Chapter 61
Chapter 61
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 61
Chapter Title: Son Search #42
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[O Chosen One!]
“Mitra!”
Park Cheon-ho tossed aside Madrof’s bow. He drew Holy Sword Mitra and charged toward the ratmen swarming the altar.
He slashed, sliced, and thrust.
The razor edge empowered by Sharpness Sword knew no equal. In an instant, over a dozen ratmen tumbled to the ground.
“Hero!”
Lucille cried out.
Her shout wasn’t mere encouragement.
Cheon-ho sensed it too. He turned and witnessed it.
Above the palace, above the capital, a second stroke was etched into the sky.
Beautiful song poured from the pillar of light, and angels—real or illusory, it was impossible to tell—began descending from the heavens, dancing as they came.
[It’s an illusion!]
Mitra cried sharply, and Cheon-ho nearly cursed but held it back. The effect was clear enough. The Plague God’s horde, madly charging the altar, halted for a moment and stared blankly at the pillar!
A third stroke appeared.
Each stroke spanned dozens of meters—it was impossible not to see.
And from the third stroke, it began providing real aid.
“Kraaa!”
“Aaack!”
The Plague God’s minions atop the roof groaned in agony. Some even screamed outright.
Meanwhile, Cheon-ho’s group felt endless power surging through them. No matter how many times they swung their swords, fatigue never set in.
“Don’t let your guard down!”
Even so, the enemies were too numerous. They staggered now, but their numbers remained overwhelming.
And it wasn’t just ratmen swarming in.
[Rat Chimera!]
Mitra shouted. Cheon-ho saw it too. A monster fifteen meters tall at the head barreled straight toward them. For its massive bulk, its speed was unbelievable. With a single leap, it could likely smash the altar flat under its weight.
Unlike the third floor, there were no rock golems. These beasts were far too large to pass through the pillars.
Ha!
Cheon-ho exhaled. He judged swiftly. He gripped Mitra tighter.
Four Guardian Kings Martial Arts.
Virupaksha’s Palm.
Concentrated Strike.
He focused thunderous power. Mitra’s blade glowed blue.
He couldn’t block it on the roof. He had to stop it before it reached.
Cheon-ho seized Mitra with both hands. Ignoring any talk of strain or recklessness, he charged straight at the oncoming rat chimera. With a body transcending human limits—the hero’s flesh—he kicked off the ground and finally leaped high.
[ROOOARRR!]
Mitra roared in his stead. The rat chimera spotted Cheon-ho and leaped to meet him, intent on crushing him with its torso.
Cheon-ho swung Mitra. He unleashed the gathered thunder straight ahead. A ferocious boom erupted as blue lightning crashed down.
“Hero!”
Lucille shouted, extending both arms. The healing god’s power from the pillar of light amplified Cheon-ho’s lightning.
Kuhwaaaa!
The rat chimera’s charge halted midair. It plummeted, shaking the ground. Cheon-ho rolled atop the fallen beast. Dodging its convulsing body, he moved again.
[It’s coming!]
Mitra shouted once more. Not the rat chimera still thrashing on the ground.
It was the ratmen filling the earth.
Bells rang from all directions.
The ratmen went berserk and charged at Cheon-ho.
Barely twenty meters away.
Not far from the palace at all. But everything had changed beyond reason.
The capital was still under the Plague God’s dominion.
And much time remained.
Instead of swinging his sword amid the ratmen, Cheon-ho thought of returning to the palace.
But it wasn’t easy. There were far too many ratmen.
“Crush him!”
Someone bellowed. And as if to make it real, a wave of ratmen crashed over Cheon-ho.
“Roooar!”
Cheon-ho roared. A mad wind rose from Mitra’s blade, shredding the ratmen. He threw himself through the gap in the wave, and a voice called from afar.
“Hero!”
It was Lucille. She flew toward him, arms outstretched. Cheon-ho understood. Using Swift Scanda, he stepped on the ratmen’s heads and shoulders. He leaped toward the incoming Lucille.
[Got it!]
Cheon-ho grabbed Lucille’s hand. She nearly plummeted for a moment, but bolstered by the healing god’s power, she exerted greater strength than usual. She spread her wings wide and gained altitude.
A fourth stroke appeared.
Lucille pulled with all her might, and the battle atop the altar intensified further.
Then Doruma released his bowstring.
From afar, from the distance, he loosed an arrow. It flew straight for Lucille’s head.
Ka-clang!
Cheon-ho deflected it. Hanging from Lucille, he twisted and batted away Doruma’s arrow.
But the power was too great. The Plague God’s aura lingering on the arrow was trouble too.
Lucille’s wings lost strength in that instant.
She cried out and fell. Cheon-ho pulled her close and held her. He somehow executed a landing roll to touch down safely.
“Lucille!”
Aurael screamed. But she couldn’t fly up. No, she couldn’t even properly see Lucille. The number of ratmen scaling the palace walls had now surpassed hundreds.
Doruma tossed his bow. He drew two of the five demon swords and charged once more. Straight toward Cheon-ho’s position.
“Lucille!”
Cheon-ho shouted. Lucille, who had briefly lost consciousness, snapped her eyes open and clamped her mouth shut. Chunks of ratmen flesh and blood rained down from all sides.
Cheon-ho held Lucille with one arm. With the other, he wielded Mitra, holding back the surging tide of ratmen from every direction.
There were still so many left. A fifth stroke appeared, and the angels’ song grew louder in the distance.
‘Hero!’
Lucille thought the words. She racked her mind for something, anything, she could do. Then ratmen blood splattered over her head again.
Ha!
Cheon-ho exhaled. The bells clanged louder. The Plague God’s aura strengthened. The ratmen’s numbers swelled. Now they seemed less interested in slashing or stabbing Cheon-ho—they just wanted to crush him under their bodies.
Cheon-ho staggered for a moment.
Mitra screamed something, and Lucille hurriedly grabbed him.
‘Father.’
Cheon-ho thought instinctively. He readjusted his grip on Mitra and tightened his hold around Lucille’s waist.
He had to endure.
He had to prevail.
Three minutes left.
No matter what.
At least Mitra and Lucille!
“Hero!”
Doruma roared. He leaped over the ratmen tide and charged at Cheon-ho.
Cheon-ho looked at Doruma.
And the moment their gazes met.
As the sixth stroke appeared.
Something sliced through the sky.
Amid the angels’ song.
Piercing the sacred, radiant pillar of light.
Karaka saw it.
Saschiell and Eliel in the sky had their eyes stolen by the thing flying past them.
It wasn’t that large.
But not small either.
Black.
Rectangular.
Something none of the angels, rock dwarves, or Demon God’s minions had ever seen.
It pierced the ratmen tide. Shredding it apart, it arrived before Cheon-ho amid blazing light.
Paaah!
For an instant, an immense force erupted. Doruma, mid-leap, was flung back. The ratmen surging toward Cheon-ho tumbled on their rears and were pushed far away.
And thus, space opened up.
A clearing about ten meters in diameter.
At its center stood Cheon-ho, Mitra, and Lucille. Before them loomed the black, rectangular something.
Lucille gasped for breath.
Mitra panicked.
But Cheon-ho did not.
What appeared before him.
A traveler’s carry-on suitcase, common at airports.
A white label was affixed to it.
And below that, another label.
Lucille blinked. Mitra let out a dazed voice.
And Cheon-ho roared.
He flung open the suitcase lid.
* * *
[Quest Duration: 4 min 5 sec]
[Quest Duration: 3 min 48 sec]
[Quest Duration: 3 min 32 sec]
[Son Search #42]
[Son, hang in there.]
[Our boy, hang in there!]
His father’s lessons were always effective, as ever.
The moment he saw the suitcase.
The moment he read the label on the lid.
Cheon-ho understood intuitively.
Son Search #42
His father and mother hadn’t found him yet.
They were still searching.
42.
A considerable number. An ambiguous one too. It surely hadn’t stopped at forty-two.
Fifty.
Perhaps a hundred.
No matter how amazing his mother was, she couldn’t have packed enormous quantities into dozens of suitcases.
But she was still his mother.
And he was still his father.
As he roared and opened the lid, Lucille’s eyes widened, her breath catching.
Mitra gasped in reverse.
And Cheon-ho reflexively grinned.
“Son, back in my days in Phaien?”
It was the illusion of a handsome man.
Only up to the shoulders, with proportions a perfect 1:1 to reality.
Early thirties.
He resembled Cheon-ho but had much bolder, more masculine features.
Lucille sensed it instantly.
Mitra realized it too.
Cheon-ho’s father.
The man who taught him everything.
Lucille, who had been holding her breath, erupted into violent coughs. Mitra held her breath again instead, and Cheon-ho swatted away his father’s illusion, who seemed poised to launch into a long tale.
Stories starting with “Back in my days in Phaien?” always lasted over an hour.
Cheon-ho loved his father’s stories, but now wasn’t the time.
“Get up!”
“Charge!”
Roars echoed from all sides. The bells, paused briefly, rang once more.
No time. Cheon-ho scanned the suitcase interior as the illusion vanished.
Three leather tubes filled with scrolls.
A gauntlet? No, gauntlets—one pair stuck into the suitcase.
One silver card.
Three potion bottles.
That was it. Cheon-ho’s gaze locked on a leather tube. He instantly read its label, then popped the lid as he read.
Lucille’s face, stricken with breathing trouble, flushed with relief.
Mitra, meanwhile, remained flustered. She still didn’t know much about his mother’s scrolls.
“Attack!”
Cheon-ho looked up. The foes behind hadn’t recovered from the suitcase’s impact. With his back to the palace, the immediate threat was the ones charging from the front, trampling their fallen comrades.
Cheon-ho drew a scroll.
A new one. Different from the last he’d used.
But he knew how to use it.
The label on the leather tube.
Cheon-ho trusted his mother.
He thrust the scroll toward the ratmen horde surging like a tsunami and tore it apart.
And in that moment, the world froze.
That’s how it felt.
Power bursting from the scroll.
Flames roaring free of their bonds.
A silent scream. The instant he tore it, a massive blaze erupted before him.
Crimson red, like scarlet, it spread wings. Its overwhelming presence stole every gaze. It halted them all in awe.
Lucille made a choking sound.
Mitra squeezed out words.
And Cheon-ho roared again.
The flame bird wheeled and charged straight ahead.
Tssshwaaaaaa?!
A colossal bird of flame.
Its wingspan at least thirty meters swept the ground. Flame waves from wingtips incinerated everything in their path.
Ratmen vanished.
The ones before Cheon-ho turned to ash, literally.
And it didn’t stop there.
After erasing over a hundred ratmen in a flash, the flame bird wheeled again and soared. Spreading its wings wide in the air, it nailed every gaze once more.
The flame bird roared. It tucked its wings, spun, and the crimson flames split. Fiery rain poured onto the ground.
“Argh!”
“Guh!”
Ratmen screamed. They writhed to dodge the flame rain, but it was futile.
Calamity.
Nothing else could describe it.
“Huff!”
Lucille finally breathed. Mitra cried out like a scream.
[O Chosen One! Wh-what is this?!]
Cheon-ho didn’t answer. No time. One of the three leather tubes was familiar—the one he’d used in the Empire’s tower to obtain Mitra.
So he didn’t open the second tube. The third had no label at all, so he dared not.
Instead, Cheon-ho placed Mitra in the suitcase and shoved his hands into the gauntlets. And he knew.
No ordinary item.
Infused with mana.
He’d seen something similar before.
“Armored!”
He shouted like his father. He clenched his fists, and in that moment, an astonishing change overtook his body.
“Kyaa?!”
Lucille let out a small scream. His clothes literally disassembled.
Mountain clan traditional garb.
Cheon-ho felt liberation below the waist. He reflexively glanced at Lucille, but their eyes didn’t meet. Hers were aimed a bit lower.
Lucille jerked her head up. Her face was beet red, ready to burst. Cheon-ho desperately deployed Poker Face.
“Hm.”
Then the magic unfolded.
Light from the gauntlets enveloped his body.
A form-fitting dark blue battlesuit.
Not armor. Metal only on the gauntlets’ backs. Mostly leather.
Like wearing a full-body wetsuit.
Light. A strange sensation, as if clothed yet naked.
Lucille and Mitra cried out.
“Th-the Saint Battl—!”
[Magic Armor!]
They’d each thought of something similar.
Rather than respond to their duet, Cheon-ho sharpened his gaze. He grabbed Mitra with his right hand and slammed shut the suitcase lid with his left. He stared down the ones charging through the fiery calamity.