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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: JayM
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Having gained a sudden inspiration, I tried to cut through space.
The trigger was a function of the Divine Art of Harmony that I learned upon completing it.
‘…To think I can interfere with spacetime….’
Perhaps because of my experience of regressing through time, the Divine Art of Harmony, in which everything I had seen, heard, and experienced was concentrated, was able to interfere with spacetime too, and upon learning that fact, I came up with one possibility.
‘With my current self, wouldn’t it be possible for me to literally cut through spacetime?’
Of course, it was merely a possibility, but it was as good as saying that I could perceive the flow and changes of spacetime.
The concept of spacetime, which couldn’t be seen with the eyes, heard with the ears, or felt through the skin…
It was truly an unknown territory, but I already had experience in pioneering into other unknowns.
‘The Samādhi of the Samadhi True Fire.’
The ability to see through to the essence of things.
Through this, I was able to observe various non-material existences.
It wasn’t just simple energies like mana or aura, nor was it just invisible waves like electromagnetic waves either.
I could see something more fundamental….
‘Souls, thoughts, concepts….’
If I had to express it, I was able to observe something close to those things.
Such existences whose presence were generally difficult to perceive, and which were difficult to even define exactly.
Spacetime was the same.
No, rather, I thought that it would be easier to sense than the things I had mentioned earlier that were hard to describe because it was a much more intuitive concept.
The result of that was what I had just done a moment ago.
“…If I didn’t see it wrong… it looked as if space itself shattered… Could you possibly explain what you just did?”
Yeon Mi-rae was a genius.
She wasn’t a woman who had succeeded in Complete Body Reconstruction in the future with a body that couldn’t accept internal energy for nothing.
Seeing the surrounding orcs and terrain shatter together, she realized that I had broken space.
“You saw correctly. I swung my sword and interfered with space, and as a result, I performed an unblockable attack that, in effect, could never be stopped unless one had the ability to manipulate space like me.”
Actually, the space shattering was not what I had intended.
My purpose was to literally cut through space, not to shatter it.
It was just an accident that occurred because I wasn’t used to interfering with space yet, so my power wasn’t properly condensed and spread out as a result.
In other words, this was still an incomplete technique.
‘And it also means that I still have room for growth.’
Interfering with space was a difficult task even for me, who had dedicated a lifetime to the control of energy.
Conversely, if I reached the point where I could successfully interfere with space as I pleased… how much stronger would I be then?
Thinking about that, I actually became happy.
“…Excuse me, but you’re human, right?”
“If you know it’s rude, don’t ask.”
I answered Yeon Mi-rae’s question like that.
Although I had transcended humanity in many ways, my essence was still human.
Anyway…
“Don’t even think about killing yourself now. As I just said, you’ll be safer than anyone else in this dungeon as long as you stick with me.”
“…Yes.”
At my words, Yeon Mi-rae nodded her head.
She now knew that continuing to act with me was advantageous for her survival… no, that if she was with me, she could definitely survive.
By the way….
“…As expected, it would be impossible to dismantle those things and take the byproducts, right?”
“…It’s impossible. If they had been simply torn apart, it might be different, but since they shattered into pieces like that, there’s no way that the byproducts would be in good condition even if we took them.”
I guess that’s that…
Since they hadn’t been simply cut, but had literally been shattered along with space instead, their condition was the worst that it could be.
Even if a bomb had been placed inside their bodies and detonated, they wouldn’t have been this damaged.
‘Then I’ll have to seal this technique until I can control it properly.’
If the purpose was simply to kill monsters, it wouldn’t matter, but in the current situation where I needed to bring back proper byproducts and sell them off, if only for Yeon Mi-rae’s sake, it wasn’t a very suitable technique here.
No, in the first place, most swords couldn’t withstand this technique, so I couldn’t use it much even if I wanted to.
Thinking that, I approached the orcs I had cut down as soon as I entered the dungeon.
“This side is fine. I’ll start dismantling these.”
The orcs that had died first had been cut down before space was destroyed, so their corpses were intact.
Yeon Mi-rae, who saw that, began to cut up the orc corpses with the dagger she had taken out for suicide just a moment ago.
Of course….
“…Huup…!”
It wasn’t easy for her to cut the tough orc hide with a dagger that held no aura.
“Wait.”
Seeing that, I approached her, put my internal energy into her dagger, and created sword energy.
And then I placed it in her hand.
Although it was a dagger that had left my hand, the sword energy was still being maintained within it.
It was a technique that slightly applied the principles of Sword Control… but it was a hassle to explain in detail, so I’ll just end the explanation there.
“It’ll last for about 10 minutes. Cut with that.”
“…You don’t find it strange that I’m not using aura? Do you know about my constitution?”
At my action, Yeon Mi-rae asked that.
I answered her.
“The fact that you have a constitution that can’t use aura? I don’t particularly care. I needed a porter to carry my luggage for me, not an aura ability user.”
No, in the first place, I had never expected her to have any ability as a porter.
“Did you know beforehand?”
“No? I just saw that you had a problem with your heart and all of your meridians were blocked, so I just thought that would be the case.”
I lied like that.
But she, perhaps recalling the martial prowess I had shown just before, bowed her head low and muttered.
“Well… There’s no reason for a person of your skill to lie to someone like me.”
She said that and began to dismantle an orc with the sword energy-infused dagger that I gave her.
She cut out the valuable parts from the orc’s body, drained the blood, and then put them in the backpack.
The series of processes was smooth, as if to prove that this was not the first or second time she had done this.
Not only that….
‘Her hand movements with the dagger also seem quite skilled….’
Well, if she had been trying to butcher monsters with a normal dagger like that all this time, then her technique would have had to be that good.
If not, the dagger wouldn’t just chip, it would break frequently.
If that had been the case, she would have spent all the money she had earned from her porter work to repair her damaged dagger or buy a new one.
“This should be enough. The rest are parts that aren’t worth much or parts that’ll rot quickly over time.”
As I was thinking that, Yeon Mi-rae, who had finished butchering, said that.
“Then let’s move.”
I said and looked at one side of the dungeon.
The direction where the boss of this dungeon was.
So… it was the direction where the warlord-level commander was.
“They’re coming.”
“What?”
Right after I said that, the ground began to shake.
Kugugugu….
The sound of the ground shaking grew closer, and Yeon Mi-rae, who had belatedly realized the cause, stood behind me with a stiff expression.
“…How many are there?”
“The ones caught by my senses are about 250 to 300.”
“That much means that all the orcs are swarming here… Ah, you said there was a warlord-level commander here, right? Then this isn’t the main force. It’s just a small unit that came to see what had happened.”
Well, with such a loud noise, it was natural for them to swarm over here to check….
“That’s right.”
Usually, in a dungeon where orcs appeared, if hundreds of orcs came out, it was as good as the entire army.
But the orcs here weren’t just in the hundreds.
Why was the commander-type above an Orc Great Chieftain called a Warlord?
The reason was that in a dungeon with a warlord-level commander, there were always so many orcs that they could be called a legion.
A legion was composed of at least thousands to, at most, tens of thousands of units.
‘This is precisely the reason why a large-scale assault team has to be formed when challenging such a dungeon.’
Orcs strengthened by the Warlord’s command?
Even so, they were still orcs.
If veteran Awakeners decided to arm themselves to specifically fight orcs and then entered such a dungeon, then even a small assault team could easily wipe out dozens of them.
But when the units went into the hundreds or thousands, that wouldn’t work.
Killing them in itself wasn’t difficult, but the stamina consumption of the Awakeners would be quite severe.
Therefore, one had to form a large-scale assault team and aim for a long battle.
Usually, the standard method for dealing with a legion was to set a period of at least a week to at most a month and hold a defensive position near the dungeon entrance while reducing the number of orcs.
Of course….
‘We don’t need to go that far.’
As I was thinking that, the orcs had already swarmed to a position visible to our eyes.
“Chwi-ik…!”
“Gwee-ik…!”
They had discovered me and Yeon Mi-rae.
…As well as the corpses of the few dismantled orcs at our feet and….
“…Gwik?”
They also discovered the shattered fragments of numerous orcs.
Most of the orcs reacted as if they didn’t understand the situation they were seeing, but some orcs, as if they had intuited that the cause was one of the two of us, aimed their weapons at us.
‘Even so, they’re just guys who’ll be knocked down if I swing my sword once.’
Thinking that, I picked up one of the swords scattered on the floor.
It was a sword that an orc, who had been cut down by my sword when Yeon Mi-rae and I entered the dungeon, had been holding before.
It was of even worse quality than the sword I had been using until just now, but it wasn’t bad for temporary use.
“Well then….”
I was about to swing the sword and wipe out the orcs…
“……”
When I saw Yeon Mi-rae’s rapidly moving eyes.
‘…Is she instinctively analyzing the orcs’ fighting strength…?’
While thinking that, my eyes met with Yeon Mi-rae’s, who had felt my gaze.
Eyes that seemed to be craving something.
Seeing those eyes, I asked her.
“Do you want to give it a try?”
Since it had come to this, I decided to test something out.
How far could the current her go?
“…What? Me? But you know I don’t have aura….”
Attacks without aura wouldn’t be able to cut through the orcs’ tough flesh.
But to put it in another way….
“If I could lend you my aura… what would you do?”
“Lend me… your aura?”
If I resolved her attack power problem, then she could cut down the orcs.
“…Don’t tell me you’re thinking of creating an aura blade on my dagger like just now?”
…It wasn’t an aura blade but sword energy, but it would have looked like an aura blade to her, so I decided to let that pass.
“Yes. If I just do that….”
Can you cut down all the orcs in front of you?
“Ah, of course, if it seems dangerous, I’ll save you, so don’t worry too much.”
“……”
At my words, she closed her eyes as if lost in thought for a moment.
And she shook her head.
“It’s impossible. No matter how good the sword is, my physical ability is lacking….”
“What if I make your physical ability strong too?”
I cut her off and asked again.
“Then… Do you think you can kill them all?”
At my words, she closed her mouth.
And….
“Yes. It’s possible.”
She nodded her head.
Seeing her answer with satisfaction, I placed my hand on her shoulder and poured my internal energy into her body.
The meridians in her entire body were blocked, so I couldn’t make the internal energy flow through them. Instead, I spread the internal energy throughout her entire body.
The thus-spread internal energy strengthened every single one of her cells.
“…!”
Yeon Mi-rae, who had noticed the change in her body, looked at me with a surprised expression.
Next, I brought my hand to her dagger, infused it with internal energy to create sword energy, and then said to her.
“The aura I’ve given you will last for about 30 minutes.”
Now, what will you do?
“……”
At my unasked question, she just smiled.
Like a young child who had gotten a new toy.
“I’ll go kill them all.”
The young child said that and moved.
Right after that, a flower bloomed.
The orcs’ dirty blood scattered and became a beautiful flower garden.
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T/N – I’m glad Mi-rae gets to experience using some form of energy, even if it’s only for half an hour. Other than that, not much to comment on since nothing much happened in this chapter… again. 🤷♂️
If you find any mistakes, feel free to point them out in the comments.