Leveling Up Alone

Chapter 463 - Spatial Property Force (4)

No wonder there were conspiracy theories that Hunters were actively preventing the development of skills out of fear of losing their jobs. With less than 0.1 percent progress, it made sense why they made up such conspiracy theories.

“I’ll need to do some research. You’ll help me, right, oppa?”

“Sure, I’ll help out a little.”

“Nice!”

Han-Yeol wasn’t too busy anyway.

Their conversation got sidetracked again, but Han-Yeol showed Yoo-Bi the body of the mechanical creature he’d captured in the dungeon. He showed her each separate piece that he had taken apart.

“By the way, I originally took a photo of the body intact, but my phone died halfway, so the picture’s gone.”

“Oh well. It’s a shame we don’t have a picture of the completed form, but it’s not too hard to run the analyzer and get a 3D representation of the completed body.”

“Really?”

He didn’t know this, but it made sense that Han-Yeol knew nothing about mechanical engineering since he had majored in liberal arts.

Clap clap.

“Everyone.”

“Yes, general.”

The assistant researchers quietly followed behind Han-Yeol and Yoo-Bi and then quickly started moving at Yoo-Bi’s call.

However, they didn’t run.

Yoo-Bi was a cute and sweet little sister in front of Han-Yeol, but in reality, people called her the tiger general because she had a very scary and demanding personality. She especially hated people running in the lab unless it was absolutely necessary. Running and creating dust in a place where they dealt with machinery was something Yoo-Bi didn’t allow.

“Gather all the parts of this machine that Hunter Han-Yeol-nim brought and put them through the 3D analyzer.”

“Yes, general!”

At Yoo-Bi’s command, the assistant researchers started to move as fast as they could without running.

Han-Yeol’s safe return revitalized the depressed Republic of Korea. People returned to their usual cheerful, hard-working selves and started to focus on their individual duties. Koreans were naturally hard-working and sincere, and so after a brief period of chaos during Han-Yeol’s absence, things merely returned to normal upon his return.

Unfortunately, things were a little different in China.

North Korea and Manchuria had been spared from the infamous Minocentaurs, a combination of the Minotaurs and the Centaurs. Despite traveling to South Korea, a surprise raid by 120 raiders from five guilds waiting to ambush near the ceasefire line nearly wiped them out.

This might have raised the question of whether North Korea and Manchuria were too weak. North Korea was, of course, far less powerful than South Korea, but Manchuria, which was a part of China, had many more Hunters than South Korea.

There was more to this, though.

The South Korean Hunters were able to take down the Minocentaurs because they had access to Yoo-Bi’s state-of-the-art equipment and had already thoroughly analyzed footage of battles in North Korea and Manchuria to understand how the creatures fought.

North Korea and Manchuria, known as the Northeast area in China (or Dongbei in Chinese) had a population of over a hundred million people. This was an overwhelming eight percent of China’s total population. Although it was a large region, China was an economic powerhouse and had G3 Hunter power, but with the exception of the eastern coastal areas, the region had been discriminated against to the point that it had been left out of economic development.

The Mana Stone Age was no different.

The northeastern area lost to the Minocentaurs because the ten Master-Rank Hunters who were supposed to fight Emperor Qin Shi Huang had taken their elite guild members with them. This left a huge void in Hunters in the northeast, and the Minocentaurs completely destroyed them during that time.

The South Korean Hunters were able to break the Minocentaurs’ combination so easily because the only two Master-Rank Hunters in North Korea were unfortunately annihilated while fighting the Minotaurs and the Centaurs’ bosses. While killing the boss monster halved the power of the Minocentaurs, the problem was that North Korea’s top-tier Hunters, including the Master-Rank Hunters, had been completely wiped out.

Unlike Manchuria and North Korea, South Korea was able to use all four of its Master-Rank Hunters, excluding Master Hee-Yun, to annihilate the southbound Minocentaurs near the DMZ without much trouble. In other words, the South Koreans had finished them off when they were at their weakest. On the other hand, the North Koreans and Manchurians were left incredibly frustrated after suffering so much damage from the Minocentaurs.

Nonetheless, this was the end of the Minocentaurs that had terrorized and left North Korea and Manchuria in a bloody mess.

[Up next, China is in the midst of a very modern version of the Records of the Three Kingdoms. The catastrophic monster that the Chinese government has been reluctant to slay has finally become too powerful for even Emperor Qin Shi Huang to handle after his second awakening after the Earth evolved as a second dimension. New information has just reached our news station—another force has dominated the Yunnan Province of southern China, but their characteristics are a bit unusual. They are said to be a combination of monsters and Hunters. They are called Hunters who deal with monsters, but... Hunters who deal with monsters with black mana are considered to be out of their minds.

[They have been claiming their devotion to the demon king by repeating the unusual line that all should kneel before the demon king's army. They are also launching a massive surprise attack against the Chinese military and Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s monster corps. Their opponents include not only the Chinese military and Emperor Qin Shi Huang, but also neighboring countries such as Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar, all of which border southern China. In particular, the domination of the demon king is completely unpredictable, and the damage to civilians in nearby areas, including Wenan Province, is said to be significant. The HUN spokesperson will be issuing a special announcement regarding the situation. We’ll connect to our reporter Han-Yerin in Switzerland.]

China was about three minutes away from a total disaster.

The situation had gotten so out of hand that they didn’t even know where to start. There was even an internal argument that they should just give up on the west and south, draw a border, and build a wall so that they wouldn’t lose any more territory.

Fortunately, the western and southern parts of China didn’t make up a very large portion of the country.

Beep!

Han-Yeol turned off the TV when the news about China ended and the program moved on to entertainment.

“Woah, China’s a mess.”

[Yeah, it really is.]

“Huh? Riru, you understood the news?”

Han-Yeol talked to himself on the living room couch as he always did, but when Riru showed that she understood while sitting next to him, he looked at her as if he was looking at something strange. It wasn’t easy for them to understand each other’s languages, not because they were from different countries or races, but because they were from different dimensions. Han-Yeol was able to understand because of his interpreting skills and his experience as a Bastroling.

[I learned a bit of the human language—not enough to speak, but I can read a little bit. I watched the news or whatever and learned a bit about the way of life in this world.]

“Riru...”

Han-Yeol saw Riru differently. Up until now, he had only considered her a pretty (by Bastroling standards) older sister who was good at fighting.

However, this kind of attitude from her was surprising. Han-Yeol had forgotten for a moment, but she was a young captain who had led the Bastro Warriors in Han-Yeol’s (Harkan’s) absence. Maybe she sensed Han-Yeol’s gaze, but her expression also became very serious.

[We must learn. It was certainly a shame to lose a dimension to those filthy, hyena-like races. But nothing will change if we simply sharpen our blades and wait to take revenge. If we rely solely on you, Harkan, then one day, when a hero like you doesn’t exist, we Bastrolings will lose the dimension to the likes of another hyena race. If that happens and there is no second Harkan, a second Han-Yeol, then we will never be able to regain the Bastro Dimension ever again.]

“...”

Everything she said was correct, so there wasn’t much Han-Yeol could say.

If the Bastrolings maintained their culture of close combat, then the next time a hyena-like race or another race with a more advanced system came along, they wouldn't be able to stop them without a great hero like Han-Yeol or Harkan. In fact, with the system as it was, they might not have been able to win even with a hero either.

Even if it weren’t the hyenas, a race that was somewhat smart, a different race could learn from the hyenas' defeat and attack with a more advanced system. But despite Han-Yeol’s former identity as Harkan, he was still a human, and even if the Bastrolings reclaimed their dimension, another Bastro Warrior would have to serve as the dimension lord.

One candidate for that position was Riru. Her eagerness to learn showed that the future of the Bastro Dimension wasn’t all that dark.

“That’s a really good attitude, Riru.”

[Yeah. Especially among our warriors, the fox children are learning a lot in the lab owned by the human named Yoo-Bi. Of course, her abilities are deceptive, so we can’t learn everything, but it still helps a lot.]

“Haha, is that so?”

They had sent fox warriors, the smartest of the dogs and the Bastro Warriors, but this didn’t mean that they were capable of understanding the complexity of human science and technology. The difference in scientific advancement between the Bastro Dimension and Earth was quite big to begin with. Nonetheless, Yoo-Bi kindly taught the fox warriors some practical technological weaponry, and they were eager to learn.

Just like this, they were gradually preparing for the war to liberate the Bastro Dimension.

*

Han-Yeol received an unexpected call from the owner of the White House. He had originally planned to meet them, but due to an accident, he was unable to do so.

[The accident was unfortunate.]

“Haha, I’m sorry about that. I should’ve taken better care of the aircraft.”

[Well, I’m glad to see that you’re safe.]

“Thank you, Mr. President.”

Of course, he didn’t have the skill to interpret English yet, so they had an interpreter in the middle of their conversation doing their best to translate in real time.

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