Chapter 40
Chapter 40
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 24
Chapter Title: Miran's Ultimate Secret Art
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"Now, with my current body, I can do anything!"
The most effective exercise for children's growth stunting.
It's called Stretch-Stretch! Gymnastics.
The method was incredibly simple.
Stretch-Stretch! Gymnastics meant exactly what it sounded like: spread both arms high toward the sky, as if someone were yanking your body upward, and just streeetch it out.
However, to Princess Lee Miran, Stretch-Stretch! Gymnastics seemed to hold something far beyond a mere growth exercise.
"From now on, I plan to repeat nothing but Stretch-Stretch! Gymnastics for 100 straight hours."
"100 hours?!"
"Yes. It's the only way I can unleash my secret art."
"...! Secret art..."
A word laced with the meaning of an 'ultimate technique.'
Secret art.
It wasn't something ordinary people tossed around lightly, but when hunters spoke of a secret art, it carried far more weight—and implications—than anyone could imagine.
"If you use it, can you definitely take down Clan Head Wang Sunja?"
"Yes! If I can master the secret art, I'll have over a 90% chance of victory."
90%.
In other words, nine out of ten.
Those were solid odds.
The problem, though...
"Ughhh..."
"Lime, you okay?"
"Master... the water here's too salty... tastes awful... I think I'm gonna dry up and die..."
For the next 100 hours.
Could Lime—who couldn't digest seawater—hold out that long?
"I'm a C-rank hunter, you know. At C-rank, you can go a full week without sleep."
Princess Lee Miran, telling me not to worry about her.
She asked me to nurse Lime—who was currently melting into a puddle—while she did Stretch-Stretch! Gymnastics nonstop on the beach, day and night.
"Lime is the key to our whole plan."
"Ah, got it!"
"Even if I complete the Stretch-Stretch! requirements and unleash my secret art, it'll be pointless if the portal doesn't open. So if it looks like you can't hold out until then..."
Stretch-Stretch! stops on the spot.
Instead, she'd head down to the first floor alone and use a vampire hunter's massive self-destruct ability to take Clan Head Wang Sunja down with her.
"In the meantime, I'll buy time."
"...Pardon?"
Princess Lee Miran was trying to show the noble spirit of sacrifice befitting noblesse oblige, just like with Lee Gok.
"Lime, if you feel like you're about to pass out, can you open the portal right then?"
"Yeah... I can manage that much..."
"Good. Thanks."
"W-Wait just a sec, Hyunjun!"
I wasn't the type with the guts to laugh it off while someone sacrificed themselves.
Which was why...
"Then I'll head in first through the underwater portal you open right before you collapse."
"Hyunjun..."
I shot Princess Lee Miran—who was mid-Stretch-Stretch!—a grin, as if to say no thanks to that.
"So until those 100 hours are up, Princess, you just keep at the gymnastics here."
Bringing us back to the present.
"I-Is that Princess Lee Miran?! I-Is this the same princess I knew?!"
On the fourth day, just five minutes shy of 100 hours, Lime finally hit his limit and opened a portal on the water's surface linking to the first floor.
But who could've guessed this was Princess Lee Miran's secret art?
I'd wondered what over 100 hours of Stretch-Stretch! could even accomplish, but never in my wildest dreams did I expect her to end up with this trashy... no, drop-dead sexy body.
"What? I'm still young enough to grow. Is it that shocking?"
Of course it was.
You were in your mid-to-late thirties, despite how you looked!
Yet there she was, ho-ho laughing shamelessly like she'd shot up from elementary school kid to full-grown woman, staring down Clan Head Wang Sunja.
Then her gaze locked onto those particularly prominent, mid-to-late-thirties ample breasts...
...Pfft.
"Total sag-fest."
"...Huh?"
"Areola's kinda dark up close too... Looks like you're hitting your 'sell-by date,' Clan Head."
Those brutally factual jabs...
"...You've crossed the line, Princess."
That seemingly trivial taunt was like dumping gasoline on a house fire—veins bulging on Clan Head Wang Sunja's forehead.
"Fufu. This is what they call the leisure of abundance. Time to earn your keep for those years."
"1. Overthrow Princess Lee Miran."
In a flash, the clan head closed the gap to the snickering princess.
"P-Princess!"
CRACK!
How hard did she kick it?
At first, seeing that low-kick stance, I figured it'd just throw off her balance.
But the next instant, as blood sprayed and her entire leg—bone and all—severed clean off midair, I was left slack-jawed.
Thud.
"Hmph! So what if you've grown a bigger body? I'm the clan head of a hunter family handed down for 400 years!"
Suddenly one-legged, Princess Lee Miran crumpled to the ground like a broken doll.
"2. Split Princess Lee Miran's skull in half."
"Princess! Get out of the way!!"
Was it hopeless after all?
Well, yeah, makes sense.
The opponent was a hunter clan head rated at minimum A-rank hunter level.
A rookie who'd barely lived half a century challenging a monster like that?
Even a secret art might just look like some gimmick to someone on her level.
Had to be.
SLASH.
"...Huh?"
I was thinking that as I watched the one-legged princess.
"Guh?!"
The one who leaped back to gain distance? Clan Head Wang Sunja—right at the kill shot.
'What the...?'
If she'd cleaved the princess's head for contract condition two, it'd have been her win, no question.
I couldn't make sense of her sabotaging her own victory, so I just stared blankly.
Then.
Crunch... cruuunch...
A nauseating sound echoed, like something being wrung to its absolute limit.
I pinpointed the source in seconds.
"M-My leg...!"
Clan Head Wang Sunja's right foot, hidden under her skirt.
More precisely, from the thigh that'd just amputated Princess Lee Miran's leg—blood spikes erupted in a spray.
Spurt! Spurt! Spurt!
Horrific.
Those blood spikes, bursting from within through bone and meat, dropped the 400-year hunter clan head to her knees in one go.
"Why'd you have to touch me?"
"...!"
"And why'd you slather yourself in my blood? Or did the proud heir of the Supreme Lee Clan think she'd just keep forging weapons from her own blood till she dropped dead?"
Clan Head Wang Sunja, forced to her knees by her own blood-smeared right foot.
Gazing down at her, Princess Lee Miran laughed with utter relief—despite her arguably graver wound.
She glanced aside and beckoned casually.
"Come on already."
Tatata!
"Wha—?!"
"What... is this?"
Regeneration was one thing, but this too?
Her severed right leg hopped back like it was all part of the plan, bounding toward the princess.
"Hm, attached!"
Like slapping clay onto clay, she pressed it to the stump—and it fused seamlessly, good as new.
"That level of regeneration... I've lived over 100 years and never seen it."
"You only watched, never studied. It's the regen ability of Romania's legendary vampire hunter queen, Vlad III."
Vlad III—a historical legend?
She'd recreated a technique from that icon?
I'd had high hopes for a secret art, but this exceeded every expectation.
The massive drawback was the 100-hour Stretch-Stretch! cast time, but watching her toy with the Wang Clan head like a kid...
"Now, how should we cook up our dear Clan Head... er, ma'am?"
I had no choice but to concede.
If she could wield that secret art even a little more freely, the next head of the Supreme Lee Clan wouldn't be Lee Gok.
It'd be Princess Lee Miran.
"Master... I can't... anymore..."
"Ah, Lime. You did great! Shrink into a small object and rest now!"
"Yeah... okay..."
Body sliced? Stick it back like clay.
Splattered with even a drop of blood mid-fight? Instant neutralization.
Try ranged attacks? Yank out the heart, hurl it like a grenade—new body sprouts from the spot and closes in fast.
'What is this, no Chainsaw Man overkill...'
Princess Lee Miran, wielding that absurd spec secret art.
"Call me 'More Miran,'" she'd declared.
Naturally, a clan head who'd only lived 120-ish years?
Squish.
"Gaaack!"
Easily crushed, then bound tight with a restraint technique for the finish.
"Incredible, Princess Lee Miran!"
"Ahem! What'd I say to call this me?"
"Ah... Incredible, More Miran."
"Hohohoho! That's right—the current me is no pint-sized Miran anymore! I'm probably Earth's strongest vampire hunter: More Miran!"
...She'd harbored a massive complex about her usual body.
Glad she's thrilled, though.
Anyway, this mess wrapped up nicely.
I scooped up Lime—now a sleeping dagger form—and prepared to exit the dungeon after a week, alongside Princess Lee Miran...
"Ahem!"
...No, More Miran.
But.
Grab.
"Hm? More Miran?"
"Hyunjun, look at me—I'm all puffed up right now."
"Uh? Oh, yeah..."
"So... don't we still have unfinished business?"
Unfinished business?
Something else lurking nearby?
Thinking that, I dumped the unconscious Clan Head Wang Sunja off my shoulder onto the ground.
Scanned every corner.
But with the top boss down, no real threats pinged.
What could "business" mean now that it was all over? At the time, I had no clue.