I Stepped on Their Shadows and Skills Started Copying Like Crazy - Chapter 23

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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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23
“Mew-mew-meow!”
The day began with Yonseok’s cry.
“Yeah, you’re awake,” I murmured.
I scratched the chin of the creature perched on my chest as he cast Paw Press, then rolled out of bed.
Yesterday’s fourth-floor trial had one objective: breach the Gorge.
The third-floor mission had been about reaching the Gorge with Yonseok’s egg, and the fourth-floor trial was essentially an extension of that.
‘The enemies dropping stones from above and firing arrows were annoying, I’ll admit—but it was still easier than the third floor.’
Or more honestly, I’d gotten stronger.
The new armor and the added Flame Resistance skill had made a real difference.
I cut down the enemies blocking my path by the dozens and cleared the stage by following the path forward—done.
The clear rating came back as EX Grade without issue, extending the Abundance Buff, and I’d collected both the Gaze of Favor and the Unidentified Black Page right on schedule.
I’d gotten solid equipment drops in the second and third floors, so I’d half expected something good from the fourth—but it turned out to be a bust.
‘Can’t complain. Getting gear two floors in a row was lucky enough.’
Then, unexpectedly, the auction helmet—which I’d entrusted to an auctioneer and promptly forgotten about—crossed my mind again.
‘Oh, right. The auction.’
If things had gone as planned, the auction would have started at midnight yesterday and would be in full swing by now.
‘I should check it out. See how things are going.’
I logged into the Temda Farm app and pulled up the auction status.
“If it just clears seven hundred thousand, that’d be amazing… no, wait. High hopes make for big disappointments. It’s not even a popular item—I’ll just be grateful if it doesn’t fail to sell.”
That’s what I’d been thinking.
But then…
[Tooth-Embedded Scrap Metal Crown]
[Current Bid: 8,700,000 won]
“Huh…?”
When I actually looked at it, things were unfolding very differently from what I’d expected.
“One, ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand, hundred thousand… one million!”
I recounted the zeros just to be sure, but there was no mistake.
‘What on earth…?’
I checked the bid history to see what had happened, and the bidding had been fierce.
‘If I’d dumped this at six hundred thousand, I’d have kicked myself.’
There’s definitely wisdom in listening to the experts.
Blessings come to those who wait.
‘There’s still some time left, and if it keeps climbing like this… I might even see it hit fifteen million.’
Auctions don’t typically work that way, but who cares at this point.
High hopes bring disappointment? No! Dreams do come true.
‘Surely it’ll hit at least ten million, right? If I suddenly have ten million won… what would I do with it. Reinvest in gear…? No, maybe it’s time to move.’
I’d actually been thinking about relocating last night before sleep, stroking Yonseok as he lay curled up by my pillow.
‘I’ve gotten used to this place, but for him… it can’t be good.’
A musty, moldy den like this was hardly an ideal environment for a kitten.
I worried about him catching some lung disease.
I’d decided it would be better to put in the effort to move.
‘Even if I had to quit climbing tomorrow and go back to being a salaryman, I can scrape together the rent for a small studio. Let’s just get into a place with good sunlight and no mold.’
Even if it wasn’t a mansion, something like that would let us live like actual people.
And Yonseok could live like a proper cat.
“Yonseok, let’s move. Actually, we’re moving!”
“Meow?”
He lifted his head at the sound of my voice, having been in my arms tearing apart the shadows with eager chomps.
His round violet eyes gleamed.
“Good—so let’s go earn some more money for our new home, yeah? You ready, Yonseok?”
“Meow!”
At his eager cry, a smile spread across my face.
Finally, the fifth floor.
I was headed toward the first threshold of the growth-type skill Beginning of Training, where the Sword Saint’s growth would accelerate.
* * *
The fifth-floor Basic Mission took place in a deep Cave.
Beyond the Wasteland and the Gorge lay the Cave, where my main task was to eliminate goblin shamans.
‘Ugh, it’s damp. Already feels stuffy.’
The moment I stepped inside, the cave air embraced me—humid and cold.
In the thick darkness, water dripped steadily, echoing against stone.
It wasn’t exactly a refreshing feeling.
‘I thought I was tired of the Wasteland, but now that I’m leaving, I miss it.’
For Awakened Ones accustomed to the open expanse of the Wasteland, this was their first encounter with a far more treacherous environment.
In fact, it was one of the places where deaths occurred frequently in the lower floors below the tenth level.
They called it the Wailing Wall—the place that turned confident novice Awakened Ones into salary slaves.
‘Even if it’s just a Basic Mission, I’d better take this seriously.’
With a soft click.
At the entrance of the Cave, where light still filtered faintly through, I pulled out the Head Lantern and put it on in advance.
It was something I’d picked up just moments ago at the large supplies shop in the first-floor lobby.
— Ah, a lantern? You’re going up to the fifth floor, then. Ugh, what a hassle. The fifth floor. So dark, you wouldn’t believe it. But with this item, mere darkness won’t be able to stop your climb….
I vaguely remember hearing something about how it was made from bioluminescent moss that grows naturally in the Tower and fragments from the body of a glowing moonstone golem, but I don’t recall the details.
What matters is how to use it. That much I remember clearly.
‘If I channel mana into this….’
In an instant, light burst from the lantern, flooding my entire field of vision at once.
“Oh, that’s nice.”
It didn’t take up a hand like a torch and illuminated exactly where my gaze fell, so the hefty 750,000 won I’d invested was paying dividends.
With this, I was ready. Relying on that reassuring 750,000 won light source, I ventured deeper into the Cave.
“Right then, let’s see what we can find.”
About a minute after I began cutting through the darkness.
All I could hear was my own footsteps and the occasional drip of water.
“Strange… nothing out here?”
The moment that thought crossed my mind, I heard something fluttering in the darkness ahead.
“Ah, my big mouth again.”
As the Head Lantern’s beam chased the sound, a massive bat came into view.
A pair of red eyes reflected the light with a sharp glint.
‘Here it comes…!’
“Squeeee─!”
The sight of it was so grotesque that I tried to slice it in one clean stroke.
Or rather, I meant to—but the creature folded its wings in an instant and performed an aerobatic maneuver, and my blade whistled past its body with barely a whisper.
“…Tch!”
Shocked by the unexpected evasion, I barely had time to process before the creature spread its wings again, lost its balance, and staggered.
‘Frozen!’
In the same instant I confirmed that one of its wings had been glazed with a thin layer of ice from the Prelude’s effect, I drove a clean thrust forward.
Shriek! Crack!
The straight line of my dark blade shattered its ribs and pierced clean through.
“Squeeee─eee!”
It didn’t die from that alone; impaled on the blade, it thrashed about wildly, convulsing.
Its wings were so enormous I grimaced at the thought of them touching my body.
“That’s why I aimed for the head.”
I slammed the Nocturne—now unwillingly serving as a skewer—against the ground and crushed the creature’s skull under my boot.
Crunch!
A faint, unpleasant sensation seeping through my shoe.
Only then did the giant bat go still.
“…I think slicing works better for bats.”
I flicked the blood off my shoe and blade, then fixed my gaze forward into the darkness once more.
‘Do these things keep showing up? How irritating.’
That was when it happened.
Somewhere deep in the Cave, something caught the Head Lantern’s light and glimmered.
Something yellowish….
‘Gold? A Golden Goblin!’
My body reacted instinctively.
I picked up speed and closed in, and soon a small thieving goblin with a pack on its back came into view.
“Squee─eek!”
The moment it noticed me, it panicked and bolted down a side passage.
“Oh no you don’t!”
In this darkness where even moving at full speed felt reckless, if I lost it here, I might lose it for good.
I immediately opened my Inventory and drew out the Short Dagger, then hurled it.
I’d only meant to borrow it for a day, but Jinchul had half-forced it on me as a gift.
It was the blade that had been sleeping in my Inventory ever since I’d acquired the Nocturne, but here it finally found its purpose.
Shriek─!
A dagger hurled on the foundation of base stats that doubled with each floor—strength that surpassed any ordinary hunter’s.
The short dagger sang with rough piercing force, tearing through the darkness with a sharp crack.
‘I got it.’
A shrieking cry echoed from the darkness—’Kyeee!’—and I knew for certain it had connected.
‘Did I catch it?’
Half a success, unfortunately.
The dagger had found its mark, but the creature showed no intention of surrendering its life.
The chase through the dark cave continued.
“Why… is this…! So nimble!”
The gap between one who runs to live and one who runs to kill—impossible to close.
“Damn it, just let me catch you!”
The golden goblin fled with everything it had, blood dripping steadily from its body.
It moved through the darkness as if this were its own home, threading through passages with practiced ease.
An unfair chase.
In the Wasteland, perhaps I could manage better.
But here in this moss-slicked dark Cave, I couldn’t muster full speed no matter how hard I pushed.
‘One cliff face and I’m dead. How am I supposed to go faster than this?’
It was starting to look like I might actually lose it.
‘If I do, that Secret Map Fragment goes with it.’
That’s when Yonseok suddenly emerged from the shadow beneath my feet.
A bad feeling crawled up my spine.
“Hey, what are you—!”
“Meow!”
My hands were already reaching for Yonseok even as I spoke.
‘Got you…!’
I almost had him.
But then Yonseok slipped back into the shadows in a blink.
“Hey! That’s cheating!”
He reappeared the moment my hands closed on air, galloping forward on all fours again, leaving me in his dust.
When I saw him like this, he moved faster than any monster I’d ever faced in the Tower.
“This bastard again…! What is this, can he fly now?”
I’d never seen those wings actually carry him aloft before, so I’d assumed they weren’t developed yet—but just now it looked like he managed it.
Or gliding, maybe, was the better word.
Either way, that wasn’t the problem at hand.
“Damn it, I should’ve left him at home.”
I hated the thought of him alone there crying pitifully—but worse was the idea of bringing him somewhere dangerous and having him die or get hurt on my watch.
I’d never felt what people called family bonds before, so I couldn’t claim to understand it. And yet—wasn’t this creature my responsibility?
“There!”
The golden goblin could wait.
Tense and focused, I chased after Yonseok.
‘This time I’m going to teach him a lesson.’
Fortunately, our chase didn’t last long.
“…Huh?”
Up ahead, Yonseok suddenly stopped dead.
And there—he had the goblin cornered, threatening it into submission.
“Hiss!”
The Hissing/Threat Display I’d only heard about until now.
I’d never known Yonseok could make such an expression.
“K-ki-iek?”
The goblin was trembling with fear, utterly confused, unable to move in any direction.
‘How is something so small and cute so terrifying?’
Either way, it was within range now.
I couldn’t waste the opening Yonseok had given me.
“Here!”
A dark blade thrust straight through the darkness, pure and true.
Crack!
The blade entered through its back and burst out through its left chest.
One strike. Dead.
The welcome system message followed immediately after.
[The special effect ‘Stealthily’ has been activated.]
[You have acquired the special item ‘Secret Map Fragment’ from the unique entity ‘Petty Thief Goblin’.]
“Phew…”
In the end, Yonseok’s intervention had proven invaluable.
Yet my conscience wasn’t entirely at ease for having accepted that help.
“Yonseok…!”
This time I was genuinely prepared to give him a solid smack.
Except…
“Mew?”
Those wide, luminous amethyst eyes gazing up at me.
Ah, there was simply no fighting this.
Cuteness was, without question, the most formidable weapon.
“Sigh… Yonseok, I appreciate that you want to help, but you could seriously get yourself hurt. You can’t keep doing this.”
As if staging a protest against my words, the creature vanished from the shadow at my feet with a soft *pop*, only to materialize in the goblin’s corpse shadow with a sharp *ping*.
“Mrow!”
I didn’t know what he was saying, but his entire posture screamed, ‘No! I’m safe!’
“Yeah, I know you can do things like that. I know—but that’s exactly why this place is dangerous, don’t you get it?”
“Mew!”
What’s this? Now he was even displaying his claws to prove his point.
As if declaring, ‘I can fight too!’
“I don’t need you to do that. Please, just stay safe. Okay?”
“Mrow!”
“And that answer means… I’m about to be fooled again, isn’t it?”
Regardless, the creature nuzzled his head against my leg affectionately.
“Stop, stop, stop! Don’t try to smooth this over with cuteness!”
“Mew mew!”
Damn it, I’d caved again.
“Fine, you win. I surrender. We need to clear out of here and move on anyway.”
I muttered complaints, yet I couldn’t help the smile tugging at my lips.
“If you weren’t so adorable, you’d have caught at least three beatings by now. You know that? Probably not. What would you know?”
“Mrow?”
“…Maybe I’ll pick up a snack when we get back. Besides shadow—what else do you even eat?”
As I stroked the creature’s head while he purred contentedly, a faint sound drifted from somewhere beyond the darkness.
‘An incantation…? Or is that singing?’
Perhaps both.
It was time to return to reality.
“Come on, back inside. Time to get to work for my employer.”
I sent Yonseok back into shadow and gripped the Nocturne once more.
The blade began to emanate heat, a slow, creeping warmth.
My wavering mind, by contrast, cooled to a sharp edge.
The hunt resumed.
Just stepping on a shadow and the skill gets copied right away
Author |
Killing Part
Publisher |
Samyang C&C Co., Ltd.
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Editorial Department
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Samyang C&C Co., Ltd. – Dream Books
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Submissions |
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No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of Samyang C&C Co., Ltd. – Dream Books.

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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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