Chapter 237
Chapter 237
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 237
Chapter Title: Black Dragon (3)
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Lion King's Sealed Boots!
It was the moment the final piece of the puzzle Rokan needed fell into place.
“This is a thank-you for protecting my boys, so take it. I picked it out specially because it seemed like you had something similar. It still felt a bit weak, so I sealed it up just right—should be fine to use right away. Well, now I'm really off!”
He apparently hadn't realized that the four pieces of defensive gear Rokan was wearing matched his own exactly, but in the end, Rokan had somehow collected the full set of the Lion King's equipment.
“……He's gone?”
“Yeah, he's really gone, right?”
In the brief moment Rokan had glanced at the item, Gaokan had vanished.
“Woo-hoo!”
“We're free!”
“No more beatings disguised as training!”
“Hooray!”
All that remained where he had disappeared was the ecstatic cheers of the Lion Legion.
“……What the hell did this guy do to his subordinates?”
For a guy who'd been an emperor no less, this level of rejoicing at his departure was beyond comprehension. Rokan shook his head in disbelief.
Though it wasn't exactly something he should be saying.
The man was gone, and those left behind had to press on.
Rokan took a light breath and slowly turned his gaze to the Lion King's equipment. More precisely, he checked the new notification that had appeared related to it.
[Set item completed.]
[The seal on the Lion King's equipment can be released. Release? Y / N]
No need to ask twice. Rokan immediately selected Y.
[Releasing the seal on the Lion King's equipment will change the equip restriction to High Master or above. Really release? Y / N]
“Huh?”
Rokan's hand paused as he was about to select Y again. He couldn't press it.
“Equip restriction to High Master?”
The moment he hit Y, he wouldn't be able to use the Lion King's Sealed equipment he'd been relying on.
“Damn…….”
He'd hoped the set item power would power-level him straight to High Master, but it had thrown a wrench in perfectly.
Rokan steadied his trembling fingers and selected N to postpone the seal release.
With no immediate replacement gear for the Lion King's Sealed equipment, unleashing it now would be far too inefficient.
“No choice. I'll just have to reach High Master somehow.”
There was only one way. Reach the High Master realm, by hook or by crook.
The silver lining was that his level had risen considerably from participating in the war and the black dragon hunt.
Rokan's current level was 341.
Just 9 more levels to High Master.
No—once he hit 349, he could advance via quest, so really only 8 levels left.
[The Spacetime Rift has closed.]
As he steeled his resolve, the expected notification appeared before Rokan.
It felt a bit late, but with his path back gone, his mood was complicated all the same.
[Don't Want to Be Lost in Time!][Quest]
You are on the verge of becoming lost in spacetime. Find a way back to your original timeline to replace the vanished Spacetime Rift!
-Visit Tower of Spacetime 0/1
-????
-????
-????
-????
-Time Limit: 168 hours
But as he remembered, a solution existed. With the Spacetime Rift's closure, a new quest had been granted to Rokan.
One week limit. No one knew what happened if he failed to return in time.
‘Worst case, maybe a few levels down, or character data rollback to before crossing over?’
Sure, it was a game, so he probably wouldn't be trapped in this era forever……
“Can't let that happen.”
Rokan had zero intention of testing it.
He'd leveled up a whopping 17 levels since arriving here—losing that would take who-knows-how-long to recover, and even he couldn't guarantee.
“A week's plenty. Three days is more than enough.”
No way he couldn't do what other players had in his past life.
Especially when the quest path was kindly laid out, unlike the veiled Lion King quest.
Rokan immediately headed for the Tower of Spacetime, one of the magic towers. It was chaotic from the Lion King's interim role, but no one would snub Rokan, one of the war heroes.
And exactly five days later, Rokan completed all the quests.
“Damn it, who knew it'd include a drop item collection quest.”
He'd boasted three days, but it took five—all because of one reason.
Midway through, there was a quest requiring special items that dropped randomly from hunting specific monsters.
Normally he'd buy them all off the auction house, but at this time, the auction house wasn't built yet. And the monsters dropping them were Master-level, so few could hunt them anyway. Those who could were all out on the front lines securing territory.
Humans had won decisively, but with the Lion King and most of the Lion Legion gone, they couldn't just claim or steal territory outright.
Thus, the races that lost their top powerhouses were playing it safe, subtly fortifying defenses and grabbing minimal territory.
The problem was, that meant Rokan had to farm the items himself.
It felt like his infamous “cursed character” stroke of bad luck from his past life—extreme drop rates and all—had returned, though things were a bit different now.
“Phew, hope this works.”
Bzzz.
After venting a stream of curses, Rokan eyed the gate that had opened before him suspiciously.
He'd gathered the materials as instructed, drawn the magic circle, input the time formula—but something still felt off.
Bzzz.
He couldn't just stand there doubting. The 1-person Spacetime Rift wouldn't stay open long.
Confirming it already trembling faintly, Rokan hurried forward.
Just like when he'd arrived, he ignored distractions and pushed ahead.
“……Ah.”
Finally reaching the end, Rokan realized the source of his unease.
What he'd overlooked was the ‘space coordinates.’
“Aaaargh!”
His footing vanished. Rokan's body plummeted from the sky.
* * *
The Second Interracial War had ground into a lull due to some entity that ambushed Ogma and threatened surrounding cities.
The anxiety of not knowing when their home base might be raided prevented full commitment.
Even the Golden Lion Alliance races were the same.
Relatively weaker in force, they lacked the power to draw out or corner the cowering Black Dragon Legion races.
Skirmishes happened daily, but they were just meaningless little wars of attrition dragging on.
But it wasn't from wanting a truce or lacking will to fight.
Everyone wore a facade of “just getting by” while harboring their own schemes.
Like the undead who sent an expedition to the past to revive the Death Lord.
“Kekekeke! Finally, the time has come!”
But the undead's attempt had been utterly crushed.
The Death Rod they'd obtained was gone, and the expedition returned empty-handed, learning and changing nothing.
The other undead groups raiding their outposts turned to dust the moment the Spacetime Rift closed, gaining nothing.
Worse, one region's terrain changed, and their painstakingly prepared racial quest got derailed—losses beyond measure.
“And in the end, it falls into my hands!”
The ones who profited from their failure were none other than the goblins.
A bit tricky with their shamanism, but counted among the Black Dragon Legion's weaker races, the goblins switched from defense to offense.
Shamanism was known to shine more in defense than attack, but they shattered all such notions with overwhelming force.
Reclaiming the divine artifact. Reviving the goblin high shaman's soul and seizing ancient power!
To be precise, not revival but ‘possession’—yet they'd achieved their long-cherished goal.
“With our ancestors' souls at our side, we will triumph!”
The ‘divine artifact’ held by the goblin high shaman had been recovered by the Lion Legion, then passed to them over long years.
Originally, the three Grand Masters' divine artifacts were supposed to be shattered and scattered as ominous, but because Rokan ordered ‘recovery’ instead of ‘destroy,’ history changed.
And the butterfly effect's result appeared just days ago.
By sheer coincidence, the ‘Rod of Wisdom’ that absorbed ancestral souls for succession fell into the current goblin high shaman's hands.
Boosting him beyond High Master to quasi-Grand Master level, he was now ordering relentless assaults—swelling his minions' stats with potent shamanism!
“Ugh, whatever. Crimson Meteor!”
Then, a crimson meteor crashed down on their heads.
It was Rokan, who forgot to set space coordinates returning from past to present.
He hadn't activated Storm Incarnate or Legend Rider, but the moment he decided to hostile the goblin horde blanketing the ground, his Tyrant and Mass Slayer titles triggered.
Boosting his stats and attack power, it created an impact like a real meteor falling.
Kaboooom!
“Keeek!”
“Urk!”
Rokan, crashing like a cannonball, surveyed the devastation he'd wrought and twitched an eyebrow.
Surviving that? He'd thought they were just goblin fodder, so this was hard to grasp.
They looked roughed up, but enduring that meant Master-level at least. Were all these enemies Master-rank? Had the goblins been hiding their full strength?
“Kill him! Ritual of Demonic Soul War!”
“……!”
As Rokan hesitated, a bizarre power descended on the goblins.
It manipulated not just their souls but bodies too, turning them into pure killing machines.
“This is……”
Rokan sensed something off.
Such shamanism existed before, but he'd never seen soul-mutating shamanism on this scale.
No—once. Back in the past, used by the goblin high shaman.
“I see.”
Hardening his expression, Rokan activated wing mode and ascended, seeking the power's source to confirm his suspicions.
The goblin high shaman's divine artifact, Rod of Wisdom. One gripped it.
‘Butterfly effect? Or something happened while I was gone?’
The situation was bad.
Just holding the artifact wouldn't make a Grand Master, but a goblin already teetering on High Master's edge could squeeze out comparable power.
Judging it reckless to fight without fully grasping events during his absence, he decided to pull back.
“Don’t let him escape! Ritual of Flesh Mutation!”
The moment he did, shamanism activated again.
Wings sprouted from the exposed goblins' backs, fully transforming them into monsters.
“Crazy.”
They launched into aerial combat toward Rokan.