Chapter 160
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 160
Chapter Title: Slums, Daughter of the Spirit King (3)
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Jack Hamilton stood by the window of his cheap hotel room, looking out at the Hive shopping center.
‘Jane is… being held in there.’
Earlier, the ‘client’ had tortured the ‘thugs’ for information, and Jack had overheard some of it.
Her kidnappers were a notorious Player criminal organization called <Amaranth>.
In this world, they were known as the best group of fixers the higher-ups turned to for problem-solving.
They were composed of skilled veterans, boasting combat power that rivaled most raid guilds.
‘And that place must be swarming with them, right?’
Just then, a man approached him. He was short and, like the others, wore a mask to hide his face.
“Hey, you’re… worried about your friend, aren’t you?”
He seemed to be trying to offer comfort, but his voice trailed off as if lacking confidence.
“Ah, yes…”
But Jack had just witnessed with his own two eyes that this man’s skills were anything but ordinary.
When the woman standing by the other window had conjured a whirlwind,
He’d seen this man freely manipulate a large amount of electricity and inject it into the storm.
It looked like a type of ‘control’ ability, impossible with conventional magic.
He could only wonder who Jane’s father was to have sent people like these.
“But you don’t have to worry about a thing. Everything will go according to plan.”
For some reason, his voice was filled with a solid conviction, and Jack couldn’t help but tilt his head in confusion.
“But the number of criminal Players inside… it’s got to be over a hundred.”
He had seen how strong this mysterious man was, but he couldn’t help but worry.
No matter how perfect the plan, no matter how capable the people who went in, it was a dangerous situation.
‘And he’s even infiltrating alone…’
Could he really save Jane? What if he just poked the hornet’s nest and got her killed?
But…
“Uh… it’ll still be fine. I promise you.”
The man didn’t retract his assurance, even with his timid voice, and Jack tilted his head again.
“…I don’t quite understand. How can you be so sure?”
“This probably won’t sound, uh, very convincing, but…”
He scratched his head, mumbled a few times, and then gave his answer.
“…I’ve never once seen him fail. That man.”
Who on earth was this man to speak with such confidence?
Jack looked out the window at the large, green-painted building—the Hive.
For now, there was no way of knowing what was happening inside.
‘But, that man’s attack patterns… I feel like I’ve seen them somewhere before…’
Jack felt like he was on the verge of remembering something, but he couldn’t quite place it. Seeing as all three people Jane’s father had sent refused to take off their masks, there had to be a reason they were hiding their identities.
Just then, Hannah Tate, who was standing beside him, muttered.
“Jack, what if what Nicole said… was a real prophecy?”
Nicole. Hannah brought up the strange girl’s name again.
“She said it, remember? This exact situation… that Jane would be in danger and someone would come to save her…”
But Jack didn’t believe such a ridiculous story.
“Come on, things like tarot cards always seem to come true when you phrase them metaphorically like that. And Nicole, you can tell just by looking at her that she’s the dark type who’d be into occult stuff like astrology. Don’t worry about it.”
Nicole… she was a strange girl, but she leaned more toward the insane side.
‘That crazy girl is a prophet? What kind of nonsense is that?’
There had only been one Player in history worthy of being called a prophet, and he was now dead.
He was a far cry from that kid who couldn’t even last three days at the potion factory before getting kicked out.
“Jack, I heard more than you did. That’s not all.”
“What else did she tell you? It’s all just nonse—”
At that moment—something burst out of a first-floor window.
“—Huh?”
Someone wearing a backpack shot into the sky, holding another person in their arms.
It was… Lee Hyun-wook, and the person he was holding was Jane.
‘Did he really save her? And this quickly….’
Jack’s jaw dropped as he shook his head. It didn’t seem possible.
The first to move was Kim Se-hee. She threw open the window.
“Park Jun-mo, get Mjolnir out and prepare for fire support from the rear!”
With those words, Kim Se-hee leaped from the fourth-floor window.
***
A detachment of dark elves, parasites within this great city of Yggdrasil, had infiltrated it.
‘I saw at least thirty or forty of them in the basement alone.’
Now that their identities were known to each other, a battle was inevitable.
There was no longer a need to hide; it was time to unleash all their firepower to gain a tactical advantage.
‘First, I’ll collapse the entire building to wipe out all the miscellaneous obstacles at once.’
The Hive was a den of evil to begin with, so he felt no guilt in cleaning it up a bit roughly.
‘But inside… there was a level 119 dark elf boss monster.’
In the brief moment he had charged into the first basement level, Lee Hyun-wook had glimpsed its ‘information’.
It wouldn’t die from a mere building collapse, so he would have to prepare for a major fight.
Meanwhile, Maru was excitedly scraping away at the building’s concrete.
「Alright, let’s smash it all! I’m not holding back anymore! Uwaaah—」
The exterior walls, the concrete, crumbled like a sandcastle with a loud *crumble*.
Although its firepower was far less than when it was in its ‘rampage’ state right after leaving the city cleaner,
For an A-rank earth spirit, scraping away concrete was as easy as playing with clay.
Lee Hyun-wook melted, buckled, and tore out the exposed steel beams.
In just a few dozen seconds, the building began to sway precariously, and screams erupted from within.
A mass exodus was likely underway… but Maru had piled concrete debris in front of the doors.
「Eheheh— Was that too much?」
Just then, Lee Hyun-wook detected the few pillars bearing most of the building’s weight.
‘This is the end.’
And the moment he applied ‘Metal Dissolution’ to the steel frames within—
*CR-R-R-UMBLE—!*
The entire building collapsed in an instant, sending a cloud of white dust billowing high into the sky.
Residents from the surrounding area, hearing the violent roar, began to pour out onto the streets.
“What the, what’s going on!”
“The, the Hive… it’s gone?”
It was a historic day, the day Rutlet Town’s central hub and den of evil vanished overnight.
“Hah—”
At that moment, Jane, cradled in Lee Hyun-wook’s arms, opened her eyes and let out a ragged breath.
“Hey, are you comi… no, you’re not.”
She was looking at Lee Hyun-wook, but her eyes were utterly vacant.
“This is… not good.”
Maru’s urgent voice sounded an alarm.
「Yeah, that’s right! We have to get away, now! That thing is about to go on a rampage!」
A rampage, a state where a spirit loses its reason and wields elemental control beyond its limits.
The shock of being trapped in a spirit prison must have caused Jane to lose her sanity.
「This water spirit, she’s going to stir up every bit of water in sight!」
And the first thing the rampaging water spirit began to tamper with… was Lee Hyun-wook himself.
“—Keuk!”
‘Crazy, is she trying to boil the moisture in my body?’
Such fine control over the water element was impossible, even for the Water Spirit King.
But a rampaging spirit, forgetting that it could be annihilated, pushes past its limits.
‘But it can only exceed its limits for a few minutes at most… I have to stop the rampage.’
Lee Hyun-wook had stopped a spirit swarm’s rampage not long ago. But that was an unconventional achievement made possible by a combination of various factors. Right now, he didn’t have the power to stop the daughter of the Spirit King.
‘At this rate, both the Spirit King’s daughter and I will die!’
Lee Hyun-wook produced metal, clasped metal rings around Jane’s limbs, and pushed her far away.
Simultaneously, he used the bracelet on his right wrist—Gleipnir—to bind her body.
‘I don’t know if this will work, but…’
If Gleipnir, which could block a target’s skills and abilities, was effective, the problem would be solved.
However…
-The target’s ‘true form’ cannot be detected. ‘Gleipnir’ cannot be applied.
A spirit’s true form was not in its physical body but in another dimension—the phenomenal world—so it didn’t work.
“Gah—!”
The blood in Lee Hyun-wook’s veins began to boil and seep through his skin.
A pain like his heart was being wrung out like laundry washed over him, and he ended up coughing up a mouthful of blood.
Then, nearby water and sewage pipes began to burst—*Bang— Bang—*—sending massive amounts of water shooting into the sky.
“—Sir, what’s happening!”
Kim Se-hee’s voice. Riding the wind, she slid across the asphalt toward him.
“Dammit, don’t come any closer!”
“What?”
“Stay, stay back!”
Lee Hyun-wook was able to withstand this bizarre assault with Ironclad Body, Herculean Strength, and Mana Shield.
On top of that, Maru, an A-rank spirit of a different element, was helping defend as much as possible.
Kim Se-hee, on the other hand, despite being a spirit contractor, would be killed in an instant.
Still, Lee Hyun-wook had prepared one last resort for this very moment.
“Team Leader Kim! Bring me Hannah Tate, that girl! Quickly!”
Lee Hyun-wook shouted as he pushed Jane further into the sky.
‘For now, the only option is to get her as far away as possible.’
The farther the distance, the weaker the abilities she could inflict.
She struggled, her vacant eyes looking down at the ground.
“Ughhh—I—I don’t—want to—but I have to—kill—”
Her once-kind face twisted, now filled with a deep rage.
It wasn’t hostility born of malice, but a survival instinct born of despair.
「Do something! If she stays like that for a few more minutes, she’ll be annihilated!」
This wasn’t just about saving his own life.
“—Sir, I brought her!”
Just then, Hannah arrived nearby. She was staring up at the sky with a dazed expression… witnessing her best friend, Jane, causing water to spray everywhere with a wave of her hands.
“Uh, Ja-Jane… you, how…”
It was Jane’s true form, a side even she didn’t know… the power of the Spirit King’s daughter.
At that moment, Lee Hyun-wook rushed over and grabbed Hannah’s arm.
“Hannah, you have to wake Jane up! She’s in a rampage state!”
Hannah was stunned by his words. But this timid girl was necessary right now.
“The help I mentioned earlier, your help, I need it now!”
“What? H-how can I…”
“Just now, before Jane lost her mind, she was desperately calling your name!”
“…M-my name?”
“Right now, you’re the only one she can rely on!”
It was a lie. But it was true that she was the only one who could calm Jane down at the moment.
Hannah Tate, by becoming Jane’s only friend, must have triggered a ‘hidden quest’ related to the Spirit King—though Jack Hamilton would eventually be the one to complete it, right now, it was her.
‘And if she’s triggered it, she can stop Jane’s rampage.’
Having experienced several of these ‘partnership’ type events, Lee Hyun-wook was certain.
“I’m bringing her down now, so everyone except Hannah, back off! Hannah, you’ll be fine!”
Lee Hyun-wook pulled Jane, who had been floating dozens of meters in the air, down to the ground.
Her body fell at high speed, then came to an abrupt halt just before crashing into the asphalt.
“Ugh—I hate this—but I have to—kill them all—all of them—”
Her beautiful face was contorted as she drooled.
*WHOOSH—WHOOSH—WHOOSH—WHOOSH—!*
Pillars of water churned from all directions and rained down on the group, but Kim Se-hee created a barrier of wind to deflect them. However, the difference in their ‘class’ was apparent, and she seemed to be struggling.
“Ugh! Hani, just, just hold on a little longer—!”
Hani let out a silent scream, giving it her all. But it looked like she would be overwhelmed soon.
As wind and water tore at each other, the area filled with fine water particles, making it difficult to breathe.
“Dammit— Hannah, there’s no time!”
At Lee Hyun-wook’s shout, Hannah hesitated for a moment before making up her mind and running forward.
She took off her jacket, wrapped it around Jane’s naked body, and pulled her into an embrace.
“Ja-Jane… it’s me! Snap out of it, I came to save you!”
At that moment, the pillars of water wavered significantly. The response was immediate.
“Jane, it’s me, Hannah!”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything when you were kidnapped…”
Her eyes welled with tears as she held her friend tighter.
In that instant, the pillars of water lowered…
“Uh—”
They collapsed to the ground with a *splash*, flooding the area.
And finally, a voice filled with reason came from Jane’s lips.
“…Hannah—my friend, you saved me?”
Lee Hyun-wook let out a sigh of relief before coughing up more blood.
“Hah— I really thought I was going to die that time…”
He pulled out a health recovery potion and drank it.
But at that moment, one side of his face turned pale.
*WHOOOO—OOO—OOOSH—!*
Far off in the western sky, near Lake Chad, a powerful beam of light was shooting up.
It was clearly no ordinary phenomenon, and it was an ominous sign, causing everyone to back away slowly.
“Ha… damn it, what’s that now?”
Kim Se-hee, completely drenched, pushed her hair back and snapped irritably.
“That would be, the Spirit King… gracing us with his presence.”
Having heard his daughter’s screams, the Water Spirit King had burst out of the spirit realm.
*WHOOOO—OOO—OOO—OOOSH—!*
He was gathering all the water from Lake Chad to form a massive pillar of water.
It was twice the height of the Mage Tower, casting a long shadow over the city of Yggdrasil.
“A water pillar of that size… wouldn’t it grind the city to dust?”
“Well, Donald Harris, that man won’t just stand by and watch.”
Sure enough, a whirlwind of blue light began to rise from the opposite direction.
*WHOO—OO—OO—OOSH—!*
The guardian of the World Tree, Donald Harris, had begun to respond.
“Wow… either way, it looks like half the city is going to be blown away.”
The moment those two vortexes collided, the force might even uproot Yggdrasil.
And just as the Villains had planned, the battle between the Spirit King and the guardian of the World Tree would begin.
‘If those two old geezers really start an emotional squabble, it won’t be easy to stop them.’
That would cause immense damage to Yggdrasil, which would in turn fuel the dark elf army’s invasion.
“Before that happens, we, no, that girl has to stop it.”
Lee Hyun-wook walked toward the two girls, Jane and Hannah.
“Sorry to ask this of someone who just woke up… but can you stop your father?”
At his words, Jack and Hannah, who had been staring blankly, gasped and looked at Jane.
“F-father? Jane, your father is here?”
Jane looked at the towering pillar of water in the western sky and nodded.
“If you don’t go quickly, your father is going to have it out with the guardian of the World Tree.”
Only then did Jane stumble to her feet. She then looked at Lee Hyun-wook.
“But… who are you, and how do you know that?”
“Huh? Jane, isn’t he someone your father sent?”
When Jack asked, Jane shook her head decisively without a second thought.
“No, I don’t know him at all. And he’s not someone my father sent.”
If the Spirit King had sent someone, it should have been a spirit, but Lee Hyun-wook was human.
At this, Jack stepped in front of Jane and shouted.
“What! You tricked us? Who, who are you people?”
It was true they had saved them, but if their identities were unknown, it was only right to be wary.
In this lawless slum, selfless acts of kindness were rare, so his reaction was understandable.
“I am—”
Lee Hyun-wook opened his mouth, but he couldn’t answer.
This time, something shot up right in front of him.
“Ah, seriously, it’s one thing after another…”
*CR-A-A-A-ACK—!*
Something green burst through the wreckage of the Hive and shot up toward the sky.
It was a bundle of green vines… each one as thick as a sea serpent.
It seemed the dark elf spirit contractors had sown a great number of seeds just before the building collapsed.
‘That’s a plant-based weapon known as the Green Wave.’
As if to prove its name, the green vines rose like a wave and began to crush the surrounding buildings.
“Kyaaaah—”
“R-run!”
The slum residents, who had been watching the situation, began to flee in a hurry.
Lee Hyun-wook wrapped metal belts around everyone in his group and lifted them into the sky.
*CRU-U-U-UNCH—!*
At that moment, the Green Wave crushed the spot where the group had been and devoured the surrounding buildings.
In just over ten seconds, it had soared hundreds of meters high and encroached upon a 1-2 kilometer radius.
“Dammit, at this rate, everyone in Rutlet Town is going to die! Shit…”
Jack cried out in despair. It was a rough neighborhood that was hard to trust, but it was also where his entire life was.
“Wh-what should we do? Those people, we have to save them! There, there are a lot of good people, too!”
At his words, Lee Hyun-wook pulled him closer.
“Jack, you stay out of this and take Jane to Lake Chad.”
“What? What do you mean…”
“I’ll save this place. You just worry about Jane.”
“Uh…”
“Don’t tell me you don’t trust me just because I haven’t told you who I am?”
As Lee Hyun-wook spoke, he gestured with his head behind Jack.
“And, take that.”
*W-H-I-R-R-R-R—*
Something massive was flying toward them from that direction.
Jack turned his head to see what it was.
“Gasp— That’s…”
It was… the most famous airship of the modern era, the flagship of the Steel Fleet, ‘Pridwen’.
“Then, y-you’re…”
Jack finally understood the source of the déjà vu he had been feeling.
The silver arrows that had shot up from the man’s waist…
And the power of metal control, a power that was anything but common…
“Steel Rain…”
Lee Hyun-wook took off his mask, and Jack’s eyes widened even further.
“…It’s, it’s really you?”
The man who had become one of the pillars supporting humanity by averting countless disasters was here.
Then, an AD-2 flowed out from Lee Hyun-wook’s wrist,
And from it, four greatswords, the Mogeley, were summoned, lining up in the air.
“Now, hurry up and go. By the time you get back, the weeding will be done.”