Level 4 Human in a Ruined World - Chapter 10

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 10 3. What Used to Be a Grade 4 Extra (3)

“…Whoa!”

Ye-chan, who had been staring at Young-woo, was so startled he nearly fell backward.

This was because a change had occurred in Young-woo’s appearance after putting the coin in his mouth.

“What, what is it?”

Ye-chan asked with wide blinking eyes.

It was clear. Semi-transparent dotted lines were wrapping around Young-woo’s body outline.

These dotted lines even flowed in a constant direction as if blood was circulating.

Young-woo took the coin back out of his mouth and examined his own body.

“Maybe it’s some kind of custom mode… something like that.”

“Custom mode?”

“You know. Like a mode in games where you readjust character appearance.”

“Huh? Then could it be that right now…”

Just as Ye-chan was about to say something, a new interface appeared in Young-woo’s vision.

「Character Setting Change」

|Appearance

|Stats

“Right. So the function activates when you put the coin in your mouth?”

At Young-woo’s words, Ye-chan quickly picked up his coin and brought it to his mouth.

Ping!

“Oh, it seems like just touching your lips is enough.”

“Your lips?”

Young-woo looked at his saliva-covered coin with an awkward expression.

Still, now that he knew how to use it, that was good enough.

‘It doesn’t seem like anyone else is coming yet.’

Young-woo looked up to confirm that the timer had decreased to 11 minutes, then shifted his gaze back to the interface.

|Appearance

|Stats

There were only two menu options.

Appearance and Stats.

‘I’m really curious about how to change appearance, but there’s no time.’

Young-woo skipped the appearance section and selected ‘Stats’.

Then a kind of guide screen appeared first.

Flash!

「From now on, you can use Karma to improve physical abilities. Please read the explanation for each category carefully before making your choices.」

[Strength]

|Affects physical power and speed.

[Endurance]

|Affects ability to sustain and repeatedly perform actions.

[Durability]

|Affects the durability of skin, bones, muscles, etc.

[Senses]

|Affects overall physical control abilities such as reflexes and sense of balance.

There were only four physical abilities that could be improved using Karma: Strength, Endurance, Durability, and Senses.

Thanks to this, it didn’t take long to memorize the concept of each stat.

‘The durability concept is a bit unique. So what’s next?’

As Young-woo thought this, the guide text naturally disappeared and a full-fledged settings page appeared.

『Character : Jung Young-woo07』

[Strength] 19

[Endurance] 21

[Durability] 13

[Senses] 24

* 1,000 Karma is consumed per stat point.

* Available Karma : 153,000

‘1,000 Karma per point? Then I can raise my stats by 153 more points?’

If he invested all of this in Strength, his power would increase by as much as 8 times.

‘…Insane.’

Young-woo felt as if every cell in his body was suddenly awakening.

It seemed like he was finally understanding the true value of the currency called Karma.

‘This is how you can transcend birth grade.’

As long as he could continuously secure enough Karma, even a Grade 4 person could become stronger than anyone.

Judging by the fact that there was an ‘Appearance’ option in the other settings, it was highly likely that appearance and body type could also be changed.

It had truly become a world where anything was possible as long as you had money.

“…”

Young-woo swallowed dry saliva and checked the timer in the air again.

[00:06:22]

Monsters and mutants would appear in 6 minutes.

‘If I can’t win against them anyway, I’ll lose my head right here. So it’s right to spend all my money on stat growth.’

Then which stats should he develop?

‘I don’t even know what type of monsters will appear or how many. So…’

He needed to distribute as evenly as possible.

However, he decided to exclude Durability and Senses.

‘I don’t think investing 50 points in Durability would let me deflect swords or claws with bare skin.’

He also thought Senses wouldn’t be much help in the early stages.

This was because he had felt the lack of Strength and Endurance more acutely than Senses so far.

‘Let’s split it appropriately between Strength and Endurance. If my strength improves, handling the shield will become easier, so my survivability will increase too.’

As soon as Young-woo made his decision, he immediately started distributing points.

77 points in Strength, and 76 points in Endurance.

It was an ‘all-in’ that didn’t even leave money for the tax that would be collected tomorrow night at 10 PM.

Then.

Flash!

Numbers began filling up his previously pitiful status window.

『Character: Jung Young-woo07』

[Strength] 96 (19+77)

[Endurance] 97 (21+76)

[Durability] 13

[Senses] 24

And at the same time, changes occurred in Young-woo as well.

“…!”

His body didn’t suddenly grow larger or sprout muscles that weren’t there before, but he could tell just by sitting still.

The fact that his strength and stamina had increased tremendously.

‘…I can barely feel the weight of Early Bird.’

The shield in his left hand was also much lighter than before.

Whoosh.

Even the motion of getting up from his seat had changed. He didn’t need to push off the ground with his hands—his leg strength alone was sufficient.

‘What is this? It’s so different.’

His strength had increased from 19 to 96.

In simple numerical terms, his strength had increased fivefold, so it was natural that he could feel the difference.

“Are, are you okay?”

Seeing Young-woo’s flushed face, Ye-chan spoke with a worried tone.

Instead of answering, Young-woo jumped with all his might from where he stood.

Thud!

Friction occurred under his feet so intense he thought the soles of his sneakers might tear, and his body immediately shot up into the air.

“Uh…!”

Young-woo’s shadow passed over Ye-chan’s wide-eyed head.

Young-woo himself was looking down at Ye-chan from a point much higher than he had expected.

By visual estimate, at least 1.5 meters.

Young-woo suddenly felt scared.

Since he was usually far from athletic, he knew nothing about breakfall techniques or landing skills from high places.

Whoosh!

Soon gravity roughly seized Young-woo’s body.

“Whoa!”

For a moment it seemed like his center of gravity was tilting forward, but fortunately his feet touched the ground before that happened.

However, since he landed without any cushioning, piercing pain shot from his heels up to his knees.

“…Ugh!”

Young-woo reflexively clutched his knees and realized his mistake.

‘So this is why there are separate stats like durability and senses.’

For instance, suppose his strength became much greater and he could leap about 5 meters.

Even if jumping 5 meters up wasn’t a big problem, how would he land?

Could legs with only 13 durability really withstand the load?

It would be the same when swinging a sword at monsters or blocking powerful attacks with a shield.

‘If I survive this time, I need to work on durability and senses too.’

As Young-woo was making this resolution, Ye-chan called to him in a somewhat urgent voice.

“Mister…! What about me? What should I raise first for my stats?”

“Huh?”

Coming to his senses belatedly and turning his head that way, he saw that Ye-chan was also surrounded by translucent dotted lines.

“How many points can you use?”

“If I use everything I have, 73 points.”

“Then put 30 each in strength and endurance, 10 in durability, and about 3 in senses.”

Having just experienced trial and error, Young-woo recommended the best choice he knew within his knowledge.

Ye-chan adjusted his stats according to the advice without question.

『Character: Kang Ye-chan306』

[Strength] 44 (14+30)

[Endurance] 52 (22+30)

[Durability] 27 (17+10)

[Senses] 22 (19+3)

Then, not long after, he made a similar expression to Young-woo from earlier.

“…Huh, what is this.”

“I don’t know how much more Karma we’ll get going forward, but at this rate, superhumans will start appearing soon.”

“De, definitely seems that way.”

“So if possible….”

Young-woo said this much then checked the timer in the air again.

[00:00:49]

49 seconds remaining.

“It would be good if we became those superhumans. There’s nothing bad about being strong.”

Actually, it wasn’t just that there was nothing bad about it.

They absolutely had to become strong.

Young-woo still hadn’t forgotten.

That time at the Exchange Office when he was surrounded by strangers he’d never met, getting slapped and having his arm twisted.

Even now, whenever he entered combat situations, the angry presence they emanated and their malice-filled hands came vividly to mind, making him shudder.

So Young-woo never wanted to be trampled under the feet of such people again. Never again.

[00:00:21]

21 seconds.

Around this time, Ye-chan also stopped swinging his spear and stood upright in place.

Meanwhile, Young-woo scanned the surroundings widely, looking for potential ambushers.

[00:00:10]

Then finally, when the timer reached 10 seconds, both of them were staring at the blue pillar of light.

Would they come pouring down from up there?

Or would they suddenly appear where the pillar of light met the ground?

While thinking various thoughts and soothing his anxiety, the timer entered 3 seconds.

…3.

…2.

…1.

And then next.

Bwaaaaaang!

A massive ship’s horn sound echoed, and an ominous sound of cutting through air came from the tip of the pillar of light touching the sky.

Screeeeech!

Screeeech!

“Mister…! Something’s coming down!”

“I can see it too. We should step back.”

Young-woo saw several small lights appearing inside the upper part of the pillar of light.

And the fact that their size was mysteriously growing larger too.

Screeeeech!

‘Those things’ instantly descended along the light pillar and landed one after another right in front of Young-woo and Ye-chan.

Thud thud, thud!

“….”

Exactly 12 entities.

They crushed the ground as they landed, and Young-woo could easily surmise that if a person had been standing underneath, they would have been shattered to pieces.

‘At least it’s fortunate there aren’t many of them.’

Of course, since it was 12 monsters per light pillar, the total number of monsters that fell across all of Gumi City would reach hundreds.

Whether they received some kind of protection while falling from the sky, they were all wrapped in oval-shaped white spheres.

However, the problem was that those spheres were much larger than expected.

“Uh, mister…?”

Ye-chan spoke with a tone suggesting something was wrong and stepped backward.

Young-woo was equally flustered.

All 12 spheres were large, about 2 meters in height and 1.5 meters in width.

‘What the hell is inside….’

Crack!

Before Young-woo could finish his thought, the spheres all split open at once.

And then.

Crash!

12 heavily armored goblins kicked through the inner walls of their respective spheres and walked out valiantly.

“….”

At this, Young-woo and Ye-chan had no choice but to look up in dismay.

Because they were 2 meters tall.

Grade 4 Human of the Ruined World (Serial)

Author │ Oetu

Publisher │ Kim Ju-hyeong

Published by │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd.

Marketing │ Han Jae-hyeok

Address │ 288 Digital-ro, Guro-gu, Seoul, Room 204 (Guro-dong, Daeryung Post Tower 1)

Email │ [email protected]

Website │ www.jayplemedia.com

ⓒOetu2023

※This work is published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. under contract with the copyright holder, and no part of the content may be used in any form or by any means without permission from our company and the author.

Violation of this may result in criminal and civil legal liability.

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