Chapter 180
Chapter 180
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 180
Chapter Title: Holy Armaments and Final Preparations
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[Chapter 180]
Having tricked the Olympus Guild into handing over heaps of monster and beast bones and meat, Yoo Seongwon gathered them in the basement of Iron Fortress before summoning the merchant Voxy using the ring blessed by the Slaughter King.
[Snort snort! It's been quite a while, hasn't it, customer? I was so lonely since you haven't called Voxy in ages.]
“That’s… things just turned out that way. I haven’t been blacklisted from trading or anything, right?”
Yoo Seongwon, who had not only smashed the forces of the Slaughter King’s apostles—including those in North Korea—but had slaughtered most of them and forced the survivors to retreat to their core dungeon, felt a twinge of guilt and hesitated slightly as he asked Voxy.
It wasn’t just a casual beatdown; he was the one responsible for the utter devastation.
[Snort snort! Don’t worry. As I told you last time, our ‘Slaughter King’ possesses countless stars, so the losses on this one star mean nothing to him. Snort!]
“…Well, if that’s the case, fine. Anyway, I want to sell all of this.”
[Oh my~! Snort snort! You must’ve been hunting a lot to stockpile this much? Snort snort!]
“Yeah, something like that.”
[Please wait a moment. This is an enormous amount, so converting it all to points will… Snort!]
Voxy pulled out a calculator from thin air and began tapping away furiously, taking stock of the monster corpses, bones, meat, blood, and various other materials Yoo Seongwon had brought.
About an hour passed like that, and once the calculations were done, Voxy handed the calculator to Yoo Seongwon.
[Total comes to 20 million points. Snort! Wow! It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a number this big. Where on earth did you gather all this?]
“Well, here and there…”
[Snort snort! With this much, you could even summon an apostle. Do you need one, by any chance?]
“No, I’m good. More than that, I need armaments. Show me as many as possible infused with holy or sacred power.”
[This is shaping up to be a great deal today. Snort snort! Then, could you call everyone who needs something? I have a knack for hospitality, you see. Snort snort snort!]
With those words, Voxy formed hand seals, and its number instantly multiplied to five.
Amazed by the trick, Yoo Seongwon promptly summoned the knights, who consulted with the Voxys and selected their gear.
Since the equipment was specialized for fighting liches, most of it gleamed in pure white or shining gold, with countless pieces appearing in flashes.
[What do you need, customer? Snort!]
[Axe… I want greatsword… and holy oil or water… grrr… lots of it.]
[Kyaaang~ So axes and greatswords, got it. What about blunt weapons, by any chance?]
[Krokbane… likes the cutting… feel.]
Due to its massive size, it was hard for Krokbane to find specific armor, so it bought heaps of holy water and sacred oil to apply to its skin and scales.
It also purchased an axe infused with sacred power capable of striking ghosts.
Seom-myeol, standing off to the side floating in the air as if uninterested, kept her distance.
“Seom-myeol, aren’t you picking anything? Oh, right. You were originally a knight who dealt with the impure, weren’t you?”
“Yes, Captain. Even if you forgot, I’m a proud member of the Sacred Heaven Knight Order.”
[Kyaaang! Sacred Heaven Knight Order! In that case, how about a sacred relic lost in an ancient war from the Sacred Heaven Knight Order? I happen to have one…]
“Captain! I’ll take one too.”
At the mention of a sacred relic, Seom-myeol switched attitudes in an instant and joined the shopping.
Akaron stocked up on silver bullets and blessed ammunition, while Jinseok and Junghwan acquired new weapons and armor suited to them, and at the same time purchased armaments for the Heavenly Sword Army soldiers.
[Hmm, Contractor. As a sacred being myself, I can’t wield holy or divine items, but I’ll get something else.]
“Do whatever.”
Since divine-attribute gear was lethal to the abyssal being Gaulp, it sensibly chose other types of armaments.
As for Yoo Seongwon, he already had excellent armor and Przewalski’s Lance as a weapon, so he didn’t strictly need anything, but just in case, he asked Voxy.
“By the way… do you have, like, a sword that can cut the underworld or something?”
[Snort? You’re looking for something unusual? Snort? Cutting the underworld? Trying to erase the concept of death?]
“No, not that. I faced a tricky enemy before… so, you know…”
Yoo Seongwon detailed his encounter with Perseia, the apostle of the constellation Hades, to Voxy.
He emphasized that it wasn’t just hiding its body—it slipped into another dimension called the ‘underworld,’ leaving no way to attack.
Listening, Voxy grasped what he wanted, wagged its tail excitedly, and clapped.
[Snort! For that, you’d use a ‘God-Forged Weapon’ or ‘God-Slaying Armament.’ Snort! I’ve never met that Perseia, but it seems to fight by manifesting the ‘absolute law’ of hiding in the ‘underworld.’ To break that ‘law,’ you need something like a ‘God-Forged Weapon’ or ‘God-Slaying Armament’ that shatters rules in kind.]
“…The scale just got huge all of a sudden.”
[Otherwise, you’d need a ‘Chaos Artifact’ from dimensions like the 2nd plane, chaos, void, or imaginary space.]
“…Got any?”
[I have a few! Snort! But… they’re insanely expensive! Snort snort! ‘God-Forged Weapons’ and ‘God-Slaying Armaments’ are made from the flesh or authority of ‘constellations’ themselves to begin with, and ‘Chaos Artifacts’ are truly unknown items. No one knows how they’re made, and they’re not available anytime.]
“…Ah~”
[Snort! One more thing: ‘Chaos Artifacts’ are extremely—extremely—extremely—extremely—extremely—extremely unstable and dangerous. Snort snort! Normal people would go mad just looking at them, and they might vanish one day with a poof~ or betray you without recourse. Kyarrung! And of course, they’re pricey!]
Voxy repeated the “expensive” part twice.
In any case, Yoo Seongwon felt these ‘God-Forged Weapons,’ ‘God-Slaying Armaments,’ and ‘Chaos Artifacts’ might be necessary for future battles and wanted to ask more, but Voxy’s explanation wasn’t over.
[‘Chaos Artifacts’ are a bit cheaper than the others, but I still don’t recommend them. Snort snort! You might pay with your life. Snort! With the points you have now, a ‘Chaos Artifact’ might be possible, but ‘God-Forged Weapons’ are absolutely out of reach.]
“Can’t be helped, then.”
Yoo Seongwon gave up immediately.
Still, thanks to Voxy’s explanation, he learned that Perseia’s ‘Throne of the Underworld Queen’ was a ‘God-Forged Weapon.’
It made him think that battles between top hunters ultimately came down to constellation blessings and item luck, but since he’d benefited greatly from the Golden Guardian Beast Armor himself, he had no room to complain.
“Coveting what you can’t have only leads to pain… Still, it’d be nice to have one before heading to conquer a core dungeon.”
[Snort? Core dungeon? You’re not going to the Slaughter King’s, are you?]
“No way. I have some shame. Buying stuff here and then raiding the Slaughter King’s core dungeon would be ridiculous, right? I’m heading to the ‘Constellation 66 Thousand Demons’ one.”
[Kyaaang~ I see. In any case, meeting that one’s incarnation isn’t a joke, so be careful. Snort!]
‘Hm?’
“Captain! Sir Akaron is trying to buy a weird missile! Stop him! What’s with that balloon cloud mark? Sir Akaron! That’s not for use on the battlefield!”
For a moment, Yoo Seongwon felt a strange incongruity in Voxy’s words, but before he could dwell on it, Seom-myeol’s shout about Akaron trying to buy a nuclear missile snapped him back, and he rushed over to stop him.
After spending every last point to make full preparations, they conducted war drills and synchronized teamwork while waiting for the system to stabilize in Yoo Seongwon’s absence.
“Hmm, there’s still creaks here and there. Ayoung keeps complaining that Yucheong scares her.”
“Ah, she’s merciless to everyone but me.”
The only one he called ‘Your Majesty’ and treated warmly was Yoo Seongwon. To other humans and subordinates, Yucheong showed his cold, fearsome side as an administrator.
On top of that, with the pretext of heir training, Shin Ayoung was suffering under Yucheong’s brutally intense education.
“Well, from what Yucheong says, Ayoung does have talent. He says she follows his rigorous training well and it’s enjoyable to teach her. They say you plant crops where the sprouts thrive…”
“Then tell him to go easy on her.”
“Got it, next time.”
“Anyway, now that the knights have to hand off their duties to us and the kids… even after some time, everyone lacks experience, and there are too many unfamiliar areas. At least the data from when they handled things is left, so we’re patching it up bit by bit.”
“Being too competent is a curse.”
“Maintaining city security is especially… whew~”
Without the knights and Heavenly Sword Army soldiers’ competence, the systems of Frontline City and Iron Fortress were like sandcastles.
Of course, with them still overseeing from behind, problems were prevented in advance, but if Yoo Seongwon’s side truly pulled out, it would undoubtedly cause serious chaos.
“Lack of expertise is unavoidable, but at least we have manuals, so that’s a relief. Hunter Choi Choongseon has been a huge help.”
“I see.”
“Oh, and somehow the Association and government caught wind that we’re preparing for a core dungeon.”
“…What? How? No, did they infer from the circumstances?”
Contact with Olympus Guild, transfer of various supplies, and even if disguised as expertise enhancement and personnel training, building a regime for Yoo Seongwon’s absence was experimental. Buying up materials everywhere and struggling made it obvious they had ulterior motives.
“So they’re not trying anything, right? Sis. I thought they’d been quiet lately…”
The government and Association had been quietly busy rebuilding the Korean hunter world without Yoo Seongwon.
They were also frantically working to stem the exodus to Frontline City and public outrage, but now peeking at their core dungeon plans again made Yoo Seongwon uneasy.
“They’re just watching for now. But the problem is how easily they reveal their thoughts on what to do if we fail the core dungeon raid.”
“We noticed that too, so we’re preparing in advance. We even got notarization from Olympus. Of course, it’s not 100% trustworthy…”
In a world where nothing was trustworthy without a constellation oath.
By the time they finished training, additional members’ level-ups, and stabilizing Frontline City’s personnel structure, three months had already passed.
Only then could Yoo Seongwon and the knights depart for the core dungeon of the Constellation 66 Thousand Demons in Mokpo, Jeollanam-do.