Leveling Up With Skills - Chapter 237: The Fourth Return. Earth (4)

“Argh!”

People screamed and collapsed. A man at the front swung his hammer desperately, trying to carve a path, but instead of making progress, he was only being pushed back by the incoming monsters.

‘Damn it!’

The man grimaced.

His name was Choi Taeman, the leader of Busan.

And Busan, at this point, was the second most devastated area after Jeju Island.

The reason was simple. All kinds of misfortunes had plagued Busan.

Despite being referred to as the “second capital,” Busan had a significantly lower proportion of Hard Mode players compared to other regions.

Since the modes weren’t divided by fixed ratios but were left to individual choice, variations were inevitable. However, in Busan, the imbalance was particularly severe.

With fewer Hard Mode players, there was a disproportionately large number of Easy and Normal Mode players. And with numbers came a certain kind of influence.

These players began to pressure the Hard Mode players, demanding that those with power should protect them.

The Hard Mode players expressed resistance, but their numbers were too few. Still clinging to the values of modern society, they chose to comply rather than engage in conflict.

And once someone gains power, they will always try to wield it further.

The relatively small number of Hard Mode players, internal conflicts among players, and discord…

There was no way for the quest to proceed smoothly. The result was widespread death. By the end of the third return, the number of survivors had dwindled to a countable few.

Boom!

Choi Taeman struck a monster with all his might.

As the leader chosen amidst the ruins, he was trying his best to save as many people as possible.

He had managed to stop the remaining Easy and Normal Mode players from being killed by placating the Hard Mode players. Those who had chosen confrontation were already dead, and those who remained had chosen indifference rather than opposition.

Some of them even spoke up on behalf of the others, which helped the Hard Mode players suppress their anger.

But it was too late. With so few people left, they could barely survive the monsters’ attacks. Their numbers continued to dwindle.

As he fought off the monsters, Choi Taeman looked back.

The number of people following him had noticeably decreased.

Choi Taeman’s eyes trembled. It hadn’t even been twenty minutes since they had started. Yet so many people had already died…

The thought of total annihilation briefly crossed his mind.

Boom!

A giant monster moved to strike him on the head.

Choi Taeman barely blocked it. His body was pushed back.

His expression darkened.

Just as he was about to make a critical decision, the body of the monster charging at him exploded.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The monsters were being crushed like dominoes. The pupils of the people, who had been prepared to die, dilated in shock.

“W-what?”

Amidst the fallen monsters, a man with a calm expression appeared.

He looked over the people of Busan and muttered to himself.

“There are far fewer than I expected. No wonder you didn’t make it.”

“Who… who are you?”

“Kang Taesan.”

The people flinched. They had heard of Kang Taesan through the community. They knew he was the one who had saved the people of Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, a being as strong as a monster.

Taesan spoke.

“I was assigned to come down to Busan.”

“But the quest has only been going on for twenty minutes…”

“I ran here as fast as I could. Anyway, just rest for now. I’ll take care of these things first.”

Hundreds of monsters were charging toward them.

“That’s dangerous…”

Choi Taeman tried to say something, but Taesan waved his hand.

The hundreds of monsters exploded simultaneously.

—

Taesan handed over some freshly boiled corn to the group. They hurriedly devoured it.

Choi Taeman also finished his corn in under a minute.

“You must have been starving. Didn’t you bring any food from the labyrinth?”

“Well, we did, but it’s been a long time since we had something like corn.”

The food from the labyrinth was hard and tasteless in the purest sense of the word. While it filled their stomachs, it offered no pleasure in eating.

Choi Taeman looked longingly at the empty corn cob.

Taesan pulled out another cob.

Water droplets formed around the corn in his hand, and soon the water started boiling.

“Here.”

He handed over the freshly cooked corn to Choi Taeman.

Choi Taeman accepted it with a reluctant expression.

“You can do things like that too?”

“Recently, I gained some new abilities.”

Thanks to Beatrice’s quest, Taesan could now exert influence over nature itself, to the point of even affecting the weather.

Summoning water and boiling it was no trouble at all. Though Choi Taeman still looked slightly uneasy, he quickly devoured the corn and then spoke up.

“Thanks. You saved my life.”

“You don’t need to thank me.”

Saving others was simply the right thing to do.

“Still, I feel like I should. We’ve seen too much bloodshed because of people who didn’t think that way.”

Choi Taeman smiled bitterly.

“Do you know what kind of situation we were in?”

“I know the gist.”

Busan had been destroyed because of conflicts among people. While Seoul had narrowly managed to hold out in Taesan’s previous life, Busan hadn’t even gotten that far.

“I heard Seoul and Gyeonggi went through something similar.”

There was Easy Mode player, Choi Junhyeok, and Hard Mode player, Seojangsan. Both had tried to form groups to lead and manage others.

But Taesan had resolved all of those issues on his own.

“If you had been in Busan, perhaps we could have solved our problems and survived as well.”

Choi Taeman murmured this grimly, then shook his head.

It was all in the past now. And pointless speculation. He knew from experience that dwelling on such thoughts wouldn’t help survival in the slightest.

Choi Taeman lifted his head with renewed resolve.

“But with you here, we’ll survive and make it to Seoul.”

They could survive.

The people who were resting now had hope written across their faces.

“Maybe.”

Taesan muttered softly.

The **Old godss** would move, as it always did.

‘I wonder what it’ll do this time.’

Taesan led the people of Busan toward Seoul.

And gradually, the other groups made contact with their assigned people as well.

—

Kang Junhyeok encountered the people of Gwangju after defeating the monsters. He led them toward Seoul.

With his help, they slowly made progress. When night came and exhaustion set in, they rested.

A woman approached Kang Junhyeok, who was standing guard.

“Hello.”

The woman was the leader of the group from Gwangju. She had been prepared to die when the monsters cornered them, but Kang Junhyeok had saved her.

“Oh, hello.”

“You’re the one standing guard? You can leave that to someone else. It’s the least we can do.”

“No. This is my responsibility. I can’t let someone else do it.”

Kang Junhyeok shook his head. The woman’s face flushed slightly.

“Honestly, when I first heard about you from Hwiyeon, I thought it was an exaggeration, but you’re really strong… If you’re like this, then Kang Taesan must be as strong as they say, right?”

“No.”

“Huh?”

Kang Junhyeok shook his head. The woman looked confused, and he explained.

“He’s much stronger than you think.”

He gazed into the darkness with a peculiar look in his eyes.

“I wonder why he’s so strong. And it’s not just that.”

Before Taesan left, he had told them something.

Boom.

A loud noise echoed from afar. The ground shattered, and a monster appeared.

[Monster 111026 has appeared.]

“Oh.”

The woman’s face stiffened.

It wasn’t the monster itself that surprised her. They had already slain hundreds of them on their journey.

But this monster was different.

There was a distinct difference in its power and aura.

“It’s really here.”

Kang Junhyeok grabbed his weapon with a curious expression.

The monster before them was strong.

But it wasn’t strong enough to be impossible to defeat if they fought with everything they had.

“Let’s do this, you bastards.”

—

Taesan continued moving with the people, slaughtering any monsters that blocked their way.

Crack.

He grabbed the head of a charging monster and squeezed. Its head was crushed like a can.

[You have activated Deer Walking the Wind.]

A breeze stirred.

The skill of a high-ranking spirit, synchronized with the power of the Spirit King, raged through the surroundings. The monsters were sliced apart and fell.

“Ooooh!”

The people following Taesan exclaimed in awe. Monsters they had struggled to defeat were now falling in waves from a single gesture. Their eyes were filled with admiration and reverence for Taesan.

And the energy from their gazes began to flow into Taesan.

From his past experiences, Taesan knew that this accumulation would increase his divine power proficiency.

‘I wonder if there’s a way to use this.’

Minerva had said that without a divine form, it was impossible to utilize divine power, but Taesan didn’t think that was true. After all, it was a power he had gained. Like his mastery of aura, he believed there had to be a way to use it.

Finding that way was his job.

With that thought in mind, Taesan moved, slaying more monsters.

‘He’s strong.’

Choi Taeman marveled.

‘But not as strong as I heard.’

If the stories were to be believed, Kang Taesan was practically a living natural disaster.

They said he could send Hard Mode players flying with a gust of wind and shatter the ground with a single leap.

He was supposed to defeat enemies so effortlessly that they would lose the will to fight.

But the strength Taesan was displaying right now didn’t quite match that description.

While he was undoubtedly powerful and possessed strength beyond Choi Taeman’s comprehension, it was still within the bounds of reason.

Some exaggeration had clearly been added to the stories. That was Choi Taeman’s judgment. After all, a monster that could terrify Hard Mode players to the point of losing their minds? He hadn’t heard of such a thing even among the survivors. He assumed it was just a mistake born of confusion.

Nevertheless, Taesan was undeniably strong. Strong enough to protect them all.

‘There’s always some embellishment in stories.’

As he thought this, Taesan suddenly stopped in front of him. Surprised by the abrupt halt, Choi Taeman asked.

Crash!

Taesan moved. With a loud crash, his hand collided with something.

Crunch.

In his grasp was a violet orb.

“W-what?”

Had Taesan not blocked it, Choi Taeman’s upper body would have been obliterated.

Taesan tightened his grip, shattering the orb.

A sonic boom echoed through the air.

[You have activated Mental Acceleration.]

The surrounding landscape slowed down. His senses expanded, allowing him to detect the positions and distances of the incoming objects.

Violet orbs.

A total of ten were flying toward them, each from a different direction.

Swoosh!

Arrows shot out from Taesan’s position.

He waved his hand, and a strong wind swept through the surroundings. The incoming violet orbs collided with the wind and arrows, scattering.

Boom!

The orbs drilled into the ground and exploded.

“Where are the attacks coming from?!”

From Choi Taeman’s perspective, the surroundings were just suddenly exploding. He tried to grasp the situation, but it was beyond what his Hard Mode abilities could comprehend.

‘Is this A-class level?’

It was quite powerful. Comparable to the foe he had barely defeated in the previous return with his life on the line.

‘The distance is at least 10 kilometers.’

It was far.

It wasn’t beyond Taesan’s reach. At that distance, a few leaps would get him there.

The problem was that there were at least twenty attackers.

The violet orbs flew toward them again.

Taesan swung his hand. The rising wind deflected the orbs’ trajectories.

[You have activated Stigma.]

He stomped the ground. A barrier of wind rose, enveloping the people.

[You have activated Acceleration.]

Boom.

The ground shattered.

Choi Taeman was too shocked to react as Taesan disappeared into the crater.

“What the?!”

Taesan had reached the monster firing the orbs.

The monster resembled a giant artillery unit.

It existed solely to fire projectiles.

Taesan drove his sword into the monster.

[You have dealt 6784 damage to Monster 985.]

The monster collapsed.

At the same time, the other monsters fired their orbs. The orbs collided with the wind barrier Taesan had erected.

Clang!

The wind deflected the orbs. Even attacks at an A-class level were no match for the temporary barrier Taesan had created.

Boom!

At that moment, the ground collapsed in front of the people.

From the fallen earth, a massive ballista-shaped monster appeared.

Crash!

The monster charged. The wind barrier screeched as it began to waver.

[You have activated Random Blink.]

Crunch.

Taesan appeared in front of the people and destroyed the ballista.

Once again, the violet orbs were fired, but Taesan’s wind swept them away.

Taesan twisted his lips.

“They’re not targeting me; they’re trying to kill the others.”

This quest scattered everyone across different locations.

So, which was easier: killing Taesan or killing the others who had dispersed?

**Old godss** had chosen the latter. Taesan was certain. There were probably C-class or higher monsters appearing in other regions as well.

“They planned this well.”

Dozens of A-class monsters.

Even those who had cleared Hard Mode would have to fight for their lives against such monsters.

But that was all.

“Was this what they were expecting?”

[You have activated Star Arrow.]

In Taesan’s hand, an arrow made of starlight formed.