Chapter 163
Chapter 163
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 163
Chapter Title: Chapter 30: Perception (6)
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The beastkin were a race entangled with human trafficking through a long and bitter history of enmity.
They would know more about that world’s ecosystem and structure than ordinary humans.
Just a few months ago, they’d even clashed massively with human traffickers outside the beta server.
‘They might know something.’
Having sorted out my future plans, I turned my indifferent gaze to the side.
It was toward the direction where the players who had fled to the barrier’s outskirts were searching for some way to escape while Jang Ryun and I clashed.
None of them were visible in my line of sight, but I wasn’t worried.
These guys had set up their hideout in a contaminated zone, after all.
I’d cleared out all the monsters and messengers nearby, so it wasn’t a dangerous place anymore.
But since it wasn’t an area protected by Temoria’s divine barrier, the map had appeared.
Thanks to that, rounding up and interrogating the ones who had scattered in all directions wasn’t difficult.
The information Jang Ryun had tried to trade while drugged ended up in my hands more easily than expected.
‘There must’ve been some classified info only that guy knew.’
But I had no desire to compromise with scum like Jang Ryun just to get it.
In the end, not only did I obtain several pieces of information, but I also succeeded in wiping out every last player inside the barrier.
I was the only living thing moving within Ahel’s barrier.
Of course, there were non-living ones too.
-Does it feel good?
Kerax, who had been silent ever since I saw the pile of corpses dumped in the pit, suddenly spoke up.
“What do you mean?”
-Well……
I glanced down at Kerax’s spear, which trailed off uncharacteristically.
‘No amplification buff this time either.’
According to the item description, Kerax harbored a lingering regret for failing to protect the weak.
It said it would support someone who could fill that void.
‘So why can’t I receive this guy’s support?’
Was rescuing the imprisoned demi-humans not enough to satisfy its regret?
Or was it because I didn’t personally participate in evacuating them?
I glared at the spear for a long moment before swallowing a sigh.
‘It was better when it was just a thoughtform.’
At least back then, it didn’t nag at my head, and I’d received a buff once, even if that was it.
The longer I carried this thing, the more I thought the pre-enhanced version had been better.
‘I didn’t rescue the demi-humans expecting any reward.’
That was my honest truth, without a shred of falsehood.
I’d only come to kill them because I believed they wouldn’t help bring about the future I wanted.
But in this incident, I’d expected Kerax’s buff to amplify my mana.
Of course, reality didn’t match my expectations. Kerax hadn’t granted me a buff this time either.
I had no clue how to properly use this item anymore.
“When the hell are you going to give me that precious recognition of yours?”
Frustrated, I spat out a challenging remark.
The response only piled on even more frustration.
-Well……
It usually ignored my pleas to shut up and rambled on endlessly.
But today, it was oddly holding back its words.
Just as I was about to add something out of sheer bewilderment at its behavior.
-If today’s choices convince me that your slaughter wasn’t for realizing your ideals, then I’ll think about it.
I faced a sharp rebuke at an unexpected moment.
Grit. A chilling sound leaked from between my teeth.
I felt truly foul.
But what made me feel even worse was that I couldn’t refute the criticism.
It wasn’t wrong.
Even so, instead of leaving the cave, I headed back inside—not because I planned to reverse my decision.
A short while later, I arrived where Jang Ryun’s corpse lay.
I hoisted the hunk of meat with its dangling head onto my shoulder and headed for what could be considered the cave’s formal main entrance.
Kerax didn’t speak again.
Thanks to that, I could move without any further arguments.
The cave had quite a few small side entrances, but there was only one official one with guards posted.
I’d dealt with the players guarding that one first, before setting up the barrier, and we’d agreed to regroup there after everything was done.
As I headed to the entrance, I checked the bounty mission list.
‘Still nothing new, huh…….’
It had been over a dozen minutes since I killed the players.
But no new bounty missions had popped up since then.
Judging purely by the immediate results, it would mean all my guesses were wrong.
‘For now, let’s keep watching.’
Delays in this damn game weren’t exactly rare.
In fact, bounty mission updates happened once a week.
Following that pattern, a new list would appear tomorrow evening.
It wouldn’t be too late to draw conclusions after observing until then.
I closed the bounty mission list and quickened my pace.
When I reached the cave entrance, I sent a chat message.
- K : It’s done. Tell them to open up.
- Kj : OK!
No sooner had the reply come than the barrier enveloping the surroundings distorted.
Ahel’s double-layered barrier was starting to disappear.
It looked just like the sky collapsing.
The double barrier vanished completely before long, and I rejoined my party members outside.
Waiting for me at the entrance were only Kim Yul and Ahel.
Yang Tae-ho was with the demi-humans evacuated to the mountainside and the knights dispatched from the Palao Church.
‘From the backed-up chats, it looks like Hyung-nim’s buff went off.’
Apparently, it sped up the demi-human evacuation.
They’d been able to expand the escape route midway through.
In a way, the weapons Yang Tae-ho and I had were from the same series.
Yet the results were so different, which pricked painfully at a corner of my heart.
That said, I had no intention of reversing my thoughts, my decisions, just to match others’ views.
As I stood lost in thought, gazing toward where Yang Tae-ho likely was.
Ahel, standing outside the barrier, approached with a sullen expression.
“I was saving that one.”
To be precise, it was less like he was addressing me and more like he was grumbling to himself.
His muttering voice was just loud enough to feel like he was talking to me.
Knowing that, I had no choice but to respond.
“You said it’d help accumulate more mana.”
It was my way of telling him to cut it out.
“K already has mana. Do you think it’s easy to get rank-4 spatial mana? There aren’t many mages with attributes as it is, making trades even harder.”
Ahel grumbled as he pulled out a new accumulation magic tool and handed it to me.
A yellow, 5-star one. Better him demanding payment outright than endless muttering.
I took the new accumulation magic tool and began infusing it with mana.
“But why’d you bring this out?”
Meanwhile, Kim Yul sidled up and pointed at Jang Ryun’s corpse.
No reason to hide it, so I answered straightforwardly.
“Got a message to deliver.”
“……Using a corpse? To who? Why?”
Kim Yul tilted his head in confusion, not fully grasping my intent.
But instead of explaining step by step, I hoisted the corpse again.
“You’ll see.”
Seeing is believing.
Better to see once than hear a hundred times.
* * *
「Title: Vitheta Plaza - Author: Sea
Content: There’s a player corpse hanging in Vitheta Plaza right now. What the hell is this? PK?
- SantaClaus : You’re just seeing it now?
- OneEye : Seems like K caused a scene.
⌎ Music : Why K? What happened? Something go down in Vitheta?
⌎ Snowman : Check the post on page 2 titled ‘Corpse Exhibition.’ There are screenshots there.
- Lord of the Rings : I told you, K’s a psycho. Finally showing his true colors.
⌎ Toma : Guys like you always suck up to that damn System Report, then trash K behind their backs. There must’ve been a reason. K wouldn’t just do something like that.
⌎ Ferrari : Reason or not, K killed a player. Kinda disappointing.
⌎ Toma : I’d bet my neck the dead guy deserved it.
⌎ MintChoco : I agree. K wouldn’t kill without reason.
- Strawberry Parfait : What happened in Vitheta Plaza?
⌎ OtterToes : K killed a Senoa-affiliated player and hung the body up.
⌎ Strawberry Parfait : ??? How do you know? Did you see K do it?
⌎ GoogleStock : K left a message. It’s a confession.
⌎ Strawberry Parfait : Message?
⌎ OtterToes : “I will eradicate your kind without mercy. This one is just the beginning. -K”
⌎ OtterToes : That’s exactly what it says.」
The community was in an uproar over what I’d done, in various ways.
But I was out hunting in the contaminated zone, completely detached from the commotion.
“……Still noisy, huh.”
On the other hand, Kim Yul seemed to be checking the community intermittently.
Judging by how he stared into space and muttered.
“Don’t worry. Word’ll spread from the survivors soon enough.”
Apparently, it wasn’t just Kim Yul.
Yang Tae-ho kept glancing into space too as he patted my shoulder.
“I’m not worried at all.”
Even if everyone was talking about me, I didn’t care how outsiders—who meant nothing to me—viewed me.
I’d displayed Jang Ryun’s corpse precisely because I had something to say.
‘To those who don’t know the details, it might look like a PK incident.’
The message I left with Jang Ryun’s body was a declaration of war to all the other Jang Ryuns out there.
‘They must’ve sent word via chat to the others.’
While I dealt with Jang Ryun, the other players had time on their hands.
They’d surely shared news among their organization.
Meaning Jang Ryun’s crime syndicate was highly likely to be aware of me now.
‘And since some watched the fight, they might’ve passed on my appearance too.’
It wouldn’t be hard to deduce I was Kerax from that.
If so, there was no need to move in secrecy anymore.
As a bonus, this incident aimed to inform regular players about Jang Ryun’s organization.
A warning that joining them would make them my enemy.
‘As Tae-ho Hyung-nim said, survivors’ stories will spread soon enough.’
Then they’d know who I was up against.
I’d drawn the line in preparation for that.
Don’t cross it. The moment you do, you’re my target.
If that message got through, it was enough.
To me, it was over the moment I took the corpse to the plaza.
My attention was elsewhere now.
“Huh? Whoa! What’s this, water works now?”
The water stream that shot from my hand and snagged a monster’s neck was the object of that attention.
‘Water Whip.’
A spell absorbed thanks to the bounty hunter title effect.
Some were deleted due to overlaps, but I’d absorbed plenty normally too.
Over 70% were water-element spells, which would’ve been a headache otherwise.
I’d always failed at the sequencing stage when decomposing water-element mana.
But for some reason, last night during my pre-sleep mana training, something changed.
The water mana responded to my will.
Thanks to that, I trained rank-2 water spells and rank-3 ones usable with other elements until later than usual.
‘Can’t use rank-4 spells or advanced rank-3 attribute ones yet.’
But high-rank spells like that aren’t numerous anyway.
Nothing to do but shelve them until I get more mana later.
‘I don’t know why this change happened suddenly.’
Still, expanding the range of usable spells was a pretty big gain.
I didn’t mind this abrupt shift.
If anything, I welcomed it as good fortune.
But someone else thought differently.
“Oh man…….”
Turning at the faint mutter, I saw Ahel.
He wasn’t joining the fights directly, focusing on support, and disappointment showed on his face.
It vanished the moment I turned, but I’d seen it clear.
“Why the long face?”
I stared at Ahel, who’d switched back to his polite smile, and a thought crossed my mind.
That advice about changing my perception of water—maybe it wasn’t just advice.
I shrugged at Ahel and replied.
“Nothing.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah.”
“Then shall we keep hunting?”
“Nah.”
Time to adjust my condition for the next main scenario.
‘Got some things to do first.’
I called an end to the hunt and returned to the inn in Vitheta.
After washing up, I opened the chat window right away.
It was the one for communicating with Club 249 members.
Before typing, I pondered one last time.
Fortunately—or unfortunately—the conclusion matched what I’d decided last night.
With no further hesitation, I sent the prepared message.
- K : I have two shop free passes right now. Willing to trade with two people who bring the most attribute stones.