"At this rate I'd say I'm C-Grade."
He was a rookie barely a week past his Awakening.
And yet in that single week his Grade had risen.
Considering that an ordinary hunter trained for years to raise their Grade by one, it was frankly astonishing.
"All that from eating a single lower-tier spirit medicine."
No.
It hadn't been a mere lower-tier spirit medicine.
Normally the absorption rate for a spirit medicine capped out around twenty percent.
But through the True Progenitor's power he had hit an absorption rate of a full hundred percent.
Judging purely by the amount absorbed, it was more than absorbing a mid-tier spirit medicine.
And on top of that came the special cases of Hae-rang's mana and the True Progenitor's power.
'So it isn't strange after all.'
Either way, it was a good thing.
His Grade had gone up a whole step, no less.
At this speed, maybe he could reach even S-Grade before long.
[What? This is showing up already?]
In the middle of all that, Carmilla was looking at something different from him and marveling.
[No way. A molting only a week after receiving the True Progenitor's power?]
"Ah, right, there was that too. Do you know what this is?"
The phrase First Molting had appeared below the message about his Grade rising.
From the name alone, did it mean his body would change to be a little closer to a Vampir's?
With a word like molting he couldn't say exactly.
[Something like that. Your body gets reshaped to match the True Progenitor's power. Evolution into a higher species, you might call it.]
"Evolution?"
Grandiose. Extremely grandiose.
[Except changing all of it at once would be more than you could withstand, so it's split into several stages.]
Garam nodded at Carmilla's explanation.
An answer roughly in line with what he'd guessed.
"Getting the sub-skills to level 10, huh."
It wasn't a difficult task, but there was no telling how long it would take.
His sub-skill levels right now were Absorb at level 5, Hardening at level 3, Regeneration at level 3.
Setting aside Domination, which was a skill unaffected by levels,
Regeneration's level had been raised with a Blood Point Stone.
It was one he'd gotten off the Kobold King, but there was no telling how long it would take to raise levels beyond that.
'Then don't I just have to absorb every Blood Point Stone I can get my hands on?'
In the end, how many Blood Point Stones he could obtain would be the key to hastening the First Molting.
'And it does feel like a little more would let me grow another step.'
Garam looked down at his body, changed after taking the spirit medicine.
Setting the First Molting aside, his body overflowed with more vitality than usual.
Either way, what mattered was that he had closed the distance to the A-Grade-level True Progenitor Form, even if only slightly.
"From now on I should make a point of taking spirit medicines regularly whenever I can afford it."
It was only lower-tier, so he hadn't expected much, and the effect had been even better than he'd thought.
Aside from being expensive enough to make you weep blood, it was a wonderful thing.
[Don't weep blood. You'll lose muscle mass.]
Carmilla sat on his head spouting nonsense.
"Come to think of it, what exactly happens when this molting takes place?"
[You'll probably gain a special ability. And the amount of the True Progenitor's power you can handle will grow.]
"That's vague."
[Simply put, you'll be able to use power the way you do in True Progenitor Form, even normally.]
"Hmm."
At the words like True Progenitor Form, Garam's mouth closed.
True Progenitor Form was certainly a stage beyond merely having a stronger body.
The feeling that his ability to handle blood as the True Progenitor had evolved, perhaps.
An axe massive enough to cut most monsters clean in two.
And an Absorb that let him use a C-Grade boss monster's blood as his own without any restriction.
'I don't really know about Regeneration since I only used it after the form dropped.'
Those first two alone had been powerful enough.
Even short of that level, having his sub-skills strengthened right now would clearly be help enough for him.
"I'll have to spend the money from these commissioned gates on spirit medicines."
Since things had come to this, taking every spirit medicine he could get his hands on didn't seem like a bad idea. Played right, maybe he could make it to B-Grade.
Thinking that, Garam began looking over the gate commission documents he'd received earlier.
***
A few days later, in front of a certain gate.
Garam stood gazing steadily at it.
It was the Deep Crystal Cave, the subject of his bet with Kim Tae-hyeon.
"So nobody wants to go in after all."
The number of people was nothing compared to the desolate frontier he'd entered last time.
The difficulty was high to begin with, and on top of that there were grim rumors going around about people disappearing.
It had always been a gate few people wanted to enter, so in a way this was only to be expected.
Even those few seemed to have come only because they couldn't find prey in other gates; they hesitated in front of the gate, unwilling to go in.
Garam was about to ignore them and head inside when, "There he is. Heh heh."
Kim Tae-hyeon's voice came from far off.
He had apparently tailed Garam to keep an eye on him.
'What about the gate he was assigned? Why is he here?'
Kim Tae-hyeon was Holy Knights too, so he had to have his own gate to investigate.
Had he thrown that aside and come here?
No, before that.
Did he consider that hiding?
He'd simply put on sunglasses and tucked himself behind a streetlight far off.
'Does this knight order think sunglasses come in a box or something?'
This wasn't some game where pulling something over your head made people unable to recognize you.
Look at that. Passersby all gave Kim Tae-hyeon a glance as they went.
'I can probably ignore him.'
Spending mental energy on something like that would be a waste.
[What are you doing? At this rate the sun will come up.]
"Ah, right, let's go in too."
He showed his hunter license quickly and moved toward the gate.
The scenery changed in an instant.
[You have entered the Deep Crystal Cave.]
A cave glowing blue spread out before his eyes.
At a glance it looked as though the cave itself were luminescent, but it was the blue moss clinging to the rocks all over that was giving off the light.
[Pretty.]
"It's that kind of gate."
A beauty that didn't suit a grim gate where B-Grade monsters roamed.
But a gate was exactly the sort of place where being charmed by such beauty could get you killed on the spot.
[The monster that comes out here is the Blue Lizard, right?]
"You read the documents at some point, did you?"
The Blue Lizard.
A C-Grade monster that appeared in the Deep Crystal Cave.
Originally this cave's main monster.
They were somewhat overshadowed by the Bat-Man, but Blue Lizards were troublesome monsters in their own right, no less than it.
[From what the documents said, it's just a lizard that crawls around well. What's so hard about... hyaah!]
A chunk of ice came flying at Carmilla as she flew around near Garam.
If Carmilla hadn't hurried to twist aside, it would have struck her square on.
[Screw this, what is that?]
When Carmilla turned to face forward in irritation, blue lizards were there.
Each one had to be a meter long.
Chunks of ice were clustered at the tips of their tails.
[They're a bit... no, a lot bigger than I expected?]
Even Carmilla was daunted by ten one-meter lizards, because she pulled back.
"Reason number one those bastards are troublesome."
FWIP FWIP FWIP!
Chunks of ice came flying at Garam.
They weren't sharp, but,
CRACK.
when a chunk Garam dodged struck the cave wall, that spot froze solid.
"If the ice they fire hits you, the part it hits freezes along with it."
"SHAAAA!"
The instant they confirmed the ice wasn't working, the Blue Lizards charged at Garam.
"Ah, and reason number two Blue Lizards are troublesome."
SKITTER, SKITTER
The Blue Lizards moved along the cave walls as though sliding across them.
The sight was just like,
[EEEEEEK! Screw this, do something about them! What kind of lizard moves like a cockroach!]
cockroaches.
"They crawl along the cave walls like this."
[I don't care, just kill them!]
Carmilla shrieked as though she couldn't take it anymore.
She was supposedly the First Relic of Nosferatu, so what was this about hating cockroaches?
"Killing them isn't hard, but."
FWOOOOSH!
Crimson Flame burned on the axe in Garam's grip.
Perhaps because he'd taken the spirit medicine, the flame burning on the axe was a degree fiercer.
'Normally lighting a fire in a cave is insane, but.......'
It was a flame created by a skill anyway.
Unlike ordinary fire, using it inside a cave didn't put his life at risk.
He swung the burning axe at a Blue Lizard.
CRRRUNCH!
With a grisly sound, Garam's axe carved into the Blue Lizard.
Inside the body the axe was buried in, the Crimson Flame burst out as though rupturing.
[Crimson Flame (C) Lv6 has risen to Crimson Flame (C) Lv7.]
Crimson Flame's level had gone up.
Only one level, but he could feel something had changed.
The sensation of being able to do something he couldn't before.
A sensation he had felt countless times by now.
'Couldn't I do it? That wave of fire I used in True Progenitor Form.'
The Crimson Flame on the axe grew fiercer.
More precisely, it concentrated onto the blade as though being compressed.
He condensed the flame, and condensed it again.
And when the Crimson Flame had become a dark red flame exactly as its name said,
'Detonate!'
Garam swung the axe horizontally, and along that arc the flame was released.
FWOOOOOOSH!
It was smaller than in True Progenitor Form, but perhaps because of the narrow cave, the flame swept in like a wave and the Blue Lizards were swallowed up without even a chance to flee.
Only after devouring the Blue Lizards did the Crimson Flame gradually die down.
[Crimson Flame (C) proficiency has risen substantially.]
[Crimson Flame (C) Lv7 has risen to Crimson Flame (C) Lv8.]
"Whoa, shit, that eats mana like nothing."
Perhaps because he was substituting mana for a technique he'd originally used with blood in True Progenitor Form, the mana it consumed showed no mercy.
'That one attack burned about a third of my blood.'
Of course, he could recover quickly by absorbing blood, so it wasn't much cause for concern, but it didn't seem like something he could use several times in a row.
'Ah, come to think of it, Kim Tae-hyeon is behind me.'
If he absorbed without paying attention to cleanup, there was a risk of being found out.
For the moment there was hardly anything left, since the Crimson Flame had burned it all.
'I'd better shake him off as fast as possible.'
Kim Tae-hyeon's presence alone put considerable limits on what he could do.
'Times like this really make me wish I had an ability that could hide the True Progenitor's power.'
Well, wanting one wouldn't make it appear on the spot.
[Hey, I don't care about the rest, but what are you going to do about burning up all the moss?]
When Carmilla pointed ahead, ahead was pitch black.
The moss must have burned away entirely in the Crimson Flame; the cave held not a speck of light.
Judging by the faint light visible at the far end, the moss did seem to be intact a little further off.
"Ah, I didn't think about that."
Garam scratched his head as he looked at the blackened cave.
The order Hae-rang had given the Holy Knights was to investigate the gates, not to subjugate monsters.
Killing monsters was strictly a secondary matter.
Burning away all the moss like this could stretch the job out endlessly.
"I'll have to be careful."
Garam sighed and moved on into the darkened cave.
FLOP.
And behind him came the sound of something falling over.
"Th-this is a D-Grade hunter?"
Not knowing that Garam had already risen to C-Grade level, Kim Tae-hyeon stared in disbelief at the spot where Garam had disappeared.
Of course, even if he had known, Kim Tae-hyeon's reaction wouldn't have been any different.
That was how overwhelming the display of skill Garam had just shown was.
'Did I pick a fight with the wrong guy here?'
Enough that Kim Tae-hyeon found himself thinking exactly that.