Chapter 145
Chapter 145
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 145
Chapter Title: An Unexpected Revelation
-----------------------------------------------------------------
“Hold on. Something’s not right.”
Lee Si-woo stopped in his tracks, his eyes fixed on a bloodstain near the stairs leading down.
As Si-woo crouched, Plenitas followed suit, whispering.
“Blood! There’s blood.”
Worse, the blood wasn’t dry.
It meant the stain was fresh, a sign that an enemy was nearby. Si-woo held out his hand to Plenitas.
“The stick, please.”
Taking the wooden stick from Plenitas, Si-woo pulled out the wolf fang.
He placed both items on the floor and, after a moment of thought, spoke.
“Plenitas. Please don’t misunderstand. By any chance, is the underwear you’re wearing a regular bra or a sports bra? If it’s a regular bra, it can’t be helped, but if it’s a sports bra, I’d like to ask for a favor.”
Perhaps because it wasn't a crisis, she was much quicker on the uptake than when she was in a panic. She guessed Si-woo’s intention and asked.
“Uh… it is a sports bra. Are you thinking of tying that and this together? I don’t think that will be easy.”
“It’s better than nothing.”
“Yes… well… I suppose so.”
Slightly hesitant out of embarrassment, she let out a sigh and took off her sports bra, handing it to Si-woo.
Functionally superior to a regular bra and with excellent elasticity, Si-woo used the sports bra to lash the wolf fang to the wooden stick.
Was it thanks to his Talent, Dexterity?
Si-woo smiled in satisfaction as he examined the surprisingly sturdy and plausible-looking fang axe he had created.
‘This should be useful enough, right? Hmm, but it might break after a few swings, so…’
Thinking it still wasn't enough, Si-woo took off his hospital gown and wrapped it tightly around the entire handle, leaving only the fang exposed, to make it as solid as possible. The idea was to minimize the impact on the stick to increase its durability, even if just by a little.
After swinging the fang axe in the air a few times, Si-woo, deeming himself ready, entered the stairwell.
Sure enough, at the bottom of the stairs, a grotesque creature with the lower body of a human and the upper body of a goblin was loitering.
Spotting the half-goblin standing guard next to a corpse, its mouth smeared with blood, Si-woo charged.
No matter how much weaker he had become overnight, for someone who had fought countless battles in the Main Dimension, a half-baked goblin like that was no difficult opponent.
*Thwack!*
Si-woo landed a high kick to the goblin's face, then brought the fang axe down on its neck.
The goblin collapsed, gurgling blood foam, without even a chance to scream.
Having finished the hunt in the time it took to draw a few breaths, Si-woo looked down at the goblin.
*Pshhh.*
The goblin's corpse vanished into smoke, leaving behind an old notebook.
‘What’s with the notebook?’
Si-woo examined the inside of the old notebook, where the date section had been erased.
Research Journal, Year X, Month X, Day X
Interesting.
I tried to revert it, but this time, an unspecified deteriorating agent emerged, turning it into a strange green monster.
It seems that while it's possible to transform a human into another form, reverting a chimera back to a human is impossible.
Research Journal, Year X, Month X, Day X
I tried combining a wolf and a human, and a rather interesting form of chimera emerged.
Its physical abilities increased, its intelligence vanished, and its place was taken by a bestial nature.
The human parts are still weak, but this too will improve with time.
Perhaps with a little more research, I can dilute its bestial nature?
Good, when that time comes, I will send them to the Artificial Dimension…
The research journal ended there.
‘Is this… a log detailing the process of creating beastmen and goblins?’
He suddenly recalled a story he had heard two years ago while threatening Allen’s sister, Lina.
—This sounds a bit absurd… but there’s information that some of the species in the Main Dimension use humans as their base.
If this journal was accurate, it would lend more credibility to the rumor that some non-human races originated from humans.
Yes, perhaps the non-human races were test subjects born from someone's research.
Why?
The moment he acknowledged that fact, a strange revulsion tickled his chest, accompanied by a wave of dizziness.
It was as if his soul and body were warning him that digging any deeper into this would do him no good.
“What’s wrong? You don’t look well.”
“…It’s nothing.”
Si-woo ripped the research journal to shreds. It only had two pages of content anyway, and he had already committed them to memory.
It was no longer of any use.
Si-woo spoke, his voice as dry as a withered lung.
“Let’s go. The cafeteria is right downstairs.”
* * *
*Pant, pant.*
Even as she gasped for breath like a marathon runner, Ha-yun couldn’t for the life of her figure out how she had ended up in this situation.
She had clearly come to the Artificial Dimension with Adrian, and then she had lost consciousness.
But when she awoke, she found she had somehow reverted from a vampire back to a human, lying in a strange laboratory.
A laboratory filled to the brim with blood-crazed vampires.
‘Am I… going to die?’
She had managed to use her wits to escape the lab through a ventilation duct, but the vampires, with their crimson eyes and long fangs, pursued her relentlessly, as if they could smell her flesh.
Sprinting frantically down a long corridor to escape them, Ha-yun realized she had run into a dead end.
Ha-yun ran her palms over the gray, blocking wall and squeezed her eyes shut.
‘I just met Si-woo again, to die so meaninglessly in a place like this… No. I hate that. I have to survive, somehow.’
As she desperately searched for an escape route, her eyes caught a jagged stone protruding from the poorly finished surface of the gray wall.
And above, a plank-style ceiling tile that could be pushed up with a light touch.
[Ha-yun] ★★★★★☆☆☆☆
Race: Human
Talents: Perseverance, Calmness, Climbing, Luck, Agility.
Using her Climbing Talent, Ha-yun gripped the jagged part of the gray wall with her fingers and, like a taut bowstring, launched her body upwards toward the ceiling.
With an agile movement, Ha-yun slid open a ceiling panel and, grabbing the nearby ceiling frame with her left hand, pulled herself into the opening.
Landing in the crawl space above the ceiling, Ha-yun let out a sigh of relief.
Upon closer inspection, she realized that if she moved smartly, she could get out of here quickly.
‘I will survive. I can’t die before I see Si-woo again. Absolutely not.’
Like a cat in the night, Ha-yun crawled through the darkness above the ceiling.
Was it because they had frustratingly lost her?
Below, the vampires pawed at the air toward the hole in the ceiling where she had disappeared.
* * *
By the time Lee Si-woo reached the cafeteria on the lower floor, there were already others present.
A large black man with a somber face was eating canned tuna and peaches, and a brown-haired woman was nibbling on a piece of bread while chatting with an Asian man who appeared to be her companion.
Si-woo quickly surveyed the three occupants and raised a hand in greeting first.
“Hello.”
The black man spotted Si-woo and gripped the fire axe he had placed on his chair, the woman pulled out a box cutter, and the Asian man drew a black pistol.
Si-woo’s gaze deepened at the sight of the pistol.
He knew just how valuable a pistol, which was of little use in the Main Dimension, was in a place like this.
The black man asked in a grating voice laced with a metallic rasp.
“Name.”
“Nameless.”
“Nameless? You don’t have a name? You call that a name?”
“More accurately, it’s meaningless. What does it matter what name I spout here? How would you know if it's an alias or my real name? Right?”
At Si-woo’s cynical reply, the black man chuckled and shot back.
“So sensitive. Don’t be like that. I’m asking for your name from the outside. You. What did you do? What’s your star-rank?”
“Four stars. As for my name, I’m not famous enough for you to know it.”
“Oh, you’re telling me your star-rank so obediently? Is this a lie?”
Si-woo shrugged and replied.
“You told me to talk, so I did. Why are you so suspicious?”
“Hehehe. Well, fine. How about you?”
Plenitas, feigning composure, said.
“Six stars. My name is Plenitas.”
At her naive act of casually revealing her true star-rank, Si-woo scratched the back of his head.
This was the problem with sheltered flowers.
Revealing her rank to a complete stranger, and even giving her real name?
She might as well be advertising for someone to come and eat her.
Sure enough, upon hearing her name, the black man asked again in surprise.
“Plenitas? Huh! Plenitas Graves?”
Plenitas nodded with a triumphant expression.
“That’s right. I’m the second daughter of the Graves family. Plenitas.”
Hearing her full name, the black man and the other two began to whisper among themselves.
They had never expected to encounter the second daughter of the Graves family in a place like this.
The black man carefully placed his fire axe back on the chair and said.
“Well, my apologies. I didn't realize the second daughter of the Graves family would be here. And six stars, too? That's one star higher than me. Hmm… My name is Chanchilla. Although I’m outside the top 200, I was skilled enough to be treated as a Ranker.”
Pleased by the black man’s subservient attitude after recognizing her, Plenitas’s voice became slightly more upbeat.
“Chanchilla… I haven’t heard of you, but it’s reassuring to know you’re a Ranker. Have you been here long?”
“No, not for long. And to be in this pathetic human body instead of my great troll form? Hmph, this so-called trial of the tomb has really cramped my style.”
Si-woo cut through their budding, friendly conversation and headed for the cafeteria refrigerator.
Opening the door, he found it fully stocked with canned food.
Feeling peckish, Si-woo grabbed a few cans of fruit and tuna, tossing some to Plenitas and keeping the rest for himself.
“Does anyone have a bag?”
At Si-woo’s question, the brown-haired woman put her box cutter in her pocket and raised her hand.
“I do. I have one.”
“Could I borrow it?”
“For free?”
“I don’t have anything on me, but if we get out of here, I can get you points or manastones, whatever you need.”
“I don’t need any of that. Let me scan you, too.”
Si-woo stared intently at the Asian man and asked.
“Scan?”
“I’m an experienced player. A Rank 2 user who entered this place long before you guys.”
Si-woo instantly grasped the situation from the man’s words.
‘So that’s why he has a gun. Was he one of those who entered the trial before? Right, considering we don't know how long this tomb has existed, it’s natural for there to be veterans like him. Hmm, so he must have a past connection with that woman? Huh, whoever she is, she's quite lucky.’
Si-woo crossed his arms and asked.
“So? What is this scan?”
“It’s to check your potential. I’m in charge of scouting in the tutorial area.”
“My potential… what kind of potential?”
“Your potential. To see if you have the potential to be worth our investment.”
“And what do I get out of it?”
“Alright, I’ll give you a few tips. There is a way to ‘get out’ of here. An item for it exists. In other words, if you’re a talent that catches our eye… you can leave this trial whenever you want.”
“Really? If that’s true, things just got a lot more interesting. So? What’s your proof that you’re telling the truth? Frankly, life’s too harsh to believe someone’s words are true based on a few sentences.”
*Click.*
The Asian man pressed the muzzle of his black pistol to Si-woo’s forehead and said.
“I think the bullet in this gun will tell you whether I’m lying or not. Or what? Want to see if this gun is fake?”
Si-woo raised his hands lightly and said.
“I concede. As much guts as I have, I’m not stupid enough to test if that gun is fake with my own body. Fine, do whatever you want with that scan or whatever it is.”
At Si-woo’s compliant attitude, the Asian man snorted and lowered the gun. He then took a camera out from his pocket.
“I’m looking forward to this. From the way you talk, you seem pretty useful.”
The Asian man, grinning, took a picture of Si-woo with the camera. His pupils dilated.
Then, he spoke in a trembling voice.
“What? This is insane! You, you bastard… what are you? What the hell is your identity?”
So flustered he was trembling with fear, the Asian man raised his gun again and aimed it at Si-woo.
Then, with the expression of a master who realized the kitten he’d found was actually a tiger cub, he said.
“How can your rank be eight stars?! A monster like you… where the hell did you come from?!”