Takashi Family (3)

Takashi looked at the place where Kang-hoo’s gaze had stopped.

Takashi quietly took a spot beside him without saying anything, and Kang-hoo asked him.

“During the briefing, why didn’t you mention that there was a path over there too?”

“It’s a fault line. As you go, the path gets cut off. To cross to the other side, you’d have to move about 75 meters through the air…… but neither I, Lemon, nor Moko have that kind of skill. It’s rare.”

One of the rarest skills for hunters was a skill that allowed them to stay in the air for a long time.

Usually, they were called “Flight” type skills, but cases of possessing such skills were not common.

Even if one had them, it was impossible to wildly fire off skills while continuing to float in the air like in movies or novels.

That was because, except in very special cases, overlapping skill usage was impossible.

In other words, when using a Flight skill that kept one floating in the air, one could literally only use the Flight skill.

If one tried to use another attack skill in that state, the effect of the Flight skill would drop.

That was why it was not a flaw that the party members here did not have Flight skills. Rather, it was structurally difficult to have them.

Lemon was only a mage specialized in lightning magic too. It meant mages did not always fly around.

“Takashi.”

“Yeah?”

“Then do you know what kind of path that opposite side is?”

“I do. If we follow the main route I mentioned, that is where we arrive. That place is part of our movement route too.”

“I see.”

The characteristic of the first basement floor of the labyrinth that had been shared in the earlier briefing was that rather than having many monsters, it had many terrain-related problems that caused inconvenience in movement.

In particular, there were many variable elements that did not give them time to rest, such as the Instant-Kill Wind.

Therefore, the key was minimizing stamina consumption, and the goal was to quickly break through the Instant-Kill Wind section.

“Now, let’s move again.”

Just as Takashi lightly tugged Kang-hoo’s sleeve and was about to guide him toward the existing movement route.

“Takashi. Let’s go this way.”

At Kang-hoo’s answer, Takashi tilted his head. Lemon and Mokomichi, who had been listening beside them, also tilted their heads.

“What do you mean?”

The expected reaction came.

Since he had already said they did not have Flight skills, it seemed he was wondering how they were supposed to go.

“Could it be that you can fly or something like that? No, even if you can fly, we can’t, though?”

Lemon’s eyes sparkled.

It was already irrational for an assassin to have a Flight skill, but that was not the only problem.

It was meaningless for Kang-hoo to fly across alone.

But Kang-hoo definitely had not spoken with the nuance that he would go alone. Then what on earth was it?

“Everyone, please stand here.”

Kang-hoo slightly raised the tips of his feet and drew a round circle on the dirt ground with a smooth motion.

It was a circle like the kind of play-house game one might have drawn in childhood.

Everyone was bewildered, but since they knew Kang-hoo was not someone who said frivolous things, they stood on top of it.

Mokomichi extinguished all the servants he had prepared just in case. It was because he thought something might happen.

The next moment.

Kang-hoo immediately activated the Blue-Position Exchange Formation skill.

Entry Formation. A circular formation that acted as an entrance appeared.

The three people took their positions on top of it, and there were no other variables.

In that state, Kang-hoo immediately equipped Wings of Corruption and floated up into the air.

The Wings of Corruption, which utilized the Flying Corrupted, could still be used even after the Corrupted had evolved into the Corrupted One, Mumyeong.

Although it took the form of Mumyeong temporarily downgrading, its fundamental use was not impossible.

“Hey! What kind of trick is this?”

When Kang-hoo rose into the air with something like demon wings on his back, Takashi made a surprised expression.

Each time the wings flapped, his body pushed forward forcefully. Its propulsion was no ordinary thing.

“This is…… a formation, isn’t it? What purpose would a formation that only sorcerers would use have here?”

Lemon fixed her gaze on the circular formation continuously glittering beneath her feet.

She had heard from Takashi before that Kang-hoo was not a hunter who only operated within the frame of an assassin.

Even so, Lemon had been half in doubt.

The reason classes existed was that each person had an identity assigned to them to that extent.

Since there were fields each person specialized in, the system also classified them as classes.

Just like Lemon, a mage, specialized in lightning magic.

However, the Kang-hoo she had experienced earlier was closer to a mage than an assassin.

On top of that, he had even used a Flight skill that did not suit an assassin at all.

He had even unfolded an unidentified formation. She wondered if it was a buff formation, but it was not. She could not estimate its purpose.

Right then.

Kang-hoo, who had crossed the fault-line section connected to a cliff of a thousand-gil depth and landed on the opposite side, looked back.

And as he had shown a moment ago, he constructed a formation of the same shape on the ground. It had the same structure.

The next moment.

Spaaat!

“Huh?”

“Uwaaah!”

Takashi, Lemon, and Mokomichi felt their bodies being swiftly sucked in by something.

All the scenery surrounding them seemed to stretch out sharply, and before they knew it, a different scene unfolded.

“……Was that summoning?”

“That’s absurd.”

“Insane.”

Only then, when they truly felt what Kang-hoo had done, the expressions of the three people changed completely.

Surprise, astonishment, and their mouths hanging open from an unrealistic sense of discrepancy.

When they turned around, they could see the blue circular formation where they had been standing until just now.

There was no doubt that they had been summoned to where Kang-hoo was. The Instant-Kill Wind did not blow here either.

In numerical terms.

If the starting point was 1 and the destination was 100, it was as though they had leaped the distance from 5 to 65.

And that had happened in only a few dozen seconds. He had reduced a distance of several hours to a matter of seconds.

“How is it? Isn’t this much of a meaningful shortcut? It was a path visible to me.”

“Hey, Shin Kang-hoo. You…… no. Forget it. Even if I ask where you got a skill like this, you won’t tell me, right?”

“Rather than saying I won’t tell you, it’s hard to explain. It’ll be easier on your mind to just accept that it exists.”

“Even after experiencing it personally, I can’t believe it. To think you can use a summoning formation like this. This is difficult even for a high-level sorcerer. And even such a sorcerer might summon, but they couldn’t fly like you.”

Takashi shook his head. Just how many traces of other classes had he seen from Kang-hoo?

Assassin was the basics.

He also had the characteristics of a mage and the characteristics of a sorcerer. And this was only the beginning.

Kang-hoo was the one who had shown off the trick, yet Takashi, who was watching it, felt his own pride swell up.

How to put it.

At some point, Takashi had often thought of himself as Kang-hoo’s fan. He had even called himself that.

To that extent, Kang-hoo was a friend who drew a lot of interest and an interesting guy who always stirred curiosity.

Perhaps that was why whenever he saw Kang-hoo surprising him, he felt a strange sense of vicarious satisfaction.

Should he say it was pride that his eye for recognizing his friend’s specialness early had not been wrong?

“Lemon, Moko! Do you get it now? This is what my friend is like. How many times did I tell you? I said you’d fall for him if you saw him!”

Perhaps that was why he ended up bragging like a doting fool. It was also his conviction that said, I wasn’t wrong!

At that, Lemon asked Takashi with narrowed eyes.

“Takashi. You’re not perhaps into BL…… or something like that, are you? Like, liking men? Ouch!”

No sooner had she raised that sudden suspicion than Takashi pinched Lemon’s belly fat with all his strength.

He pulled so hard that Lemon’s belly fat, despite her lack of flab, was tugged forward.

Mokomichi, noticing the sincerity in the pinch, was about to say something but closed his mouth. It seemed he would not even break even if he did.

“I don’t mean falling for him as a man. I mean respecting him as a comrade. This is the Kang-hoo I wanted to show you guys. Whatever you imagine, he shows you more than that. He keeps making you look forward to him, doesn’t he?”

“Keep it moderate. I’ll wear out.”

At Takashi’s divinely inspired(?) praise, Kang-hoo shook his head. At this point, he had eaten enough praise to be full.

In any case, he had properly felt the effect of Blue-Position Exchange Formation.

Even a physical disconnection of distance in cases where they could not move through the air could be solved with Blue-Position Exchange Formation and wings.

If so, the plank path section, another worry inside the labyrinth, could also be broken through with the same method.

“Now, it seems it’s time for us to earn our meal, doesn’t it? Kang-hoo, you rest a bit. From here on, there’s nothing difficult.”

“That’s right. There’s no more Instant-Kill Wind, and the monster appearance frequency is low too, so it’s relatively comfortable. Since it’s an open field, there’s no particular need for scouting either.”

Takashi and Lemon stepped forward.

Mokomichi also offered Kang-hoo a polite greeting and gently took position in front of him.

“Please watch. With this one summoning, you have done everything you needed to do, just as Takashi said. What remains is our share.”

“Very well. I’ll do some watching.”

Kang-hoo nodded.

Since all three told him in unison to rest, he had no desire to ignore that and work hard(?) on purpose.

He intended to use this chance to watch the three people’s skills in spectator mode.

They were people who could become his potential companions. In addition, they were Takashi’s irreplaceable friends.

As Takashi, who was now more likely to come out of Justice, would also be friends with them more closely from now on……

He intended to properly understand them.

Takashi Family, each and every one of whom was an expert. They were existences that must never be taken lightly.

Afterward.

As a perfect spectator, Kang-hoo watched the brilliant showcase of the three people.

Takashi was indeed Takashi.

In the position of a magic swordsman, Takashi freely used sword and magic, easily unfolding both close-range and long-range combat.

An existence that was threatening whether one stuck close or stayed far away. From the opponent’s perspective, he was the most damn awful kind of existence.

Lemon likewise used high-level lightning magic specialized in slaughtering large numbers of monsters.

Even the enhanced “Thunderstrike Tremor” that Kang-hoo used seemed like it would become infinitely small in front of Lemon’s lightning skills.

With only a slight exaggeration, each and every lightning spell seemed like watching the manifestation of lightning.

That was how explosive their power was, and most ordinary monsters could not withstand them and exploded to death on the spot.

Mokomichi was skilled in mass warfare using servants.

He pushed forward with numbers and effectively blocked troublesome monsters or giant monsters.

Once he stalled them like that, Takashi and Lemon quickly stuck close and eliminated the target, which could no longer move an inch.

‘This is exactly the world of top-tier hunters, the world they live in.’

It was a thought he repeated with a faint laugh.

While freely using destructive skills that ordinary hunters could not even estimate.

A world of top-tier experts who did not feel anything special from each other at all. A world where this kind of thing was natural.

In the original work, Kang-hoo had called this “the world they live in.”

And now he, too, had at some point become part of that world. He had naturally become a member.

This was.

A world that, once one had entered it, one would never want to leave, a world that stirred up even more greed.