Thumbs Up, Level Up

Chapter 146

“These Ghosts seem to be particularly weak. Seriously, Ghosts! Come and put a curse on me!”

-What the hell? How is he not affected?

-What\'s going on?

-I have no idea.

-He’s immune to negative mental influences?! Does he have immunity skills? Like immunity skills against mental attacks??

?I don’t know why you guys are so surprised. Please tell me.

?Immunity skills are very difficult to obtain.

?22222

? You have to have a high level, and you also need to have a good relationship with your Patron.

-What…the hell is that??

-Umji… is so overpowered…

“I’m trying to stick with my horror concept here, but these monsters are not cooperating at all.”

-The genre seems to have changed from The Conjuring to Dawn of the Dead.

-Hey Umji, let’s remove the #horror tag and add #comedy… This is so weird…

“I agree with you. Oh, more Evil Spirits are coming. I’m going to try to get cursed one more time. Guys! Here’s a fresh human! Come and get it!”

The number of Evil Spirits and Specters had already exceeded one hundred. They hit Ji-Cheok, bit him, and scratched him, but it didn’t even phase him. He was immune to all of it.

‘Hahaha. Look at me! This is the power of immunity against negative mental influences!’

“I guess Ghosts these days are not like the ones from the old days. I’m going to begin my solo clear now. Mana Boost!”

He let his mana flow through his dual swords. He didn’t need to use Sword Qi. These monsters were nothing without the power of their curses.

Slash!

The Evil Spirits and Specters that were crowding around him were swept away by one swing. Dozens seemed to have died from that attack. Still, there were a lot of them still around him, but there were ways to solve that problem.

“Activate [Blaze Walk] and [Cthugha’s Steps].”

He let the two flames burn his steps and slowly stepped forward. As he walked, he slowly went through his newly-learned Forms.

“I’ve been learning some Sword Dance lately. Cheok-Liang, play some music.”

A trot song started to play.

Hyung, you are a street singer~? Hyung, you are a greedy person~?

-Umji~ Hahaha. That’s my mom’s favorite song!! This is amazing. LOL

-LOL! He never plays trendy K-Pop songs, but he plays this? Hahaha.

‘Koreans are people with excessive enthusiasm!’

As Ji-Cheok was following the Forms along with the music, Likes started to come in like tidal waves. After he killed a number of Ghosts with his Sword Dance, the Evil Spirits and Specters fled from him and began to coalesce in the sky.

?They are merging already, Master. It is faster than I thought.?

‘I guess our Ghost friends don’t like trot music.’

This was the boss monster that appeared after the Hunters killed too many Evil Spirits and Specters: the Ghost King.

It was similar to the grotesque Abomination he had defeated last time; this monster was also formed through the fusion of hundreds of Ghosts. Unlike its ‘components,’ however, this Ghost King could also use physical attacks.

It approached Ji-Cheok from the sky and stretched out its limbs. The Ghosts’ hands were intertwined and elongated into whip-like tentacles. Ji-Cheok wondered if he could call these tentacles in the first place, but before he could give it too much thought, dozens of tentacular limbs rained down upon him.

‘Wow. What a sight.’

Boom!

As he dodged the tentacles, they pierced through the ground, threatening to tear it apart. However, as they touched the flames that followed in Ji-Cheok’s path, the tentacles were instantly burned to a crisp and disappeared.

‘Hm… This is why the military is so keen on getting more fire-type weapons for killing monsters!’

“Flames! If this is not love, I don’t know what is!”

“Kiaaaa!!”

“Krieeeeek!”

The Evil Spirits inside the Ghost King screamed in anger. The boss monster simply dropped down on Ji-Cheok, with all the weight of its five-meter body.

‘You’re thinking of crushing me? Let me tell you, I ain’t no soft bitch.’

“Activate [Soul Telekinesis!]”

Ji-Cheok inserted his dual swords into the ground on either side and started generating ectoplasm! Chain-like ectoplasm formed above his head and spread out in all directions. Then, following Ji-Cheok’s will, the ectoplasm chains entwined the Ghost King.

‘Nice fish! Now that I caught it, I need to shake it a little.’

Ji-Cheok let his Qi circulate through his muscles and pulled on the ectoplasm chains. He slammed the already falling monster full-force into the ground, right where his flames were still burning.

Boom!

“Kieeeeaak!’

“Kiueeeeeek!”

The ground shattered, but the flames were still burning. Two walls of flames were roasting the boss monster like barbecue.

“This is the infamous Ghost King BBQ! It’s a good source of experience points. I’m going to cook this guy today!”

Ji-Cheok drew his dual swords and ran toward the monster that was struggling to get free. He felt an invisible, intangible force approaching him. The Ghost King used this ability to produce poltergeist-like phenomena—the kind that warranted using the #horror tag in the chat. He probably would have had no idea how the monster was doing it if he didn’t have telekinesis-type skills. Unfortunately for the monster, Ji-Cheok had the [Soul Telekinesis], which happened to be the perfect ability to fight back.

“Go!”

Boom!

His skill neutralized the monster’s attack. Ji-Cheok ran to it with his swords and simply stabbed it.

The ghost monster’s terrible screams filled the dungeon.

[You have been exposed to the curse of the Ghost King.]

[The curse dwells on you!]

[You are resisting the negative mental influences.]

The boss monster spewed out a curse as its final attack, and then it died.

“Wow! This is a great catch! The reward is pretty outstanding.”

Ghosts dropped expensive materials when they died.

“Ghost hunting~ can’t get any easier than this~”

As he was spouting this nonsense, he was getting a tremendous amount of Likes.

* * *

People loved nail-biting fighting scenes, but too much of those also made viewers frustrated. For a while, Ji-Cheok’s GodTube had been filled with these fight-to-the-death actions. Sometimes, it was good to take a break and just plow through some weak monsters. If this were a game, it would have been a bonus stage. He doubted the viewers could see this unpopular mind-control dungeon as easy, but for him, it was a piece of cake.

“This monster is called [Armor of the Evil Spirit]! It is also a good source of experience points. I will show you how to deal with this guy…”

“This one is [Shadow Commander]! Without its psychological attacks and curses, it’s also a good source of experience points.”

“[Ravenous Corpse], [Eye of Grudge], and [Hand of Hatred]... They all attack the mind. Aside from the fact that they make Hunters go crazy, they’re all good sources of experience points and drop very good materials when they die.”

Ravenous Corpses were different from Zombies. They became undead due to the grudge of dying in starvation, and they were stronger than Zombies, albeit weaker than Ghouls. They specialized in smurfing low-level Hunters. Just by looking at them, ordinary people’s minds could be polluted and go crazy.

[Ravenous Corpse]

[Level: 73

Attribute: Undead / Contagion / Poison

Weakiness: Divine Power / Head

A corpse raised from the grave by the grudge of having died of starvation. It is different from a Zombie or a Ghoul, and its body is weaker than a Ghoul’s. Because of the power of its grudge, it emits a curse that makes the observer go crazy.

*Those who see it are struck by [Fear].]

The biggest problem about the Ravenous Corpse was that last sentence of their description, which not even Ghosts had. If Hunters looked directly at this monster, they would lose themselves and couldn’t come back to their senses unless a high-level Priest Hunter purified them.

The Eye of Grudge was similarly a kind of undead, a monster whose entire body was one big eyeball floating around. Logically enough, the Hand of Hatred was also just a big hand that walked using its fingers. These monsters all attacked the mind of their opponent.

The fortunate thing was that the viewers couldn’t go crazy from looking at the monsters through the screen. Had that not been the case, the stream that he was doing right now would have amounted to nothing less than psychological warfare.

-Holy… Is there anyone who disagrees with the #horror tag now? At this point, we should just agree that the tag is perfectly put.

?He should keep the #horror and add #action and #exorcism.

?Also #dance and #trot.

?Don’t forget about #comedy!

-Even from the screen the monsters look scary, I heard that you go crazy if you see them in person.

-I saw a video of a Hunter who was controlled by that monster and killed his fellow Hunter. It’s all over the Internet… The bereaved family asked to get it off the Internet, but other people downloaded it and uploaded it to their channel.

?Wow, they should be ashamed. And that Hunter who first posted it on his channel should be punished!

?He uploaded it because the fandom of the dead Hunter kept saying that he was the murderer. So he uploaded it just to prove that it wasn’t him.

-Let’s stop talking about dead Hunters on this stream. We’re here to watch some monster killing!

-It’s so great that we don’t have to worry about him getting mind-controlled!! Love it!

-UMJI!!! YOU’RE SO COOL!!! 乃乃乃乃乃乃乃乃乃乃乃乃乃乃乃乃乃乃乃乃乃乃乃乃

His fans didn’t want him to see the chat, so they filled it with encouraging lines, but he had already seen it. Still, he thanked his fans in his mind. Hunters feared these monsters capable of mental attacks, because no matter if they won or lost against them, only scars remained. That was why Ji-Cheok had many items that provided resistance against negative mental influences. He was actually somewhat specialized in this area, so he was clearing this dungeon like a bonus stage.

While the viewers were surprised and delighted, Ji-Cheok diced, whipped, and stomped on the undead monsters that attacked him.

‘Zombie movies always have scenes like this.’

Ji-Cheok’s swords sliced the Ghosts approaching him into pieces. As they disappeared with ghastly screams, these monsters left some bits of themselves behind—Spirit Stones. Spirit Stones were an extremely valuable material, particularly expensive since it was hard to find.

The Spirit Stones and other small loot were immediately picked up by Ji-Cheok’s shadow. He was using an ability of his [Shadow Pouch].

-What is that? That shadow is moving on its own!

?That’s Umji’s shadow ability.

?How many auxiliary abilities does he have?

“Are you guys curious about this shadow? It’s the ability of my [Shadow Pouch]! It’s a skill I got before going to the [Fortress of Hope], and I’m putting it to pretty good use. You want to know why I’m letting my shadow pick up the Spirit Stones? I know this from my Hunter Assistant days, but these pieces are so small that it’s hard to find them. Also, they are round, so they move around easily~”

Ji-Cheok tried to fill the gaps of silence in his stream.

“So, it’s convenient to loot them right away like this with [Shadow Pouch] while I’m killing monsters! Am I putting Hunter Assistants out of jobs by doing this? No, at all! Even they couldn’t categorize each of these by type.”

Ji-Cheok told the viewers how important Hunter Assistants were to the job and how hard their life was.

“And I can’t fit all of the loot inside my pouch. That’s why we can’t go raiding dungeons without Hunter Assistants!”

He was killing monsters as if he were walking around the park. Since he killed many monsters, he didn’t need to worry about moments of awkward silence.

‘The number of Likes I’m getting is decent. I guess it’s okay to go smurf on these monsters once in a while.’

?The reason why you have such immunity to psychological attacks is that you are the Gardener of the World Tree and are recognized by the God of Hope.?

‘You’re right. Without the effect of the two titles, I wouldn’t be able to clear this dungeon so easily.’

Still, he hadn’t expected that it would be this easy. The Ghost King hadn’t even been much of a challenge; in comparison, he thought that the Abomination had been on a completely different level.

“Okay, now I’m going to finish what I’ve started and clear this dungeon all by myself!”

-Is he really gonna do it?

-All by yourself?

-Umji! You’re crazy!

1. Pretty sure the author means “Shaun of the Dead”

2. In case you wanna listen to it