Chapter 20 – Day 6, 6th Floor Prey

[Sixteen.]

I had to spray poison and kill everything within a dozen seconds. It was impossible. At this point, everyone had noticed and was running towards the stairs. I took a deep breath.

“Kwak Yu-han!” Of course, he turned to look back at me as well as the rest of the party. I called their names as quickly and clearly as possible. “You go down first. After that, Lee Min-ju and Lee Sang-hoon. Kim Ha-jong. Yoo Su-jeong. Go down the stairs in the order that I called. Come on!”

[Leadership. Lv 188/200.]

The moment that the countdown reached ‘two’, I stepped on the stairs with Yang Su-jin. The peak collapsed with a loud noise and the stairs started to shake. From the end that touched the peak, they started to fall one by one.

“Let’s go. Come on.” The speed that the stairs were crumbling was slower. One almost every second. If you weren’t afraid to take one step at a time then there would be almost no possibility of dying.

But there was no time to fight. I looked down and instantly became dizzy from the darkness below me. If I fell down there then I would surely die.

I looked at the five people who were in front of me, except for Yang Su-jin. At least two of them were thinking the same thing as me. There was no need to fight. A fall from this height would definitely kill people. If I just pushed them without having to fight…

Ahhhhh!

I turned to look as I heard an echo from far away. It was a scream from a staircase that was relatively close to us. The people there were fighting to push each other. The first loser fell, his panicked limbs waving frantically in the air just before he disappeared into the darkness…

“…!”

“Heok!” Everyone saw it. In the darkness, a giant mouth opened to swallow the victim’s body.

[Shadow Leech. Type: Animal – Malformed. Rank A.]

[A creature that exists in the dark space where light can’t reach. A dark fog is created from the secretion glands in its body to block light from entering its habitat. It swallows animals that are smaller than it and receives nutrients by slowly squeezing fluids from the body. Due to its cold blood, it squeezes the food that enters its body as slowly as possible.]

[Although they are usually the size of one or two fingers, individuals can grow more than a few meters depending on the environment and food.]

[A malformed creature. It is different from others of the same species.]

One or two fingers to a few metres? Don’t make me laugh. It was only a very short time, but I had seen the size of it. Although the length wasn’t known, the width… After comparing it to the peak, it was as wide as a subway carriage.

And there wasn’t just one. The second loser screamed and fell in succession. This time, half a dozen heads that resembled an earthworm rose simultaneously. They gravitated to the prey falling like carp chasing bread in the water.

The people fighting on the stairs didn’t notice what was below them. In order to survive, they just fought with each other. Three. Four. Five. Six. The food fell in succession.

Finally, there was only one person surviving on top of the stairs. He raised both hands above his head and cheered with victory. But then the cheering stopped.

I thought I knew why. Of the six people he had pushed, none had been killed. No. Were they still alive? They had gone into the stomachs of the leeches.

“He is the biggest loser with no income. How pitiful.” Yoo Su-jeong spoke up. Unlike her calm words, she looked very pale. The leeches were also under us. This feeling? It felt like the darkness under my feet was slightly wriggling.

Maybe all that darkness… “There is something on the peak.” Kwak Yu-han reported from the front. We had descended the stairs and reached another peak. There were ten things, and they weren’t humans.

Light brown skin. A tail as long as their body. The closer I came, the more certain I was.

[Rock Lizardman. Type: Ajin (Demi-human). Rank E.]

[A subspecies of the lizardmen that live on rocky areas and cliffs. They form nests and live on bird monsters and various plants. They have a better sense of balance than normal lizardmen and their claws can climb the steep cliffs. Due to the weakness of cold-blooded animals, they always carry around warm stones to heat them up.]

Their tails moved as they watched us from afar. I could tell they were hostile just by their appearance. It wasn’t a bad opportunity. I would give up on the experience this time and just watch the five people fighting.

The first one to attack was Kwak Yu-han at the front. The claws were pretty bloody but he didn’t hesitate to dive straight in at a lizardman. I admired his smooth movements.

I had seen several people in the dungeon who seemed to exercise, but the movements of Kwak Yu-han was different. I didn’t know anything about exercising, but… Wasn’t he at the level of an amateur athlete or pro?

The second one was Lee Min-ju who wielded a stick with a blue jewel at the end. As it moved, frost formed on the skin of a lizardman nearby.; It was a tool similar to the ring I had given up on the 4th floor. That would certainly be a little dangerous.

The third was Kim Ha-jong. Due to the impression he gave off, I thought he would use his fists. However, he took out a long sword from his inventory. Both hands used the sword to deal a heavy blow that crushed a lizardman.

It was a blow that could threaten me, but I was certain I could take him. His speed was low so I could deal with him without the aid of poison.

And then there was Yoo Su-jeong. She was holding a dagger in both hands. The third ranked person wasn’t strong, but she was fast. She didn’t lose her vigilance and aimed for the vulnerable parts such as the back and underbelly. The movements of the third and seventh ranked were certainly different.

I looked at the last person. Lee Min-ju’s brother, Lee Sang-hoon. The 185th ranked person was watching the claws with a frightened expression. I watched him for a while before shouting. “Stop!” Everyone instantly looked at me and stopped their actions.

[The level of a talent has risen.]

[Leadership. Lv 2. 5/200]

They listened well. Frankly, I hadn’t expected this much. There were three lizardmen remaining. They knew they had been defeated and were on the edge of the peak.

“I’m going to test something.” I said as I went forward. I moved in front of the lizardmen without even raising my guard. It was a type of taunt.

“Shayak!” The two lizardmen in front rushed forward in unison. At the same time, my arms moved. I felt relaxed. I slightly moved my back foot and lowered my waist and head. The claws narrowly passed in front of my nose. Then my left hand and right hand moved.

One.

Peok!

Two.

Bakak!

Thanks to Limiter Release, my fists moved neatly. Two bodies were torn and fell down. Although I couldn’t read the lizardmen’s faces, the remaining one seemed quite scared. It turned its body towards a cliff. It wanted to get away by climbing up the wall.

Deopsseok.

I took three steps forward and grabbed its neck. I squeezed with all my power and lifted it with one hand. Then I threw it down.

“Siak!” I turned off Limiter Release and looked at the lizardman on the floor, then the five people behind me. There was amazement in their eyes. In particular, the higher the rank, the greater the degree of their discomfort.

I had ended three monsters in a single moment. Kwak Yu-han had been the fastest and he took longer to kill just one. It was a clear, unspoken message: they would die if they tried to eat me.

The plan to kill all of them had been pushed back. For the moment, this would be a challenge to raise my leadership. If so, I needed to make one thing clear. I wasn’t the leader, but I was the strongest.

I grabbed the neck of the fallen lizardman. As mentioned earlier, there was something I wanted to test.

“Look.”

With that one word, I threw the lizardman over the peak. The lizardman fell into the darkness with a reptilian scream. Everyone waited for the leeches to catch it, but the leeches didn’t appear.

“Everybody saw that, right?” I opened my mouth and explained. “Leeches like ‘warm blood’ so dropping a lizardman with ‘cold blood’ is no use.”

“… But what does that mean?” Kim Ha-jong asked with confusion.

“So… Is there a reason to care?”

“Perhaps.” I pointed to the other side with my finger.  The six pairs of eyes gazed in that direction.  I had seen it when coming down the stairs.

They saw the peaks below us. To be exact, they saw next peak we were going to, which had another staircase leading down. The staircase wasn’t leading down to another peak, rather it ended as it entered the darkness.

“It is too optimistic to think that is going to the 7th floor.”  However, it meant they had to literally go down into the darkness. Leeches would be inside that darkness.

“I am just guessing, but walking into the darkness is probably walking into the leeches’ stomachs. Since the darkness is their secretions…” They would aim for the hot-blooded organisms. They were leeches that liked humans.

I pointed to the other evidence to support it. There were two staircases leading down to the next peak. Not just us, but a staircase from another peak led down there.

The peak on the other side. On top of it, there were seven silent figures.

This was a crazy feeding game.

[Leadership. Lv 2 65/200.]