Solo Leveling Novel
Chapter 55

Jin-Woo lowered his gaze slightly while feeling rather pleased with himself, then he spotted something else in the Status Window.

[Title: Slaughterer of Wolves (extra 1)]

‘…..There was another one?’

….Oh.

Now that he thought about it, he did earn a new ‘Title’ as well during the Class Change Quest, didn’t he?

Jin-Woo checked out the hidden title’s description.

[Title: The One Who Overcame the Adversity]

A Title only given to those who have splendidly overcome their adversity. Your Stat values will rise as your HP decreases. (1% of lost HP = 1% gain in Stats)

‘Hell yeah!’

It was a truly wonderful buff where his Stats would rise up as his HP was decreased.

The Title ‘Slaughterer of Wolves’ was a wonderful Title as well that would give him a 40% Stats increase against any and all beast-type monsters. However, because there was a strict activation condition attached to it, he often had to do without receiving the Stat buff.

‘It’s the same thing as not having a Title if I’m not fighting against beast-type monsters.’

But now, he had gotten a new Title with a wonderful effect. After reading the description, he thought that this Title’s effect would match up quite nicely with his passive, ‘Tenacity’.

Without wasting any more time, Jin-Woo changed his Title.

[Title: The one who overcame the adversity (extra 1)]

The Title he didn’t set would be hidden, and if he needed it, he could swap them at any time, too.

‘Next up, it’s my Stats.’

The rewards he got for exceeding the point limits of his Class yesterday were three.

One, his Class changed to a higher-grade version; two, a new Title; finally, bonus Stat points.

[Stats]

Strength: 132

Stamina: 91

Agility: 111

Intelligence: 70

Perception: 93

(Available points to distribute: 10)

Reduction in physical damage: 46%

He still had ten points yet to be allocated. If it was in the past, he’d have spent them all in Agility or Perception, but things were different now.

Jin-Woo dumped all ten points in Intelligence, instead.

Even then, his Intelligence value only reached 80.

Tti-ring.

[Stats]

Strength: 132

Stamina: 91

Agility: 111

Intelligence: 80

Perception: 93

(Available points to distribute: 0)

Reduction in physical damage: 46%

Compared to Strength or Agility, it simply fell way, way behind. As a matter of fact, it even fell behind Stamina, the Stat he decided to put on the back burner while raising his Agility first.

It was clear proof that he had been looking down on the Intelligence Stat until now.

‘Well, I never guessed that I’d somehow end up using magic, so it’s understandable.’

For the time being, he decided to invest every single bonus Stat point he earned into Intelligence. He wasn’t planning to change how he fought in the meantime, though.

‘I mean, the new skills I got are assassination type skills, after all.’

A new skill he acquired during the fierce battle – the dagger throw. He didn’t even have to take a gander at the skill description to know that it was a dagger-exclusive skill.

[Skill: Dagger Throw Lv. 1]

Active skill.

Required Mana to activate: 30

Exclusive to daggers.

Causes damage by throwing your dagger. The higher the level, the greater the damage inflicted, as well as the accuracy.

‘Yup. I knew it.’

He had been fighting his battles as a close-quarter melee fighter. He wouldn’t change his current fighting style, just because he got himself a new Class and a couple of new skills related to that.

So, he was planning to use the shadow skills as his back-up, while the dagger would remain as his primary means of attack.

‘Well, at least until I manage to raise my Intelligence Stat to a somewhat more useful level, that is.’

Excellent combat abilities. And soldiers able to support him from behind.

The plan he formed in his head as he got his new Class hadn’t changed.

‘But, if there is one difference from my initial expectations, then that would be….’

That would be his soldiers potentially being a lot more useful than he thought. Who could’ve guessed that he was able to turn boss-level monsters into his underlings?

‘….Still.’

He felt that it’d be a bit of waste not to utilise his proficiency with daggers and the skills related to that if he were to rely solely on his shadows to fight.

Also, he bought the Knight Killer only a few hours ago, too.

‘If I knew I’d end up as a mage-type, maybe I should’ve bought a magic staff or something.’

Of course, if he did that, he wouldn’t have cleared the quest and ended up being buried under the knights, instead.

Jin-Woo closed the Status Window. With that done, he pretty much had confirmed every change that occurred to him.

‘Wait a sec. What’s the time now?’

While he was doing his thing, 20 minutes had flown by. Jin-Woo scratched the side of his head.

‘I guess I should hurry up, huh.’

The corners of Jin-Woo’s lips arched up.

The power of his enhanced Stats didn’t prove to be effective only when fighting against monsters.

When he concentrated, time slowed down. To be more precise, it was Jin-Woo who had gotten quicker, however.

He opened the door and left his room.

He entered the bathroom and took a quick shower.

He swiftly wiped the water off of him.

He put on whatever clothing he could find and stood before the mirror.

All this, and he only needed three minutes.

He could’ve moved faster, but he figured that this old, decrepit apartment would fall apart if he did.

‘My hair hasn’t completely dried out yet, but….’

The end result was him saving over 20 minutes, so there was no need to rush now.

Time to leave, then.

Jin-Woo was about to step out of his room, but discovered something and stopped in his tracks. He found the key for the apartment. It was sitting on top of his desk.

In the past, he’d have felt a bit lazy and unwilling, but still turned back to grab the key; however, he simply extended his hand instead of walking over there.

‘I mean, if I don’t use it in times like this, just when will I ever get to use this skill?’

The Ruler’s Reach!

The key crept forward bit by bit, before flying into his open palm as if a strong magnet was reeling it in.

Grab!

Jin-Woo snatched the key and grinned refreshingly.

Having gotten ready to leave in the proverbial blink of an eye, Jin-Woo closed the door to his room, a whistle escaping from his lips.

Jin-Woo’s first stop was at the bank.

He was wondering just how much cash from the sales of the magic crystals had accumulated in his new bank account.

‘I couldn’t come earlier because I’ve been so busy until now.’

As the raid team leader, Yu Jin-Ho was in charge of managing the magic crystals.

From what he told Jin-Woo, that kid had been selling all the magic crystals at the end of each day and deposited every single cent into this account.

He didn’t mention in detail how much the money would be, though.

‘That Jin-Ho. He reports to me every little thing that happens, but he doesn’t really mention much about money issues.’

Was it because he wasn’t really interested all that much? Perhaps because he grew up lacking nothing, Yu Jin-Ho’s interests were quite far removed from the matters involving money.

No, they tended to be along the lines of celebrity gossip, stories of raids, songs or movies he liked – those kinds of things.

Even if it was nominally a conversation, it’d be Yu Jin-Ho who yapped on and on all by himself, though. And Jin-Woo would simply listen quietly on the side and provide appropriate responses every now and then.

‘Ah, now that I think about it…’

A chatterbox guy like him also didn’t say anything about his family situation until now.

Now that was pretty strange. Jin-Woo combed through his memories starting from when they met for the first time, but he couldn’t remember a single instance of him mentioning his family.

While thinking that it was pretty bizarre, he had arrived at the bank.

‘Well now, that’s some crappy timing, isn’t it?’

All of the ATMs were currently under maintenance.

He was left with little choice, so Jin-Woo walked inside the bank branch. He got his number in the queue, waited for his turn, before eventually sitting down in front of a bank teller.

“Hello there.”

A female teller with a bob-cut hair reaching just below her ears and a refreshing smile asked him politely.

“How may I be of service today?”

“I’d like to see the amount currently in the bank account, please.”

“I understand.”

With a smile, the female teller took the bank book Jin-Woo presented to her.

While waiting for her to do her thing, Jin-Woo scanned the inside of the bank. It was a normal Thursday afternoon, yet there were quite a large number of people inside.

As he continued to look at the crowd, the female teller got to confirm the amount resting in Jin-Woo’s account and her eyes shot open super-wide.

‘Heok!!”

[Remaining amount: ₩1,482,920,000] (TL: Just over $1.315 mil)

She checked the number of digits again, but without a doubt, it started from a billion.

Not only that, he hadn’t even accumulated this amount over a long period of time.

For the past week or so, the records showed that over 100 million Won had been deposited every single day.

‘He looks so young, so how could he?’

The female teller initially took Jin-Woo as a university student who came to the local bank to get the bank book newly printed on because his mother asked him to. But, her expression had changed quite a bit now.

The female teller asked him, her voice containing just a sliver of ulterior motive.

“Oh, my goodness. May I ask, what you do for a living?”

Perhaps she herself was embarrassed by her own ulterior motive, the female bank teller’s cheeks blushed softly as she cautiously studied Jin-Woo’s reactions.

He replied as if it was nothing.

“I’m a Hunter.”

“Ah…..”

The female teller slowly nodded her head almost instinctively.

The popular rumour she heard was indeed true.

‘I heard that Hunters made lots of money, but….’

But to think, it’d be on this level….

All of a sudden, her life as a normal working-class employee came across as rather pathetic.

Only until a minute ago, this man was a regular customer, just like everyone else. But now, Jin-Woo looked like a person from another galaxy altogether.

‘He must be a pretty high ranked Hunter, right?’

This amount wasn’t something an average Hunter with average skills could ever hope to touch.

This would be her first time meeting a truly high-ranked Hunter, then.

The unexpectedness of this situation caused her heart to palpitate just a bit faster.

Thump, thump….

Her heart was indeed beating a bit quicker now.

A young customer possessing well over a billion Won in cash would certainly be a VIP in the eyes of the bank. And well, that customer was a Hunter, so he should be treated as a VVIP, instead.

And so, in order to ensure that this VVIP wouldn’t slip through the bank’s fingers, the female employee began advertising several of the bank’s financial products.

“Our bank has launched brand new products and services especially catered for VIP customers such as yourself.”

Her smile was no longer the business one, but a real one, too. The female bank teller’s gaze was now firmly fixed on Jin-Woo.

‘Oh, my. He’s….’

Seeing his current appearance, the one where he must have thrown on some clothes lying around, and that slightly dishevelled hair, her heart began beating faster than ever before. She realised that he must’ve been a very busy man who managed to find some free time to stop by the bank today.

“This product has proven really popular with our customers lately, so how about taking a closer look at the benefits it offers, sir?”

Too bad for her, Jin-Woo refused right away.

“No, thank you. I’m fine.”

“Ah…. is that so?”

The female bank teller’s voice was thickly laden with regrets over missed chances.

Sensing that this chat might get drawn out if he said something wrong here, Jin-Woo quickly took the bank book and stood up from the seat.

“Thank you for your help. Have a nice day.”

He made his quick getaway from the bank as the hot stares from the female bank teller continued to bear down on his back.

As soon as the bank’s door closed behind him…

“Fuu….”

Jin-Woo spat out a sigh of relief.

He picked up on the change in the bank teller’s expression the moment he revealed his job as a Hunter.

Attentions of strangers, and their interests.

It would probably be something normal for other Hunters, but it was still something new to Jin-Woo.

‘Well, I better get used to it now.’

The attention on him would get even worse than this, once he’s gone through with the re-assignment test and gets a super-high rank.

He heard that there were quite a few reporters and fans following around particular Hunters as well.

He raised his head slightly and saw a large electronic billboard displaying a cold drink advert featuring a famous Hunter, attached to the side of a skyscraper.

Before Gates appeared in the world, one would’ve found top sports stars or popular idols occupying that position.

That’s right.

This was the age where a Hunter would be at the receiving end of more attention and adulation than a celebrity. Even Jin-Woo wouldn’t be an exception now.

The only person who didn’t like Hunters nowadays were probably employees of various insurance companies.

‘Besides all that.’

Only after he made his escape from the bank did he get to confirm the amount in the account. And his eyes grew real wide afterwards.

‘1.48 billion….?!’

The total amount of money he earned after participating in nine raids was almost 1.5 billion Won. Meaning, each rank C dungeon netted him almost 160 million Won.

He got around 180 million from the dungeon he raided with Hwang Dong-Seok and Co. So, the average amount per rank C Gate he got was somewhere between 150 and 200 million each raid.

‘Yup, that’s why that bank teller was so shocked, wasn’t it….’

< Chapter 55 > Fin.