Only I Am A Reader



[ Challenge 8: Kill 10 monsters. ]

Just like the number of the challenge was random, the voice instruction didn't mention a specific type of monster. It just generally referred to its attackers as such.

Was it for convenience's sake? Or was it because this was the name perceived by most humans?

Leo had no way to tell, but he was more inclined toward the latter theory. It really wasn't that shocking for this special Gate to be capable of something like mind scans.

Other than that, another peculiar point was the number of monsters that appeared. Although Leo was only instructed to kill 10, over 15 monsters had appeared. That being said…

'It has definitely gotten easier.'

The Werecheetas seemed like they would be extremely fast, but they were only so-so. Even with just 3 points of Physique, Leo was able to moderately keep up.

While his intrusion ended up buffing the challenges' numbers, it did result in lowering the difficulty just as Leo expected.

With the addition of his spear's range, taking care of 10 of them was a piece of cake. Leo considered wiping out the whole group, but their odd number deterred him from doing so.

Why was the number of monsters irrelevant to the requirement? Would killing them all end up triggering another wave of monsters?

Not forgetting his original purpose, Leo decided to maintain his momentum. He was tempted to test it out at first, but the appearance of the familiar portal in the middle of the arena beckoned him to press 'skip'.

'Hopefully, the change helps.'

Not only having caused the number of challenges to increase, but also leaving Aurora stuck with a burden from the start, Leo hoped that the change of difficulty made up for it.

'She or he might be cornered to do something.'

In fact, Leo even felt hopeful that Aurora's teammate might have to be more than just a burden.

It was one thing when it was a whole team of scammers trying to fake their way through while leaving everything to Aurora. However, having to watch Aurora's back by themselves was a whole different story.

Especially now that the monsters' level was more reasonable, they couldn't pretend to have given it their all without exposing their covers.

Of course, as people who spent at least a year playing this scam, Leo wasn't about to underestimate their specialized 'hustle', he still had to act on the assumption that Aurora was likely to be held back.

'I will also have to keep dragging him along.'

Leo hadn't gone through the portal alone, he also brought along Ken wrapped in a Shadow cocoon!

It wasn't that he was going to miss his very first victim in this novel, but he had to do this to keep things less complicated.

'I can't let it turn into a hollow maze.'

In theory, all that Leo and the others had to do was clear 100 challenges to be let through, but in reality, things just weren't that simple.

No matter what, the challenge that Leo had cleared counted as a progress point. However, as long as any participant remained within the confines of that cleared challenge, the stage itself couldn't be considered fully cleared.

Someone who passed through it once like Leo had no business returning to it, but the rest of the team could end up falling there on their way to the next challenge.

Of course, going through that stage was simple, they only had to walk through the tunnel and then through the portal, they didn't have to kill 10 more monsters. Unfortunately…

'It's just a precaution.'

Not all stages would be as simple as that. In some cases, reaching the already-opened portal might even take more time than normally clearing the challenge.

Although Leo could have left Ken behind this time, he wanted to keep things in line by making it a general rule to drag along every 'student'.

After all, who knew if the monsters would leave the arena-like space and attack Ken in his sleep?

'Besides…'

Leo also needed all of his students at the final location to showcase the result of their brief group study to Aurora!

'This one is…'

Moving on, Leo stepped forward into the new challenge that he landed in. The layout didn't change much. In fact, it only looked like he took a different turn rather than teleporting away.

[ Challenge 19: Kill 12 monsters. ]

It didn't take long for Leo to reach the instruction signs where the voice imparted to him what he needed to do. The instructions were almost identical. However…

'So it's a hunting challenge.'

Silence remained beyond the instruction board. There was no open space ahead, nor were there monsters that simply provided themselves to Leo.

This time, Leo had to move out and search for prey by himself!

In a way, this was similar to the special Gate where Leo had to seek out the Summoning Stage himself. Only, this wasn't as hard.

'Feels like an RPG.'

Unlike last time when Leo had to run around for hours, it only took him minutes to find his first monster. This one was stronger, but it was on its own. Let alone Leo at his current strength, even basic Cassian could easily take care of it.

The following process wasn't that much different. Leo had to go through some tunnels and explore some small caves to reach his quota.

It was practically no different from an RPG game's dungeon, going through the map and exploring rooms for monsters and loot to achieve a full clear.

Naturally, a challenge like this was more time-consuming than the last one, but this was precisely why Leo didn't want to waste any time experimenting during the first challenge, every minute literally counted.

Thankfully, Leo's Shadow Movement was efficient when it came to crossing distances, so he was able to fulfill his quota in record time, prompting a portal to appear at the spot where the twelfth monster died.

'This would be a tough one to crack.'

If Ken was to be left there, Aurora would probably have a hard time locating where the portal was without any guidelines…