Chapter 67
Chapter 67
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 67
Chapter Title: King's Roar Lv.1
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King's Roar
Lv.1
Emits the innate majesty of a king, briefly plunging the target into fear.
Applies to up to 3 targets, with the probability of inducing fear increasing the lower the target's level or total stats are compared to the caster.
Cooldown: 10 minutes
Mana cost: 300
King's Roar was a non-targeting area-of-effect skill.
When facing multiple enemies, it was impossible to designate specific targets.
It was a regrettable limitation, but not purely a drawback.
Thanks to lacking targeting, every entity within the skill's range 'heard' the roar.
It offered the added benefit of startling those with weak courage or low-intelligence monsters.
Just like now.
Kieeeek!!
The marine monsters swimming leisurely flipped into chaos.
A thunderous roar had suddenly boomed through the silent depths of the night sea—it was enough to startle anyone.
Most of them being low-grade monsters played a part too.
Jae-hyeok's goal was to hunt F-rank Black Rock Tuna, and lower-grade monsters tended to inhabit shallower depths.
"......"
Jae-hyeok was adapting his vision to the ocean's darkness.
Combat while submerged.
He had confidently practiced plenty in the mansion's pool, but the sea's environment was entirely different.
Especially now, with monsters thrashing about, the currents were irregular and violent.
'Found it.'
In his rare state of tension, scanning the surroundings, he spotted his prey.
A fish wrapped head to tail in skin black and hard as obsidian.
Its head was larger than its body, and the hundreds of irregular teeth evoked a sawblade.
Confirming the faint red glow from its disproportionately long tail, Jae-hyeok was certain it was a Black Rock Tuna.
'It seems a bit too big, though...'
Butler Hwang had said bigger fish tasted better.
Catching that one might really delight the client.
Thud—boom!
Jae-hyeok's body shot forward.
It looked as if he faced almost no water resistance.
By intensely releasing the mana enveloping his body—stored for oxygen conservation—he used it as a booster.
'Slow.'
Jae-hyeok wasn't satisfied.
To achieve his desired speed in the deep sea, his mana stat would need to be at least double what it was now.
And there was a more pressing issue.
From the moment he released the mana, breathing became impossible.
With the oxygen storage space gone, it was only natural.
Jae-hyeok had fully anticipated it.
But the slower-than-expected movement speed made him uneasy.
'I was aiming for a short battle.'
Now he was forced into a prolonged fight without being able to breathe.
'No, a prolonged fight is no good.'
If the monsters snapped out of it and surrounded him, he'd drown on the spot.
In times like this, give up or...
'Push further.'
Evolve.
Light gleamed in Jae-hyeok's eyes as he resolved himself.
Feeling the currents generating resistance with his entire body, he restructured his mana framework.
Turn tail and flee after coming all this way for mere tuna bait?
Better to drown face-first in a plate of water.
He owed it to himself after eight years of effort.
Kwaaaaaang!!
Jae-hyeok's speed surged dramatically.
The currents that had been pushing him back suddenly shifted in his favor.
The turbulent rapids created by the panicked, rampaging monsters now propelled his back instead.
'A bit faster.'
Jae-hyeok was deploying two mana operation methods simultaneously.
He combined the Kang Family Mana Operation Method—condensing mana in his dantian and channeling it through specific circuits for bursts—with the Taiji Formula for mana circulation.
This added a slight rotational force to the lightning-like bursts of his mana, aligning the spin with the rapids.
Boom!
Jae-hyeok accelerated further.
Fully harmonized with the currents, he controlled his mana to weave through the sea like a rollercoaster, up and down.
Kiyak!
The Black Rock Tuna's eyes widened in shock as something approached at tremendous speed.
Instinctual crisis sense made it swim harder, but it was futile.
Monsters afflicted by King's Roar happened to be thrashing around it.
Terrified beyond mere surprise, they flailed wildly, sweeping up surrounding monsters and briefly blocking the tuna's escape.
Puk!
Jae-hyeok's drawing blade pierced precisely between the Black Rock Tuna's eyes multiple times.
[You have defeated the Queen Black Rock Tuna.]
[Your level has increased.]
'What.'
No wonder it was so big—it was the queen.
He leveled up thanks to it, but it still felt off.
Setting the queen's corpse aside for now, Jae-hyeok scanned the surroundings again.
To find the 'ordinary' Black Rock Tuna the client wanted.
Fortunately, he spotted one easily.
Males always swarmed around a queen.
'Since it's come to this, might as well catch plenty.'
Soon the sea was dyed red with blood.
***
"Hoo...."
The white-haired elder had run his sushi restaurant from the same spot for 50 years.
The workplace he had devoted his life to alongside his wife.
There were more hard days than good, but after losing her, every past day became a precious memory.
It was a space irreplaceable by anything.
The elder wanted to be buried here.
He hoped to serve the dishes he and his wife had developed laughing and arguing until his final breath, then pass peacefully.
But for months now, customers had stopped coming.
Because of the massive sushi chain that opened right in front of his shop.
It was run by a Daeyang Guild subsidiary.
They offered Black Rock Tuna—which boasted far superior taste and nutrition to ordinary fish—as cheap menu items, making competition impossible.
Even his decades-long regulars had been stolen long ago.
"Dear, I'm sorry. I'm reaching my limit."
The elder had scoured for Black Rock Tuna too.
But 90% of the domestic market flowed through Daeyang Guild.
And the guild's subsidiary had blacklisted him.
They refused delivery because he competed with their chain.
A company running thousands of outlets was guarding against a neighborhood hole-in-the-wall with vicious tenacity. It reeked of determination to dominate the local commerce.
"Hoo...."
Buying from other regular suppliers was impossible too.
The price competitiveness was too low for the elder's finances to handle.
"They say poverty is a sin."
The harsh truth of the world he grasped in his later years was brutally cruel.
To live giving to the poor all his life, only to experience poverty in return.
He had no regrets about his past life—not even a speck—but it pained him to see society growing ever harsher.
"Business today?"
It was while the elder sighed repeatedly.
The front door—used only by him for months—swung open, letting in warm sunlight with a blue-haired girl.
"Ah...! Sorry, we have no ingredients right now...."
The elder's face, brightening as he shot up, soon darkened.
He remembered running out of money recently and not restocking.
The girl spoke as he bowed his head toward the bone-dry cutting board.
"We brought the ingredients ourselves."
"Yes...?"
The elder's eyes widened.
Several burly men in similar attire to the girl hauled in ten iceboxes larger than themselves.
Stunned, he listened as she introduced herself.
"I'm Jang Yeon-ju, second-year at Lion's Castle. A student handling your request asked me to deliver the reward."
Ordinary small-scale personal requests didn't specify clubs.
Regular folk didn't even know the system.
The reason Archery Club got the elder's request was simply its low value.
Major clubs had all refused or ignored it, so it got dumped on them as grunt work—and Jang Yeon-ju hadn't realized months had passed in the process.
He must have waited a very long time.
Glancing at the food knife still gleaming sharply on the dry cutting board and the spotless old table, she took a seat.
"Owner? We came a long way—could you perhaps treat us to one plate of sashimi?"
"Y-yes! Of course... Huh?"
The elder gaped opening an icebox.
Each was packed with plump Black Rock Tuna.
The largest box even held one over three times the size of normal.
"Is this... the queen?"
"Yes. I hear they trade for over 20 times the price of regular Black Rock Tuna."
"I-I only requested one Black Rock Tuna...."
"We caught ten going for one—your good fortune, owner."
Spotting the faded awards piled in one corner, Yeon-ju removed her candy and sat up straight politely.
Kids worrying over meals on non-school holidays, exhausted college students, homeless wanderers, solitary elders.
The awards filling the corner unassumingly proved the elder's great deeds of free meals to the needy over decades.
Why Jae-hyeok took this request.
What caught his eye in the client's info sheet—Yeon-ju now realized, blushing.
She had always only checked the request details.
Unless the client was a big shot, she never paid them much mind.
"...I'm truly sorry for the delay in fulfilling your request."
"How can you say that? I am just... just grateful... sob."
A request made clutching at straws.
He had doubted if a grand place like Lion's Castle would handle a mere self-employed vendor.
Yet the world was still worth living in.
Poverty wasn't a sin.
Tears finally streaming from overwhelming emotion.
Yeon-ju placed a handkerchief in the elder's age-spotted hand and said,
"Young Lord Kang Jae-hyeok, son of Duke Kang Dae-guk, is watching over people like you from afar. So keep it up."
From that day on.
The elder's shop boomed.
Gourmets flocked nationwide to taste the queen, and his still-unrusted skills satisfied them all, building fame day by day.
The elder made active use of it.
Just like in his wife's time, he gathered the poor and filled their bellies.
Steady shipments of Black Rock Tuna from Lion's Castle cheered him on.
-Thanks to Young Lord Kang Jae-hyeok.
The phrase the elder dashed off hung in the restaurant, quietly passing lips.