I Gave Up Being Stronger

Chapter 9

‘Is he armed?’

Jin-Hyeok instinctively went through the motions of checking out this new entrant.

The newcomer wasn’t holding any weapons. Seeing as how his fingertips were dyed red, he seemed to be one of those that used just their hands.

‘Damn, that’s a shame…’

The types that used their hands were easier to deal with than the ones that were armed.

As always, this too became a different story when Players reached the truly high Levels, but this generally held true in the beginner stages.

‘Usually, demons were the type to enjoy the despair and pain of their victims.’

For most ordinary demons, wielding a weapon made them much stronger than being unarmed.

The demons that went out of their way to fight with their bare hands despite this fact did so all for the purpose of reveling in the sensation of tearing flesh.

They also tended to be the kind that enjoyed killing others after thoroughly breaking their wills to live, taking pleasure in their victims’ despair as they begged for their lives.

[LV22(+15)/Iblis Kecil/?/?/Slay Your Friends]

Iblis Kecil presently had a final calculated Level of 37, with 15 Levels being added to his base Level via his demonization.

This was meant to be a Tutorial Field, yet his Level was higher than any Lords of the Tutorial that existed.

Jin-Hyeok was unable to see Iblis Kecil’s Job or Skills.

Seeing as how Iblis Kecil had an Achievement called ‘Slay Your Friends,’ it seemed that he had killed all the survivors on the first floor.

The demon slowly walked toward Jin-Hyeok, with an air that did not suggest a shred of urgency.

“Hyung, I missed you,” he said.

As soon as Jin-Hyeok heard the voice of this powerful being before him, his body began to tingle.

Now, this was exciting.

“Yeah, right,” Jin-Hyeok replied.

“It turned out that you’re pretty strong, hyung. So why couldn’t you have just saved us all in the first place?” the demon asked.

“…”

“You’re the one who’s responsible for all our deaths, you shithead.”

Jin-Hyeok didn’t bother to answer back.

He knew that the demon was not talking with the human emotions that it once possessed, but merely playing the part based on the dug-up memories of when it was once human.

“Why are you holding your dagger? What can you even accomplish with that?” asked the demon.

Jin-Hyeok dashed at the demon.

Yet the demon stood in the same spot, viewing the incoming Jin-Hyeok with an almost nonchalant expression.

“Are you gonna try and stab me?”

Jin-Hyeok unleashed a flurry of consecutive attacks, but the demon successfully avoided every single one. Though Jin-Hyeok was moving better than he expected of himself, the demon was just that little bit more nimble than him.

The demon’s hand became a blur, and found its mark on Jin-Hyeok’s shoulder.

“Ugh.”

It had been quite a while since he had felt this sort of pain. A wide area of flesh around his shoulder was torn.

‘I’m bleeding.’

Finally, Jin-Hyeok felt alive.

“Why don’t you use that weird barrier ability of yours?”

Jin-Hyeok pretended to glower at the demon’s comment.

The demon chuckled as he surveyed his surroundings, which were still littered with the corpses of Gray Wolves.

“Ooooh. You used it too much fighting here.”

“…”

“Oh well, that’s okay. Even if you had that barrier, I would have killed you in the end, hyung.”

Jin-Hyeok glanced at the demon’s nails. Something about them told him that another attack was going to be incoming.

Lo and behold, he watched as the demon indeed began its dash toward him.

Yet despite not only anticipating, but seeing the attack coming with his own two eyes, he still could not avoid it.

“Ugh!”

This time, it was his left thigh. The demon had got him good—this strike ran deep.

“It hurts, doesn’t it? Hehehe.”

A wave of intense pain hit Jin-Hyeok, and in turn, a smirk of amusement crept onto the demon’s face.

Truth be told, Jin-Hyeok's pride was hurt, much more so than the physical pain he was feeling. This was a fun time, but his ego had admittedly been a little chipped.

Jin-Hyeok’s irritation began to rise at the fact that he could see the demon’s movements, but his body couldn’t follow suit in its reaction speed.

‘I guess it’s only a given considering I’m a low-Level Streamer, but still...’

Jin-Hyeok wanted to be strong.

***

Mok Jae-Hyeon was shaking.

He himself couldn’t exactly pinpoint what he was so fearful of, or what kind of emotion he was feeling at all.

In fact, Mok Jae-Hyeon was feeling the pressure that was exuding from the demon’s very presence—but he was yet to have any experiences that could have clued him into this.

‘I want to run away.’

Mok Jae-Hyeon wanted to take the escalator, but he couldn’t move a single step. His mind was overtaken by the image of his head going flying if he were to move so much as an inch.

Despite the fact that all he was doing was watching the fight from a fair distance, the overwhelming fear was pressing down upon him.

‘And yet…’

Jin-Hyeok was a little different.

Jin-Hyeok was already battered and bruised, covered in his own blood. He had sustained significant injuries on a shoulder and a thigh, not to mention the numerous smaller injuries that dotted his body.

‘How is he able to do this?’

As if a spell had been cast on him, Mok Jae-Hyeon couldn’t even begin to move his feet from where he stood. Standing here was literally the best he could give.

Yet Jin-Hyeok continued to frantically swing his dagger, even with all his serious wounds.

On the other hand, the demon looked like he was enjoying the fight.

“Hehe. Come on, show me something more,” the demon taunted Jin-Hyeok.

“…”

Mok Jae-Hyeon bit his lip.

Whether it was himself or Jin-Hyeok that was concerned, the fact that their efforts were futile remained the same.

But one of them was putting up a desperate resistance, while the other was cowering helplessly. One of them displayed courage, and the other despair.

Where did this difference come from?

Jin-Hyeok’s ferocity struck a chord deep in Mok Jae-Hyeon.

‘Huh? Look ou…!’

A dangerous window of opportunity had appeared for the demon to capitalize on.

The demon’s mouth curled into a smile.

“It was fun while it lasted.”

The demon grabbed Cha Jin-Hyeok’s neck with his left hand, and lifted Jin-Hyeok’s entire body into the air just like that.

Jin-Hyeok struggled to escape the grip, but the demon did not release his grasp.

“Now, you die,” the demon snarled.

The demon straightened the fingers of his right hand, the muscles noticeably tensing. And with that hand, he plunged straight into Cha Jin-Hyeok’s heart.

SHUK!

The horrifying sound of flesh ripping apart followed. Mok Jae-Hyeon squeezed his eyes shut.

It was then that a scream broke into the air.

But it wasn’t Jin-Hyeok’s.

‘What?’

Mok Jae-Hyeon carefully opened his eyes. The demon was grabbing his head and rolling around on the ground. There was a sweet scent in the air.

‘What’s going on?’

Looking closely, he noticed the demon’s body was wet from head to toe in some liquid. A sort of sizzling sound emanated from the demon’s skin, accompanied by rising smoke.

Jin-Hyeok immediately leaped onto the demon’s back.

“Now, it’s my turn.”

With that, he stabbed the demon in its nape several times.

Mok Jae-Hyeon watched the scene unfold, his mouth agape.

The image of Cha Jin-Hyeok thrusting his dagger into his opponent’s neck over and over was much more akin to a demon than the recipient himself.

***

Jin-Hyeok’s was heartbroken.

‘My movements were affected with only this much injury to my shoulder and thigh…?’

Jin-Hyeok felt the same way when his arm was broken earlier—this body of his was much too frail.

No matter which way Jin-Hyeok diced it, it looked like he was going to need to undergo training to increase his pain tolerance.

To give himself credit where it was due, he had given it his all in the fight and fought as desperately as one could.

After all, these demonic bastards enjoyed such displays.

It was a pleasurable vice of theirs to watch their opponents’ resolve crumble away as they threw themselves with desperation at the demons to no avail.

‘Let’s give him my neck.’

In the midst of the fight, this thought had occurred to Jin-Hyeok.

His heart was genuinely pounding at that moment, for he knew that the demon would not pass up such an opportunity.

‘This one’s going to finish by going for my heart.’

This was a quirk of lower-class Demons—they loved to toy with their victims before killing them off by impaling them through the heart.

Jin-Hyeok knew that the one window of opportunity where the demon had his guard down would come when the demon thought he had well and truly killed his opponent.

‘Here comes the stab.’

Shuk!

When he was struck, Jin-Hyeok still felt a sharp, powerful pain spread around his chest—a searing, burning agony as the demon’s nails tore through his flesh and dug into his inner organs.

But it wasn’t too much for Jin-Hyeok to handle.

‘It’s my turn now!’

The triumphant joy he felt when the pieces of a plan fell into place surpassed any other pleasure, any other pain.

[An Extra Life is applied to you.]

The demon just had a satisfied smile, thinking that Jin-Hyeok was dead. This gave Jin-Hyeok an opening that he couldn’t find before.

With the Blessed Perfume Oil that he had crafted as soon as he earned Luluka’s Angel Feather, Jin-Hyeok didn’t waste the window that was created by the Extra Life.

He smashed the jar of oil right on top of the demon’s head. As the jar shattered, the oil dripped all over the demon’s body.

Like the dutiful Streamer he was, Jin-Hyeok didn’t forget he was on air even in the midst of all this.

“The skin around his neck is quite tough, so it’s hard for a blade to pierce it,” Jin-Hyeok explained to his viewers.

Then he leaped onto the back of the demon—who was in a state of agony—and rained down a streak of stabs.

“Okay, now it’s going in.”

Shuk! Shuk!

The deep, dark crimson blood of a demon, much unlike the green blood of the monsters Jin-Hyeok had fought previously, began to splash here and there. The demon’s blood was quite hot, since demons had a higher body temperature than humans.

‘One or two hits won’t be enough.’

Jin-Hyeok needed to make sure he finished the demon off while he had his chance.

Jin-Hyeok could definitely feel the bastard was slowly losing strength. At this point, he was completely slumped on the floor with his breathing becoming short and ragged.

But this, too, was not enough.

“I think I should make sure I kill him completely,” Jin-Hyeok continued talking to his viewers.

Jin-Hyeok lathered his hands with the Blessed Perfumed Oil that had formed a small puddle on the ground, grabbed the demon by the horns, and added as much force behind his grip as he could muster.

These horns were a demon’s biggest weakness. The closer a demon was to death, the easier these horns were to break.

‘I can’t break them off.’

Even after the demon had suffered all these deadly wounds, the horns were still unbreakable. Jin-Hyeok tried hacking them off with his dagger, but this too proved to be hard as the blade had lost its edge in combat.

“I probably shouldn’t give the demon any breathing room, right?” Jin-Hyeok threw his viewers a rhetorical question—with no answer, of course.

Jin-Hyeok scooped the perfume oil off the ground with cupped hands and brought it to his mouth.

Although the Blessed Perfume Oil was potentially lethal to demons, it was about as harmless as fragrant water to a human. While it was worth noting that the oil tasted disgusting, there was no time to complain.

With the Blessed Perfume Oil held in his mouth, Jin-Hyeok bit into one of the demon’s horns.

When he clamped down with all his might, he heard a strong crunch.

Eventually, Jin-Hyeok succeeded in completely breaking the horn.

This was a rather different… sensation… compared to using his hands to do the job.

“Aaaaargh!”

Copious amounts of blood spurt forth from the broken horn like a fountain.

Once one of the horns was down, the other one was much easier. It had lost a significant amount of its hardness, to the point where it could be easily broken even without the help of the Blessed Perfume Oil.

[You have slain 「Iblis Kecil」.]

Rather than being relieved or triumphant, Jin-Hyeok almost felt a little dejected when he received the notification.

He knew the name of this particular demon himself, but to refer to it by name on a System notification meant something more.

‘A creature this weak is a Named monster?’

This came as a shock to Jin-Hyeok in its own right. It was true that the demon was massively strong for something that appeared in a Tutorial Field, but it still hadn’t reached the bar to be a Named monster—at least by Jin-Hyeok’s standards.

To him, a monster that deserved to be referred to by name should be dangerous enough that it could annihilate the members of an entire party—or more.

Truthfully, Jin-Heyok didn’t think a monster should be Named if it was able to be soloed by a Player, no matter what underhanded method or shortcut they had used.

[You have leveled up.]

[You have unlocked the Achievement 「Exorcism」.]

The ‘Exorcism’ Achievement itself wasn’t actually all that remarkable of a feat, but to give himself credit, this was still the Tutorial.

‘This should trigger the start of the Great Hero path.’

For the record, Jin-Hyeok didn’t have a single bone in his body that intended to change to the Great Hero Job.

As always, this was a Job he seriously disliked.

Being a Great Hero meant working miserably hard for a miserably short life, with nothing to show for it but the oh-so-valuable respect of others. Even if they made a buck, there was no time to spend it since they were too busy doing good for the world; and all those grand tasks meant no time to spend with family either.

The Job was the epitome of sacrificing the “smaller things” for the greater good of all. There were some who liked this way of life, but it certainly wasn’t for Jin-Hyeok.

Regardless of his feelings, the notification came as expected.

[You were successful in your Exorcism in a Tutorial Field.]

[You may now change to the hidden Job 「Great Hero」.]

Without a shadow of hesitation, Jin-Hyeok selected ‘NO.’

‘No.’

[Are you sure?]

[You may now change to the hidden Job 「Gre…]

‘No.’

[You have chosen not to change to the hidden Job 「Great Hero」.]

[You may yield the chance to change to the hidden Job, 「Great Hero」, to someone else.]

Jin-Hyeok processed the messages in his head.

He was able to give the opportunity of this Job change to another Player that the Exorcism was accomplished together with, and the one person that fulfilled that condition was Mok Jae-Hyeon.

‘I don’t want to be a Great Hero myself… but having one as a teammate is a different story.’

There was no one who was more reliable to have as a comrade than a Great Hero.

Other than it being near impossible for them to betray others due to the Job restrictions imposed on them by the System, trust and faith were central values by the Job’s very nature.

It would not be an exaggeration to say they made for the best teammates.

On top of that, what would the outcome be if Jin-Hyeok was the one giving away this offer to become a Great Hero to Mok Jae-Hyeon?

It was likely that Mok Jae-Hyeon would need to repay the generosity that Jin-Hyeok had shown him and practically be at his beck and call like a loyal subordinate, because that was just the kind of thing that being a Great Hero entailed.

Besides, Jin-Hyeok thought that having a Great Hero on his broadcast would add a fair bit toward making the content richer.

“Jae-Hyeon,” Jin-Hyeok called out to him.

For some reason, Mok Jae-Hyeon seemed startled as Jin-Hyeok approached him. Perhaps seeing how cool Jin-Hyeok had been when he was fighting the demon had left an impression on him.

Anyway, Jin-Hyeok went ahead with his question.

“I have a proposal I want to put forward to you.”

“...What is it?”

Whatever the outcome, giving this proposal a shot was better than letting the transfer offer go to waste, since Jin-Hyeok had no intention of accepting it.

“Don’t you want to be strong?” Jin-Hyeok asked.

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“Didn’t you feel powerless just then? I mean, when you were oppressed by the demon’s aura and couldn’t do a thing. Wasn’t it miserable?”

Jin-Hyeok imagined if he had been in Mok Jae-Hyeon’s shoes, it would feel as if the whole world was crashing down upon him. It would be horrible.

Mok Jae-Hyeon indeed seemed to echo that sentiment.

“…It was miserable,” he answered.

“I’m thinking of giving you the chance to be a Great Hero, Jae-Hyeon.”

“…”

“At the least, you won’t have any more days where you’ll feel powerless like today. Of course, you don’t have to accept it if you don’t want to. I’m not too well-versed on the Job, but from what I know, it’s one that has very clear pros and cons. I think the upside would be that, you know, you’ll become way stronger, but the flipside is that you’ll have to sacrifice a lot. Think about it carefully before you make a decision.”

Jin-Hyeok had no intention of forcing this upon him. This was his choice to make.

“Hyung, can I ask you something?” asked Mok Jae-Hyeon.

“What is it?”

Mok Jae-Hyeon went ahead with his query with a deeply serious face.

“If I become a Great Hero, can I be strong like you?”