Chapter 165
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 165
Chapter Title: Yggdrasil, Green Wave, Dragon of Death - 5
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Startled by the foreign power emanating from Moglay, Lee Hyun-wook instinctively let go of the hilt.
*Clang—!*
The greatsword, weighing a full two tons, fell with gravity and plunged into the floor—one of Yggdrasil's roots.
‘…No, it’s not two tons.’
He immediately sensed it had become much heavier.
‘I haven’t even reached Mass Release Stage 4 yet…’
Mass Release, one of Moglay's passive skills, was currently at Stage 3—two tons—and even in his past life, Hyun-wook had never reached Stage 4.
But now, Moglay’s weight had clearly increased.
He exerted his metal control to lift Moglay into the air and precisely calculate its weight.
*Vwoom—*
Exactly four tons. It had doubled.
"Did that big sword of yours get some kind of upgrade?"
Emilia Müller, standing beside him, must have sensed something as well. Hyun-wook nodded.
"Yes, it seems I met some condition when I shattered Nidhogg's Life Vessel."
Hyun-wook grasped Moglay’s hilt, lifted it into the air, and checked its detailed information.
[Item Information]
- Name: Moglay (Legendary)
- Effects
1) Mass Release - Enhanced (1-5): Releases its sealed ‘mass’ and grants the user ‘Reinforced Frame’. (Currently Stage 3)
2) Shockwave - Enhanced: Generates a powerful shockwave. Its destructive power is proportional to Mass Release.
3) Mana Blast Blade - Enhanced: Imbues the blade with the ‘power of a typhoon,’ causing the next strike to create a ‘squall.’
4) Space Cutter - Enhanced: Fires an exceptionally sharp blade of wind that cuts through a wide area.
5) Dragon Slayer (3): The power to slay dragons, allowing it to ‘greatly’ ignore a dragon's authority. Also grants ‘Dragon Force Stage 3,’ enhancing all abilities (+40%) and forming a supreme ‘Mental Barrier.’
6) Barrier Breaker: Ignores a significant portion (50%) of all colossal monsters' ‘barriers.’
As he saw, every existing skill now had ‘Enhanced’ added to its name, and ‘Dragon Slayer’ had risen to Stage 3.
Finally, a new passive skill called ‘Barrier Breaker’ had been added.
‘Wait, ignoring half of a colossal monster’s barrier… This is going to be a much more incredible option than I thought.’
Even at this very moment, the precursors to another major event, <Titanomachy>, were occurring all over the world.
In other words, it wouldn't be long before all sorts of giants began to trample through humanity’s cities one by one.
‘When I have to face them, this Barrier Breaker skill will be a more powerful weapon than anything else.’
To put it a little dramatically, it was as if he had acquired a Titan Slayer.
"What's with that weird smile? That doesn't suit you... Did you get that good of an option?"
Emilia Müller chuckled and leaned in. Hyun-wook cleared his throat and nodded.
"Well, you did kill a dragon twice, so it would be a shame if the reward wasn't substantial. By the way, what was his name again, that guy from England? That greasy man must be so embarrassed to be called DS now. A real DS has been born right here."
Just as she said, Edward Woods wouldn't even be able to hold a candle to Hyun-wook now.
She smiled brightly and gave Hyun-wook a thumbs-up.
"As expected of Lee Hyun-wook. You're worthy of the man I've entrusted my life to. And please, continue to take good care of it."
"Before you make requests like that, you should probably take better care of yourself. If your arm flies off like a Lego piece again, you won't even be able to get insurance."
"Oh, that? Hehe—I've never taken a proper hit before… I didn't know my barrier could be pierced so easily."
"It wasn't a situation you could just laugh off. Anyway, let's go."
Shortly after, the two of them exited the narrow space, the 'unidentified crevice,' where the Life Vessel had been.
The cavern, which had once been a terrible darkness, was now filled with bright light. Beams of light were streaming in from the ceiling, through the gaps in Yggdrasil's roots.
It seemed Donald Harris was using his 'master authority' as the World Tree Administrator to draw in Yggdrasil's own light.
Thanks to that, their vision was clear, and they could see Nidhogg's form sprawled out at the far end of the cavern in a single glance.
Its body was so massive that, without a closer look, it could be mistaken for a black hill.
*Hiss—*
As they drew nearer, a hazy smoke swirled around the creature's head. It seemed the acid breath pooled in its mouth was leaking out, melting the floor and releasing toxic gas.
Its red eyes were rolled halfway back, completely devoid of life.
Just then, Donald Harris and the Spirit King approached.
Both of them had taken a hit from Nidhogg, as evidenced by the bloodstains here and there, but fortunately, neither seemed to have any fatal wounds.
"Steelain, it's redundant to say, but you've achieved another incredible feat. As someone who couldn't shake off his apprehension, I feel both ashamed and still unable to comprehend it. How can a human like this exist… And I'm also relieved that such a human is someone I can trust…"
Although Donald Harris had been astonished by Hyun-wook's accomplishments several times before, he must have felt that sense of amazement being renewed with each passing moment.
This was a reaction Kim Kang-seok and Woo Seong-mun had also shown, so Hyun-wook was quite used to it.
"Even so, I never imagined we'd catch that monster so quickly… What I mean is… I feel once again that investing in you was the right decision. And personally, I wanted to tell you that I'm proud to have found a trustworthy person after so long, and I feel I must not spare any investment in the future."
"Haha—I was only able to do it because you helped me, Mr. Harris. Ah, and… may I take Nidhogg's corpse?"
"Of course. I merely provided the venue this time. It's only right that the beast belongs to you, isn't it?"
At that, Emilia Müller nudged Hyun-wook’s shoulder, then thumped her own chest and spoke proudly.
"See? I told you this guy was no joke from the start."
"I think you did, but I have a bit of a trust issue with humans, and I tend not to believe gambling addicts and drunks…"
Emilia Müller's face crumpled at his words.
"Hah—seriously… Do you know you sometimes worry me by showing off how friendless you are? Oh! By the way, how could you not tell me something like that was under my feet? Landlord, this is a breach of contract."
The two recluses, who had been hiding within the sanctuary of Yggdrasil to escape the world's jealousy and conspiracies, bickered.
Come to think of it, Hyun-wook had cleanly resolved the major worries of both of them.
But it wasn't time to relax just yet.
"Now, we still haven't caught the ones who awakened Nidhogg, so we need to move quickly."
At Hyun-wook's words, those standing around him nodded.
"Right, there must be a dark elf spy still remaining somewhere in this city, plotting something else. The rotten bastards…"
Although they had thwarted their plans twice, the enemies were still hiding somewhere in the city.
They couldn't rest easy until every last one of them was wiped out, as there was no guarantee they wouldn't try to pull off another outrageous stunt.
"It seems we'll need to search the entire city for a while. I'll need both of you to give it your all."
Hyun-wook said, looking at Donald Harris and Emilia Müller. At that, Peter Clarke stepped forward.
"Ah, I will take care of that. Since I was of no help in defeating that black dragon… I will see to it that I handle that task properly."
The <White Tree Guard> itself didn't have a large force, but they had a considerable number of security personnel under their command, so they would be able to search all of Yggdrasil under Peter Clarke's direction.
"By the way, Peter, are you hurt? You seemed to fly off pretty roughly earlier. Let me know if you need a heal. I got hit pretty hard too, but I feel much better after healing."
Emilia Müller asked casually, but a shadow fell over Peter Clarke's face.
"Hah… Emilia, I apologize. I failed to do my duty. In fact, I wanted to ask you. Your arm earlier, it looked like you were badly hurt…"
As the Saintess's guardian knight, he seemed to have been deeply shocked by the scene of her arm being blown off.
The Saintess had been plagued by assassination attempts for the past few years, and Peter Clarke had devoted all his efforts to her protection.
He couldn't help but feel a sense of self-reproach that she had suffered such a grievous wound.
"Hey, as long as my head doesn't fly off, I can heal anything. But the severed part is a bit sore, so I'll have to take it easy for a few days… I'll just get a little drunk, and it'll be fine."
At her words, Peter Clarke's expression darkened further.
"...Next time, I promise, you won't get so much as a scratch on your finger."
"Yeah, yeah, I get it, so stop being so gloomy. Come on, let's get to the surface, catch the bastards who planned this, and then have a drink."
She smiled as if it were nothing and made a gesture of clinking a glass.
But honestly, when her arm had flown off, Hyun-wook had felt his own heart sink.
It was an injury that even most warrior-class Players would find difficult to handle, and she had likely never experienced such a wound before… It seemed she was tougher than he thought.
‘She’s an essential part of our forces for the upcoming battle against the Necromancer, so I must protect her at all costs.’
To do that, he needed to find and clean out all the Villains lurking in the vicinity.
‘First I had to clean up Seoul, and now Yggdrasil… This is getting tiresome.’
However, when they ascended to the surface in the Prydwen, they found there was no need to go searching for the Villains.
"Hah—what is this?"
Emilia Müller looked out the Prydwen's window and snorted in disbelief. The others, too, couldn't hide their bewildered expressions at the scene unfolding before their eyes.
The Prydwen had just emerged from the pit Nidhogg had dug… and surrounding the hole was a group of men in black, fully armed and preparing to descend into it.
"They look suspicious, no matter how you look at them, right?"
Hyun-wook nodded in response to Emilia Müller's question.
"Well, with undead monsters crawling everywhere, I doubt people unrelated to this incident would be trying to tour a hole a dragon just came out of."
"So it's certain that those bastards are the trash who caused this mess, right? We need to catch them all and beat them down, and they just happen to be all gathered together."
And crucially, among them was a Villain Hyun-wook had seen in the 'Hive's' underground: Mario Lima.
‘That bastard later becomes one of Black Door’s key members.’
He was likely serving as the right-hand man to the current vice-chairman of the Spiritmancer Association.
In any case, in this awkward encounter, the men couldn't hide their dumbfounded expressions.
"..."
They had probably been expecting Nidhogg to emerge from the hole, not the Prydwen, and were preparing for the cleanup.
But the fact that the Prydwen had emerged unscathed meant the opposite for Nidhogg, so their expressions shifted from surprise to something closer to despair.
Hyun-wook opened the Prydwen's ramp door, stepped outside, and looked down at them.
"By any chance, are you here looking for a friend named Nidhogg?"
At his question, the men couldn't answer. They just stared blankly at their leader, Mario Lima. But he, too, wore a stunned expression.
Then, Emilia Müller came up beside Hyun-wook, let out a sinister "Ehehehe—," and looked at the men before speaking.
"Hey! Your dragon was pretty awesome! It's lying down there with its eyes rolled back, spasming. Wanna go see?"
***
No major battle followed.
After all, they wouldn't dare to stand against Lee Hyun-wook, who had just defeated Flos Ruber and Nidhogg in succession.
They chose to flee instead, but even that didn't last long before they were caught.
After capturing all the Villains and dark elves and locking them away in another root prison, the group returned inside Yggdrasil.
Here, Yggdrasil's 'Central Reception Room,' despite its grand name, looked like the living room of an ordinary European home.
Come to think of it, since Donald Harris rarely received guests, it made sense that the reception room wouldn't be properly furnished.
Still, being inside Yggdrasil itself meant that wounds and fatigue were healing rapidly just by being there.
*Crackle— Crackle—*
Four people—Hyun-wook, Park Jun-mo, Kim Se-hee, and the Spirit King—sat by the fireplace on one side of the room.
A short distance away, Jane, Jack, and Hannah were sitting on a sofa, talking amongst themselves… Hannah kept making a tearful face and eventually started sniffling.
The day's events had been harrowing, and discovering the shocking identity of her closest friend must have left her psychologically unstable.
‘But there’s something about their conversation that bothers me for some reason.’
The name 'Nicole,' which he had heard several times since meeting them, was nagging at Hyun-wook for no particular reason.
‘Hmm, a prophet…’
From what he overheard, Hannah was repeatedly insisting that a mysterious girl named Nicole had prophesied this entire situation.
And Jack and Jane seemed to agree to some extent.
‘But the prophet died a long time ago, and as far as I remember, no Player with the prophecy trait ever appeared again.’
Therefore, the 'prophecy' they were talking about had to be a misunderstanding.
‘If not, then perhaps on the Villain’s side…’
*Tap—*
Hyun-wook adjusted his posture to face him.
"Ahem, I believe it was a few months ago. I noticed my daughter was going out into the human world and scolded her severely for it… That's why she ran away and met with misfortune."
"Ah, I see."
"In any case, back then, I believed humans were an untrustworthy lot, and that belief hadn't changed until just yesterday. But…"
Well, the rest of such a cliché line was obvious.
"...Now, I think my opinion has changed a little. And it's all thanks to you, Lee Hyun-wook."
As he spoke, he held out his palm. In that instant, a small box materialized on it.
"Please accept this as a token of my gratitude."
It seemed he had inadvertently completed a part of the Spirit King's quest, and was now receiving a small reward.
Inside the box were two emerald-colored gems.
[Item Information]
- Name: Strange Engraving Stone (Heroic)
- Effect: Imbues an item with the power of a random attribute.
"Such a precious item… Thank you very much."
It was a type of 'orb.'
However, what was unusual was that it was 'random' rather than having a specific attribute.
This meant that while he might get an undesirable option, he could also get a special option that was hard to come by.
‘This is perfect for the two Pale Notes.’
The downside was not knowing what option he would get, but whatever it was, it would be better than nothing.
"Ah, but there is one thing I'd like to ask."
At Hyun-wook's words, the Spirit King nodded with a benevolent expression.
"I've obtained an item, and I was hoping you might be able to appraise it."
"Hmm, may I see it?"
Hyun-wook summoned an AD-2 and took out a black crystal orb from within.
"Here, this pocket space."
[Item Information]
- Name: Room of Solitude (Special)
- Effect: Unknown
This was the mysterious item he had obtained after defeating Flos Ruber.
Given that it was carried by the boss monster of the dark elves, it was undoubtedly something extraordinary, but he hadn't opened it rashly for fear of what dangerous thing might be inside.
"As I understand it, high-ranking spirits are masters when it comes to manipulating space. Would it be possible to know what's inside this pocket space without opening it?"
"It shouldn't be too difficult, but I will need to take a closer look…"
The Spirit King took it, held it in both hands, and closed his eyes. The space around his hands began to shimmer.
"Inside this is…"
He slowly opened his eyes and continued.
"...Hmm, it's not an object but some kind of living creature trapped inside. It's not a ferocious monster, and seeing as it's quite exhausted, it seems this is a prison."
A prison. At those words, Hyun-wook paused in thought.
Then, a certain piece of lore about the dark elf kingdom came to mind.
‘Their political scene was also quite complicated.’
There was a time when the dark elf kingdom was friendly towards humans.
That was during the reign of the boss monster known as the 'Dark Elf King.'
‘But the situation changed with the Villains' intervention.’
With the support of the Villains, the boss monster known as the 'Dark Elf Great General' staged a coup and seized power. That was when the dark elf kingdom's conquest of Europe began.
And seeing the dark elves' current hostile actions toward humanity, it seemed the Villains had moved a bit faster this time and had become deeply involved in the dark elf kingdom's politics.
In other words, he could surmise that inside this pocket space were captured members of the royal family, who were not hostile to humanity.
***
Hyun-wook stood in a vast room.
It was the same place where he had previously opened the City Sweeper and persuaded the spirit colony to form a contract.
Hyun-wook summoned a large number of AD-2s there, then took out the black crystal orb—the Room of Solitude.
When he infused it with mana…
*Fwoosh—*
Black smoke billowed out from within, and soon, dark elves with their limbs bound tumbled out.
There were twelve in total, all with gaunt faces.
"Ugh…"
"W-what is happening? Hah—"
They looked at the human standing before them with surprised expressions.
Meanwhile, Hyun-wook's eyes could partially discern their identities.
- Dark Elf Royal Guard (LV: 78)
- Dark Elf Royal Guard (LV: 74)
But among them, one dark elf with a particularly high level stood out.
- Dark Elf Kingdom's 2nd Prince, Clypeus Griseo (LV: 109)
Hyun-wook had already interrogated some of the captured dark elves and gathered a certain amount of information.
‘So… the 2nd Prince was dispatched to a region outside the kingdom on a mission to study human civilization when a coup occurred in the dark elf kingdom. He was subdued by his subordinate, Flos Ruber, and imprisoned in a pocket space, right?’
*Step— Step—*
Hyun-wook approached the 2nd Prince.
"..."
The prince looked up at Hyun-wook with eyes full of警戒. However, it wasn't simple hostility or fear, but rather an attempt to analyze the current situation, as his pupils slowly darted around.
He first scanned Hyun-wook's gear from head to toe, then lowered his head slightly to survey the surroundings, likely looking for an escape route.
"I have no intention of harming you, nor do I plan to keep you locked up… so you can relax."
Hyun-wook untied the 2nd Prince's bonds and offered him water. The prince took the water and had his men drink first.
"...You're the 2nd Prince of the dark elf kingdom, correct?"
At those words, the dark elves froze, their expressions hardening.
It seemed that information was a rather critical secret to them.
"There's no use pretending you don't know…"
This time, it was not the 2nd Prince but a royal guard who stepped forward.
"Damn it, did that woman Flos Ruber sell us out to you humans? What do you plan to do with us, human!"
Their aggressive reaction was understandable.
To be suddenly betrayed, trapped in a pocket space for a long time, and then to find themselves before an unfamiliar race upon release—it would be stranger if they weren't on edge.
"No, Flos Ruber was caught plotting to conquer this place, Yggdrasil, and was killed by my hand."
At that, their expressions changed subtly.
"2nd Prince, I'd like to make a proposal. Will you hear me out? Ah, I am Lee Hyun-wook… better known in human society by the nickname Steelain."
When Hyun-wook revealed his identity, a look of recognition flashed across the dark elves' faces, suggesting they were aware of his fame.
"...Your Highness, I believe he is."
"Hmm, Steelain… Come to think of it…"
He spoke, looking directly at Hyun-wook. His eyes held a strange awe, mixed with a hint of fear.
"Steelain, the Destroyer of the Black Orc Kingdom…"
It seemed that's what he was called among them.
‘They must be wary of the fact that I uprooted the Black Orc Kingdom.’
Though they were completely different races, both kingdoms shared the commonality of being monster kingdoms born after the Wave.
"Hmm… Destroyer of the Black Orc Kingdom, is that my nickname among you? Good, that's interesting."
Hyun-wook nodded and took a step forward.
"This time, I was thinking of being called something a little different…"
"What do you mean by that?"
Hyun-wook lowered his stance, meeting the 2nd Prince's eyes.
"I will help you reclaim your kingdom."