About four and a half months after the Two Moon incident, the invading monsters had been mostly killed or chased out of cities. Following that, the areas that had been ravaged by the monsters were under full repair. 

With Guardian and Freedom Wing’s increased activities, the world was finally turning back from the brink of ruin. It was now a time of transition.

Although school had not yet resumed, there were rumors that colleges would reopen around fall term and have their opening ceremonies. It was likely that high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools would open around the same time.

“Oppa, you’re really strong,” Yua remarked.

“I am.”

The two of us were sitting next to each other on the couch while watching tv. When I was younger, I was always perplexed by the scenes of a whole family sitting together on the same couch as it made no sense to me. 

At that time, my whole family couldn’t even fit on a couch meant for four people!

Although my mother and Yua were incredibly slim, my father had always been tall and muscular and I resembled an orc then. It was physically impossible for us to sit on the couch with other people.

But it was different now. We could lean on each other’s shoulders and watch TV like a pair of loving siblings. This was the blessing of God at work.

“Oppa, aren’t I heavy?” Yua asked.

“You’re as light as a feather. Don’t ever go on a diet, Yua. You’ll shrivel up and die,” I admonished.

“Come on, I’m not that skinny.”

Yua laughed bashfully. In my opinion, Yua was a pitiful child. When she was at the age where she should have been spoiled by her older brother, he was too busy sweating and swinging his spear, talking about going to the dungeon like a madman. She could only act spoiled in front of our mother.

In addition, our mother was not the type to spoil either of her kids, so Yua grew up to be calmer and more mature than her actual age.

I couldn’t help but feel guilty once I became smarter. I wanted to make it up to her. At first, Yua was hesitant, but as time passed, she got used to this change and now she often acted spoiled around me.

[Here is footage from Korea’s only SS-rank ability user, the Goddess of Magma, Ye Hwaya, hunting the S-rank monster Wyvern.]

[She is the pride and joy of the Republic of Korea.]

There was a woman on the TV screen who looked to be in her early twenties burning up a Wyvern, which resembled a thirty foot long dragon. I wasn’t sure whether it was a side-effect from being an awakened ability user, but her waist-length hair and eyes were both a bright flame-red color. The Wyvern she was fighting looked like it was in extreme pain as it burned. 

If that flame touched me, I’d be burnt up in an instant, I thought.

The world really was unfair. I started off at level 1 and had to work for years to become strong, but others got lucky and woke up one day with SS-rank powers. Terrifying monsters were now a piece of cake for them.

Then again, there were people who only awakened weak abilities and could only stay at the E or D-rank their entire lives. In contrast, as long as I continued to climb the dungeon, I surely could get stronger than Hwaya one day. Although I was not given the gift of instantaneous strength, I had the potential of becoming much stronger in the future.

Furthermore, there were ordinary people with no powers. Too many ordinary folk had died in situations where they could have survived had they awakened even the weakest ability. In fact, there were even more people who refused to step out of their houses because they had no powers.

I had learned spearmanship from a young age, but there were plenty of other people who learned martial arts but could not become dungeon explorers. Luck was the sole factor in determining who became an ability user and who was eaten by monsters.

Since that was the case, did I have any right to look down on those weaker than me? Did these ability users on TV have the right to be laudified by so many people?

Although my intelligence was now at 20, I could not come up with an answer to these philosophical questions. Suddenly, I felt something tickle my thigh.

“Ow! Ohhh…” I looked over.

For some reason, Yua had tears in her eyes and seemed like she was in pain.. She was blowing on her thumb and index finger, which had somehow turned red, and her gestures looked incredibly adorable.

“Your thigh looked soft, so I pinched it, but it’s way too hard,” she whined.

“Ah, sorry, Yua. Are you hurt? Um, let’s see… a potion…” I sputtered.

“It’s fine, oppa. You kept staring at the woman on TV, so I…”

“Mm? No, Yua, oppa was just thinking about something.”

“You weren’t looking at her because she was pretty?”

Apparently, from her perspective, I had been staring at Korea’s only SS rank ability user, Ye Hwaya, as she smiled after her triumph over the Wyvern.

I had to admit that she was truly beautiful. I didn’t know how much awakening her abilities had affected her, but she was tall and slim, had snow-white skin, and a well-defined facial structure. Even when her hair was whipped around by the wind, she did not flinch and instead looked steadily forward with her flame-red eyes.

Above all, she had an amazing chest. That was a D! It was at least a D! How shameful. That was an insult to D-rank ability users. No, perhaps they were E. No, F! Unacceptable, an SS-rank with Fs!

“…Oppa?” Yua’s voice broke through my train of thought.

“Cough, no, Yua. You’re the prettiest in the whole world.”

“Really? Ehehe.”

Of course, I really did think that Yua was the prettiest in the world. Although Ye Hwaya definitely had a superior figure…

I patted Yua’s head and buried the thought deep inside my mind. Otherwise, my hard-acquired position as her oppa could get shattered.

The days passed by, and one day it was time to challenge the Wraith Queen on my own. After spending some time debating whether to contact Ellos or not, I decided against it. I would do so after I succeeded. And Palludia too…Palludia.

“No!” I let out an involuntary scream. 

I forgot again! I felt a chill running down my back. I was screwed, definitely screwed! What could I do? I was pretty certain that there was a 0 percent chance that she wouldn’t be angry at me. If I talked to her now, things would become extremely annoying and hard to deal with.

Hm.

Should I just ignore her? I could pretend she never existed.

That felt like the best solution to minimize drama. However, I knew it was the wrong thing to do. Although Palludia was sharp-tongued and rude, she had messaged me out of concern. Plus, I was the one in the wrong as I had forgotten to contact her or reply to her messages for the past three and a half years.

“Alright, I’ll contact her when the raid ends. This time, I won’t forget.”

I vowed to myself and clenched my fists. Then, I opened the door to where the Wraith Queen was waiting.

“Kiyaaaaa!”

“Tempest!”

I used Tempest as soon as I stepped into the room. After raising my mana with Soul Tempering Elixirs and practicing the Peruta Circuit, I now had over 2,200 MP. If my MP was low, all I had to do was drink a mana potion. Although mana potions were extremely expensive at the Floor Shop, I had over 100 of the lowest-grade mana potions, which restored 100 MP each. If I didn’t take into account the mandatory one minute cooldown between potion consumption, I had over 10,000 spare mana in my hands.

“Gulp, gulp. Again! Tempest!”

“Kiyaaaaa!”

Every time I thrust forward with my spear, dozens of wraiths screamed and died. The flustered Wraith Queen quickly began to summon more wraiths. Fortunately, she was acting exactly as I had planned and predicted.

“Let’s go! …Ha!”

I immediately rushed toward the Wraith Queen. Wraiths that had survived my initial attacks flew toward me, but I sent them flying back with a simple swing of my spear. Although the Wraith Queen summoned twenty wraiths at a time, she needed to chant for a long time. That time period was more than enough for me to rush towards her and deal a devastating blow that used all of my mana and strength!

I had practiced this move against the Wraith Queen for the past two months, so it was quite easy now.  Other people kept calling me ‘hero this, hero that’, so I ended up naming this new skill ‘Heroic Strike’. In truth, it was quite an embarrassing name.

“Haaaaat! Eat this!”

“Kiyaaaaaaa!”

A dazzling white light gathered on my spear tip. The moment I pierced the Wraith Queen’s stomach, the concentrated power at the tip exploded beautifully. The Wraith Queen’s throne shattered as she was sent flying back, hitting the wall. By now, I knew exactly what she would do next, so I instantly shifted into my next move. 

“DIEEEE!” I hollered at the top of my lungs.

I collected all of the nearby energy and exploded it outward. The resulting detonation seemed to shake the entire room, and the Wraith Queen was not exempt as her half-transparent body trembled and shook.

[You used Orc Lord’s Warcry! All party members are cleansed of negative status effects. All party members’ attack power has increased by 50 percent for the duration. All party members have become super-armored, unfazed by enemy attacks.]

“KIYAAAAA!”

[Wraith Queen used Vengeful Spirit’s Wail. Your super-armor state ignores its effect.]

Just like I predicted! When I saw the Wraith Queen staring at me with a blank look on her face, I smirked. I took out and drank a lowest grade mana potion as I proudly announced to her, “I don’t even need to use my trump card. I’ll end this within 5 minutes!”

What followed was an easy battle. As I had predicted the Wraith Queen was much easier to fight solo than the Orc Lord. Her strength relied on her Vengeful Spirit’s Wail, a type of status effect magic, and her ability to shoot out hundreds of ectoplasm arrows at once. My Orc Lord’s Warcry directly countered her Vengeful Spirit’s Wail and her ectoplasm arrow attack had a fatal weakness: if she was in the middle of casting it and took a critical hit, the skill was canceled.

All I had to do was deal a critical hit before my Spiritual Shield wore off.  Following that, I just had to use my restored mana to use Heroic Strike again.

Although it took me over three years to completely conquer the Orc Lord, the Wraith Queen, on the other hand, only took me a little over four months.. I idly wondered how long it would take for me to conquer the next Floor Master, Dark Ratman. I snickered and checked the message windows popping up in front of me.