Only I Am A Reader

The shadows that had been wrapped all over Leo slipped away as his body shrank. It wasn't that he no longer had the Enigma to manifest them, rather…

'Find it.'

Leo was using them all to invade the monstrosity's body!

One of the pieces of information that he perceived through the Horror's shadow was that it had no true vital point.

Unlike regular monsters or even the gargoyle abominations that Leo had met recently, there was no 'neck' to cut or a 'heart' to crush.

The Horror was no different from a sturdy piece of flesh that operated without a brain. Its actions and thought process were ingrained into its body using some advanced method that Leo couldn't grasp.

As such, there was only one killing method that Leo could rely on. One that had been properly tested and confirmed to be effective. The way the Horror died in the novel!

'It should be an easy target.'

He had to rip off the Horror's indispensable source of energy, its Enigma Stone!

Unlike humans who had lived long before they came into possession of Enigma, a bizarre creature such as this could exist only because it was built around an Enigma Stone as its core.

All that Leo needed was to let his shadow seek the strongest energy signal within its gargantuan flesh body!

{Mush-}

Using the characteristics of Shadow Movement as well as Shadow Armament, Leo's shadow had no problem drilling through. The closer he got, the less intelligible the Horror's words became.

'Found it!'

Sharing the shadow's senses, Leo smiled as the glaring energy signal stood before him. If the Horror had a head, this would have likely been where its brain would be.

Just by coming into contact with the Enigma Stone, Leo could already feel his Enigma being steadily replenished. For some reason, this felt a bit more exaggerated than it was described in the novel.

{Acshe-}

"It will be over soon."

As the shadow spread over the huge Enigma Stone as if it had devoured it, Leo finally pulled the shadow over. It was time to cash out the prize for this consuming quest!

Traveling back with a heavy bounty was much harder compared to getting in, but with the help of the replenished Enigma, Leo could now act more wildly.

Manipulating the shadow envelope to create a pointed head with the full force of Shadow Armament was all it took to extract the treasure chest!

Splat!

Black blood splattered everywhere as the broken words could no longer be heard. This battle didn't rank too low on Leo's list of risky battles, but it had finally come to an end!

[ Plot Change confirmed. Epic Event occurrence has been detected. ]

[ You have received 599 Reading Points. ]

Leo already expected this since he went for the motherload from the very beginning, but his first Plot Change event since landing into the world actually turned out to be an Epic one!

'But isn't this too early?'

That being said, Leo was still skeptical about the event message's appearance. The monstrosity that he hunted was meant to die either way, and he had yet to exploit what he gained from killing it.

Was it because he did it so much earlier, or…

[ Repeatable Quest Bonus applied, you have received an additional 599 Reading Points. ]

Just when Leo was considering the most likely possibility, another message reached his ears. It was confusing at the start, but Leo's head quickly cleared up.

'Don't tell me…'

There was only one other effective change that Leo made by taking the Enigma Stone early, cutting off Colt's future!

Now that the Stone was in his possession, Colt could no longer receive it, no matter how much he wanted to accept the offer.

'This also counts as villain hunting?'

In this way, a future SSS-grade villain would cease to exist. And in this same vein of thought, the Personal Book counted this as if he had hunted this future villain.

'I guess I did hunt his future form.' 𝘣𝑒𝑑𝑛𝘰𝑣𝘦𝘭.𝘤𝑜𝑚

By nipping the flower in the bud, a troublesome opponent like the Dark Gunner would no longer be on Aurora Dawnbringer's list of worries.

Although she still had plenty of other villains to keep her more than busy…

'This repeatable quest isn't that bad either.'

The other point that interested Leo was the revealed state of the Repeatable Quest, it was nothing like the Side Quest that he received in Murim Supremacy.

It didn't have a strict or basic goal, but depending on his performance, how many villains he caught, how strong they were…

Leo thought he would receive one lump sum reward in the end, but it seemed that the reward this time came in Reading Points!

Most importantly, it wasn't a static reward either. Rather, it multiplied the points that Leo received from every villain hunt event that he would trigger!

'It's very suitable.'

Considering how many abilities he had in Book 3, Leo certainly appreciated an enhanced source of Reading Points.

'...Let's deal with this first.'

While Leo wanted a little bit more time to keep fantasizing about the Reading Points that he could farm if he invested a proper amount of time into villain hunting, this wasn't the time nor the place to do so.

Crack.

Now that the summoned creature had perished one way or another, the time-limited space that allowed his existence on Earth's transit point no longer had any reason to remain.

Just as was the case with Colt, the mesmerizing starry plane started cracking.

Although this didn't pose any danger to Leo, the crumbling plane would also take everything aside from him away with it. If he didn't immediately store it, Leo could even lose his prized Enigma Stone.

'I'm not in that kind of a hurry.'

In case things went wrong later, Colt had consumed the special Enigma Stone while the Horror was perishing, but Leo had no such worries.

Since Colt acted as his test subject, Leo could use it whenever he wanted. Instead…

'I won't let you go to waste.'

After putting away the Enigma Stone, Leo turned to the Horror in interest. Although part of its body had already been dissolved, who knew the value that this synthetic body could possibly have?