Chapter 178 Wait a Minute!
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Translator: JayM
Chapter: 178
Chapter Title: Wait a Minute!
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Jeong Yoo-shin stared at his own hands, forgetting for a moment that he was in the middle of a desperate struggle.
He could tell…
An enormous energy was swirling inside his body.
"Th-This is?"
Was this the taste of the holy magic that Priestess Mion had generously packed for him?
He would never forget it.
The other party members also got up one by one and stared at Jeong Yoo-shin.
It was because Mion's holy magic, not content with filling up Jeong Yoo-shin, had overflowed and healed the others as well.
Someone swallowed dryly.
What should they say here?
Jeong Yok-shin’s black hair had turned golden and was fluttering.
Perhaps because of his good looks, there was no sense of incongruity. Rather, it looked as if he had found the perfect hair color.
On top of that, the way he was radiating brilliance from his whole body made it seem as if an elemental god had descended into Skar's body.
As intermediate-rank explorers, they prided themselves on having seen many strange things, but not to this extent.
A dwarf's voice trembled.
"H-Hey, barbarian?"
"What?"
"N-Nothing."
"How bland."
At that moment…
The Lich Prince screamed and retreated.
"Huooooo!!!"
"I'm coming."
This wasn’t the time for this.
Jeong Yoo-shin kicked off the ground while holding his bastard sword.
His physical abilities were strengthened by all sorts of buff magic.
Jeong Yoo-shin's figure blurred for a moment.
One step.
Two steps.
He reached the Lich Prince in just two steps.
The Lich Prince hysterically swung its bone staff.
Whoosh.
With a flash, the Lich Prince appeared in the center of the village.
Had it used a blink spell?
It didn't matter.
With this much power, he could play tag with it all day.
[Ice Spear]
From behind, Lena's ice spear flew and lodged itself into the Lich Prince's body.
"Let's go!!! Now's our chance!!!"
Mick, the beast-people party, and the dwarf party followed Jeong Yoo-shin and ran out of the tavern.
They were intermediate-rank explorers, after all.
They weren't completely clueless.
All the party members left the half-destroyed tavern and stood in the center of the village.
The Lich Prince raised its staff and aimed it at Jeong Yoo-shin.
Vwoooom!!!
A black orb gathered at the tip of the staff.
Jeong Yoo-shin ducked and ran quickly.
The black orb flew toward Jeong Yoo-shin.
Incredible speed.
But in Jeong Yoo-shin's eyes, it looked slow. He stepped aside and easily dodged it.
The black orb hit right next to Jeong Yoo-shin and exploded.
Kra-boooom!!!
Stone fragments scattered and dust billowed up, obscuring Jeong Yoo-shin's figure.
The running party members flinched.
At that moment…
Fwoooosh!!!
Jeong Yoo-shin's figure jumped high, breaking through the dust.
He was biting the hilt of his bastard sword in his mouth while holding a golden single-edged axe high in the air.
Even the Lich Prince was surprised and froze stiff.
Jeong Yoo-shin brought the axe down on the Lich Prince's head.
"Kreeeeeeeeek!!!"
The lich let out a monstrous scream and flailed its hands.
It created a black barrier in an instant.
Jeong Yoo-shin's eyes burned brightly.
A barrier?
It didn't matter.
He would break it.
A downward slash that he had swung with his blood and sweat every day for nearly half a year.
It didn't matter what weapon he held in his hand.
It contained his spirit that had split the dawn every day.
From top to bottom.
Jeong Yoo-shin's axe tore through the air and hit the barrier.
Swiiisssshhh!!!
Kra-boooom!!!
The black barrier shattered into pieces like a sheet of glass.
Shatter!!!
Jeong Yoo-shin's axe didn't stop and lodged itself in the Lich Prince's skull.
Krrrrunch!!!
The Lich Prince's green eye-lights shone brightly for a moment.
As he twisted the embedded axe, the Lich Prince let out a monstrous scream and struggled.
"Skar!!!"
All the party members gripped their weapons and charged.
They surrounded the slowly falling Lich Prince and swung their weapons diligently.
Jeong Yoo-shin, hanging from the Lich Prince's head, grabbed the bastard sword in his mouth in a reverse grip, raised it…
…And brought it down.
Klaaaang!!!
The bastard sword pierced the Lich Prince's head.
The light in the Lich Prince's eye sockets disappeared.
Its body slowly fell to the ground, turned to ash, and scattered.
Lich Prince.
Subjugation complete.
Jeong Yoo-shin, who had landed on the ground, plopped down.
His body wasn't tired. He was just mentally exhausted.
"Are you alright?"
A dwarf approached Jeong Yoo-shin and asked him.
"I'm fine."
"Why didn't you use that scroll sooner?"
"I received it from a priestess I know, but I had no idea it would be this powerful."
"..."
Everyone walked over one by one and surrounded Jeong Yoo-shin.
The lion beast-person approached him.
"Barbarian, I’ve lost."
'What's this guy talking about now?'
Jeong Yoo-shin looked up at the lion beast-person without a word.
"Your courage and skill are both outstanding. I owe you my life. Take them. My females."
Jeong Yoo-shin looked at the female beast-people behind the lion beast-person and spoke.
"What kind of crazy talk is that? Have you suddenly lost your mind?"
"It's the lion beast-people’s tradition. I heard that the females of the loser all belong to the winner."
Jeong Yoo-shin let Lena's explanation go in one ear and out the other.
"Raikel, was it? I'm not a beast-person. So stop talking nonsense."
"I-Is that so? I thought you were a lion beast-person at heart."
Jeong Yoo-shin left the flustered lion beast-person alone and stood up.
"The Lich Prince isn't completely destroyed, is it?"
"No."
"If we leave it alone, it'll come back to life. We need to find that Life Vessel or whatever."
Everyone nodded at Jeong Yoo-shin's words.
"What does it look like?"
"It’s a crimson nucleus inside a polygonal glass. I heard that it has several curse spells on it. You have to be careful with it."
At Lena's explanation, the party members scattered and began to search for the Life Vessel.
They couldn't delay.
They didn't want to laze around and then face the resurrected Lich Prince again later on.
The party members searched for a long time around the village, but they couldn't find the Life Vessel.
Two hours passed.
All the party members gathered again in the collapsed tavern.
Jeong Yoo-shin stood with his arms crossed and stared blankly at the ceiling.
Life Vessel.
The bottle that held the lich's life.
Where in the world could it be?
He had secretly thought that this event was the appearance of a level boss.
Since he had found a huge goblin corpse on the 5th floor, he thought that there might be one on the 10th floor as well.
It was a conclusion he had come to after playing various MMORPGs.
Was he wrong?
Jeong Yoo-shin stroked his chin.
Come to think of it…
'Is this actually a game world?'
What if he had fallen into a game he had never heard of before?
Though he didn't know what the genre for it was.
It was because there were so many crazy abilities in this world.
'Is it a romance fantasy...?'
Considering Mion and Karin, could it actually be the case?
He thought of the barbarians.
'It could also be a hardcore dark fantasy eroge.'
There were too many strange people in Labyrinth City.
It was a city where if five people gathered, you would doubt the origins of all five.
In martial arts novels, they said to be careful of children and old people, but here, you had to look at everyone with suspicion.
Suspicion.
Suspicion, huh?
Jeong Yoo-shin looked down at the dwarf party.
"Dwarf, what were those wooden boxes you were carrying earlier?"
"It's nothing. We were asked to retrieve some items that the merchant's guild had left behind when they hastily withdrew from the 10th floor."
"What kind of items?"
The dwarf shrugged.
"I don't know."
"Let's open them."
"That's a bit..."
Come to think of it, this Lich Prince was quite strange compared to the giant goblin on the 5th floor.
"We've searched the whole village, but we couldn't find that Life Vessel or whatever. I heard that this place was fine even during the last Eldritch Wave."
"..."
Jeong Yoo-shin took a step closer to the dwarf.
He could smell a conspiracy here.
"Open them."
"Hoo. Alright."
The dwarves brought out the boxes they had hidden in the warehouse one by one.
There was nothing special to them initially.
There were only rations, medicine, torches, and various daily necessities. He saw a few magic tools, but they weren't anything to be concerned about.
But when they opened the last few boxes, there was a large number of leather pouches inside.
"What's this?"
"Magic stones and spoils from all the levels."
"Why did you gather them here?"
"Explorers usually resupply on the 10th level and then go down. On this level, they exchange magic stones or valuable spoils for supplies instead of money. Of course, the cost-effectiveness is ridiculously bad."
"Can't you just carry a backpack with a space expansion spell on it?"
"That’s not cheap. Rather, that’s expensive. And how much more can you put in even if you got one? Even if the goods here are more expensive than in the city, there's no other way."
"Let's open them all."
The dwarf's eyes widened.
"All of them? There are dozens of bags. How long will it take us to open them all?"
"So you're not going to do it? The Lich Prince could be resurrected at any time."
When Jeong Yoo-shin glared at them, the party members sat down in the collapsed tavern and began to open and empty the bags one by one.
All sorts of strange materials came out.
As expected, there were various rewards in the labyrinth.
"This is amazing. It's full of strange materials I've only seen in books...!"
Lena rummaged through the bags with sparkling eyes.
In terms of gold coins, their value was immeasurable.
The dwarves had reluctant expressions on their faces.
Jeong Yoo-shin, who had been rummaging through the bags, looked up at the dwarf.
"Was this the reason you only moved when we weren't around anymore?"
"That's right. No matter if you were recommended to the investigation team, are there any explorers who wouldn't be tempted by valuable spoils?"
Indeed.
"Tsk."
Jeong Yoo-shin clicked his tongue and continued to rummage through the bags.
He searched for a long time, but the Life Vessel was nowhere to be found.
Jeong Yoo-shin threw down the bag in his hand and clutched his head.
"Fuck."
Was it a bust?
Nothing ever goes right in his life.
He had smelled a conspiracy.
It seemed like it was just his delusion.
He wasn't a detective, so it couldn't be helped.
He was so dumbfounded that he just stared blankly at the open ceiling. And then he stood up.
"Let's go. There's nothing we can do. We have to go back to the city and report this quickly."
The dwarves looked up at Jeong Yoo-shin with a blank face.
"...You're just going to leave with all these bags emptied?"
"Do whatever you want. I killed that skeleton bastard, didn't I?"
"That's true, but... I feel strangely wronged."
"I'll wait for you."
The dwarf party members gathered again, put the items in the bags, and picked up the boxes.
Despite their short stature, they seemed to be strong, as they were fine even after carrying several boxes each.
The three parties trudged out of the village and arrived at the transfer stone.
Jeong Yoo-shin stepped forward and placed his hand on the transfer stone.
Fwoooosh.
A red portal and a blue portal were created.
The dwarf party went first, followed by the beast-people party.
Finally, Lena's party members all entered.
Jeong Yoo-shin was the last to leave.
He felt uneasy.
Even though the subjugation was over, he felt like he hadn't finished it completely.
On top of that, he felt like he was lagging behind because the barbarians had gone ahead first.
Just then…
Jeong Yoo-shin's body froze stiff.
Barbarians?
Wait.
Jeong Yoo-shin grabbed Lena, who was just about to enter the portal.
"Wait a minute!"
"Yes?"
Lena turned her head and looked at Jeong Yoo-shin.
"That Lich Prince, it didn't have a lower half. Is that normal?"
At Jeong Yoo-shin's question, Lena thought for a moment, then shook her head.
"No. I don't think that's normal."
Jeong Yoo-shin's mind raced.
The barbarians.
The missing lower half.
And the missing Life Vessel.
Jeong Yoo-shin's eyes widened.
Suddenly…
A realization came to him.
No.
Was it from the demon in his heart?
'Those crazy bastards?!'
No way, right?
No way.
"Kugh!!!"
Jeong Yoo-shin grabbed his head and staggered.
His runaway imagination was confusing his mind.
"No. No way. Fuck. If you're human..."
He shook his head and brushed off the demon in his heart. He couldn't jump to conclusions.
First, he had to report to the guild.
He decided not to think about it anymore.
"Let's go."
"Alright."
Jeong Yoo-shin sent Lena, who had a curious expression, on her way and stepped into the portal himself.
After passing through the blue light, the scent of fresh air filled his nose.
A breeze that had lost its heat brushed past Jeong Yoo-shin's hair.
Seeing the evening glow hanging over the city walls, he realized…
He was back.
The party members were standing a short distance from the exit magic circle.
They all looked fine, as if they hadn't received any special imprints.
This feeling of liberation…
Jeong Yoo-shin placed his hand on his heart.
Had he gotten an imprint?
What kind of imprint was it this time?
At that moment…
A light began to emanate from Jeong Yoo-shin's body.
"Oh, fuck? Wait a minute! Wait!!! What kind of crazy imprint is this now?!!!"
The flustered Jeong Yoo-shin waved his hands around, but the light only grew stronger.
Soon…
Flash!!!
Jeong Yoo-shin's body was engulfed in a blinding brilliance.
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T/N - Oh, shit. What kind of imprint is the MC getting this time? Any guesses? Maybe his Super Saiyan state is becoming an imprint.
Also, the MC’s guess is wild. Did the barbarian party actually take the Lich Prince’s lower half along with its Life Vessel? And did they do it for the reason the MC and I think they did it for? But skeletons don’t have tight holes! Or do they? I’m fucking crashing out over this…
Lastly, the MVP of this fight is definitely Mion. That overcharged scroll was OP as fuck. The MC is lucky to have someone like her pining for him. So he should really just fuck her already. 😂