The red letters stabbing into his retina showed no sign of disappearing.
Chae-ho roughly wiped his face with both hands. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, but the translucent window filling his vision was still floating in the same spot.
'What the hell is this......'
His wildly pounding heartbeat screamed that all of this was real. The back of his neck stiffened, and his mouth went completely dry.
Moistening his dry lips with his tongue, Chae-ho subtly turned his head and looked around.
The Hunters gathered in the rest area were still chatting and laughing among themselves. The sound of people slamming their hands on tables while telling stories of their achievements mixed with the noise of putting coins into vending machines and pulling out coffee, creating a constant hum.
Even the person lying on the sofa across from him, sleeping while snoring loudly, did not spare Chae-ho a single glance.
The enormous, noisy system window floating in the air was visible only to him.
'If I keep standing here like this, I don't know what kind of scene I'll make.'
Chae-ho kicked the dented empty can on the floor, sending it rolling into a corner. Then he hurriedly grabbed the bag he had placed on the chair, put it over his shoulder, and stood up.
He quickened his pace and left the rest area.
Even while walking through the Association branch hallway, the letters 'EX' remained vividly engraved in front of his eyes.
He nearly collided shoulders with another party's Hunter coming from the opposite direction, but Chae-ho only gave a brief nod and did not stop walking. He had no time to get dragged into some pointless argument and waste time.
The place he headed toward was the far end of the branch building, where few people went.
An unused basic training room that Hunters rarely visited.
Chae-ho turned the handle. The old iron door opened heavily with a creak. After entering, he immediately closed the door and locked the thick locking mechanism.
Click.
Only after hearing the solid lock turn did the tension stretched tight inside him seem to ease slightly.
The training room was empty.
A stale, moldy smell stabbed at his nose. Old mats with holes worn into various places covered the floor, and in the corner sat a broken water purifier leaking water and several sandbags that had burst open, spilling sand.
A large industrial ventilation fan mounted high on the wall rattled as it spun endlessly.
Chae-ho casually threw the luggage bag that still carried the smell of beast blood onto the corner of the mat and walked to the center of the training room.
"Whoo."
He took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.
The muscles throughout his body were still tense.
He had no idea where to begin checking, but this was not something he could avoid.
He was the one who had absorbed the skill book, and what had already happened could not be undone.
'I have to face it.'
Chae-ho opened his eyes wide and focused his consciousness on the letters floating in the air.
The sensation of awakening a newly acquired ability.
It was something any Hunter could instinctively understand without needing to learn it.
The tiny amount of mana gathered near his core slowly began to stir.
'Time Deceleration.'
He called out the skill's name in his mind.
That was when it happened.
An unpleasant ringing sound pierced deep into his ears.
It felt as if the power switch of the entire world had been forcibly turned down.
The blades of the large ventilation fan, which had been rattling and spinning fiercely, slowed down as if it were a lie. Each blade crawled along as though caught inside a stiff, rusted gear. He could even see the patterns of dust clinging to the blades clearly.
Chae-ho's eyes widened.
He saw a water droplet falling from the broken purifier's faucet.
The droplet did not fall straight to the floor. It only moved downward by an incredibly small amount, floating in the air as if suspended.
It was an eerie sight, as though he had entered water or a space without gravity.
"Crazy."
A hollow breath escaped between Chae-ho's lips.
Even that short sound echoed differently, heavy and muffled.
Beyond the narrow, elongated window on one side of the iron door, he saw someone hurriedly running through the hallway.
The person was clearly moving their arms and legs frantically as if something urgent had happened, but to Chae-ho's eyes, it looked like watching a ridiculous slow-motion video.
The sneaker that had left the ground took an incredibly long time before touching the floor again. Even the slow trajectory of the person's fluttering clothes was clearly captured in his vision.
'This is Time Deceleration?'
His mind was astonishingly clear.
The speed at which he continued his thoughts and perceived his surroundings had not slowed at all. Instead, they had become so extremely sensitive that he could clearly see where every single dust particle floating in the air was drifting.
Then what about my body?
Chae-ho clenched his fist and opened it again.
The sensation of moving his fingers was different from normal. His mind commanded him to extend his hand like lightning, but the actual speed at which his arm muscles followed the command was frustratingly slow.
The world had slowed down, but he himself had not become faster.
It was not a magic spell that completely stopped physical time or slowed monsters down.
It was a phenomenon where his own perception and thinking speed were abnormally accelerated, making external movements appear extremely slow in comparison.
'Just because I can see the trajectory of an enemy's attack doesn't mean my body can automatically avoid it.'
Chae-ho immediately grasped the skill's fatal characteristic.
It meant that even if he clearly saw a monster's claws flying toward him, his own slow body could still be hit.
However, the fact that he possessed information itself was already an enormous weapon.
If he could read the direction of an opponent's attack, the shift in their center of gravity, and the position where their feet landed beforehand, he could avoid fatal injuries with the smallest possible movements or strike at their weaknesses.
The moment he twisted his wrist and threw a punch into the air toward the sandbag.
A red gauge in the corner of his vision was rapidly decreasing.
Chae-ho did not endure any longer and canceled the skill as pain stabbed at his temple.
Flash!
The countless sounds of the world poured into his muffled ears all at once like an explosion.
The ventilation fan began roaring again, and the water droplet falling from the purifier struck the floor with a dull sound. The footsteps of the Hunter running through the hallway also quickly faded away.
The flow of the world returning to its original speed violently struck Chae-ho's senses.
"Haa, haa."
Chae-ho supported himself on his knees and breathed heavily.
It had only lasted a few seconds, but his lungs felt as if they were burning like he had sprinted at full speed. His head spun, his temples throbbed, and a wave of nausea washed over him.
It felt as though his brain had suffered severe overload due to the gap between his abnormal perception speed and his physical body.
"This is seriously no joke."
After wiping away the cold sweat forming on his forehead, Chae-ho slowly straightened his back.
He focused his consciousness again and opened the detailed status window in the air.
The text he had been too shocked to properly read earlier now entered his eyes calmly.
[Skill Information]
[Name: Time Deceleration]
[Grade: EX]
[Total Daily Usage Limit: 10 seconds]
Chae-ho's gaze stopped on the final line.
'10 seconds.'
Only 10 seconds.
That meant the total time he could use this absurd ability to slow down the world in a day was only 10 seconds.
It was far too little time to even properly fight a single battle.
However, Chae-ho's expression did not darken.
He slowly read the small additional explanations written below.
[Attribute: Split Usage. The granted time can be divided and activated or deactivated at any desired moment.]
[Attribute: Growth Potential. The daily usable time increases through repeated use, training, and mastery.]
Chae-ho's eyes shook strongly as he read the sentences.
It meant he did not need to use all 10 seconds at once.
The moment an enemy's weapon flew toward him, he could activate the skill for only 0.5 or 1 second, check the trajectory, then turn it off again.
When fighting among countless monsters inside a dungeon, if he activated and deactivated the skill only at decisive moments, those 10 seconds could become a sturdy shield capable of preventing dozens of fatal wounds.
And growth potential.
That was the real treasure.
Although it started at only 10 seconds, if he continued using it in actual combat and increased his mastery, it meant it could become 15 seconds, 20 seconds, or eventually even a minute.
'This is......'
This was not merely a skill that improved his reflexes.
The flow of an opponent gathering mana, the slightest tremor of their body, the direction their blade pointed.
An ability that allowed him to observe all of it in slow motion, analyze it as if stripping everything bare, and strike the weakest point.
It might not be some grand attack skill that crushed monsters through sheer strength, but it possessed limitless potential capable of overturning the very flow of battle.
Chae-ho had spent countless days working as the party's dedicated porter, engraving the habits of monsters into his eyes.
He knew better than anyone that failing to read attack patterns meant death.
The direction a shield warrior drew aggro, the timing when a mage completed casting, the signs that a monster was entering a rage.
The time he had spent watching from behind while protecting luggage as others fought brilliantly had not been meaningless.
For someone like him, this skill was a means of turning all his experience into a weapon.
'If my body is slow, I'll train my body.'
If he lacked strength, he would increase it.
If he lacked stamina, he would build it.
If he could see the trajectory of a sword swing, he only needed to create a body capable of avoiding that trajectory and counterattacking.
The fact that the skill did not solve everything automatically only made Chae-ho's resolve stronger.
Nothing in this world came without effort.
The pitiful state of a Grade D Hunter who had been expelled from his party.
The harsh reality where he had to worry about next week's hospital bills, his father's old truck repairs, and monthly living expenses.
A small crack was appearing in that frustrating wall that had blocked him.
No, it was not merely a crack.
It felt as if the entire iron door that had been firmly shut had been ripped away.
Chae-ho stared at the status window floating in the air.
His reflection overlapped with the glowing text.
But it was completely different from the worn-out expression he had seen earlier on the sofa in the rest area.
There was no trace of fear or foolish excitement from empty fantasies.
Instead, his cold, sunken gaze weighed heavily upon the atmosphere of the training room.
Chae-ho slowly clenched and opened his fist repeatedly, recalling the sensation of his muscles.
Strength gathered at the end of his tightly clenched fist.
His eyes remained fixed on the text floating in the air.
"This might actually be possible."