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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: JayM
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What was a dragon vein in this novel’s world?
It was a special terrain imbued with pure magical power, and its value varied greatly depending on the amount of inherent magical power. But even the minimum amount of magical power required to form a dragon vein was enough to call it a treasure.
So, what did a dragon vein react to?
A person’s goodness? Courage? Oh, that wasn’t entirely wrong.
A dragon vein reacted to someone with a strong will and shared its power with them.
It inherited the characteristic of pure magical power being drawn to strong will. The problem was that this strong will wasn’t limited to good intentions.
Well, it wasn’t like everyone was a novel protagonist. When it came to human will, wasn’t a malicious and sharp will more impactful than a good and gentle one?
That was why, even in the original story, most of the dragon veins were consumed by villains.
That’s right. This was a crazy world where power-up events happened more often to the villains than the protagonists when they were cornered.
What was I talking about? That pathetic villain bastard gained the dragon vein’s power and powered up.
Well, it seemed like he received power from the dragon vein through something like the will to survive, but he couldn’t have received that much. Even so, he was putting up a decent fight against the Fighting Demon.
It wasn’t just an amplification of his energy. A dark, ominous magical energy was swirling around him. He probably supplemented the dragon vein’s power with black magic by sacrificing his dead villain comrades or something.
“Tsk…!”
He was weak originally, so he shouldn’t have been able to face the Fighting Demon even with that level of enhancement, but he was using his head.
He kept his distance from the Fighting Demon and shot magical power towards us or to the mountainside where the orphanage was located. Because of that, the Fighting Demon couldn’t switch to offense and was focused on defense.
Wait, putting the orphanage aside, why was he even protecting us?
“Don’t worry. I won’t let you get hurt.”
As if sensing my gaze, the Fighting Demon said so to me in a serious tone, his eyes still fixed forward.
…Um, I said this before, but mister, why are you acting so chummy with me? It’s creepy.
I was going to take you down after this too.
Considering the Fighting Demon’s personality, he was probably moved by the safety measures I set up in the orphanage, or maybe he was acting like this because I let him have that villain.
But if he was going to change his attitude after hearing me, he should have done it earlier.
He didn’t even pretend to listen before, so his sudden change of attitude now was annoying.
The surging black magical power spread in all directions, but the Fighting Demon took a deep breath and punched towards the incoming magical arrows.
The way he destroyed each of the widespread arrows with his fists was a feat beyond human skill, almost divine, but he probably wouldn’t last much longer.
“Is it poison?”
“No, to be precise, it’s a curse created with black magic!”
Oh, so he was a black magician?
The vicious curse that penetrated his protective qi began to corrode his fist.
“Even S-ranks can’t do anything about curses? Ah, you’re especially vulnerable to it, aren’t you?”
Professor Cathy was like that too, but martial arts-type awakened people were generally weak against curses and hexes.
The Fighting Demon was even worse than Professor Cathy. Since he didn’t use his talent at all and just fought with his trained body and traits, he was extremely vulnerable to curses, though not so much to poisons.
“So what?”
But the Fighting Demon simply suppressed the disadvantage with sheer willpower, ignored his flesh rotting from the curse, and threw another punch.
The curse gnawed at his fist as it collided with the magical power, drawing blood, but he ignored the pain and took a step forward.
“If it’s a curse created with black magic, it’ll end when the souls of the guys who died here run out, right?”
He wasn’t wrong.
Maintaining such a vicious curse wouldn’t be easy.
“Then I just have to endure until then and crush you.”
“…Crazy bastard.”
The guy who was gleefully scattering curses looked at him as if he was tired.
He was right. It was crazy.
That curse was so agonizing that a single hit could drive someone insane, so what kind of madman would endure it all and then try to crush his enemy afterwards?
But Seo Tae-ho, the Fighting Demon, always stuck to that method.
He was a man who wouldn’t be satisfied until he smashed through whatever was blocking him with his fists.
His back, as he silently countered the terrifying curse-ridden magical power with his fists, shouldered something immense, something that would make the blood of any man boil.
“…So-hyun.”
“Yeah?”
“Are you going to help him?”
“No. Why would I?”
Even if I felt like it, I wouldn’t help him.
He annoyed me.
If his life was in immediate danger, it would be a different story. But the Fighting Demon I knew wasn’t someone who would succumb to this, and even though he was acting chummy with us right now, he needed to learn a lesson about listening to others and not rushing in.
If he had listened to me when I tried to talk to him, wouldn’t things have turned out better?
“Right?”
If it were Lilac, he would have rushed in to help, but Ha-ni and I weren’t that virtuous.
Besides, contrary to appearances, the Fighting Demon wasn’t in that bad of a situation.
“S-ranks are nothing special!”
The villain didn’t seem to notice, but his constantly growing magical power had started to weaken.
A dragon vein granted power in response to will.
Therefore, if the will that triggered the power weakened, the connection would also weaken, and eventually, it would be completely severed.
In his case, the reason the dragon vein lent him power was probably due to his survival instinct or the humiliation of his impending defeat. Judging by his current state, he probably didn’t have much of those emotions left.
The dragon vein wouldn’t take back the power it had already lent, but it also wouldn’t lend him any more power. And if he wasted the finite power granted to him like that, it would soon disappear.
He put up a good fight for an extra-level villain in the original story, but it seemed like this was his limit.
He hadn’t noticed it yet as he was still intoxicated by the sense of omnipotence, but he would soon realize it.
That when this power ran out, it would be his end.
He unleashed his remaining magical power indiscriminately.
The Fighting Demon neutralized the magical power with his fists, which were now almost purple and festering, dripping with blood.
His skin was already torn, but he took a step forward as if he didn’t care.
The villain took a step back.
The Fighting Demon took another step forward.
The villain finally seemed to notice something was wrong and showed signs of anxiety.
He was naturally flustered as he suddenly felt a limit to the power that had been endlessly surging within him before.
Even the dark energy he had supplemented it with by sacrificing his comrades seemed to be reaching its limit, and the curse was weakening as a result.
The villain’s face paled as he realized that the moment either his remaining magical power or the curse ran out, his head would explode.
“Well, it seems like it’s almost over. You’re nothing special.”
“…Ugh!? What the hell is this?! This doesn’t make sense…! This is unfair!”
Why was this superhuman bastard complaining about unfairness…?
Huh? Wouldn’t that trigger the dragon vein to lend him power again in an endless loop?
No, a dragon vein rarely lent power again to someone whose connection with it had already been severed once.
Even if, by some miracle, it was willing to lend him power again, the Fighting Demon wouldn’t miss the moment his power ran out.
This was it.
Just as I thought it was over, something incomprehensible happened.
Blood splattered in the air.
The villain, who was floating in the air with his unnecessarily vast magical power, stabbed himself in the heart with a dagger.
Well, I didn’t care if he wanted to commit suicide, but what he did wasn’t just suicide.
An intense dark energy began to swirl around the dagger that pierced his heart.
The dagger, which was also a type of artifact, devoured the remnants of the dragon vein’s magical power and black magic still within him and emitted an increasingly powerful aura.
Was it because of his approaching, inevitable death? Or did he think that it couldn’t end like this after sacrificing his comrades? Or did he just want to cause chaos out of spite?
I knew that people driven to their limits sometimes made incomprehensible choices, but I didn’t expect him to cause this kind of chaos.
What was the point of throwing away his own life after triggering a dragon vein power-up because he didn’t want to die?
The dagger, which greedily devoured everything he had offered as a sacrifice, glowed red.
The boundaries of reality began to crumble, and space itself distorted.
“Hey, So-hyun, that doesn’t look good.”
…Huh?
“…Huh?”
I hadn’t thought much of it before, but Ha-ni’s words reminded me of an artifact with similar characteristics.
What Ha-ni just said was very similar to what Lilac had said when he saw that artifact in the original story.
…But if this really was what I thought it was, wasn’t it an artifact used by Baek Seol in the original story?
Among the artifacts she had used in the original story, there was a dagger called “Devil’s Touch” that she had obtained after defeating a villain who used black magic.
This dagger, which was highly ranked among legendary artifacts based on its performance alone, was a simple yet powerful item. By offering a sacrifice, the devil would lend one power in proportion to the sacrifice.
The truly terrifying aspect of this artifact was that the sacrifice didn’t have to be owned by them.
Using that characteristic, the Baek Seol in the original story stabbed enemies with this dagger and offered their blood as a sacrifice to use the devil’s power when fighting large numbers of enemies. She even used this insane tactic to subdue villains.
…Was this villain its original owner? Well, he seemed to be a black magician, so it wasn’t that strange.
It was an unexpected development, but I wasn’t too worried.
The villain, who now had the corpses of his dead comrades in addition to the vast magical power and dark energy he already had, began to emerge from beyond the dimension.
Ha-ni looked wary and tried to raise her sword again, but she sheathed it with a puzzled look when I stopped her.
What appeared was a being with an overwhelming presence.
Enveloped in an ominous, visible demonic energy, it tried to emerge into the world through the connection established by the dagger.
A giant arm was the first to emerge, distorting space as it reached out.
The hideous red arm tried to pull its main body out of the void.
“Tried” was the operative word here.
Gods and devils existed in this world, but even for them, this level of sacrifice wasn’t nearly enough to summon something of a significant size.
If it were a mediocre devil, it would have appeared without such a show, and for a decent devil to descend directly, it would have to incur a loss.
It probably didn’t intend to truly descend at a loss. It was just putting on a show before leaving since it had already received something.
It would probably leave on its own if no one provoked it.
Ah, shit.
“…Huh.”
I jinxed it.
The moment I saw the Fighting Demon bracing himself with a thud, I reflexively shouted.
“Don’t even think about touching that…!”
“Don’t worry. I haven’t fought something like that before, but…”
No, I’m not worried about you…!
“I’m a man of my word.”
…Man of your word? What word?
“Don’t worry, I won’t let anyone touch you or the orphanage.”
Ah, that. Yeah, okay, I understood perfectly.
Crazy troll bastard.
“Don’t…!!!”
The Fighting Demon leaped with his battered fists clenched.
Damn it, couldn’t things end peacefully for once…?
Thud.
Miraculously, the Fighting Demon’s punch didn’t reach the devil.
It was blocked by a golden magical barrier that appeared out of nowhere.
“…Huh, I don’t quite understand what’s going on here, but my timing seems to be impeccable. Would you mind not touching that dangerous thing?”
Oh my god.
Golden magical power surged from the fingertips of the little witch floating in the air.
“This is private property, so it’s troublesome if something like that rampages here.”
Honestly, until just now, I was thinking some pretty disrespectful things like, ‘You call this place precious, but why are you so late, damn it?!’ and ‘If you’re a hero, you should prevent incidents before they happen. What kind of hero shows up after everything’s gone to hell?’ But I was foolish.
This was what a carry looked like.
A hero, a heroine, always showed up at the most crucial moment, and that was what Professor Park Ah-ram did.
Professor Park Ah-ram…! I knew I could count on you…! You’re the best!!!!
…Even though I thought I was being a bit over the top, what could I do? She was just that cool.
“I’m not quite grasping the situation here, so Kang So-hyun, can you tell me what’s going on?”
The professor playfully twirled her magical power, but her aura was anything but playful.
“Which ones are the enemies?”
This was a hero.
Witnessing a true hero, I was moved and had to tell the truth.
“Besides that huge bastard and the floating hand, we’ve pretty much taken care of everyone.”
“…Huh? Kid!? N-No, that’s not right…!”
What do you mean, “not right,” you bastard? I never said I forgave you.
“Aha, clear and concise. Good. Students, take a break. Well, it’s not very cool to say this after arriving so late…”
Haha, Seo Tae-ho, you bastard. You’re in big trouble now.
“…But an adult should take care of the cleanup.”
If it was just raw power, the professor, who hadn’t released her seal yet, would be at a disadvantage, but the Fighting Demon wasn’t in his best condition right now.
“Hey, big guy. Only I can bully our honor students. You’re screwed, so keep that in mind.”
She was so cool.
Ha-ni and I, and even the Devil’s Hand for some reason, watched the Fighting Demon, who was sweating profusely, with excitement.
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T/N – Ahahaha! That ending. Classic MC. I mean, he’s telling the truth. The battle maniac is really a villain. The MC really holds grudges.
Also, I find it funny that even the devil that was pretending to be summoned is sticking around to watch the beatdown that’s about to happen.
If you find any mistakes, feel free to point them out in the comments.
Lmao, the devil taking the L just to watch shit go down.