Chapter 70
Chapter 70
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 70
Chapter Title: A Necessary Gamble
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Having used Barathrum's power to strike Yoana and delay her pursuit, Lee Si-woo immediately prepared for a divination.
From what he had seen through her eyes, Yoana appeared to have suffered significant mental damage, but he couldn't be certain she would give up the chase.
As Lee Si-woo took out the ruby necklace for the divination, the Butler, watching from the side, asked.
“Will you be proceeding with the divination?”
“Yes. I don’t think the pursuer will give up just like that.”
The Butler spoke in a heavy, somber tone.
“My lord, if I may be so bold, might I say a word?”
Seeing the Butler’s unusually serious demeanor, Lee Si-woo couldn't respond lightly.
“You may speak your mind to me whenever you wish.”
“By all means, use divination if you must, but I implore you to always approach it with caution and care.”
Sensing an inexplicable, ominous nuance, Lee Si-woo furrowed his brow and asked.
“Does… something bad happen if I use divination within Barathrum?”
The young Butler gently stroked his faceless mask with his index finger and said.
“As you may have sensed, my lord, your divinations are already special even in the outside world. Their accuracy is far superior to that of other mages. However, here, divination is beyond special—it is on another level entirely. So much so that it can attract the attention of dangerous beings.”
“Dangerous beings…?”
“Beings filled with untouchable authority and malice. Beings that you, my lord, are by no means capable of handling at present.”
“Then should I not use divination today?”
“No, one cannot refuse to make soy sauce for fear of maggots. If you must use it, then you should. Especially when your life is in danger, as it is now. However…”
Lee Si-woo, understanding the point the Butler was trying to make, said.
“Don’t overuse it?”
“Precisely, my lord. If I may be so bold as to ask, I hope you will use divination primarily for your own safety and self-preservation. Should you become greedy and use it for personal glory and desire…”
Reading the ominous nuance in the Butler’s trailing words, Lee Si-woo nodded with a grim expression.
“I understand. I will keep it in mind and be especially careful.”
As if he had said all he needed to, the Butler gave Lee Si-woo a polite nod and disappeared.
He was concerned that his ominous words might prevent Lee Si-woo from proceeding with the divination comfortably.
Thanks to the Butler’s consideration, Lee Si-woo regained his composure, took a deep breath, and gripped the ruby necklace.
*Ssk.*
Kneeling on one knee, Lee Si-woo let the ruby necklace slip halfway from his hand, allowing it to rest gently on the dirt floor.
The divination technique Lee Si-woo intended to use with the gem this time was ‘Questioning,’ a method where the gem would answer his questions by writing letters on the dirt floor.
While it was an effective and simple technique favored by many arcane mages, a significant number avoided it due to its drawback: it only allowed for five questions.
For arcane mages whose divinations had low accuracy, needing to repeat the same question three times to gain certainty, the five-question limit was a fatal flaw.
Of course, this didn't apply to Lee Si-woo, whose accuracy was exceptional.
“Hoo…”
As Lee Si-woo exhaled, showing his intent to use divination, the ruby necklace began to glow with a faint red light and vibrate.
*Vwooom.*
The ruby necklace's prolonged vibration ceased, and the ruby's surface cracked like worn-out glass.
Sensing that the gem was ready to receive a question, Lee Si-woo opened his mouth.
“What must I do to survive?”
With a faint vibration, the gem began to write on the dirt floor.
『Break the barrier.』
*Crack.*
After finishing the first answer, the gem’s surface cracked once more.
The answer, which seemed to align with the Death-Ground Fortune, made Lee Si-woo’s eyes sparkle as he recalled its words.
『An old man sought the mountain, so you die if you go to the old site, and you die if you don't. You are safe with a blue umbrella, but you die if the old man finds you. You are in danger without the blue umbrella, but you live if you find a sunlit place. There are two paths to survival: appeal to the old man's heart, or take off the umbrella and seek the sunlight.』
“In the Death-Ground Fortune, what do ‘sunlight’ and ‘sunlit place’ signify?”
At Lee Si-woo’s question, the gem's surface cracked roughly, like dry earth.
The gem cracked without giving an answer, and Lee Si-woo's eye twitched.
He realized he had made a mistake.
『You have crossed the line. One question will be deducted.』
Having wasted a question so pointlessly, Lee Si-woo chewed on his lip.
Now, only three of the five questions remained.
For Lee Si-woo, who needed to secure every piece of high-quality information he could to survive, it was a painful loss.
‘…I messed up. The Death-Ground Fortune is a function of Barathrum itself. I should have never expected something like divination to interpret it…’
Considering the value and potential of Barathrum, what Lee Si-woo had done was akin to trying to solve a supercomputer’s problem with a calculator.
It was impossible to get an answer.
Having lost an opportunity with a foolish question, Lee Si-woo thought for a moment before asking his third question.
“Where must I go to destroy the barrier?”
『The ruins.』
So, in the end, I have to go to the ruins?
But the Death-Ground Fortune made him hesitate to go to the ruins without a second thought.
It was because of the line, ‘you die if you go to the old site, and you die if you don't.’
As he sighed and tried to clear his head, Lee Si-woo’s eyebrow twitched.
‘Wait, die if I go, die if I don’t. Could this be… related to time?’
The divination clearly stated he had to break the barrier to live, and to break it, he had to go to the ruins.
So, to survive, he absolutely had to go to the ruins, yet the Death-Ground Fortune said he would die if he went.
If that was the case, then this might be related to time.
For instance, if he went in the morning, something at the ruins would kill him, but if he went in the afternoon, that something would be gone, and he would live.
Lee Si-woo hesitated.
He could waste another question on a rash assumption.
‘Tsk, long deliberation leads to a bad move. Alright, nothing ventured, nothing gained.’
Lee Si-woo asked the gem.
“To survive, when must I go to the ruins?”
『Tomorrow.』
Lee Si-woo’s guess had been correct.
However, this now made him worry about the pursuer.
No matter how positively he tried to think, he couldn't imagine the pursuer would leave him alone until tomorrow.
‘If I go to the ruins today, I die, so I have to go tomorrow. But the pursuer is right on my tail… Si-woo, think. If you want to live, you have to find a way.’
Just then, a thought flashed through Lee Si-woo’s mind, and he opened his mouth.
“Where must I go to obtain the Elemental Stone?”
『The highest point in the mountain range.』
*Craaack!*
The shattered fragments of the ruby scattered across the dirt floor.
Having heard the final answer he wanted from the divination, Lee Si-woo clenched his fists.
A venomous glint flickered in his eyes, radiating a chilling aura.
* * *
A four-legged lizard monster, a Chilmyunseokcheok (Seven-Faced Lizard), tilted its head, a puzzled look on its face.
Sucking the brains from a dwarven mage with its tongue while checking a smartphone with its foreleg, it spoke.
-Boss. Got a weird message here, did you see it?
A large-framed mage, wearing a robe like a giant cloth bundle, nodded.
-If you’re talking about the information on the ruins, I saw it too. Said it's on the mountainside, but has the highest mana purity around.
-It even has a footnote saying it’s the secret training ground of a Senior Magic Tower elder’s family? Well, I'll be damned, they even sent a picture? You think this is real?
-We won’t know if it’s fake or real until we see it with our own two eyes.
-Hmm, and this message seems to be a random broadcast sent to all mages within a certain radius… Tsk, it’s a hundred percent a trap. If it were real, why would they be so kind as to include the location and a picture? Trying to drum up customers, are they?
While the two were murmuring amongst themselves, a colleague who had gone to scout the skies returned.
The monster mage with the face of a hornet and transparent dragonfly wings, Vespid, spoke.
-Trap or not, it doesn’t matter. There really is an unusual-looking ruin on the mountainside, and every last mage in this range is flocking there.
The Chilmyunseokcheok flicked its tongue and retorted.
-They’re flocking there even though it’s obviously a trap? Hmph, a bunch of utter fools.
The boss shook his head and said.
-No, you can’t call them foolish. They likely had no other choice.
-Huh? What, boss? You’re not saying we should go now, are you?
-If the ruins didn’t exist, it would be one thing, but since they do, we have to go. Frankly, no one thought an Elemental Stone would appear in this Niam Mountain Range. In fact, everyone was skeptical. Why would there be a tip about an Elemental Stone appearing in a place with nothing special about it? Why here?
Vespid, having grasped the core of what the boss was saying, clicked its sharp, pincer-like incisors and spoke.
-The boss is right. Yes, the moment a special place—these ruins—was discovered in this den of low-level mages, it provided the justification that was missing for the birth of an Elemental Stone.
The Chilmyunseokcheok groaned and said.
-Dammit, I get it. Why do you have to talk in such a roundabout way? You could’ve just said the ruins are the only place the Elemental Stone could appear.
Vespid nodded and said.
-Everyone knows that a seven-colored phenomenon occurs when an Elemental Stone is born. So, in the end, the one who gets the stone will be the one who finds it first. And to do that, you need to secure the location where it’s most likely to appear.
As if there was no more need for discussion, the monstrous boss took the lead and said.
-Let’s go to the ruins. We’ll figure out the rest on the way.
* * *
Yahalong, who had been persuaded by Lee Si-woo’s plan to grab the Elemental Stone and leave the mountains as quickly as possible and had guided the group to the ruins, anxiously chewed on his thumbnail.
It had only been about thirty minutes since they’d arrived at the ruins, but he was already losing his mind at the insane waves of mages flocking to the area.
“Which bastard was it?”
Finally exploding, Yahalong shouted, his eyes wide and bloodshot.
“Which bastard leaked the information! And they were bold enough to take pictures! Was it you?”
Yahalong pointed a finger at Hwen, who frantically waved his hands and shook his head.
“Wh-What an outrageous accusation. I-I have neither the guts nor the reason to do such a thing.”
This time, Yahalong pointed at Lee Si-woo, who was leaning against a nearby tree with his eyes closed, and muttered under his breath.
“Then it must be you, Lee Si-woo. Right, you’ve been popping in and out of sight with that invisibility magic or whatever, haven’t you? Don’t tell me it was for this? Is this why you did it!”
Yahalong had been trying his best not to raise his voice at Lee Si-woo, but as he spoke, his emotions swelled, and his volume rose considerably.
Lee Si-woo slowly opened his eyes and said.
“Yahalong, please calm down. Why would I do such a thing? It’s obvious the Elemental Stone will appear at the ruins, so why would I spread our precious, exclusive information for free?”