Chapter 39

Stardust Wing

Boom! Boom!

I could hear the sound of them breaking the wall from upstairs. I could also imagine what was happening.

Originally, this place was a combined dungeon of the field type and labyrinth type. As I completed it, it became an ordinary field type dungeon.

Thus, the invariance that was forced on some structures to maintain the maze was eliminated. The parts that could never be destroyed could now be destroyed.

'The quickest way to do this is to break it down and get through.'

McKid's people would be heading straight from the last place they were into the castle's outer wall, almost as if to drill horizontally.

'It's been more than half a day. No matter how dizzy the path has made them, seeing the bigger picture, they must have realized that the direction of movement is downward.'

With that in mind, what would they choose?

First of all, they would probably break out to the outer wall and jump to the ground floor. I grabbed the Stardust Wing that I just got my hands on. It was a glass bottle, like an ampoule full of sparkling powder.

I couldn't get this confiscated.

[Stardust Wing]

Item Description: ...when inserted into the body, it is imputed and activated according to the user's will.

'To insert it in my body? But how?'

Thinking of the method made me feel very complicated.

There are about six possible ways, considering the human body structure. Five of them were worth a try, but I couldn't seem to like just one way. I put the bottle on my arm to put the most plausible method into practice.

Weeng!

A small needle popped out of a pointed snout as if it had been waiting. And much like a holographic instruction guide, a light arrow was seen at the end of the needle and pointed to my arm vein like it was telling me to stick it in here.

'It was meant to be inserted like an injection.'

It was fortunate to be able to scrap the other five possibilities.

I put the needle in the vein. The powder of light that filled the bottle was absorbed into the veins in an instant. At the same time, I sensed strange energy inside my body. While searching all over the body with warm traces, it quickly settled behind my back.

As the process ended, the empty glass bottle melted into the air without a trace.

'Let's get out of here!'

*

Boom! Boo-boom!

I managed to get to the first floor of the castle before McKid's company. I just ran the way I knew, but they broke everything on their path to come out.

Bang!

The black wall, which had prevented any attack before the clear, had holes and smoke. It was at the moment when I arrived at the ground and just operated the Stardust Wing.

Weeng!

The wings made of blue light rose symmetrically on my back.

The white-blue particles that were seen inside the glass bottle gathered to form a wing shape: symmetrical left and right, two on each side, a total of four wings.

But, how to use this thing...?

Boom!

"[Stealth!]"

My body melted into the air with the wings behind my back.

As soon as I disappeared, four golems jumped off the wall. With a few members of the expedition on each of their backs, the fall's speed, compared to the mass, was a little slower, as they should have enchanted the Golem with a Levitation spell.

Meanwhile, as soon as Golem stepped out of the wall, I ran to the gate in Stealth. I then looked at my Mana.

- Active Mana: 26,000 (+14,500)/11,500

- Latent Mana: 85,000

Two months after the Awakening, my active Mana capacity had become 11,500.

If I didn't ruin the promotion screening process, I would be certified as an A-Class Hunter. The ridiculous rate was beyond common sense.

Thanks to the cores absorbed from continuous hunting, my available Mana had been more than doubled to 26,000.

'The minimum active Mana of a SS Hunter is 30,000. There is no big difference in terms of my available Mana of now. Unlike when I entered, there is also the magic sword, so if it's McKid alone, I could fight him one on one.'

The problem was that there was not only one person after me right now. In addition to the 1:14 composition, there was one SS-Class and two S-Classes.

'In the end, it's best to run!'

I tried to use an item instead of a skill because it would be discontinued if I used another skill like [Acceleration] during [Stealth]. As I came outside and there was no obstacle on the ceiling, I tried to fly with the Stardust Wing.

I thought it would be possible to fly the same way as I activated it with my will. However, it didn't go as well as planned!

'Damn it, how the hell do you use this?'

If I had ever seen someone use this in my past life, I would have been able to imitate Mana's usage using it!

I injected Mana in various ways, but it was the same as hoping for the opportunity to fall into my lap. While running away, I knock on the 'Stardust Wing' with Mana several times in a second, creating patterns.

Thump!

Meanwhile, the Golem fell on the floor. I had already gained a considerable distance.

The hunters were about to enter the castle right away, but McKid stopped them.

"Wait! He may have already come out of the castle. Emily?"

Emily seemed to have activated some kind of support type skill again. I turned my eyes for a moment and read the pattern.

'[Mana Detection]!'

I spat out profanities inwardly. Damn!

'A skill not on the official profile!'

It could not observe the Mana pattern like [The Successor's Eyes], but it detected where it was being concentrated. At a primitive level, like the swarm of worms residing in Ersmann's stomach.

It was not useful in Mana's maze all around, but the story changed in these open fields.

And, of course, Mana is consumed while my [Stealth] is activated!

"80 degrees! 1.1 miles!"

Emily recited where I was.

As soon as the words fell, fourteen hunters kicked and bounced off the ground at the same time. They surrounded me everywhere, like catching a fox and estimated where I was.

While running, McKid screamed, "Dell Parker! Do you really want to die, you bastard?! This is a clear breach of contract!"

I mumbled inwardly as I ran away, 'He doesn't know I've extended his life!'

I was displeased to see a man who would have carved himself and died six months later if I hadn't intercepted the sword, chasing me with such murderous energy. In addition, if I hadn't blocked him, he would have held the sword in his hand and killed so many people to the point that it would be hard to track.

'Oh, why isn't this working?'

I cursed the system message inside. Instead of useless knowledge like histories of other dimensions, they should have stuck with a manual!

While continually tapping the wings with a Mana, hunters followed behind my back. I turned sharply and increased my speed up. However, Emily's detection skills continued to follow.

"20 degrees! 0.5 miles!"

As the distance seemed to have narrowed, hunters' attacks poured out from behind. The sword, spells, and arrows were all over the place, but I continued to keep my [Stealth] activated. As they could not see where I was, all the attacks were directed by Emily in my direction and distance, and they were all off the mark.

McKid seemed to realize that he couldn't catch me this way.

"We have no choice. Let's just blow everything up in that area!" he commanded the hunters, "Everyone, retreat!"

Thus, the sound of complaining was caught by my enhanced hearing.

"Damn, this dungeon doesn't play well from the beginning to the end."

I felt uneasy for a moment and looked back again.

In the place that he stopped running, a mountain of Mana boiled up from his core. It soon turned red and covered his body.

'Unique Skill!'

Spark!

There was a spark around McKid's body. Colorless flames made soot on the floor, and small flashes like discharged wires repeatedly appeared and disappeared.

While he stopped, I continued to widen my distance, but I did not relax my mind. Instead, I became more urgent.

Tssss!

I was definitely farther away, but my skin already stung. My hair rose and pointed everywhere as if I was experiencing static electricity.

That meant...

'This is within the target range!'

Since the exact location was unknown, they were trying to wipe me out with a wide-area attack.

"Emily!"

"35 degrees! Two miles!"

McKid reached out his hands forward. I gave up my Stealth and prepared myself for [Acceleration].

Weeng!

At that moment, Stardust Wing, which had been distracted and disobedient so far, finally began to respond to my Mana.

'Yes! Yes! Now!'

I instilled my will into the artifact that responded to Mana.

'You damn wing! Fly!'

Just before the sense of floating enveloped me, I turned my head. A well-refined red Mana exploded all over McKid.

"[Thunder God's Wrath (Rank: S)]!"

The moment he activated the skill. The wings on my back also started flying.

'Uh, uh, uh?'

Whish!

At that moment, all the surrounding scenery seemed to elongate like taffy, but it returned to its original form.

I realized that I was trying to keep running under the inertia of consciousness. My foot kicked the empty air. After that, however, my legs continued to hover in the air.

The surrounding landscape had changed entirely.

I was in the air, looking over a desolate forest beneath my feet. I could see the black castle I had been running away from up until just now, far away. Yeah, I could see it 'away.' To compare how far, 10 kilometers from where I had just been standing!

And, without a moment for me to be even baffled.

Flash!

A fierce white light that seemed to burn my eyes covered the distant sky. The violence towards my hearing reached just a little later than the violence towards my eyes.

Boom! Boom boom!

Hundreds of lightning struck the woods around the castle. It was the very place where I ran away from McKid.

Each lightning strike left a few seconds of afterimage. All the flashes were extremely destructive. The lightning, which fell while tearing the air, burned a particular forest area into ashes.

When the beams of light that had been scattering through the sky finally stopped, I thought to myself.

'He really blew up the location where I was. That ignorant bastard.'

Traces of devastation showed signs of being developed to forest fires, and thick smoke rose.

Now it seemed impossible for McKid to catch up with me as I ran outside of Emily's skill range. It would have been too late should they have chosen to spend their time trying to find my corpse.

'Well, I'll go back to Earth first. Take care, guys.'

I turned my back without regret. The gate, which was not visible around the castle, was on the other side.

I adjusted my body angle in the air, maintained a straight track, and, once more, I delivered my will to the wings of my back.

My body slipped again like an arrow that had no air resistance. I flew at a speed beyond the range of cognition. The distance between the gates back to Earth was quickly narrowed; I passed through the gate as if I was penetrating it.

*

'Well, I think my guess was wrong.'

'I don't think you're the one in charge of martial arts; you're the incarnation of the one in charge of luck. My guess is right. I respect you very much.'

I was lost in thought, ignoring the voice of the sword, mumbling again.

The downtown Chicago scene slowly passed under me as I maintained Stealth while I spread my blue wings.

Passing through the forest of buildings, I followed a contrail. Compared to the speed that I didn't even realize my body was moving in the previous dungeon, it's much more relaxed.

I muttered inwardly.

'If I flew at such a fast speed as a while ago, I would waste too much Mana.'

It was a good thing I came back to Earth right through the gate.

There was no reason to stay there and fight with McKid's party when they didn't know who I really was, but my Mana would have been ridiculously lacking even if we did. I couldn't just absorb cores relaxedly in the middle of a battle.

'On the other hand, flying at the right speed as now is tolerable.'

I had a rough idea of how to use this wing.

The most surprising part was that there was no resistance felt on the body, not only now but also when I flew at ridiculous speeds in the dungeon, and there was no physical inertia when it came to stopping the flight.

As if I was slipping... Everything happened so fast that I couldn't notice when I stopped flying.

'Maybe it wasn't an unnecessary explanation for the planetary system, and so on.'

It seemed possible to fly between planets through the stratosphere. Of course, that was going to cost me a lot of Mana.

'Will it be possible if I have 300,000 Mana capacity?'

It wasn't impossible, but it wasn't something that would be achieved soon.

Through my thoughts, the telepathy of the magic sword penetrated. The snakes could not swallow it. As a result, I had to keep the sword on my back, and the telepathy continued, unbroken. It was the same, even if I spaced it a bit away from my body.

'How could you get such a good item from that dungeon? That's that, but... How was that possible against the boss? I was really impressed. I had no idea that I was stuck there for a long time, but the monster mimics me and digs a trap. But your response was overwhelming. You didn't respond to the conversation as if you knew it in advance and threw the bomb...'

He seemed to have changed his tactics. Since I wouldn't be swayed by unilateral persuasion, for the time being, he would praise me and keep me lifted.

'He's doing that because it doesn't know I've noticed what it is, but one day he'll use the method he used against Randy.'

He was pouring curses and profanities with mental-type skill throughout the one holding it in his hand.

The brainwashing didn't work on me, but I didn't intend to endure the struggle while keeping the sword near me. I didn't want to make Randy suffer the same pain one day if I ever gave him this sword.

'The man holding the sword deciding to close his ears isn't the only solution to this.'

Instead of finding a way to stop the telepathy, I was going to bring the sword to its knees.