Only I Am A Reader
chapter-495

'Seems like I won't have to stay here for long.'

Thankfully, Leo's logical deduction ended up being right. The less common ones were the fakes, so he only had to round up another group and kill seven of the common Werewolves before the portal emerged.

This time, however, Leo didn't immediately rush into the portal. Instead, he took a few minutes to commit the fake monsters' vibes to memory.

It was hard to tell whether he would actually get a duplicate task or if it would require the same approach, but this could save him some time later!

'They do seem fake now.'

Once the portal opened up, the fake werewolves with the friendly ears suddenly stopped rampaging in an attempt to attack Leo.

Even during the first stage, the Were-cheetahs still tried to attack Leo as he was entering the portal, but these Werewolves only stared intensely as if they were watching an interesting passerby.

That being said, as much as Leo was intrigued by their reaction, he couldn't afford to waste any more time on them.

'OK, bye.'

Stepping into the portal, Leo found himself extremely close to the instruction scribbles. He wasn't sure if it was a good or a bad sign that this stage cut to the chase, but at least the challenge itself sounded straightforward.

[ Challenge 4: Kill the only monster. ]

'Very much so compared to the last one.'

At first glance, a single kill sounded extremely simple, but that didn't account for the environment.

If it was just a single monster in the same arena-like opening at the first stage, it would be a cakewalk. On the other hand, if Leo had to locate it within an extended cave system that he experienced in the recent stages, things could take quite a bit of time…

However, this time, Leo didn't have to do any guessing.

'It's just a mini-boss battle.'

After all, unlike all the challenges that he experienced thus far, this challenge and its specific number had appeared within the novel!

This was one of the challenges that Aurora had cleared, and it was the simplest of them all.

The 'only monster' that the instructions referred to wasn't some wanderer that Leo had to encounter through chance, it was an active hunter itself.

Just as the challenger was searching for it, it was also searching for the hunter, ready to tear them apart!

Just by stepping into the tunnel, Leo was closer to his prey. This one was not only stronger than the rest but also had far superior senses.

Since it automatically sought the challenger, the distance would only continue to close up the further the challenger went.

'It doesn't make much of a difference, but it's at least one less challenge to worry about.'

Considering that this was practically the equivalent of this Gate's mid-boss battle, this challenge was a bit hyped up in the novel and given full coverage.

However, for Leo, it was the 11th challenge of his grind, it was hardly even a milestone. The only thing he received from knowing all he did was assurance.

Unfortunately, not even that could be guaranteed considering what he was.

'Wait…'

Just a few minutes later, Leo's wide vision caught something unexpected while he was speeding through with Shadow Movement. It was a shining wrapper of a calorie bar.

'This soon?'

It didn't seem like Leo was the only person who had fallen into Aurora's place. Leo wasn't exactly surprised by this, but it was still a bit unexpected.

With Leo's existence as a direct variable who had changed the whole distribution scheme, this was hardly a butterfly effect but more of a whole rewrite.

The current situation that Leo ended up in wasn't something that the novel could predict even if this was a familiar stage…

'I wonder which one it is.'

All in all, Leo wasn't exactly against getting to his second lesson this quickly. However, the nature of this challenge was a bit concerning.

'Let's just hurry up.'

Aside from increasing his speed, Leo strongly released his aura in an attempt to attract the monster's attention. In addition, he spread his Shadows even further ahead to increase his perception range.

'There!'

A few more minutes later, Leo finally ended up getting a reaction on his radar. The fact that he didn't see the monster rushing at his face now only meant one thing.

'I wanted to end this as cleanly as possible…'

Entering the cave where all the activity seemed to be, Leo witnessed a very disorienting scene.

Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!

The bottom half of a man lying on the ground with the rest of his body shredded everywhere, and a familiar girl sitting on the ground and munching calorie bars.

Leo's target was standing right in the middle of this, but Leo could barely spare him any focus.

'They really are a lost cause.'

Considering how incompetent Aurora's team was without their Heroine, Leo already expected that things could get ugly depending on the composition of the pair who ended up falling into this stage.

However, the result that Leo saw in front of him was still a bit far from his expectations.

Him rushing to get to the monster before it messed up his plans suddenly seemed so unnecessary. He could really leave it to this perfect team to ruin themselves without any outside assistance...

'Stress eating at this time?'

Considering the amount of blood and guts spread everywhere, a normal human would find it hard to even eat an appetizing 5-star meal.

Yet, the girl was devouring calorie bars as if she was starving. Surrounding her was a half-transparent bubble that kept the monster outside.

The lion-faced humanoid creature looked visibly angry as he kept slashing the bubble to cut it open but to no avail. It was so focused on the munching girl that it didn't spare Leo a single glance

At this point, Leo couldn't even get mad at the monster itself. This specific girl's ability was just as inconvenient as it was useful, but even that couldn't explain how they ended up in that situation.

'Might as well.'

Letting out a sigh in his mind, Leo walked into the cave. Despite the unfortunate mix-up, he still had to deliver his lesson and move on…