Chapter 4
Whiiirrr.
A rough mechanical sound cut through the empty training room.
Lee Chaeho lightly tapped the screen of the old control terminal installed on the wall.
The high-speed automatic firing machine that had been abandoned in the corner shook off its dust and began warming up with a heavy rumble.
Chaeho raised the settings one by one.
High-speed rubber bullet random-fire mode.
Three irregular moving targets activated at the same time.
The difficulty was set to the highest level available in the basic training room.
For an ordinary D-rank Hunter, it was a brutal setting that would be difficult to survive for even one minute.
Most wouldn't even consider trying it.
Going straight into a dungeon right now would be insane.
Chaeho thought as he picked up the protective equipment he had left on the floor.
EX-rank.
That glorious title, one without even a single officially recorded acquisition, was more than enough to blind someone.
Just looking at the skill's rank could make a person imagine that they were already capable of killing an S-rank monster and saving the world.
But Chaeho had spent years working as a party's dedicated porter.
He knew reality all too well.
He had seen countless Hunters become overconfident in their abilities, rush ahead in excitement, and end up sprawled dead across dungeon floors.
No matter how incredible a skill was, the situation changed completely if the body using it was still that of an ordinary D-rank Hunter.
Power that couldn't be controlled wasn't a weapon.
It was a time bomb.
Chaeho tightly fastened the straps of his leather guards and secured the chin strap.
Click.
A dull notification sound announced that the terminal settings were complete.
Chaeho walked to the center of the training room.
Directly in front of him was the firing machine, its dark barrel gleaming.
To his left, right, and rear, human-sized moving targets began sliding irregularly along their rails.
He took a deep breath and lowered his stance.
Beep!
A sharp warning sound rang out as the lights in the training room flashed red.
Tat-tat! Tatatat!
Before the warning tone had even finished, the barrel of the firing machine spun violently and spat out black rubber bullets.
They flew so quickly that Chaeho's normal vision could barely follow their trajectories.
The instant the bullets cut through the air toward him—
Now.
Chaeho focused his mind and activated the skill.
Thuum.
It was as though someone had forcibly unplugged the entire world.
The violent noise assaulting his ears dropped into a dull, muffled bass.
The machine's rapidly spinning barrel slowed, moving as though it had become trapped inside stiff, rusty gears.
His vision became unnaturally clear.
Three rubber bullets flying toward him looked almost as if they were floating in midair.
They hadn't completely stopped.
They continued moving forward very slowly, like objects pushing through a thick wall of transparent jelly.
Chaeho could even see the dust and tiny scratches covering their surfaces.
Left shoulder. Solar plexus. Right thigh.
His eyes traced the exact paths of the incoming bullets.
At the same time, he could see the next movements of the mobile targets charging at him from every direction.
The angle of their metal joints.
The direction of their wheels.
The way their center of gravity shifted.
Just by looking at those things, he could clearly tell where they would attack one second later.
Information flooded into his brain.
He had already read every trajectory.
If he stepped half a step to the right and twisted his upper body, he would avoid everything perfectly.
Chaeho deactivated the skill and immediately tensed his right thigh, twisting his body.
Flash!
The moment Time Slow ended, the world returned violently to its normal speed.
"Ugh!"
A short groan escaped his mouth.
Thud! Smack!
He had been certain he had dodged.
Yet two rubber bullets struck his left shoulder and solar plexus one after another.
The heavy impacts knocked the breath from his lungs and sent his body staggering backward.
He rolled roughly across the floor before barely recovering his balance.
"Haa... haa..."
Holding his aching shoulder, Chaeho gave a twisted smile.
My mind dodged them, but my body couldn't keep up.
That was the clear limitation.
His brain had perfectly analyzed the trajectories and ordered his body to evade.
But his D-rank body couldn't follow those commands quickly enough.
Even though he saw everything and calculated the correct angle, his muscles simply reacted too slowly.
No matter how clearly he could read an attack as though peeking into the future...
If his body was too slow, he would still get hit.
Time Slow wasn't some unbeatable ability that allowed him to dodge every attack.
Nor was it magic that directly increased his strength or explosive speed.
It simply gave him more time to think.
But instead of disappointment, a cold excitement burned in Chaeho's eyes as he rubbed his throbbing solar plexus.
If anything, he felt relieved.
The skill isn't going to spoon-feed me everything.
I have to take what I need myself.
If it had made him completely invincible against attacks, then training would have been pointless.
But if the skill only accelerated his perception, then he simply had to rebuild the way he moved.
Chaeho pushed himself up from the floor and took his stance again.
He abandoned the reckless idea of waiting until an attack was already coming before desperately twisting his body away.
I don't dodge after seeing it.
