Beyond Synthesis, Only Reinforcement
The tripartite brawl had become a chaotic mess that was almost like a battlefield.
“Hey, Taesung, you’ve got some guts coming after the Wooju Association.”
“Ugh… Magdo Bulchim, how can a bastard like you set foot on the path my master guides?”
“A bastard? These people nowadays have no sense of hierarchy or order at all.”
Crack!
In a single blow, Yoon Inpyo slammed Huang Taesan to the ground, tilting the entire battlefield in his favor.
The spirits summoned by An Sungjin were powerful, but they couldn’t withstand the combined assault of Huang Taesan and Shin Gang-su while also evading Kalid’s attacks.
“An Sungjin, I’ll spare your life out of old affection.”
“Kuek… Stop right now. Once Kalid dies, there’s no turning back…”
“That’s something I’ll decide when the time comes.”
Huang Taesan brought his hand down on An Sungjin’s nape and hurled the unconscious man far into the distance.
Thud.
“Tsk… That overly conscientious bastard… He’s finally straightened out. Let’s kill Kalid.”
“For the greater good.”
Huang Taesan and Shin Gang-su launched their combined attack straight at Kalid’s thick neck.
Kwaaaang— Kwarr.
“Krheng!”
Kalid’s emerald body lit up crimson the moment it was struck on the neck. Spiky scales began to cover his entire body,
“Kwaaaaa!”
the furious Kalid roared toward Huang Taesan and Shin Gang-su.
But at that moment,
“Hirlit!”
a little lump of something shot out from Kalid’s nostril.
* * *
The moment it left Kalid’s body, a wave of sunlight hit my eyes and I squinted.
When my pupils adjusted to the light, the completely ruined landscape of Oryukdo came into view.
‘Be careful, the crazy bastards are fighting out there.’
I instantly understood what Tes-hyung had warned me about. Scanning the area with Oculus’s Eyes revealed four people present.
‘The chairman of the Wooju Association?’
The renowned 1st-generation hunter Huang Taesan, and beside him a long-haired handsome man I’d never seen before, and
‘An Sungjin… a hunter?’
An Sungjin, unconscious and trapped in the sand,
‘And who is that?’
a mysterious green-haired figure lazily sprawled on a tree branch, watching the situation unfold. Yet his presence was completely absent.
Only traces of battle remained where he had been lying.
‘I didn’t do this?’
Since Tes-hyung was here, he must have taken some action. I believed it and galloped my mount toward the Breath of Steel workshop ruins.
Kwaaang— Bang Kwakwak!
“Koooooo!”
Huang Taesan and Shin Gang-su were not attacking Kalid. And that once gentle and adorable Kalid had transformed into something new.
His whole body bulged with muscles and his back was covered in spikes, like a terrifying monster.
Kalid is bad news if you mess with him.
Everyone in Oryukdo had said the same thing.
And now he’s messed with my sweet spot.
‘What the hell are you doing!’
I almost shouted instinctively, but
he was the chairman of the Wooju Association.
I swallowed my voice with effort.
I had important things to do, and getting sidetracked now would be a disaster.
‘This isn’t the time for that. And besides…’
“Chairman! Didn’t someone just come out of Kalid’s nostril a moment ago?”
“Focus only on the enemies in front of you! Hwi-gwang myul-cheon!”
Pukwaaaang!
“C-chairman. Kalid’s recovery power is terrifying!”
The wound on Kalid’s neck was already healing rapidly.
“Haa… He really is a boss among bosses.”
“Krooooo!”
Kalid, brimming with incredible recovery power, pressed Huang Taesan and the long-haired handsome man relentlessly.
But somehow I knew the source of that recovery power.
‘Hodu…’
He was licking like crazy somewhere inside Kalid’s body.
My mount was incredibly fast and we reached the Breath of Steel workshop ruins in no time. But the problem was,
“Haa…”
the spike Kalid had fired had turned a ruined building into rubble. My spine tingled instantly.
“Oh no…”
‘I’ll entrust this shop to you while I’m gone! Hehe.’
If that happened, I wouldn’t be able to face Kim Cheolgeun-sajo.
“First, search! Reinforcement edition!!”
Following my orders, Hansik, Geunsik, Minsik, and Cheolsik began clearing through the rubble of the Breath of Steel workshop.
It was a complete mess.
The Synthesis Plate was nowhere to be found.
Not to mention the Mir Guild leader Choi Kang and Babylonia Vice President Jang Ja-wook who should have been here.
“Ha… Damn it, so that’s why you messed with Kalid!”
His presence had vanished. My back tightened with unease. I had to do something, so I dismounted and started digging through the debris myself.
I searched for people first.
Choi Kang, the guild leader, and Jang Ja-wook, the vice president.
But near the spot where the furnace should have been,
“Where did they go…”
Fortunately or unfortunately, they were nowhere to be seen.
But then Geunsik lifted something.
The Synthesis Plate.
I stared at it, smacked my forehead, and sat down hard.
“Damn it… Aaaaah!!”
I rolled on the ground like a spoiled child.
I was frustrated. The Synthesis Plate was broken.
And I needed to destroy the Great Sword of the Ancient Plague with it!
- Kkiki kiki.
Morbas started cracking up maliciously.
“Shut up, you rodent!”
I swung the Great Sword of the Ancient Plague wildly at the ground and started stomping with my foot.
But Morbas kept muttering.
- Kkiki… The end is coming.
Then, Hansik lifted something from the rubble.
A hexagonal plate.
What is this?
I’d never seen it before.
But Geunsik, Minsik, and Cheolsik all shouted in unison.
“What is that?”
- It’s a Reinforcement Plate!
Cheering.
- Kya! No way, no!!
Morbas screamed in despair.
* * *
There were two types of gambling on this floor. One was Synthesis, the other was Reinforcement.
Synthesis was something I’d done a million times, but I’d never tried Reinforcement before. It was an even rarer gamble.
Geunsik, Minsik, and Cheolsik explained Reinforcement enthusiastically.
- If Reinforcement succeeds, the item will evolve!
“Evolve? How?”
- It will adapt to the user.
“Hmm… I don’t understand just from the explanation. What’s needed?”
- High-grade Magic Stones are required. For Rare or lower grades, an Upper-grade Magic Stone is needed; for Unique or higher grades, a Supreme-grade Magic Stone is required.
Materials were expensive from the start.
“I have Magic Stones. What else?”
[Prove Your Worth] Sub-quest completed, I had received a Supreme-grade Magic Stone. Thirty billion won, but…
- Sacrificial items are needed! The more sacrificial items, the higher the success rate.
“What if Reinforcement fails?”
- It evaporates!
I really didn’t have any.
I examined the items I owned.
The most valuable was the Mythic-grade Destruction Dimension Gauntlets I had lent to the Mir Guild leader, but since they weren’t mine, I couldn’t reinforce them.
Success or failure, there was a problem either way.
Another reason I couldn’t reinforce the gauntlets was
▶ [Dragon’s Legacy]: Item acquisition probability +100%, Synthesis and Reinforcement success probability +5%.
Five percent?
I had to attempt Reinforcement while wearing it.
Then the remaining Unique-or-higher items were the Throne of the Immortal King, Tigrial’s Bundle, and Oculus’s Eyes.
I was torn.
Nothing was unnecessary in the current situation.
The lowest value item right now was Tigrial’s Bundle, but the problem was that its superior counterpart, the Destruction Dimension Gauntlets, wasn’t mine.
But the dilemma was short-lived.
“Okay! From now on, I’m the Mir Guild.”
It looked unprincipled, but Choi Kang didn’t seem like a bad person. Most importantly, the Destruction Dimension Gauntlets were a truly god-tier item. An immense pocket dimension inventory on the level of a Dragon Rare.
And it activated the trait [Fortitude] on its own.
It had been Choi Kang’s trap from the beginning…
But an irresistible temptation that I couldn’t ignore even knowing it.
First, I swallowed it down, then joined the Mir Guild.
I’d think about the consequences later.
“Sacrificial items are sufficient.”
I didn’t even need to count the Ancient Plague’s Great Sword. I had an enormous amount of Unique and Mythic items. They were inside the bags of the smugglers I’d captured.
Items belonging to arrested smugglers. But who cares? Evidence tampering.
The blacksmith trio examined the Reinforcement Plate.
- You must place the item you want to reinforce here.
The moment of choice.
Either the Throne of the Immortal King or Tigrial’s Bundle.
Which one to reinforce?
“With this many sacrificial items, the success rate should rise a lot, right?”
I poured out every item I could use as sacrifice, including the cursed Great Sword of the Ancient Plague.
The answer came back.
- 12.8%.
Not great.
“Then with the +5% from the gauntlet option, it becomes 17.8%.”
- Correct.
“Haa… I heard luck increases reinforcement success rate.”
- In Hunterred, each point of Luck raises reinforcement success probability by about 0.01%.
Even a little more probability was necessary.
So I wore Tigrial’s Bundle with the Luck +25% option. With my pure Luck stat at 33 from distributing stats up to level 10, plus 20 points from the Crimson Luck set, plus 30 from the Bundle’s Luck boost,
my Luck stat reached 103.
“+1.03%. Now it’s 18.8%… Whew…”
Not easy.
My heart was already racing.
The Oculus’s Eyes and the Throne of the Immortal King.
Now I had to choose one.
I also had to consider what would happen if it failed.
The Throne of the Immortal King… I raised my pride with it, but once I joined the Mir Guild and swallowed the Destruction Dimension Gauntlets, I wouldn’t need it.
But the Oculus’s Eyes had become an existence I could never do without. A Unique-grade item that was currently serving an absurdly broken role.
“In the end… Immortal King…”
I took the Throne of the Immortal King out of the Destruction Dimension Gauntlets.
Dudung—
The Throne of the Immortal King was now placed on the Reinforcement Plate.
Did it already feel kinship?
“Please succeed…”
I poured out every sacrificial item while saying that,
“Go to hell, you damned rodent.”
- P-please spare me!!
I placed the Ancient Plague’s Great Sword as the sacrifice.
- Shall I begin the final probability check at 18.8%?
“Haa… Let’s try it…”
- Please provide a Supreme-grade Magic Stone.
I handed it over and clasped my hands together in prayer.
“Please please… Heavenly gods…”
Around the Reinforcement Plate, the Supreme-grade Magic Stone and the massive Throne of the Immortal King floated up, and the sacrificial items began to be sucked toward the Magic Stone.
Hansik, Geunsik, Minsik, and Cheolsik waved their arms as if they were deities and danced around the area. Even I, who had been praying passively, joined the circle.
Dung, dung.
- Kuaaaa!!
Morbas’s scream echoed, but I ignored it lightly and continued waving and praying. Please please…
A massive tornado raged.
- Stop, stop!!
Flash.
* * *
Whyyyyy—
A siren blared, signaling an emergency.
This place was America.
In Riverside, California,
a man lay collapsed on the sidewalk.
At that moment, the siren suddenly stopped.
+
[Congratulations!]
[The Apostle of 『Skeleton Star』 has solo-cleared a Cataclysm-grade Hidden Quest.]
[The Cataclysmic Plague is immediately removed.]
+
“Hup.”
The man suddenly regained consciousness and opened his eyes.
He sprang up, and his clothes were soaked with sweat. Then a horrible thirst hit him along with
Jing— Jing— Jing—……
his phone began vibrating.
The man checked his phone.
It was a message from the Korean Embassy in the United States.
[Emergency Disaster Status Cancelled]
[The Cataclysmic Plague has been resolved.]
Countless other text messages in English followed one after another.
“I’m alive… I’m alive… Sniff… It’s okay…”
Tears the size of a chicken’s egg flowed from the man’s eyes as overwhelming relief washed over him.
“Thank you. Thank you.”
He wanted to give thanks to whoever had solved this disaster.
“Huaaah… Thank you!!”
He shouted toward the opposite side of the Earth, toward his homeland.
Toward the person who had cleared this situation.
Thank you,
for saving the world where my kids can live…
Thank you.
At that moment,
“Papa?”
between teary eyes,
the longed-for scene flickered.
“Papa!!”
“Dad!!”
He ran toward me.
My everything,
my hope,
my life,
my dreams,
my future,
the world of my father.
He wrapped his arms around me.
* * *
[Congratulations!]
[You have solo-cleared the Cataclysm-grade Hidden Quest.]
[Rewards will be granted.]
[(Mythic) Ancient Plague’s Great Sword]
[(Passive) Kalid’s Trust]
[Title ‘Savior of the Apocalypse’ has been granted.]
[In extreme situations, the ‘Savior of the Apocalypse’ becomes even stronger.]
[Attack power and Defense increase by (Opponent level - your level)%.]
[Attack power and Defense increase by (HP consumed)%.]
[MP Recovery power increases by (MP consumed)%.]
Messages poured in.
It was dizzying.
‘Amazing… Amazing!!!’
But I still hadn’t opened my eyes.
One last shot remained.
What would the result of the Reinforcement be…
“Huh?”
[Kalid’s Stamina fully recovered, additional reward granted.]
I opened my closed eyes.
“Uwaak!!”