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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Simzy
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Thud!
With a heavy sound, the massive beast collapsed. Black, tar-like blood oozed from its decaying hide. The beast had three heads, but one was riddled with holes and reduced to rags, another was charred down to bare bone, no longer functional. The last remaining head was caved in, also useless. The three-headed monster, made of rotten flesh and bone, disintegrated into particles upon collapsing.
“Must have been a magical creature.”
“Well, if it were a Chimera, this room would reek of corpses.”
Speaking thus, the mage, Paul, and the vanguard, Tori, checked on their party members. The blue-haired Hale, in charge of firepower, had used up most of his ammunition during the battle. The yellow-haired Evan had also nearly depleted his shotgun shells and sniper rounds. Fortunately, the boss had fallen with them just barely having enough ammo left.
“Damage report. One minor injury, no deaths.”
“I know that already.”
Hale and Evan started bickering as soon as the battle ended. Their leader smiled wryly, watching them. As promised to Amon, the party had defeated the mid-boss without significant casualties. Moreover, it seemed fate wasn’t entirely unkind; there was a reward for their hardship.
“Right, leader. I saw something drop earlier.”
Evan pointed to where the boss had fallen. A violet orb was rolling there. Paul nodded, and Evan scurried over to grab the orb.
And as soon as he grabbed it, he shouted with conviction,
“F*** YES! An Essence! A Unique grade! Yes! This is it! Woohoo!!”
Evan excitedly held the orb and wiggled his waist, causing the other party members to burst into laughter. Still dancing, Evan cupped his hands and presented the orb to Paul.
“The feeling we’ve been waiting for~ Show!”
Drumroll
With Evan’s antics as background music, Paul examined the Essence’s contents. Soon, his face brightened after confirming its effect.
“This will sell for a high price. It’s [Sky Step].”
Sky Step. Also known as Air Walking.
“It’s not full flight because that’s a rarity grade, but it’ll still fetch a good price.”
Paul nodded and placed the Essence in his subspace pocket. The surprising thing was that no one in the group looked at the Essence with greedy eyes. This was natural. They had been working as a party for over ten years. Even fighting back-to-back in a single battle could spark camaraderie and lead people to call each other brothers, so ten years of shared life made them no different from family. Money was merely a tool to improve their families’ lives, not something that could replace the value of each other.
“I’m feeling good! Let’s go out for a celebration tonight!”
At Paul’s declaration, Evan, the mood maker, cheered. Tori put her arm around Paul’s shoulder and walked along cheerfully, while Hale, despite his large build, clapped demurely. Afterward, the party searched the boss room, confirmed there was nothing else, and prepared to leave.
“Let’s go!”
Excited, Evan flung open the boss room door. The heavy door opened.
Click.
A sound familiar to mercenaries – the pulling of a pin – reached their ears.
“!!!”
0.01 seconds after the sound. Evan accelerated his nerves to maximum output. Through the open door, he confirmed the source of the sound. A claymore.
“F***.”
In the slowed-down world, Evan saw the claymore aimed at him. He turned around before it detonated. Tori and Hale had sturdy bodies, so they would be alright. But Paul could be killed instantly if hit.
Time taken to think: 0.09 seconds.
“Paa-uu-ll-!”
Hearing his own voice, slowed down relative to his perception, Evan ran towards the party leader. He pulled Paul as far back as possible.
0.2 seconds elapsed.
The claymore exploded.
BOOM!
Numerous pellets showered the party members. Hale activated his shield, and Tori endured with her naturally tough skin. And Paul…
“Evan!! Hey, wake up!! Evan!”
…was unharmed. In exchange, Evan convulsed, blood and saliva dripping from his mouth. Having taken the brunt of the shrapnel and explosion to protect Paul, Evan suffered severe injuries, his spine exposed.
“Damn it! A short circuit!”
The neural acceleration device, active when his spine was injured, had short-circuited. Evan’s nerves were burning from the ends.
“I’m sorry!”
Paul apologized to his unconscious comrade and severed the spinal nerves leading to his lower body. This prevented the burning sensation from reaching his brain. After administering first aid, Paul looked up and surveyed his comrades. His lover, Tori, and Hale were in the midst of battling the attackers.
Rat-tat-tat!
Hale’s machine gun spit fire. But less than a minute later, the sound of the firing pin hitting an empty chamber echoed.
“I’m out of ammo!!”
Paul threw Evan’s shotgun to Hale and began chanting a spell. Meanwhile, Tori and Hale stood defensively, protecting Paul. Finally, Paul shouted the activation word.
“Burst!!”
KABOOM!
A massive explosion, surpassing even the claymore, erupted before his eyes. Staring at the dense cloud of dust filling the boss room from the entrance, the party remained on high alert. Paul, who had caused the explosion, staggered.
“I’m out of magic too..!”
That was when it happened.
Whoosh!
A javelin flew from the dust cloud. Before they could react, it pierced Paul’s abdomen.
“Gah!”
“Honey!”
“Leader!!”
The remaining two’s gazes shifted to Paul. It was a momentary lapse, but fatal in combat. Figures wielding swords and sickles emerged from the dust cloud. Glaring with night vision goggles integrated into their eyes, they precisely severed Hale’s arms.
“Hale!”
Tori shouted, trying to activate the pile bunker mounted on his fist. But before he could swing, his whole body froze. His arms’ systems shut down.
“A hacker…!”
The sword and sickle-wielding attackers bound the disabled Tori and Hale with chains. Paul desperately called out their names. Evan, Tori, Hale. But his desperate cries were futile as they were forced to their knees by the attackers.
“Ugh…”
Paul groaned, clutching the javelin embedded in his abdomen. His vision blurred. Within that blurring vision, the figures of other attackers from the dust cloud came into view. Soon, one of the attackers whistled and approached Tori and Hale. He examined Hale’s mechanical eyes, tapped Tori’s arms, and whistled again.
“Oh. Looks like we hit the jackpot this time~? Their condition is good, too.”
“Didn’t Atlee say he wanted to upgrade his eyes?”
“Then let’s use these ourselves instead of selling them.”
The attackers appraised Paul’s party as if they were mere objects. From that conversation alone, Paul seemed to recognize their identities.
‘Scavengers…!’
Human traffickers who kidnapped people and sold their implanted organs or mechanical parts. Even by the standards of this wretched world, they were considered the scum of the earth.
The Scavengers, after assessing Tori and Hale’s condition, turned their attention to Evan.
“Ugh… This yellow-haired one is completely messed up.”
“That’s why I told you to control the power. Ugh. That neural acceleration device is expensive. What a waste.”
“Wouldn’t it be okay if we detached it now?”
“Well… Shall we try?”
Hearing those words, Paul sprang to his feet.
“Stop it, you bastards!”
But he collapsed again soon after. His rage spurred him, but reality couldn’t be changed by willpower alone. The large javelin embedded in his abdomen was the cruel reality itself. The Scavengers, paying no attention to the dying Paul, immediately began preparing to operate on Evan. Since it wasn’t an operation to save him, they weren’t worried about infection. In the middle of the boss room, where the undead boss had been, they took out their surgical tools. Facing the imminent theft of their comrade’s organs, Paul’s party hurled curses and insults.
“Evan! Evan!!”
“Stop it! You bastards!”
But they were powerless. There was nothing they could do.
‘Damn it… Damn it…!’
Paul gritted his teeth.
“Please…!”
In his fading consciousness, Paul reflected on his past life. He formed the party, spent ten years together, and became Tori’s lover. He couldn’t call it an exemplary life, but he hadn’t lived one he was ashamed of either. So where did it all go wrong? He had considered the possibility of dying silently and without notice while working as an explorer. But wasn’t this too unfair? Tears streamed down Paul’s face in frustration. In his fading consciousness, he recalled a recent memory.
“Haha. If there’s ever a need to find God in a dungeon, I’ll only trust you.”
Was it because of this? Paul muttered unconsciously, “Lord… please…”
…
…
That was when it happened.
Swish!
Two daggers flew from the entrance.
The daggers accurately pierced the heads of two Scavengers who were busy preparing for Evan’s surgery. Without even knowing why they were dying, two of them perished. They turned their gaze towards the direction the daggers had come from. But there was no one at the entrance.
“Wha… What?!”
The Scavenger muttered in bewilderment. While their attention was focused on the entrance, a voice spoke from behind them.
“Your body is what you received from your Mother-”
Slash. Thud.
The cool sound of paper being cut was heard, followed by the delayed thud of two bodies hitting the ground. The Scavengers’ gazes shifted behind them. There stood a young man holding twin swords that exuded a menacing aura. A young man, seemingly without any augmentations. He was the same one they had seen at the Explorer’s Guild. The one they had scoffed at as a newbie had already created four corpses and was now staring them down.
The Scavengers, momentarily overwhelmed by his presence, only snapped back to reality after silver lines claimed two more lives.
“Kill that crazy bastard!”
“He’s worthless anyway, just kill him!”
The Scavengers brandished their weapons and activated their implants, charging at Amon. But Amon, unfazed, simply swung his swords and recited scripture.
“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from the Goddess? You are not your own; you were bought at a price…”
Amon swung his swords while reciting the Bible. Hearing this, Paul’s consciousness was pulled back from the brink.
“Amon…?”
Paul looked at Amon. Amon continued to swing his swords. His slaughter was highly efficient. Like a set formula, like a craftsman at work. He inflicted minimal damage to himself while decisively taking lives. Cuts accumulated on Amon’s body. But his momentum didn’t wane in the slightest. On the contrary, his menacing presence became even more refined, sending chills down their spines.
“Gah- Spit!”
Amon spat out a mouthful of blood as he cut down another Scavenger. The Scavengers couldn’t understand. How? How could he fight on par with them without any augmentations? No, beyond being on par, how could he dominate them? When they approached him using neural acceleration, it was as if he knew in advance, or as if their actions were being guided. Amon’s sword always struck first. Even if they fired their guns, the bullets would only graze him or be deflected until they got close enough for his sword to reach. If anyone prepared a spell, he seemed to know instinctively and threw a dagger. The entire battlefield danced within his grasp.
‘If this continues, we’ll all die.’
Finally, the Scavenger leader made a decision. He aimed his grenade launcher at Amon and the melee fighters engaging him. The loyalty among Scavengers was thinner than paper. They stuck together because it was beneficial, but they never considered each other comrades.
“Die, monster!!”
The leader pulled the trigger.
BOOM!
Scavengers and Amon alike were caught in the explosion. Unsatisfied with a single shot, the leader continued to pull the trigger.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
He only stopped firing after launching about eight grenades. No sound came from beyond the thick cloud of dust.
“Phew… We’re…safe…”
Before he could finish his sentence, a voice emerged from the dust cloud once again.
“-Not even a single blade of grass on this land belongs to you, and those who buy and sell their brethren shall burn eternally in the fires of hell.”
Clang.
A figure carrying a cross appeared from the dust cloud.
‘No. He’s not carrying it…’
He was approaching, forming a cross with his blood-soaked swords. Disposable barrier devices rolled beneath his feet. The Scavenger leader’s face paled. Amon, staring at the leader, licked the blood flowing from a wound on his forehead and said, “Amen.”
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get they ass, Amen.