Infinite Evolution Hunter - Chapter 104

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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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104
“Eres, why are you hitting my brother?”
Bae Na-young asked while placing a pastry into the mouth of Eres, who lay across her lap.
Bae Na-young had always adored children and animals, and upon seeing the adorable form of Eres, she became utterly captivated. However, she couldn’t treat an incarnation who governed the very existence of an entire world carelessly, so she could only observe from a distance.
Then, discovering that Eres had a fondness for pastries, she began her seduction with sweets. Approaching with the persistence of one taming a wild beast, she gradually closed the distance until now Bae Na-young stood second only to me in closeness to Eres.
“Hmm? Why? Are you worried?”
“Yes. He looks like he’s suffering.”
Seeing me—someone who rarely made a sound despite pain—now groaning audibly, Bae Na-young’s heart ached. At first, she’d considered charging at the incarnation regardless, but she’d held back at my insistence.
“Do not worry. I have not encountered a human this resilient in a long time.”
“But… couldn’t you explain what you’re doing?”
“That dull fellow cannot understand through words alone; he must learn through his body. Do not fret. I merely prepare him for the adversaries that lie ahead.”
“Hmm…”
Upon hearing that she was preparing me for what was to come, Bae Na-young tried to understand, yet she still disliked how Eres seized upon absurd pretexts to strike me.
In small rebellion, she braided Eres’s hair in a ridiculous fashion, but the effect was negligible given the child-like cuteness of her appearance.
* * *
After a week of various basic physical conditioning, I reviewed the prisoners’ records. Their stats had risen noticeably from mere days of foundational training—an overwhelming training effect compared to what they’d gain at the Academy.
However, in that short span, their faces had withered as if they’d aged a decade. Though I could restore their vitality, I could not restore their spirits.
“Today we conduct sparring matches. Five-versus-five format. Win, and you have tomorrow off from training.”
I gestured toward the basic equipment. Weapons suited to each person’s skills and light armor had been prepared.
“Against whom shall we spar?”
Shin Mu-yeol looked at me, his eyes asking: Surely not against you?
“Not me. Hunters of comparable level.”
Hyung-bin, Si-hwan, Min-woo, Jin-woo, and Ye-seul stepped forward. Chang-hee was absent. With Ye-seul already a B-rank Healer, including Chang-hee would tip the balance too heavily in their favor.
Chang-hee was currently dispatched to the Rose Guild, steadily growing as an ace.
The prisoners surveyed Hyung-bin’s group, deemed them manageable, and swiftly donned their equipment. Their determination to secure a day off was evident.
“Hyung-bin’s team, likewise. Lose, and special training awaits. Give it your all.”
Now it was time to gather real combat data within the World Tree’s influence zone.
Hyung-bin took the front, Si-hwan the left flank, Min-woo the right, with Jin-woo and Ye-seul positioned at the rear.
Unlike Hyung-bin’s team, hesitant to strike first, the prisoners surged forward as if to unleash all the stress they’d accumulated.
“Fireball!”
Jeon Dong-gun, a rapist and murderer, unleashed flames toward Ye-seul. His predatory targeting of women would never change, not even in death.
The moment Ye-seul came under attack, Hyung-bin’s guardian stats surged. With elevated stats, he moved swiftly, shielding her with his barrier and blocking the fireball.
“Go!”
Seeing the prisoner relentlessly pouring forth flames, Hyung-bin charged toward Jeon Dong-gun.
“Charge!”
Heo O-sung cut into the path, colliding with Hyung-bin. Despite clashing with an opponent a rank above, Hyung-bin held his ground.
However.
“Ugh!”
True to his origins as an Academy instructor, after the impact, Heo O-sung swiftly drew his blade in the moment Hyung-bin recoiled from the rebound, piercing his thigh.
The blade touched bone. Had his armor not been there, the limb would have been severed.
“Shield! Protect!” Ye-seul cast her defensive spell.
Ye-seul shielded Hyung-bin from the incoming assault.
“Tch….”
As Jin-woo and Si-hwan’s attacks followed in quick succession, Heo O-sung clicked his tongue and retreated.
Hyung-bin, Si-hwan, and Jin-woo engaged Heo O-sung and Yang Deok-su, but even the three of them struggled to defend against the convicts’ relentless strikes aimed at vital points.
While the front lines clashed fiercely, Jin-woo blocked Jeon Dong-gun’s successive fireballs with his shield from the rear. Ye-seul’s shield was cast on Jin-woo, but since she had spread her protection across the entire team, its defensive power was weakened.
The thin shield shattered helplessly against the fireball that had been carefully crafted over time. Because of this, Jin-woo’s flesh was being seared by the flames that broke through his shield, yet he stood firm without retreating, steadfastly protecting Ye-seul.
Shin Mu-yeol turned invisible and approached to target Ye-seul, but Jin-woo, detecting his footsteps, created a hawk with his skill and attacked. Jin-woo did his utmost to protect the Healer Ye-seul even as he himself came under assault.
“Ugh! Stop! Stop!”
Shin Mu-yeol had no other special skills and had never received combat training, so he couldn’t even handle a single hawk.
“Pathetic bastard.”
Choi Mi-ran spat out curses and released a poisonous mist between the frontline fighters who were clustered together. It was a skill I hadn’t seen before. The fact that she had leveled up a new skill in prison suggested that fights never ceased within those walls.
As the paralyzing mist that caused numbness spread, everyone’s movements slowed.
“You bitch! We’re getting caught up in this too!”
The mist was sprayed thickly toward Hyung-bin, Si-hwan, and Min-woo, but Yang Deok-su and Heo O-sung, who were nearby, had no choice but to inhale it as well.
“Shut up! Aren’t we not resting tomorrow?!”
“Of course we aren’t!”
Yang Deok-su and Heo O-sung, already accustomed to pushing their bodies hard through a week of training, overcame the paralytic poison through sheer willpower. This was possible because they had experienced the benefits of recovery from the World Tree’s vitality until now.
Hyung-bin’s group found their bodies stiffened and their movements sluggish, allowing the convicts rushing in to target their vital points to land successive attacks.
Ye-seul, without debuff skills, cast heals and shields on everyone, but it wasn’t enough to protect her four companions who were being attacked one-sidedly.
While everyone had become somewhat accustomed to hunting monsters, their lack of experience in direct combat made their performance disastrous.
“Enough.”
At my signal, the convicts withdrew and Hyung-bin’s team collapsed to the ground.
“Oh! We won! We won! So, does that mean we get to rest tomorrow?!”
Jeon Dong-gun shouted.
“Yes. You can rest from now until tomorrow. I’ve prepared meals, so eat.”
The convicts returned to the Dormitory in high spirits.
“The level difference between those five and you isn’t that great. But the difference in resolve and experience was significant.”
Hyung-bin’s group hung their heads.
“Starting the day after tomorrow, I’ll train too. If you want, you can join me. But it’s not mandatory. Not every Awakened needs to become a Hunter.”
I couldn’t force those without will into becoming Hunters.
While Hyung-bin’s team deliberated and the convicts rested for a day, I prepared for my personal training with Jae-in.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes. Chairman, you really do have excellent ideas for this sort of thing. Should I turn it on?”
“Yes.”
I fastened metal weights to my wrists and ankles, and wore an iron vest around my torso. Beneath my feet lay a metal disc ten meters in diameter.
“Activating all systems!”
“Whoosh!”
My body was pulled downward. The floor was an ultra-powerful electromagnet that Jae-in had created. It was installed on the ground by adapting technology used in junkyards.
Until now, I had trained individually by lifting heavy objects. But now that my strength had increased, the volume needed to achieve satisfying weight training had become too large and inconvenient. So I came up with this device.
“Ooh, that’s quite heavy, isn’t it?”
“…The pulling force must be tens of tons?”
“Can you increase it further?”
“I’ll keep raising it.”
According to Jae-in, by pouring new materials and money into it, she could generate magnetic force several times stronger than ordinary electromagnets.
I considered using it as a weapon, but it required metal on the enemy’s body and needed to be within one meter for maximum effect, so it wasn’t practical.
The pulling force of the metal attached to my body grew steadily stronger. Lifting my arms became difficult, and my legs trembled.
I moved my heavy body slowly and stepped onto the electromagnet plate.
Jae-in shook her head as she watched me walk.
“Huff!”
Since I deliberately didn’t use aura or boost, the moment I lifted my right foot, my left ankle couldn’t withstand the nearly hundred-ton weight and fractured.
Pain surged through me instantly, but the life force from the World Tree combined with my own regeneration healed the break as it happened.
[Strength increased by 1.]
[Strength increased by 1.]
My strength, which hadn’t been rising easily lately, was increasing again—it felt rewarding.
Once I grew accustomed to walking, I performed squats and push-ups, and later even handstand push-ups.
Seeing me train, Hyung-bin steeled his resolve and strapped on his military pack. He shouldered the heavy pack—so burdensome it dug into his shoulders—without complaint and ran across the muddy Training Ground.
After him, Hyung-bin’s younger siblings and Ye-seul followed suit.
I couldn’t always protect these people. Yang Sang-heon, Ye-seul, and Chang-hee were one thing, but if the remaining four didn’t develop quickly enough, I couldn’t keep them with me any longer. I’d already grown attached, and I didn’t want to watch them die while traveling with me.
I was grateful they hadn’t given up.
“So will training actually help? I shall assist you.”
Eres came out to the Training Facility and climbed onto the electromagnet plate where I stood.
“Are you going to stop making excuses and flicking chestnuts at me now?”
“I wish you’d learned from that, but you didn’t, did you? You’re as dull as they come.”
“Wouldn’t it have been better if you’d just told me what it was?”
“You’re not someone who thinks with your head, are you? Let’s get serious now.”
Eres, dressed in children’s clothes that Bae Na-young had bought her, was adorable, but knowing the power she could unleash, I tensed my body and took a defensive stance.
Eres flew at me without any preparatory motion and delivered a kick.
Armor and aura were useless against Eres’s attacks anyway, so I didn’t bother using them.
Instead, I burned my life force to boost to maximum and pulled my stats higher, but I couldn’t evade the attack that slid through space like a blade.
I raised my arm to block, and the muscles in my struck arm burst while my bones shattered.
Eres’s attack was fundamentally different from what I’d experienced before. The impact point wasn’t being destroyed, nor was the shock spreading inward.
The area near the impact point received shock simultaneously. It felt like every single cell was being attacked at once.
“You were holding back this whole time?”
“You’re so slow that I finally need to use some real strength.”
I swung my arm through the air. Recovery was already complete.
“Brutishly durable, aren’t you?”
Eres spread a crushing aura over me. Subjected to both the electromagnet’s magnetic force and this mysterious power, I was weighed down by multiple forces and couldn’t move my body freely. In that state, Eres attacked.
[Stamina increased by 1.]
[Strength increased by 1.]
After getting pummeled for over an hour, my body was broken and battered in multiple places. My stats had increased as a result, but I still couldn’t grasp what that attack was.
“That shall suffice for today.”
Eres brushed off her clothes and descended from the electromagnetic plate.
“I can still go on.”
“It is time for cartoons.”
There was no arguing with that.

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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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