Chapter 100
Chapter 100
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 100
Chapter Title: Axes Honed for This Day
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“This axe has been honed for this day.”
“The hammer that has been struck for this day.”
“The ... that has been burned for this day.”
Madness flickered in the dwarves’ eyes.
“The soul of steel.”
The Dvergrs could not endure the dwarves who had been locked away for so long, sharpening their blades.
It wasn’t that they had survived because they were strong.
Crack!
They had become strong because they survived.
They built their strength by hammering and hammering away.
Scorched by fire, they perfected their tough hides.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Amid the hammering, they shared the insights they had gained with one another.
Normally.
‘This would have been impossible.’
But Brown Beard and these dwarves alone had made it possible.
It was all because of the demon’s greed.
The root of the problem was imprisoning dwarves—not just the demonized Dvergrs—in the demon realm to forge the Demon God Armor, a suit that existed only in myths.
It was also because, for the ritual to complete the Demon God Armor, they had shown the dwarves much mercy and granted them freedom.
And also!
Kwaaaang!
The arrogance of the clan traitor who had stepped back and vanished for the sake of the Demon God Armor’s ritual was the issue.
Crack!
The axe blade honed for so long was sharper than anything.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
A black Dvergr mounted on a Kentaros charged toward Brown Beard.
Three horns protruded from both cheeks and his chin.
“Clan chief!”
The triangular demon was a formidable opponent even for dwarves who had honed their axe blades for ages.
All the more so for these ones, who were utterly exhausted and little more than animated corpses.
Kwoooong!
The Dvergr swung a massive double-headed axe four times his own height.
The dwarves tried to rush in to protect Brown Beard.
“Not yet! I’m fine!”
Brown Beard shouted, flipping the Rune Breaker he had used against Go Yohan to grip it backward.
In that moment, the Rune Breaker transformed from an axe into something resembling a bizarre gun.
Click.
It was the instant the last remaining orb of mana in Brown Beard’s Rune Breaker shattered and scattered.
Woooong!
The surging power of the runes.
Bang!
It fired out as a bullet toward the charging Dvergr.
The axe swung down, slicing through Brown Beard.
No—it seemed to slice through him.
Snick!
But what was severed was not Brown Beard’s neck, only his beard.
Kwoooong!
The Kentaros and the Dvergr.
Both were pierced through and collapsed powerlessly.
“Huff, huff...”
His stamina, his mana—everything was depleted.
But the battlefield was already being cleared.
Gulp, gulp.
He downed the last of the honey mead.
Only one rune stone remained.
It had originally been saved for the clan traitor, Iron Hammer.
Heh.
“No need for it now.”
A bomb beyond comparison to any rune stone like this would have arrived there by now.
“Clan chief, let us help.”
The dwarves approached and supported Brown Beard.
Nodding, Brown Beard assumed a stance and gripped the Rune Breaker once more.
Woooooong!
The power of the rune stone surged again.
And when it shattered and scattered.
Kwaaaaang!
An explosion incomparable to the previous one shot toward the ritual site.
Craaaack!
A golden eyeball bound in iron chains.
One of the centers of the ritual, with a pillar of light rising above it.
Craaaackle!
It finally began to break.
“Cough!”
The recoil from the Rune Breaker made Brown Beard spew a handful of blood.
His insides churned, and his mana surged backward.
Thud.
The other dwarves were in the same state.
This was the last blaze of their steel souls.
In that moment.
Craaaackle!
Far off, another ritual center shattered.
“Huh!”
It wasn’t where Go Yohan had gone.
“His squire, they said...”
It was where the human man called Go Yohan’s squire had headed.
Of the three ritual sites, the rightmost one they had attacked was the weakest. The left was guarded by the second strongest of the three.
‘Blue Hammer.’
The place guarded by another dwarf great king, called that in legends.
Four horns.
A monster they could do nothing about.
“And he’s a monster too.”
The squire had slain him and disrupted the ritual.
“Ha, hahaha!”
If it was to be expected, then it was.
Not a single renowned figure from Travania had accepted him as a squire.
Even the Sword God who trailed after him had wanted to become his squire, but was rejected.
That was the kind of squire he was.
“We’re good now.”
With that, Brown Beard passed out.
*
*
*
Crunch.
As Go Yohan swept his hand, the Dvergrs were torn apart.
Facing them made it even clearer.
Baratkgorun was.
‘Not an Archdemon of particularly long standing.’
To demons, time was quite important.
It meant they had survived a long while, subjugating many demons in the process.
They were immortal against mortals, but among immortals, they too were mortal.
Craaunch!
Nothing could block Go Yohan.
“Goddess.”
Perhaps because he had seen Brown Beard.
It felt like standing in the midst of Travania’s battlefield in the past.
“These cursed demon spawn test your faith.”
Though he had changed so much since then.
“This too is a trial sent by you.”
Crunch!
“Your knight shall overcome it.”
When he crossed his arms and tore at space.
Kwaaaaaaaa!
Nothing stood in his way.
Faith welled up.
Which meant.
[Strength increases.]
[Agility increases.]
[Mana...]
He grew stronger.
Go Yohan’s level did not rise in the ordinary way.
Level was merely a numerical representation of where Go Yohan stood now; it was not a means to elevate him further.
Only one thing made Go Yohan stronger.
“Goddess.”
[Faith stat increases.]
Faith in the Goddess alone.
No, now there was one more.
[Job: Dark Knight changes to Knight of Sloth.]
Sin.
The sins of the demons he vowed to bear for the Goddess made Go Yohan even stronger.
[Inaction]
A wave spread out.
Starting from Go Yohan’s sunken pupils, everything around lost its strength and collapsed.
“Grrrrr...”
They dropped their weapons and crumpled, legs giving out.
And soon, they forgot even to breathe.
Step.
Go Yohan walked through them and finally reached the ritual’s center, his form transforming.
[Job: Knight of Sloth changes to Knight of Envy.]
[Phantom of Regret]
There stood a knight in pure white.
And ahead of him, another phantom stood.
“H-...how...”
A short dwarf, his body and armor silver.
But between them, blackened eyes and seven horns protruding from the helmet were visible.
“How... you...”
Go Yohan had come to Baratkgorun’s domain to free Iron Hammer, said to be alive.
But no.
-Iron Hammer is the clan traitor!
Brown Beard had screamed it in desperation.
-Black Beard was merely his underling! The true traitor is Iron Hammer!
The great king who sold out all of Travania’s dwarves.
No.
“You’re here?”
The one who, by selling out the dwarves, gathered an alliance army to fight the demons—only to sell most of it into hell’s swamp.
“Is that the price?”
The price he received from the demons was merely...
“Those seven horns—are they the reward for selling them all out, Iron Hammer?”
Baratkgorun.
It was said to be the name for a dwarf who had fallen long ago.
One of the names of the ancestral dwarves before they became Dvergrs.
“...!”
*
*
*
Baratkgorun—no, Iron Hammer—trembled before Go Yohan.
In that instant.
Craaaack!
One of the ritual’s connections snapped, severing the iron chains linked to Iron Hammer.
“N-No!”
Iron Hammer had been conducting this ritual for a long time.
It was the forging of a divine armor—a legend, no, a myth born from the earnest wishes of dwarves across all worlds.
Brown Beard had said divine armor was not armor worn by gods.
“How did you get here!”
“Black Beard opened the door.”
“That bastard!”
It was called divine armor because it could make one a god.
Of course, it was just a story.
But Iron Hammer had sought to create it, naming it Demon God Armor to match his fallen state.
“Iron Hammer.”
He had melted the souls and life force of a hundred thousand dwarves into the molten metal.
Along with everything else he could melt, using powers granted only to demons.
“Iron Hammer!”
The Dvergrs, including Black Beard, had infiltrated Earth early on, straining themselves to retrieve that sacrificial offering.
“Merely.”
Go Yohan approached Iron Hammer and said.
“You sold all that for this?”
It wasn’t the height difference.
Whoooosh!
The disparity in presence turned one into a giant and the other a dwarf.
Silver armor.
Craaaack!
As the second ritual shattered, it began to glow crimson-black.
As the rituals were destroyed, it was changing, seeking to complete the ritual even imperfectly.
“It’s your fault!”
Iron Hammer screamed.
“...If you hadn’t destroyed the clan’s sacred relic!”
Iron Hammer screamed.
“If you had only stood before us! I never would have betrayed the clan.”
Crunch.
Go Yohan lifted Iron Hammer by the head.
[Job: Knight of Envy changes to Knight of Greed.]
[Authority...]
Golden light seemed to swirl around Go Yohan’s body.
It was a peculiar aura, both holy and ominous.
[Price of Desire]
Gulp!
Something writhed inside Iron Hammer’s armor.
Having seven horns didn’t make him a true Archdemon.
All his power had gone into this Demon God Armor, and he had never built forces or grown his own strength to create it.
That was why.
Kwaaaang!
This single strike could erase a being on the level of an Archdemon.
“Maybe so.”
Thud.
The crimson-black armor fell to the ground.
Following it.
Craaaaaack!
The final ritual center shattered.
[Archdemon Baratkgorun has been extinguished.]
[Massive Karma Points acquired.]
It was then.
Sensing the rising change, Go Yohan.
Click.
Immediately converted the Mark of Sin into the form of a Great Sin.
The holy light shining from Go Yohan’s hand.
Craaunch!
Pierced straight through the writhing Demon God Armor.