Chapter 153
Chapter 153
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 153
Chapter Title: Truth Game (2)
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Tanker Player Hayato's party finally hit their limit.
What was the choice of the party's leader, Tanker Player Hayato?
He used his comrades as bait and ditched them.
"Save me! Don't abandon me!"
"Hey! You bastard! Save us!"
He started abandoning the weaker DPS players one by one.
In the end, the only ones left were Tanker Player Hayato and Golem Sorceress Yuka, who was riding on his back.
"Damn it all!"
As a tanker player, Hayato had the highest stamina stat among the party members.
That's how he'd held out this long.
But he had reached his absolute limit.
Golem Sorceress Yuka had managed to recover some mana along the way and summon mud golems to buy them time, which was the only reason they'd survived until now.
"But no more."
As his stamina hit rock bottom,
the weight of Golem Sorceress Yuka, who had felt so light before, started to feel heavier and heavier.
"Huff... huff... Walk on your own now!"
Tanker Player Hayato dumped Golem Sorceress Yuka onto the ground.
"H-Hayato, I can't walk anymore. My legs won't move."
Golem Sorceress Yuka's legs were twitching and trembling in spasms.
Even if her legs had been fine,
Golem Sorceress Yuka's stamina was depleted, and she couldn't walk any further.
"Sniff sniff! I smell humans!"
"Over there!"
In the meantime, the orcs were closing in.
"Fighting's impossible."
There were three orc chieftains, no less.
"Yuka, how much mana have you recovered?"
"I think I can summon one mud golem."
"Then do it quick. We need to buy even a little time."
"O-Okay."
Golem Sorceress Yuka squeezed out her remaining mana to create a single mud golem.
"Humans! Kill them!"
Groooar!
The three orc chieftains charged.
Rumble rumble rumble!
The mud golem blocked their path.
Winning was out of the question.
But buying a little time was possible.
"Hayato, now let's run again..."
Golem Sorceress Yuka turned around, calling out to Tanker Player Hayato.
But all she saw was the back of Tanker Player Hayato, fleeing alone.
"Hayato! How could you abandon me like this!"
Golem Sorceress Yuka cried out in a voice full of resentment.
"If it weren't for you, we wouldn't even be in this mess! Buy as much time as you can!"
"You're abandoning me now? You said we'd never part forever! You said we'd always be together! Hayato!"
Golem Sorceress Yuka screamed Tanker Player Hayato's name.
But by then, Tanker Player Hayato had already vanished from Golem Sorceress Yuka's sight.
The life drained from Golem Sorceress Yuka's eyes.
"Hayato abandoned me."
She had trusted Hayato more than anyone else.
In the end,
"I've been abandoned."
She'd been used again.
"No one ever loves me."
They only ever tried to use her.
Golem Sorceress Yuka wasn't an idiot.
That's why she knew
that Hayato had gained massively from having her around.
But that was fine.
"Because he stayed by my side."
It was the same with the other party members.
The same with everyone else.
"As long as I was useful."
They praised her and showered her with love and attention.
She knew it wasn't genuine.
"But it was okay."
She wanted that fake love and attention anyway.
And she believed that someday, that fake love and attention might turn real.
But
it never happened.
"In the end, I'm alone again."
She had trusted and relied on people.
But all she'd gotten were wounds.
"I hate them."
She loathed the existence of people who only ever hurt her.
"I won't trust anyone anymore."
If she didn't trust?
If she didn't rely?
She wouldn't get hurt.
"Better if they all just disappeared."
If humans ceased to exist.
She couldn't receive love or attention.
But she also wouldn't get hurt or abandoned.
"Let's wipe them all out."
Then
"I won't get hurt or abandoned."
Golem Sorceress Yuka's eyes filled with madness,
transforming into the eyes of Mad Blood Witch Yuka.
At that moment,
[Job change conditions fulfilled.]
A blood-red system message appeared.
[This is a job change system not registered with the Gaia System.]
[Error! Error!]
Blue system messages flashed wildly,
but Yuka didn't see them.
[Would you like to job change to U-EX Rank Despair and Terror's Ragged Golem Sorceress?]
[Yes] [No]
The blood-red system message ignored the blue error messages and popped up.
Yuka selected Yes.
Whoosh!
Red light enveloped Yuka's body.
[You have job changed to U-EX Rank Despair and Terror's Ragged Golem Sorceress.]
[SS-Rank Water Golem Summon skill has changed to SSS-Rank Blood Golem Summon skill.]
[S-Rank Iron Golem Summon skill has changed to SS-Rank Bone Golem Summon skill.]
[SS-Rank Mud Golem Summon skill has changed to SSS-Rank Flesh Golem Summon skill.]
... (continued) ...
Blood-red system messages scrolled continuously before Yuka's eyes.
Boom!
In the meantime, the mud golem shattered.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The orc chieftains approached slowly.
Yuka wasn't afraid of a single one.
Her depleted mana had recovered somewhat,
and her mind overflowed with newly acquired skills and the knowledge to use them.
The moment Yuka raised her hand to use one of her new skills.
Booom!
Kang Hyun-soo appeared, swinging his sword infused with blood-red aura, instantly wiping out the three orc chieftains.
"Yuka, you okay?"
At Kang Hyun-soo's question,
Yuka frowned.
"I have to kill all humans."
That way, she wouldn't get abandoned or hurt.
"But this one's different."
But?
He could abandon her just like Hayato.
"My head hurts."
With Kang Hyun-soo's arrival,
the new definitions and standards for humans that Yuka had created herself began to waver.
At that moment.
"I can just test it."
A good idea popped into Yuka's head.
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"Sorry I'm late."
"No, it's okay."
Yuka said with a bright smile.
"Something's off."
Kang Hyun-soo tilted his head.
Her expression felt mechanical, unlike before.
Until now, Kang Hyun-soo had been following Hayato's party from behind using his Moon Shadow skill.
So he knew exactly how Yuka had been abandoned.
He thought he'd arrived before her corruption.
"Was I too late?"
Kang Hyun-soo ramped up his tension.
"Let's go for now."
Kang Hyun-soo scooped up Yuka and moved quickly.
"Grrk! Humans!"
"Kill them!"
That's when they ran into a horde of several hundred orcs.
"Just small fry."
Kang Hyun-soo's summons had smashed the large orc packs in the area,
but they hadn't fully exterminated the groups operating on this scale.
The numbers were too vast,
and also, due to EXP supply issues, his summons couldn't stray more than 20 kilometers from him.
Kwaaang!
Kang Hyun-soo's sword wrapped in blood-red aura,
Booom!
instantly pulverizing the orc horde.
Normally, the orc corpses would turn into residual mana and absorb into Kang Hyun-soo's body.
But something anomalous happened.
Crunch! Crunch!
The shattered orc corpses clumped together,
Groooar!
reviving in the form of undead monsters.
"What the hell?"
Kang Hyun-soo's expression hardened.
They took the form of undead monsters,
but they weren't undead.
"Ragged Golem."
A composite of blood golems made of blood, bone golems of bone, flesh golems of meat.
"A golem only the Mad Blood Witch can create."
Kang Hyun-soo quickly checked Yuka's face.
"W-What do we do? Undead monsters appeared. They look really strong."
Yuka said with a terrified expression.
"Well, well?"
Kang Hyun-soo grasped the situation immediately.
"She wants to know if I'll abandon her when my life is in danger?"
One problem.
"These guys are too weak to put me in real danger."
Mad Blood Witch Yuka.
Humanity's strongest player.
Public enemy of all mankind.
But even so,
"She's still incomplete."
If Kang Hyun-soo wanted?
He could sweep away this many ragged golems with ease.
"I could fake it just enough,"
but if Yuka learned his true power later?
"It'd backfire."
If he had to fake it anyway?
"Better do it right."
Kang Hyun-soo resummoned Doppelganger King Talisman and the other doppelgangers he'd unsummoned earlier.
-You transform into the orc great chieftain and attack me. The rest of you become orc great warriors and warriors.
At Kang Hyun-soo's command,
-Roger.
Doppelganger King Talisman instantly transformed into a 5-meter orc great chieftain,
and the others into orc great warriors and warriors.
"Groooar! Kill the human!"
"Eek!"
As Doppelganger King Talisman in orc great chieftain form and the doppelganger orc great warriors appeared,
a scream escaped Yuka's lips.
"What do I do?"
She had planned to create golems with her new skills to test Kang Hyun-soo's sincerity.
But now real powerful enemies—an orc great chieftain and orc great warriors—had shown up.
"Should we fight together? But then he'd think it weird?"
Yuka fell into confusion,
and the ragged golems in undead monster form, which had seemed ready to attack Kang Hyun-soo, halted their movements.
"I thought I'd shaken them off earlier, but no?"
Kang Hyun-soo feigned surprise and set Yuka down.
"Hah!"
With a spirited shout, he charged at Doppelganger King Talisman in orc great chieftain form.
Boom! Boom!
Aura fragments exploded everywhere,
and massive mana clashes, beyond Yuka's ability to even gauge, erupted one after another.
Crack! Crumble!
The ragged golems, which had stopped moving without orders from the golem sorceress Yuka,
got caught in the clash between Kang Hyun-soo and Doppelganger King Talisman in orc great chieftain form and shattered instantly.
"Amazing."
Yuka knew from her new system messages that she'd grown dramatically stronger.
Her job had changed.
She'd gained new skills.
Her stats had risen.
So she thought she could put Kang Hyun-soo in danger.
"What a huge mistake."
If the orc great chieftain hadn't appeared?
The ragged golems would have been swept away in seconds.
The problem was that while Kang Hyun-soo was strong,
the orc great chieftain that had smashed her mud golem in one hit was insanely strong too.
"Huh?"
Then Yuka noticed something odd.
As the ragged golems were obliterated
and the air trembled with the ground splitting in fierce combat,
"Everything around me is fine."
Moreover,
the orc great warriors weren't charging at Yuka either.
"Ah!"
Yuka finally realized why.
Kang Hyun-soo
was blocking every attack headed her way with his own body.
Not only that,
Grrrrawr!
Even in the midst of his fierce battle with the orc great chieftain, Kang Hyun-soo was constantly checking the orc great warriors lunging at Yuka.
The problem was,
"No!"
that Kang Hyun-soo was sustaining big and small injuries in the process.
Yuka wanted to help Kang Hyun-soo,
but she'd used up all her mana summoning the ragged golems just now.
She wanted to help but couldn't.
Even if she had mana left,
the golems she could make with her skill wouldn't help much in battle anyway.
"Tch, summon legion!"
At Kang Hyun-soo's shout then,
Shiiiing!
Mana soldiers materialized, escorting Yuka and attacking orcs to break the encirclement.
"Grrraaawr! All gather!"
In response, the orc great chieftain let out a mighty roar!
Groooar!
Orcs surged in from all directions like a tidal wave.
Kang Hyun-soo's summons and the orcs shifted from battle to all-out war.
"Let's escape in this gap."
At Kang Hyun-soo's words, Yuka looked baffled.
"What are those?"
"My summons. My job's summoner-type. Didn't you see them earlier?"
"Ah!"
Yuka let out a small exclamation.
"Now that you mention it."
The first time they'd been ambushed by the orc great chieftain,
Kang Hyun-soo's summons had burst out at his call and bought time for the others to escape.
She'd been too frantic then to ask what was going on.
"So that's why—he's a summoner."
Yuka's face brightened.
She now shared one more thing in common with Kang Hyun-soo.
"Actually, I barely escaped earlier thanks to them buying time."
Kang Hyun-soo explained as he used the gap his summons created to break the encirclement and flee.
Then the situation shifted abruptly.
"Groooar! Catch them!"
The orc great chieftain led orc chieftains and great warriors, breaking through the summons' defensive line to pursue again.
The distance was closing.
"Go on ahead. I'll hold them off!"
At Kang Hyun-soo's words,
"No!"
Yuka refused.
"If we stay like this, we'll both die! At least you need to survive, Yuka! So go!"
Kang Hyun-soo set Yuka down,
then charged back at the orc great chieftain to block the retreat path.
Boom! Boom!
Kang Hyun-soo fought alone, holding off the orc great chieftain and other orcs.
"Ah...."
It was real.
He was sincere.
Unlike Hayato, who had abandoned her and fled alone when his life hung in the balance, Kang Hyun-soo was different.
"I finally found him."
Someone she could trust and rely on without fear of betrayal.
Someone she didn't have to worry about getting hurt or abandoned by after giving her heart.
"Everyone else maybe, but him—I can trust."
She had realized the truth that killing all humans meant no more hurt or abandonment.
She thought there were no exceptions.
But just now, the one exception had appeared.