Chapter 43 – New Continent (3)

One month later. Dimension Gamma.

Central Mountains, Elven Forest.

Boom!

A massive tree fell with a thunderous roar. Soon gunshots rang out and tree branches scattered in pieces. 

Trees everywhere were falling, branches being cut, and roots being dug up. 

The beautiful forest of the elves was being devastated by a group of people. 

Slash! 

Daniel cut through the trunk of a tree he had knocked down with his greatsword, frowning. 

“Isn’t there any way to kill them in one shot?” 

Sap spurted from the branch cut by his sword, and another branch writhed and approached Daniel. 

Bang! Bang! 

Gunshots rang out again and the thick branch approaching Daniel shattered to pieces. 

“Isn’t there something like a core inside the tree? At this rate, I’ll be in the red again because of bullets.” 

Behind Daniel, Michael grumbled while stroking his newly acquired gun. 

“How about changing weapons instead? That weapon seems hopeless.” 

Hayden commented as he passed by. Behind where he had come, countless tree branches lay fallen, tangled together. 

“You little brat are panting from exhaustion too.” 

As Michael said, Hayden’s face had turned pale from overusing his abilities. 

But Hayden snorted at Michael’s words, and his face quickly began returning to normal. 

It was thanks to the [Recovery Enhancement] that Hayden had purchased with points he had saved up. 

Hayden had superior telekinesis compared to others, but had been called “premature” because of his short duration. But with this ability improvement, all such infamy would disappear. 

Michael frowned at Hayden’s snort, but didn’t get particularly angry. Because there were two people with even greater differences. 

A beautiful fairy fluttered gracefully between the trees. 

It was a scene like a painting, but the trees she brushed past all had their branches severed and fell while spilling sap abundantly. 

Nan-seol’s sword had become more refined. Even after reaching peak level, she hadn’t stopped growing, and now mature peak-level swordsmanship continuously flowed from her sword. 

Sun-woo was advancing beside her. Trees were shooting thick branches to block Sun-woo, but the branches couldn’t hit Sun-woo at all. 

Because they couldn’t properly aim due to the shaking ground. 

Sun-woo stepped on the ground as if keeping rhythm even amid the shooting chaos and swung his sword at empty air. 

Slash! 

The sword energy scattered in the air cut down the tree blocking the front, and his sword glowed blue again. 

In front of Sun-woo and Nan-seol advancing forward, a massive tree and an elven village tinted with murky colors could be seen. 

The target of this mission was the massive tree in the center of the elven village. 

That tree was a species called the World Tree, which was both the pillar and house forming the elven village. 

Elves transformed one of the countless branches extending from the tree into their homes and planted branches of the World Tree around the village to protect it. 

Such a World Tree had become a contamination source. 

Crash! 

Massive tree branches swayed, and human-like objects fell down from houses suspended on the branches. 

Soon the entire village began shaking violently. Massive roots burst out from everywhere in the village, destroying it. 

But there was no movement from the village. 

“Is there no one in the village?” 

“That can’t be. Elves don’t abandon their villages.” 

Daniel shook his head at Michael’s question. 

The party had climbed up a hill overlooking the village after breaking through the World Tree’s offspring blocking their way. 

When they approached, the massive tree forming the village began thrashing wildly, but the village showed no movement at all. 

“Could it be that the elves are all contaminated too?” 

“Then they would have already charged at us. Would they stay still?” 

When Hayden offered his opinion, Michael eagerly opposed it. Though it was an obviously childish counterattack, his words weren’t wrong, so Hayden just made a sullen expression. 

“The elves are all still in the village.” 

“That’s so sad.” 

Unlike the others, Sun-woo and Nan-seol’s expressions were very dark. 

“Huh? It’s far so I can’t see well, but there’s nothing that looks like people? Except for some dried, twisted black branches scattered around, it looks clean.” 

“Those tree branches are the elves.” 

At Sun-woo’s words, the party’s expressions hardened coldly. 

To Sun-woo and Nan-seol’s eyes, which had exceptionally good vision thanks to their internal energy, the village’s devastation was clearly visible. 

Elven corpses dried up like old trees were scattered throughout the village, and elven corpses could be seen at window frames of houses, on tree branches, and under protruding roots below. 

That’s when noisy sounds came from behind the party looking down at the village. The World Tree’s offspring from other directions were approaching where the party was. 

“Let’s go!” 

Daniel, who had been looking down at the village with a hardened expression, gripped his greatsword and began descending the hill. Seeing him, the other party members also followed him toward the village. 

***

The battle proceeded quite fiercely, but the branches and roots were too slow to keep up with a peak expert’s speed. 

The roots strengthened by contamination overturned the ground and tree branches swept the area, but the other party members had evacuated far away, and Sun-woo and Nan-seol had sufficient speed to dodge. 

With the other party members’ containment and Sun-woo’s sorcery binding the World Tree, Sun-woo and Nan-seol cut off the World Tree’s branches one by one. 

Quite some time passed, and the World Tree with most of its branches cut off spurted sap from the severed branches and finally stopped moving. 

“Did we get it? Being a plant makes it unreliable.” 

Michael made a displeased expression while tapping the hardened World Tree. 

“Since all the offspring have fallen, we must have gotten it.” 

As Hayden said, the World Tree’s offspring that had entered the village were lying on the ground with all their leaves dried up. 

“There don’t seem to be any living elves. I can’t sense any with my abilities.” 

“Damn.” 

Daniel seemed very disappointed by Sun-woo’s words. 

He had personally searched through the village when the World Tree stopped. With even his last hope crumbling, he looked very depressed. 

“Recently, elves have become almost invisible. Everyone thought they had hidden deep in the forests to avoid humans… I never thought such things were happening.” 

According to Daniel, not only elves but other races were also gradually decreasing in numbers. 

“I should probably make a suggestion to the higher-ups about this racial issue. It’s not revealing mission details, so there shouldn’t be a problem.” 

But even while speaking, he glanced up at the sky, seeming not very confident. 

Fortunately, a voice came saying the mission was safely completed. 

“You’re a complete peak martial artist now. Even fighting with just martial arts, you probably wouldn’t lose to me.” 

Sun-woo shook his head at Nan-seol’s words. Certainly, shortcuts couldn’t match the proper path. After reaching peak level, he realized he couldn’t match the depth of Nan-seol, who had properly trained martial arts. 

In actual combat, he probably wouldn’t lose, but that would be thanks to the power of the <War Wheel Divine Demon Art> and the divine sword. 

Nevertheless, Sun-woo was satisfied. It felt like a month of training was being recognized. 

One month after meeting the sacred maiden. Sun-woo had continued training while solving missions that came frequently. 

When he had questions, he shamelessly asked Nan-seol, and visited the association to learn about the contamination spreading agent tracking situation. 

Unfortunately, there had been no missions related to medicine or other contaminated summoned since then, so he hadn’t learned anything more about the medicine, but he had been able to earn quite a lot of points. 

[Min Sun-woo: 5 Star. Achievement Rate 82%] 

… 

[Current Points: 780p] 

Sun-woo briefly checked the window then closed the reward window. Because he didn’t see anything particularly worth buying. 

Thus this mission was concluded, and the party greeted each other and returned to their respective worlds. 

***

Even after returning to his own world, Sun-woo’s training continued. When tired, he occasionally accessed games, but training took priority. 

Sun-woo after his memories returned had different goals. 

The place where Sun-woo trained was a warehouse on the outskirts of the city. It was a place he had bought with money received from the association recently and money exchanged from some points. 

The vacant lot Sun-woo had been using was now completely closed off so he couldn’t train there, and the training ground in the association’s basement was somewhat awkward to use. 

Eventually, Sun-woo looked for another training ground and bought this warehouse that had come out cheap due to an industrial complex going bankrupt. 

Being part of an industrial complex, roads were directly connected so transportation wasn’t bad, and the surroundings were all empty factories so he could avoid any interference. 

After performing a sword dance, Sun-woo opened his phone to cool down. 

Sun-woo’s skills were lined up in the skill window. 

<Spirits of the Earth. Grade 7> Level Up: 400p 

<Illusion Arts. Grade 5> Level Up: 200p 

<War Wheel Divine Demon Art. 4 Star> Level Up: 700p 

<War Wheel Swordsmanship. 4 Star> Level Up: 300p 

<Seven Star Steps. 5 Star> Level Up: 200p 

<________> 

No new skills were registered, but existing skills had increased in grade. 

The reason Sun-woo’s points were running low was because of these skills. The points earned during that time were mostly used to strengthen skills. 

Through a month of training and missions, Sun-woo now understood his growth method to some degree. His initial thought about skill growth through points was only half correct. 

Of course, growing skills with points allowed corresponding mental and physical growth. Spirits of the Earth could communicate with more spirits for longer, and martial arts enabled more internal energy, deeper enlightenment, and smoother movement. 

But unlike games, martial arts and various techniques weren’t completed by that alone. Swordsmanship couldn’t win in actual combat by learning only with a sword, and other techniques couldn’t be properly used in actual combat just by mastering their usage. 

That required another method called training and actual combat. And Sun-woo had been practicing that method all along. 

Now Sun-woo was confident he could skillfully use other skills in actual combat just as his martial arts were recognized by Nan-seol. 

Sun-woo pressed a button to close the skill window. Though points remained, it wasn’t time to advance to another level yet. 

That’s when Sun-woo’s phone rang. It was Caroline’s call. 

Caroline skipped even greetings and told him the reason for calling. 

“It seems they’ve found the original manufacturing location of the medicine. Dimension Beta. The dimension where I was.” 

Caroline’s voice on the phone sounded very depressed.