Chapter 101
Chapter 101
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 101
Chapter Title: Aheta's Treasure Warehouse
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Han Shin smirked inwardly.
It was clear that heavenly fortune was on his side.
As the old saying goes, no one can defeat the one favored by luck.
Han Shin usually didn't rely on such things as luck, but today he had no choice but to believe.
Messages floating before his eyes.
It restored those who earned the title.
And at the same time, the doppelgangers weakened.
"......I don't know who you are, but thank you sincerely."
Han Shin bowed his head.
Toward whoever had achieved the legendary quest.
At the very least, it couldn't be that mage who had put him in this state.
The bastard had simply stood in his way—he hadn't been progressing through the legendary quest.
...Who could it be?
Surely not that mage who had monopolized Adora's attention.
No.
Such coincidences couldn't exist in this world.
Han Shin conveyed his sincere gratitude to the unknown individual.
At that moment.
Light enveloped Han Shin's entire body, infusing it with a faint vitality.
Thanks to it, a bit of his stamina and mana returned.
The blessing's power let him escape the brink of death.
"Why at a time like this......!!"
Kim Byung-han, who had thought his prey was as good as caught, bit his lip.
The timing was absurd.
No—perhaps his overly cautious approach had been the mistake.
The clone was complete, and in just one hour, Han Shin would die on his own.
So he had planned to quietly watch Han Shin meet his end.
He had wanted to see Han Shin desperately wailing and begging for his life.
......But in that very interval, the 'legendary quest' had been completed, triggering the participant recovery function.
What rotten luck.
Rotten beyond belief.
Heh!
Han Shin bared his teeth in a grin.
A smile utterly at odds with his blood-soaked form.
'This is enough.'
Barely able to move, but it would suffice.
If he could just sink his teeth in.
Even if it killed him, he wouldn't regret it.
"...Even with a little stamina restored, you can't take on both of us. Why not just accept death quietly?"
Kim Byung-han regained his composure.
Han Shin's condition was still abysmal.
It was obvious he could barely walk.
Take on the doppelganger and him in that state?
'Impossible.'
If it were possible, the doppelganger clone wouldn't have worked.
Beings with an overwhelming gap in power couldn't be cloned.
Success meant the gap wasn't that wide.
Victory was a foregone conclusion.
No need to be afraid.
Shing!
Kim Byung-han gripped his sword.
If Han Shin hadn't ignored him completely, he would have treated him amicably.
Spared him and turned him into a comrade.
Han Shin was the one who rejected his boundless goodwill.
They had crossed an irreversible river.
Snap! Snap!
In an instant, Han Shin crooked his fingers.
As if to say, come on.
'This bastard......'
...Had he lost his mind?
Did he really think a bit of restored stamina meant he could win?
That insufferably arrogant expression and attitude were more than enough to stoke Kim Byung-han's rage.
"Fine. You must be dying to go, huh? I'll hack off your limbs and toss them to the dogs!"
"Hah, haa......!"
Tremble, tremble, tremble!
Kim Byung-han's body shook like an aspen leaf.
His face was deathly pale, his legs had given out, and he had collapsed to the floor.
He simply couldn't believe it.
He had been certain of total victory.
Yet Han Shin, ignoring his own wounds entirely, focused solely on killing his foe.
Bone for bone.
As if he felt no pain at all.
Kim Byung-han was terrified by Han Shin's merciless, indiscriminate butchery of the doppelganger.
It had surely been cloned perfectly.
The doppelganger should have been stronger than Han Shin, yet it couldn't properly respond to his swordsmanship.
A lack of experience.
An enormous gap in skill.
In the end, it fell without even putting up a real fight.
The real problem came after.
Once the battle ended and the doppelganger was defeated.
"Cr-crazy bastard......!"
Kim Byung-han pissed himself.
He couldn't tell if the scene before him was reality.
It went beyond violent and cruel—inhuman.
Yes. He wasn't human.
Crunch! Crunch!
......No human would eat a doppelganger alive.
He couldn't bear to watch.
Kim Byung-han desperately turned his head away.
But the sounds still reached him.
He wanted to cover his ears, but his fingers wouldn't obey.
'Move. Move, damn it!'
He wished he could flee, but it was hopeless.
The situation and acts had surpassed all reason, leaving him paralyzed with fear.
He had touched something he absolutely shouldn't have.
A monster among monsters.
He had encountered plenty of monsters in the Abyss, but none were as terrifying as Han Shin.
How much time passed like that?
Drip!
Han Shin's grotesque act finally came to an end.
Ssssh!
The doppelganger crumbled to dust.
He had kept it alive just enough not to die while devouring it, but its life had finally run out.
"Ah. So this is what it feels like."
Han Shin twisted his lips into a smile.
Then he looked up at the sky.
It was the first time.
The first time he had felt this sensation.
"So this is what it feels like to die and come back to life."
Right now, Han Shin had crossed the boundary between life and death.
By devouring the doppelganger that had cloned him, he had absorbed its unique mana.
Something that should have been impossible.
No living being could do such a thing.
But Han Shin could.
His instincts had made it possible.
His mad obsession with life, his madness.
The first true hatred he had ever felt.
Perhaps because of that.
One of Han Shin's pupils turned blood-red.
His demon eye had transformed.
His left eye remained the mana-reading demon eye, but his right eye had awakened an entirely new ability, one that crossed the boundary between death and life.
To be precise, it had mutated due to absorbing the doppelganger's unique mana.
'I can see death.'
The souls of the dead were visible.
The patterns of souls, of unique mana.
That was why he had been able to absorb the doppelganger's unique mana.
Death Spirit Eye.
Now able to read mana flows and even unique mana patterns, he no longer had anything to fear from that mage—even if they fought again.
'I've become the natural enemy of mages.'
And that was hardly all.
The doppelganger Han Shin had devoured wasn't an ordinary one.
It was an individual meant to become a lord.
By consuming it, Han Shin had seized the position of 'lord' for himself.
He had nearly lost everything, but in turn gained it all.
What else could this be called but heavenly fortune?
'Legendary quest achiever. If we meet someday, I'll spare you once.'
Han Shin regained his leisure.
The leisure of the strong.
Achieving the legendary quest meant he had the qualifications for it, but Han Shin was confident he had grown beyond even that.
He would never go through anything like this again.
He would ascend to a realm no one could follow.
"Are you watching, Aheta?"
Aheta's eye was still fixed on Han Shin.
The plan to clone him with a doppelganger and turn him into a lord had failed.
Instead, Han Shin had become the lord himself.
He had survived, grown stronger, become irreplaceable.
Aheta would have no choice but to acknowledge it.
He too had failed spectacularly.
To make up for it, he would need Han Shin more than ever.
...It was then.
Crack!
Aheta's pupil dilated sharply.
As if sensing something had gone terribly wrong, it frantically darted about.
And at the same time.
Kuuaaaaaang!
In the distance, light erupted.
Han Shin closed his eyes for a moment.
When he opened them again.
'......Goddess?'
He could witness the Goddess of Light.
But that wasn't all.
Ding!
"Unique achievement?"
He had never heard the term before, but he knew what it meant.
It referred to the 'unique achievement' that Aheta had set when creating the 'Second Night'.
The lord of the moon, the creator who bestowed 'night' upon countless races.
Naturally, he had run numerous 'Second Nights'.
And until now, there had always been one achievement that no one had accomplished—one that was practically impossible—which had remained unbroken.
That one had been shattered.
Right here, right now.
'No way the legendary quest achiever......?'
Han Shin's expression hardened.
He too lost his leisure.
Because.
'A million participants. Around 800,000 survived.'
If all 800,000 expressed their thanks.
How many points would that be?
Han Shin quickly calculated, and his face twitched.
'800 million points......!'
...Was that even possible?
Far too many for a single person.
Aheta's dilated pupil was proof of his shock.
Honestly, he couldn't understand why Aheta had even set up something like a unique achievement.
Now one individual was sweeping up an insane amount of contribution points.
'800 million points—what kind of reward would that bring? Unimaginable.'
The higher the contribution, the better the reward—that much was obvious.
This wasn't the total across everyone; one person had racked up that much. He couldn't even guess what treasure Aheta would lose from his warehouse.
The granary was about to be thoroughly looted.
Han Shin pondered.
An astronomical contribution score.
"...Thank you."
Han Shin bowed his head once more.
One more wouldn't make much difference.
But it felt more like petty revenge against Aheta.
Ding!
Han Shin looked up at the sky.
There, his gaze met Aheta's eye once more.
Pupils that seemed to rebuke him—what the hell are you doing?
Han Shin didn't look away from Aheta's eye.
Instead, he stared back provocatively.
'Let's just use each other thoroughly. That's the relationship we've always had.'
An hour later.
Park Chan-woo dusted off his hands.
He had done his utmost to rack up contribution points during the remaining time.
He had completed as many hidden quests as he possibly could.
Thanks to that, he had boosted his score substantially.
Ding!