Chapter 80: Forest of Love (2)

TL: Haku

Editor: Hungry Panda

The Summoner Cla.s.s' bulletin board was once again in chaos.

And that was because of Ian.

And Ian, who was eating a light lunch while reading the comments, grinned.

"Keu, lv 150? Halli might be an even greater monster than I thought."

It was strong even when it existed as a ghost monster, but since they say it has appeared in Colonar Continent almost a whopping 50 levels higher, he became curious of its dignity.

Ian immediately went over to the screenshot bulletin board.

And he let out an exclamation.

"Kya!"

It looked as if the Hallikan appeared in the northern continent as a Boss-rank monster.

'It's actually lv 150!'

Once Ian checked the Hallikan's dignity, he felt even prouder.

If it wasn't for the quest, how would Ian have used a monster that appeared as a lv 150 Heroic-rank at this point as his Familiar?

Of course, it was just a little child Hallikan that was endlessly weak at lv 1 at the moment.

'I'm itching to raise it quickly.'

After roughly taking care of his lunch, Ian hurried into the capsule.

He wanted to raise Halli quickly, and he also wanted to quickly meet Iriel, who had the skill book that would save him.

Ian firmly finished his battle preparations and stood in front of Gripper's dimensional portal.

'Since I won't know what kind of monster will pop out again.'

While hoping for a new field or a new dungeon to appear again, Ian stepped in.

Whiiing-.

His vision dimmed and the world turned upside down.

It was a phenomenon that happened whenever he stepped into Gripper's dimensional portal.

'I need to stay on my toes.'

Last time, as soon as he went through the dimensional portal, he remembered taking quite a critical amount of damage after being attacked from a monster before his dizziness even went away.

Ian was nervous.

"Huh?"

After checking ahead with his brightened view, Ian blinked both his eyes.

This was because it was almost embarra.s.sing how alertly he entered, as the scene in front of Ian's eyes was an incredibly peaceful(?) sight.

'What the h.e.l.l? This feels like I came to some children's amus.e.m.e.nt park.'

A pink sunset with fluffy clouds that were cutely lumped together, and along with the image of small and cute animals playing around here and there, the place that Ian stepped foot into was a sight that without a doubt seemed to be from a children's story.

'How do I find an NPC named Iriel here?'

However, a system message suddenly popped up in front of a contemplating Ian's eyes.

As a matter of fact, Ian, who was fl.u.s.tered at the discomforting environment, was even more puzzled.

"The map's name is the Forest of Love?"

As he opened the map window that was hidden, the name Forest of Love was actually written on it clearly.

'On top of that, wedding rings… What the h.e.l.l is this now?'

Ian examined his inventory.

And he was able to discover a pair of rings that had entered his inventory before he even realized.

Ian opened the information of one of the two rings.

Cla.s.sification - Ring

Rank - Heroic (Growth possible)

Equip Limit - A female user

Durability - 175/175

Option - Charm +30

All Combat Power +20% (Sealed)

All Cla.s.s Ability +30% (Sealed)

All skills' cooldown times -1 second (Sealed)

(Not applied to skills with a cooldown time lower than 1 second.)

This item cannot be transferred to another user or be sold, and even if the character dies, it does not drop.

(Can only be transferred for the first time once.)

Rings left by Elmorff, the owner of the Forest of Love, a legendary place that appeared in the mythology of ancient Elves.

A male and female must wear the pair of rings together in order for the seal to lift and display its strength.

If even one of the two were to destroy their ring, the remaining ring will also lose all its abilities and become a normal ring.

Once it becomes a normal ring, it cannot find its original abilities.

After checking the tremendous stats attached to the ring, Ian's jaw dropped.

'Growth possible? This is my first time seeing an item with this kind of option attached.'

On top of that, the 1-second reduction for cooldown time option was incredibly unique.

Cooldown time reduction options were always attached as a percentage value, so it was his first time seeing an item with a fixed value attached like this.

'Its effectiveness must be incredibly good with skills like Current Proliferation that have a short cooldown time.'

Ian checked the other remaining ring.

It also had the same stats perfectly.

The gender equip limit was just different.

'What the h.e.l.l is this? Although it's not at the same level as the Dragon Feather Ornament, its stats are no joke.'

As Ian still had the rings that he received as a reward at lv 50 from the rookie league equipped, the options of this ring were very tempting.

However, Ian wore a gloomy expression shortly after.

This was because of the requirement in order to lift the seals.

'But who exactly am I supposed to give the female ring to? Ha…'

At the sorrow of being forever alone, Ian's two fists shook.

'For even game items to discriminate solos.'

The only stat attached to the sealed ring right now was Charm +30.

Though, the Charm stat was a rare stat that couldn't be gained from a normal method.

The higher the Charm stat, the easier it was to receive favourability from NPCs, and as it had a lot of other benefits, such as gaining a little more when buying or selling items, there were quite a lot of users that preferred the Charm option.

It was for sure a stat that would help a lot when it came to playing Kailran, but it would be a little unreasonable to equip a ring with no combat stats at the moment just for the +30 Charm.

'Ha, I need to release the seal no matter what for stats like this…'

Ian firstly moved his feet.

He could think about the ring later, as right now his priority was to find Iriel.

'Maybe that way?'

Fortunately, there was only one path in front of Ian.

Ian followed the path and headed into the forest.

Chirp- Chir-Chirp-!

It seemed as if Jjaekee liked the clear air and the cozy atmosphere of the forest that was like a fairy tale, as he flapped his outstretched wings around distractedly.

It looked as if their personalities didn't change even after evolving.

"Hmm…"

Meanwhile, Ian didn't have the time to enjoy the atmosphere of the forest.

'I should have at least asked Gripper for the features and clothes of the NPC Iriel. Just from the name, I feel like it will be a woman, but since he also said they were an ancient Summoner, I feel like they could be an elder with a long, white beard as well…'

As Ian was walking while thinking of this and that, some sort of large, white thing suddenly jumped out in front of his eyes.

Rustle-!

'Monster?'

Ian quickly prepared for combat.

However, in the next moment, he couldn't help but break out into a cold sweat after checking the monster(?) that appeared.

"Huck…!"

The monster that had appeared in front of Ian was a pair of large, pure white and incredibly beautiful horses.

A slightly interesting point was that they had a long horn protruding from their forehead.

And Ian knew their ident.i.ty.

"U, Unicorn!'

The ident.i.ty of the monster that had appeared in front of Ian was the Heroic-rank monster, the Unicorn.

And their level was a whopping 170.

'Euh… What should I do about this?'

Ian slowly stepped backwards.

No matter if it was Ian, even if he got on the wrong side of a lv 170 monster, it was obvious that not even a bone of his would remain.

However, fortunately, it looked as if the Unicorns had no intention of attacking Ian.

Neigh- Neeiigh-!

Instead, hadn't they looked at Ian with pity and shook their heads before they disappeared into the forest?

'What the h.e.l.l? What's up with them?'

Ian, who had no idea what they meant, was bewildered.

He turned his head toward Bbookbbook, who crawled along next to him.

"Bbookbbook."

Bbook-?

"What do you think was up with them? Is there something on my face?"

Bbookbbook momentarily thought about it.

He needed to show something as a turtle that represented the brains in Ian's party.

Bbookbbook-.

However, Bbookbbook couldn't help but shake his head.

Smart turtle Bbookbbook couldn't understand the behaviour of the Unicorns either.

As the level of the first monster Ian met was such a high-level that it completely exceeded his expectations, he momentarily thought about it.

However, to give up the quest just like this, the Hatching of a Familiar's Egg skill book wavered in front of his eyes.

'I did meet a monster that's level was unbelievable, but since it looked like it had no intention of attacking me… Shall we go in more?'

Ian continued to move forward bravely.

He believed that the quest came about because it was for sure a quest that could be cleared.

The quest's difficulty level was definitely an A, meaning that there was no way that in comparison to the rank, he would need to fight a ridiculously high level monster that was at lv 170 as his opponent.

Had he gone in about another 5 minutes like that?

This time, a pair of deer jumped out from in between trees in the right corner.

Ian, who momentarily tensed up, tilted his head after looking at their level.

'What the h.e.l.l? These ones are actually just deer. They're not even at lv 10. How can a lv 170 monster and a lv 10 monster appear in the same map?'

The 'Forest of Love' was a map that Ian could not understand at all with his common sense.

However, what was even more fl.u.s.tering was that the behaviour of the deer was no different from the Unicorns that pa.s.sed by earlier.

On top of that, it felt as if he was also somewhat sneered at this time.

'These little…!'

Outraged Ian contemplated if he should throw his Magic Spheres right now and kill the deer, but he was afraid of the consequences, so he couldn't do that.

If the Unicorns were to even appear to take revenge for the deer, he knew he would die on the spot.

'Ha, let's go look for Iriel quickly instead.'

The path that Ian took was quite long.

Despite having walked at a fast pace, the path continued windingly for over 30 minutes.

Ian met a lot of monsters while walking the forest path, and he was able to find out what they had in common soon enough.

'd.a.m.n it! Come to think of it, on the topic of monsters, all of them were couples!'