Chapter 99
Chapter 99
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 99
Chapter Title: Mad God
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Clang!
Sparks flew as Brown Beard staggered back.
"Huff, huff."
Lee Jae-kyung exhaled ragged breaths.
He had clearly fought through or shaken off that horde of demons just to reach this place.
Judging by those wounds, nothing about it had been easy.
Rustle.
Go Yohan healed Lee Jae-kyung's injuries.
"...Thank you."
His complexion improved dramatically.
"Hah!"
At that moment, Brown Beard's incredulous voice burst out.
"There's still a follower of that mad bastard left?"
Swoosh.
Lee Jae-kyung looked at Go Yohan.
"Truly... you've completely changed."
Brown Beard lowered his axe.
"Kids, looks like we've failed."
He said to the dwarves.
"If that mad bastard has switched sides, we have no chance of winning. I thought we'd finally shaken off our chains after who knows how many years of chaos and could rejoice."
And then.
Shing!
The dwarves simultaneously raised their axes and weapons to their necks and chests.
The situation unfolded before anyone could stop it.
"In the next life! Let's be born as hammers!"
"Uwaaaah!"
It wasn't for show.
Slice.
The axes truly dug into their flesh.
The moment they saw Go Yohan, they instinctively knew escape was impossible and chose suicide.
Snap!
At that instant, Go Yohan flicked his finger.
Clang clang clang clang!
The dwarves' weapons flew away.
They had moved to kill themselves without a moment's hesitation, but Go Yohan was faster.
"Nooooo!"
Brown Beard screamed.
Madness flickered in his eyes.
"You mad bastard! Have you changed so much that you won't even allow us to die? Please! I beg you!"
He could feel their resentment and screams from being forced to hammer under demon control.
"That's not..."
"It's not like that."
Go Yohan said.
"Don't... assume I've sided with those damned demon spawn."
This was the sight.
The completely different side of Go Yohan that Lee Jae-kyung occasionally glimpsed.
'Mikael.'
His appearance from his previous life.
"I..."
Go Yohan said.
"Will exterminate every last one of those damned things."
At those words, Brown Beard's eyes lit up.
He could see it.
"......"
Go Yohan, forged of steel will.
Brown Beard's vision.
Rumble!
Go Yohan was a flame of writhing black.
Its size was impossible to gauge, its heat impossible to fathom.
One wrong touch, and it would melt a body in an instant—a flame that would burn not just itself but everything around it.
But.
"......!"
It was there.
Within it, that iridescent light he had definitely seen before.
No, that alone was enough.
As long as that unique hue no other color could imitate existed.
"You absolute... mad bastard! What the hell happened to you...?"
He might truly be that same mad bastard he once knew.
"It's complicated to explain. Something like that happened."
"Hah."
Brown Beard seemed conflicted.
But his decision was swift.
"I'll trust you."
"......"
"We had nothing left but suicide anyway. The Rune Breaker we meant to use on that damned traitor Iron Hammer has been wasted on you, stripping it of its power."
Brown Beard said.
"If you were the enemy, we wouldn't even be able to escape alive."
"......"
"Will you save us?"
Brown Beard asked sharply.
"Will you save us on your own whim again, like you did before? If so..."
Clang!
Axe met hammer.
"Please save us."
His tone had changed.
"I beg you."
Go Yohan, who had been listening silently, finally spoke.
"I'll save you."
"Thank you."
*
*
*
"Iron Hammer cannot move right now."
They moved quickly.
The dwarves were exhausted to their limits, yet they pressed on, burning their final embers.
"We also cannot confront him again."
Moments ago, Brown Beard had cursed him as a mad bastard, but now he treated Go Yohan with complete respect.
This was probably his true demeanor toward Go Yohan.
"We can do it."
Go Yohan said.
No matter what blocked the way, he could kill it.
Heh.
Brown Beard twitched the corners of his mouth, hidden beneath his long beard, and smiled.
"I suppose so."
Who was he, after all.
That one time he had seen him directly.
'Ah.'
Brown Beard shuddered.
It was the sight of the rampaging Dragon Lord that sank the Eastern Continent, being dragged by the jaw across the plains.
Dwarves, who had suffered more pain from dragons than any other race, had that scene etched deeply into their memories.
He hadn't seen him since.
He had only heard the tales, but...
"But not now."
He was no mere human.
How much had they sighed over it.
Not just him.
Elves, humans, dragons, and countless other races sighed whenever they thought of him.
'If only he weren't mad.'
The continent's history truly would have changed.
Brown Beard thought.
"Don't repeat the same mistake as back then."
If he hadn't gone mad, if he hadn't been that mad bastard from the start.
"You are not at full strength right now."
The continent might have survived and truly exterminated the demons.
"......"
Go Yohan fell silent.
"In your hand, there is no holy sword you claimed to wield."
Brown Beard stopped and said.
"On your body, there is no divine armor you claimed to wear."
Brown Beard stopped and said.
"Iron Hammer is in the midst of his ritual. With the will to forge and don the Demon God Armor that existed only in legends, he has exploited ten thousand dwarves for decades."
"Demon God Armor?"
"It was originally meant for Balroc, but..."
"He never intended to offer it."
Brown Beard nodded at Go Yohan's words.
"Can you see it?"
Brown Beard pointed ahead.
Three volcanoes, three red pillars rising high.
"Destroy those, and the Demon God Armor's ritual will be destroyed as well."
"And?"
"They must be destroyed simultaneously."
Brown Beard went to the dwarves.
"We'll take the right one."
"......"
"Have that follower of yours take the left."
"Not a follower."
Lee Jae-kyung said.
Though they shouldn't have been able to communicate, it was the effect of the item Brown Beard had given him.
"You go to the center yourself."
Brown Beard said.
"I will."
Go Yohan's answer finally came.
Tremble.
Brown Beard's beard quivered.
The man from the past wouldn't have listened to words like his.
'It is a trial from the goddess.'
He was a man who charged into traps knowingly, even enjoying them.
"Shorty, I'm no follower."
Perhaps because Brown Beard had wounded Go Yohan's chest earlier.
Lee Jae-kyung spoke to Brown Beard without his usual courtesy.
"I'm the Captain's squire."
"......!"
Once more, Brown Beard's beard quivered.
"...Really?"
"Ask the Captain. I'm his squire."
Nod.
As Go Yohan nodded, Brown Beard let out a sigh of resignation.
"You've truly... changed."
He raised his axe.
"Squire, listen well."
Was he about to give some advice?
"That statement is highly speciesist."
"......!"
"See you later."
The dwarves moved out first.
"What the hell... are those guys?"
Lee Jae-kyung asked Go Yohan.
How to explain it.
After much thought, Go Yohan stepped forward and said.
"Comrades-in-arms."
*
*
*
Tatatat!
The dwarves raced toward the right mountain range.
Gulp gulp.
They didn't forget to swig honey wine in between.
It was beer they had hidden and held back for this very day, for so long.
And it wasn't ordinary honey wine.
'Dwarven secret technique.'
It was a phenomenon known only to certain artisan dwarves.
Endless hammering would blend the spark sounds, hammer strikes, and cooling metal into a strange buzzing like bees.
At that moment, the tiniest amount of the purest molten metal was produced.
A yellow liquid, neither mana nor ordinary metal.
Dwarven artisans called it.
'Honey.'
They called it honey.
Modern dwarves didn't know that the honey wine dwarves spoke of referred to this from long ago.
Clang!
Just drinking it surged battle spirit, hardening veins and skin like steel—this was the secret combat art their ancestors boasted of.
"Chieftain!"
A dwarf called out to the running Brown Beard.
"Who the hell is that guy?"
Not all dwarves in Balrocgwoen's territory were from Travania.
Demons had devoured many worlds, and few Travania dwarves survived.
Their reactions showed it.
Clench.
Travania dwarves gripped their fists tightly, having faced Go Yohan and resolved something.
The others couldn't understand.
"You're even using the Rune Breaker made to kill that bastard Balrocgwoen!"
A divine weapon meant to slay an archdemon, used on a mere human.
"Who the hell is he...!"
They had waited so long for revenge, and now it seemed Brown Beard had ruined it.
"You idiot!"
Brown Beard shouted.
"...He's a mad bastard."
Brown Beard's quiet mutter carried.
"So who the hell is this mad bastard!"
The dwarf yelled.
"I've told you many times."
The ritual site came into view.
"Your world and Travania were different."
"......!"
"Unlike your world, which was swept away without resistance, our Travania fought to the end."
"No way..."
"It wasn't because of a union of races, or some special will or blessing."
Simply.
"One thing."
It was a story they'd heard dozens of times.
'There was truly an incredible human in Travania.'
Like a fairy tale or legend.
"Because of that man."
No, it was myth.
"He had many names. Among them, great holy knight, noble paladin..., knight of the goddess."
Brown Beard raised his axe toward the Dvergr group and said.
"He was also called a zealot."
Bzzz!
The Rune Breaker began to hum.
"But we called him this."
The dwarves prepared for battle as they listened to Brown Beard's tale.
"Mad God."