Chapter 60
Chapter 60
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 60
Chapter Title: Bell Karuan (3)
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Regin's magic flew relentlessly toward his injured arm.
Slash!
Seria didn't miss the opening either, mercilessly stabbing her twin daggers into the wound.
Karuan couldn't properly defend against any of the attacks.
Clang!
With his remaining hand, he had to focus entirely on blocking Greg's strikes.
"We finish him like this!"
If Greg's attack landed, there would be no hesitation.
They would solidify their advantage and sever his neck.
All three pressed their assault with the same thought in mind.
"...Huh?"
It was the briefest gap.
The kind of momentary lapse inevitable when unleashing a barrage of attacks.
Stab!
In other words, a split-second opening appeared in the air for Seria.
"You rat bitch...!"
Karuan seized it, thrusting his sword into Seria's abdomen as she landed on the ground.
"Seria!!"
Her sharp scream pierced Greg and Regin's ears.
Greg's ax swing halted.
Regin froze too, holding his breath as he stared.
He knew they had to keep attacking, but his body wouldn't move.
'Blood Drain would hurt him too, but...'
He had already used it twice.
One more absorption here would take a toll on him as well.
If that's what he was attempting—a Blood Drain—it would be a gamble on his part.
"Greg! That's not a normal Blood Drain!"
As the sword twisted in Seria's body, something began falling from her bag.
It would be more accurate to say it was drawn toward something.
'Blood Mark Crystal...!'
It floated slowly through the air, drawn to its master.
Crunch.
Greg belatedly buried his ax in the man's chest.
Grurrk—
But Karuan's body was already transforming once more.
No longer human in form, shifting into something closer to a monster.
'He's absorbing the Blood Mark Crystal.'
His skin was hardening in real time—now even Greg couldn't pierce it.
Regin's mind went blank.
The head always filled with complex calculations emptied rapidly.
'...Solution.'
All to find one single solution.
'The answer.'
Just one more step, and he'd have it.
His experience from countless similar situations kicked in instinctively, seeking that one answer.
He had to clear out everything useless and pinpoint the single solution.
Grit.
Clenching his teeth, Regin pulled a scroll from his bag.
No hesitation—he tossed it to her.
"...Tear it right now!"
Impaled on the sword and dangling in the air, Seria reflexively caught the scroll from Regin and ripped it open with both hands.
It was her final act of desperation.
The moment the scroll activated.
Whoosh—
Mana enveloped Seria's body, turning her briefly into an intangible... ghostly state immune to attacks.
'Ghostification Scroll.'
It was one provided to Regin by Paphoni, the star pupil of the Nemede School and a researcher of curse magic.
The scroll temporarily turned the user into a ghost.
—...!
Something inhuman was already emerging from Karuan's mouth.
He had crossed the line into forbidden black magic.
On top of two Blood Drains, he was now incorporating the Blood Mark Crystal into his body.
'The current Karuan is beyond what we can handle with black magic.'
Once this overload finished, they would all die.
"Greg!!"
Regin shouted as Seria fell to the ground in her ghostly state.
"It'll return to normal soon! Pick her up and run!"
They couldn't miss this moment before he fully awakened.
Regin yelled at Greg, who scooped Seria into his arms and bolted.
"Run farther!"
There was no time for detailed explanations.
They needed one sure strike.
To deliver it, Greg and the woman had to get farther away.
As he searched for the quickest words to explain what came next.
Regin pulled another scroll from his bag.
"You mad bomber!"
"...!!"
"Run as far as you can and hit the dirt together!!"
Greg desperately pumped his legs, still carrying the woman.
Feeling the full weight of his armor and her body, enduring the tearing pain in his legs, he raced into the distance.
Tear!
Regin tore his scroll.
Flash!
Regin wrapped himself in a shield scroll and dropped to the ground.
In less than a second, silence blanketed the world as all sounds vanished.
Then, moments later, a massive explosion rocked the entire clearing.
Boom—!!
Regin's special homemade bomb.
The blast spread, swallowing the surrounding area.
White and black flames collided, erupting in light.
—...!!
A monster's scream echoed from the epicenter.
It was barely audible, though.
Intertwined with the deafening roar of the explosion, it formed a cacophony of horror.
—Roar!!
But amid it, Regin was certain.
Karuan had been engulfed by those flames.
'Something even a skeleton couldn't endure. No way you could.'
As the man's body melted, black flames filled his vision.
'Black Flame...'
Greg's words about the bomb flashed through Regin's mind.
He had called the black flames Black Flame.
'But it's not just Black Flame.'
After the Black Flame flickered, white flames followed in succession.
Black Flame and White Flame intertwined relentlessly, blazing fiercely at the center.
"......"
Regin stared, entranced.
Even though it wasn't his first time seeing it.
As he crouched against the shockwave, those flames danced in his vision.
—...Regin!!
'...Huh?'
The voice of Karuan, whom he thought dead, reached him.
—Regin Petrichio!!
...Had he ever told him his name?
He didn't notice the voice sounded even older than before.
The strength he was exerting to withstand the wind just ebbed away.
Slide—
Regin, who had been holding on barely, lost consciousness.
Deep darkness began covering his entire field of view.
* * *
His body felt light.
Like someone waking from a pleasant dream.
'No.'
It wasn't waking from a dream.
It was more like lingering in a good dream.
Regin sat up.
Nothing was visible around him, but comfort enveloped his entire body.
It was peaceful.
Even in this dark place, eyes open.
Soon, the form of a man appeared in his vision.
Regin rubbed his eyes and looked again—the figure was familiar.
"Karuan."
Bell Karuan. That was his name.
Karuan was gazing at Regin too.
But with an expression of utter peace, unlike during their battle.
'He was smiling with the bright innocence of a child.'
Regin approached him, mesmerized.
As if setting everything aside. Bell Karuan smiled radiantly.
'...Huh? Something just...'
The sense of wrongness was fleeting.
Bell Karuan spoke to Regin.
"I finally understand."
"What...?"
"I get it now that I'm here."
"...What?"
"In the near future. And the distant future too—the life I had to repeat."
It had all been futile.
Bell Karuan continued in a murmur.
"What a nostalgic name."
Bell Karuan took Regin's hand.
Regin's gaze shifted to their hands, then back to Bell Karuan.
"Regin Petrichio."
"......"
"No. Your name is..."
As if delighted to finally meet. Bell Karuan went on.
A voice of utmost clarity emerged from him.
"Park Jin-seong."
* * *
"...Regin!!"
......
"Regin!!!"
......
Slap!!
"Get it together, Regin!!"
"Huh!!"
The skull fortress shrouded in darkness.
In the clearing swept by the explosion, Greg desperately slapped Regin's cheeks.
Regin's eyes snapped open. A held breath and a scream burst from his mouth simultaneously.
"G-Greg!"
"You're alive...!!"
"Who slaps someone like...'
"...Sorry. I don't have much experience waking fainted people."
Greg let out a sigh of relief. Sweat dripped from his forehead.
Only after confirming Regin's consciousness returned did Greg wipe his sweat.
"...I feel like I'll fall asleep again, so hit me once more."
Slap!!
A stinging sensation spread across his face.
But instinctively, he knew.
If not for this, he'd be pulled back into that deep, dark place.
'How hard did he really slap... It still stings.'
Regin let out a hollow laugh, touching his heated cheek.
"Pretty cheerful for someone who barely survived death."
"I didn't die, just fainted briefly..."
"Hm?"
"......"
But the smile vanished instantly.
'...What was that?'
Regin's mind grew tangled.
Right before Greg woke him, in the dream he clearly had, he felt like he'd heard something.
And talked about something.
...Nothing came to mind.
"Good thing you're alive. Had me worried. And we're all alive. That ghost swordsman... ended up like that."
"......"
"You finished him."
"Ah."
Only as Greg spoke in relief did Regin grasp the situation.
'Right. I threw the bomb scroll.'
And this was the result before his eyes.
The stone-and-grass clearing was now a scorched wasteland.
In the center, a crater dented by the explosion.
And within it, the gruesomely torn corpse of a man.
The ghost swordsman, Bell Karuan's remains.
'Flesh fragments if you can even call them remains.'
It was a gruesome sight, yet ironically, a sigh of relief escaped him.
"...Ghost swordsman, huh. Never thought he'd be this insane."
"......"
He agreed a hundred times over.
"Blood Drain overloads the body after one use, and he did it three times..."
He understood why the kingdom strictly controlled black magic.
The moment you crossed the line.
Even a swordsman at the tail end of rank 2 could unleash rank 3 battle power.
And the biggest issue: no control.
'It didn't feel like he was controlling his own mind.'
Instinct. Or some other entity driving those eerie movements.
The image was still vivid.
"Anyway, Seria..."
"...She and you saved my life. Waiting for her to come to."
A woman with a deep abdominal wound staggered toward Regin.
The fact she had some flesh left meant she'd downed a potion immediately.
"I grabbed a potion from the bag in a rush... I'll repay this too."
Seria hesitated, then clasped her hands together.
The exact same pose as when she first received the potion.
"Twice. When your life is in danger. I'll stake mine twice."
It had been a grueling battle, but the gains were solid.
'I'll talk to her later. Ask if she'll join the party.'
The twin-dagger assassin he'd seen only once could become a party member.
Her relentless attacks on Karuan's eyes flashed in his mind.
'If we fill in her lacking strength and mana...'
Compared to Karuan, who became a 17th-floor calamity, her combat prowess wouldn't be low.
His experience raising party members told him so.
Thud.
As tension released, Regin's body slumped to the ground again.
'...Yeah. We took down Karuan.'
The reality finally sank in.
'In all my DAT runs, I only managed it twenty times... uprooting a calamity.'
Lying on the ground, staring at the sky, Regin thought.
Of the dozens, hundreds of explorers who might have died somewhere in the future.
Quietly protected in a place no one knew.
'Of course, time for rewards.'
Regin opened his mouth laboriously.
"Greg."
"Why call?"
"We'll loot as soon as we recover."
"...What?"
Looting. Harvesting the corpses.
Karuan and his party's gear was far from low-tier.
"We take what we can."