it.”
Hyeonjun glanced around.
A quiet street with almost no one about.
Even the two-lane road lay empty.
It was perfect as a track.
Hyeonjun loosened up with a few jumps in place, then immediately pushed off the ground.
“Hup!”
He sprinted flat-out up a slight incline.
The wind whistled past his ears.
The scenery streamed away behind him.
‘Doesn’t seem like much of a difference.’
Hyeonjun’s body, honed by all those days of grinding labor.
A modest bump in his stats wasn’t enough to feel any real change.
“Whew.”
Hyeonjun came to a halt.
Having run so suddenly, his heart was pounding hard.
“It’s… kind of hard to tell…”
He did feel like he’d improved.
But it wasn’t anything he could really feel.
It was like someone who could previously manage 300 on a 300-point scale suddenly managing 310.
“Still, at least it’s not so small that I can’t feel it. That’s a relief.”
His body was better than before.
Hyeonjun seriously weighed how high to raise his Agility.
“With 19 runes, this much is…”
Sixty or seventy would probably hold up to some degree inside a dungeon.
But he wanted to be more certain than that.
“I’ll just fill it to 100.”
Neither his body nor his resolve could afford to be half-hearted.
Going into a dungeon meant checking whether he could truly work as a Hunter.
‘It’ll be hard to wait, but I’ll just hold out for one more week.’
***
Morning of the eighth day since re-awakening.
The moment Hyeonjun opened his eyes, he copied a rune and absorbed it.
Stats▽
-Strength: 10/100
-Agility: 99/100
-Stamina: 10/100
-Mana: 10/100
-Willpower: 10/100
The other stats hadn’t changed, but Agility was now close to 100.
“So this is finally the day.”
The day he had been waiting for, again and again.
It was time to enter a dungeon.
“Before going in, I’ll warm up first.”
Hyeonjun left the house and headed for the schoolyard of a nearby school.
For the past week, he hadn’t checked his body’s growth even once, in preparation for today.
He also planned to test how much faster he’d become while warming up.
It being a weekend morning, the schoolyard was completely empty.
Upon arriving at the yard, Hyeonjun loosened up by jumping in place on the dirt.
‘Already feels different?’
It wasn’t just his imagination.
The rebound from his toes as they pushed off the ground was far snappier than usual.
Because of that.
Hyeonjun put his strength into it and pushed off the ground.
His body shot forward like an arrow.
Whoosh!
The wind whistling past his ears was sharp.
The scenery at the edges of his vision stretched out like it had been smeared with a brush, then streamed past behind him.
‘W-wait, this fast?’
The time his feet touched the ground shrank to almost nothing.
Every time he skimmed and kicked off the surface, his body seemed to float forward through the air.
His breathing had grown ragged, but Hyeonjun didn’t stop.
If anything, he pressed harder into his thighs, as if testing the limits of his legs.
His heart, pounding as if it might burst, flooded his whole body with adrenaline.
In the middle of that sprint, Hyeonjun somehow felt a sense of release.
It felt as though all the burdens he’d been carrying on his shoulders couldn’t keep up with this speed and were being left behind.
“Haah, haah.”
Hyeonjun brought his run to a halt.
He had to take a few more meters of short, stumbling steps just to slow down.
His lungs burned as if they were on fire.
As he tried to catch his breath, he noticed that the soles of his feet felt strangely empty.
“It’s beyond what I imagined…?”
The dust kicked up by his run still hadn’t settled, hanging lazily in the air.
“So this is the power of runes.”
Hyeonjun couldn’t hold back the smile spreading across his face.
Getting stronger could feel this good.
And this wasn’t even the end of it.
“The Rune of Agility alone gives me this much. What if I absorb the Rune of Strength too?”
Stats pulled on one another like gears in a machine.
Raise Strength, and the lower body would be affected too, so he could become even faster.
Current Strength: 10.
The potential was practically limitless.
“Even as an F-Rank, it’s already this much…”
Lost in thoughts of the future, Hyeonjun slapped both of his cheeks.
“Snap out of it. You don’t even know yet if you’ll be able to work as a Hunter properly.”
Hyeonjun had already tried to become a Hunter once and failed.
That was why, even though he was several times stronger than he had been back then, he couldn’t let his guard down.
“Pack up and head out.”
Hyeonjun went back home and took out the supplies he had prepared in advance.
A bag he’d gotten for free from a Carrot Market giveaway and the Damascus Steel Kitchen Knife he’d bought for 20,000 won were the stars of the show.
“Alright, I’ve got everything.”
Hyeonjun stood in front of the entrance.
“Why am I this nervous over something like this?”
Thinking about it, it wasn’t strange at all.
He was on his way to test his potential as a Hunter.
Depending on the result, his family’s future would be decided.
At the same time, it was a chance to fulfill the dream he had given up on.
“Let’s at least catch one.”
The goal was a successful hunt.
Even just one would do.
He wanted to take down a monster with his own hands and take his first step as a Hunter.
“I can do this.”
Hyeonjun left the house in light clothes.
He walked to the lawn plaza of a park not far from home.
In the middle of the grassy plaza, where people came and went, he could see a Gate surrounded by a barrier and a Management Bureau guard post.
Above the guard post, in large letters, was written <Hunting Ground: F-Grade Grassland Field>.
‘Hunting ground.’
There are two kinds of Gates.
The Open-Type Gate stays open and never closes. It’s commonly called a hunting ground.
Because you can leave at any time, it’s generally considered to have relatively low difficulty.
‘The other kind is a Gate that closes after a set amount of time once you go in.’
It’s called a Closed Gate, and when people say “Dungeon,” they usually mean this.
“At my level, a Closed Gate is still too early.”
Even within the same rank, Closed Gates are considered more difficult.
No one knows what kind of emergency might arise, and once a crisis hits, there’s no way out from the inside.
“The rewards are great, but I should avoid going in if I can help it.”
It’s dangerous. Far too dangerous.
Of all Anomaly Spaces, this is the one with the most fatalities.
‘Hmm. Still, if I think about the future, I can’t avoid it entirely…’
Hyeonjun turned the thoughts over in his mind, then shook his head to clear them away.
He wasn’t even certain he could take down a monster right now.
This was no time to be agonizing over whether to enter a Closed Dungeon.
“Hello.”
Hyeonjun approached the Management Bureau guard post, which was connected to the barrier blocking the Gate’s entrance.
“Welcome. Please take out your Hunter registration card.”
Hyeonjun handed the attendant the Hunter registration card he had brought along.
The attendant scanned the code on the card to look up his information.
“Your last dungeon entry was three years ago?”
“My awakened ability isn’t much, so I went in once back then just to try it out, and I’ve been resting ever since.”
“It’s a Grassland Field, but it can still be dangerous, so don’t let your guard down.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Hyeonjun received his card back and stepped up to the turnstile.
“Phew…”
As he took a steadying breath, the red light on the turnstile switched to green.
Hyeonjun passed through the turnstile and entered the Gate.
.
.
.
Swoosh.
A breeze swept across the grassland.
It carried a gentle warmth.
“It’s been a while.”
Beneath the blue sky, a vast grassland stretched out endlessly.
Hyeonjun breathed deeply, drinking in the scent of the grass.
“The smell of grass…”
Outside it was winter, but here it felt like full-blown spring.
No wonder people went to dungeons for a casual outing.
‘I hope I can come here someday with a light heart, too.’
Hyeonjun scanned his surroundings.
The monster he was after was one of the rabbit monsters that appeared in the grassland: the Rune Rabbit.
‘It’s a Rune Monster, so it’s the hardest to hunt among the rabbit monsters.’
Runes can be obtained in finished form, but they can also be crafted by combining an item called Rune Fragments.
The Rune Rabbit is a Rune Monster that yields such Rune Fragments, and Rune Monsters are known for being trickier to handle than ordinary monsters.
‘It doesn’t have to be a Rune Rabbit specifically, but…’
The goal was to take down one monster, no matter what.
That one didn’t have to be a Rune Rabbit. It was the hardest to catch in the grassland, after all.
‘But if I can bring down at least that much, I think I’ll feel confident that I can work as a Hunter.’
Pa-bat!
Just then, something shot past Hyeonjun’s side like an arrow.
Hyeonjun flinched and stepped aside.
“You! Stop right there!!”
“Get him!”
Hunters were giving chase after it.
Hyeonjun narrowed his eyes and looked at what they were chasing.
Unlike the ordinary rabbit monsters of the grassland, it had jet-black fur and a glittering stone embedded in its forehead.
‘It’s a Rune Rabbit.’
The creature sped away like an arrow.
Quite literally a blur.
The Hunters frantically pursued it, but they didn’t look like they stood a chance.
‘It really is fast.’
The Rune Rabbit has low defense and doesn’t attack.
Instead, it’s fast.
As if he’d poured every point into Agility.
‘Can I even catch it?’
The doubt surfaced the instant it formed.
Hyeonjun shook his head hard.
‘I’m catching it. No question.’
That was the mindset a Hunter had to carry.
Hyeonjun narrowed his eyes and set off to find the Rune Rabbit.
“Found it.”
The Rune Rabbit was not far off.
Black fur.
A Rune Fragment glinting on its forehead.
It was nibbling at the grass, none the wiser.
“Whew.”
Hyeonjun drew a slow breath.
This wasn’t just a simple hunt.
A kind of rite of passage.
He had no choice but to become even more solemn and careful.
‘As careful as I can be.’
He crept forward so it wouldn’t notice him.
Once he’d closed enough of the distance, all that was left was to set his stance and-
Thud!
Hyeonjun kicked off the ground with everything he had.
His body shot forward like a cannonball.
The Rune Rabbit didn’t even flinch. It bolted at once.
Pa-bak!
The Rune Rabbit pulled away in an instant.
Hyeonjun pushed his speed even higher.
A hard wind slapped against his face.
The speed chilled his lungs.
Then came a strange weightlessness, as if his body had floated free.
Exhilaration surged up to the very top of his head.
‘Huh?’
For a moment, Hyeonjun doubted his own eyes.
The outline of the Rune Rabbit, which he’d thought was pulling away, was suddenly right in front of him.
‘No way.’
It’s this easy to catch up?

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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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