Chapter 82
Chapter 82
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 82
Chapter Title: Lich's Hidden Lair (2)
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‘Where is it?’
Rokan arrived at the flower field and immediately began searching for someone.
Not the lich. The lich was hiding inside its hidden base here, so what he was looking for was the key.
“Why all the commotion?”
What soon appeared was none other than a human. A gaunt human slave.
It was known as one of the humans the lich had captured to tend the flower field, but the truth was different.
“Lethal Strike.”
Pow!
Knowing that, Rokan didn’t hesitate and smashed its head.
It was easy to hesitate since it was the same race, but he knew it wasn’t actually the case.
Psssh!
What poured from its watermelon-split head wasn’t brains. It was thick black smoke made of dark mana.
The thing’s true nature was a fake human created by the lich, not a slave.
Too grand to call a homunculus, more like a doll mimicking human bones and flesh.
Woooong.
As it collapsed and lay in the flower field, a change occurred.
It seemed like some energy was being sucked from the flowers, and then a gate the size of an adult man opened.
“Damn, where’d it go?”
“Acting all tough and then running away!”
As voices of undead users started echoing from around him, Rokan threw himself into the gate without hesitation.
The gate began shrinking along with him.
Once it completely vanished a moment later, no one could confirm his infiltration.
“Bright in here.”
He crossed space and arrived at the lich’s lair.
The first impression upon facing the surprisingly refined corridor was that it was bright.
Thanks to the light sources hanging everywhere, visibility was easy even without night vision.
“No one knew this was the trick.”
Some might think it was almost considerate, but in his previous life, many had suffered because of it. Countless sacrifices had been made just to uncover the deception hidden in this “kindness.”
Tap tap.
Rokan approached the wall quietly and lightly knocked on it.
[This object is protected by magical power. Cannot be destroyed.]
But the power within wasn’t just for show—a system message appeared immediately.
It was an indestructible object, so touching it was pointless.
“Same as before.”
Confirming that everything matched his memories up to this point, Rokan strolled forward casually.
He had no worries about traps or anything like that. Unlike cowardly wizards, the lich was extremely confident.
Of course, some preparations were in place, but they weren’t traps.
“About fifty, huh…….”
The corridor was very long. Whether to build tension, drain mental energy, or for some other reason, the brightly lit path stretched at least 200-300 meters.
As he walked it, Rokan calmly counted something, only lifting his gaze once he reached the lich’s lab.
[Death Researcher Silronian][Lv 171]
Draped in ragged sackcloth like a beggar, holding a black wooden staff—the classic lich appearance.
Even without Rokan’s knowledge, anyone could tell what it was.
“……A human entering this place? Looks like you want to become a living sacrifice!”
“Barrage!”
With a guttural roar and a sinister aura spreading, Rokan hurled a hand axe at it.
It was shaped like a hand axe, but with attack power rivaling any normal weapon plus the combined skill’s force, it cleaved through space at terrifying speed.
“Bone Shield!”
Crack!
But the opponent wasn’t pushover. True to a being who’d pursued strength even in death, it instantly raised a bone shield to dissipate the force.
Clang!
Even so, Rokan’s Barrage shattered the bone and pressed on, but this time it lost power to something else.
A shield.
Did that mean the lich also had a knight or warrior class job?
No. A closer look revealed it wasn’t an ordinary shield.
‘Mechanical engineering combined with magic. Come to think of it, this guy was the original.’
It was thanks to this one that the bullshit effects of mechanical engineering first became known.
Maybe because its origin was goblin, this wizard used mechanical devices wildly, making its combat style so unique that even level 190 players struggled against it despite it being level 170.
“Dash.”
Knowing that, Rokan chose a different approach.
While it was distracted blocking the Barrage, he scanned the room and dashed toward a certain spot.
“You bastard!”
Crack. Clatter.
What Rokan targeted was none other than the “lighting.” The light sources embedded not just in the ceiling but all over the walls.
They looked like lightbulbs at a glance, but they were actually magic orbs—vessels containing mana.
“Rise, my children! Stop him!”
So why was the lich getting so worked up over just one magic orb being broken?
The reason was simple.
Among those magic orbs was hidden the lich’s heart—the Life Vessel.
No matter how much damage the lich took, it would revive, but if the Life Vessel shattered, it would die pathetically without doing anything.
That’s why players facing the lich would split into teams: some to hold it off, others to search for the Life Vessel.
“Miss.”
One regrettable point was that the Life Vessel’s hiding spot was random.
But that’s why he’d memorized the positions of all the magic orbs on the way in.
“Stop him! By any means!”
Seeing Rokan act like he already knew, Silronian’s reaction intensified.
Unable to even think of using its prized mechanical engineering, it poured out mana full force to raise the dead.
“Bone Wall! Darkness Spear! Bone Prison!”
“Hmph!”
Dark magic attacks followed.
But Rokan had been in full magic defense gear since entering.
He activated Force to slice through the real threats, tanking the minor checks with his body.
He smashed the rising bone fragments meant to bind his feet and slipped the encirclement beautifully.
Pow pow. Crackle!
Rokan leaped nimbly, destroying three magic orbs in an instant.
“Electric Shock Rod, activate!”
“Portable Lightning Rod, activate.”
Panicking, Silronian moved its skeleton soldiers and started using mechanical devices.
What activated with a flash was the electric shock rod—faster than magic. As the yellow lightning headed his way, Rokan pulled something from his inventory as if expecting it.
A lightning rod.
A far inferior mechanical device to the electric shock rod, but it reliably blocked lightning attacks once.
“Argh!”
The electric shock rod had three charges.
As it raged, bones clattering, and fired lightning repeatedly, he tossed two square boxes this time.
[Empty Battery][Material]
A lightning spell would’ve been easy to destroy outright. But this was just a shock-inducing electric shock rod. The empty batteries absorbed all its attacks instead of breaking.
[Filled Battery][Material]
No need to recover them. Empty batteries were something he could craft with low mechanical engineering proficiency anyway.
The material cost was cheap, so throwing away a hundred wouldn’t burden Rokan.
A strategy possible only because he knew Silronian’s combat patterns.
“Tch, in the corridor then.”
Having destroyed all the magic orbs in the room, Rokan retreated and dashed back toward the corridor he’d entered from.
“Barrage! Throw! Strike!”
He unleashed attacks at the memorized positions. Sometimes throwing hand axes, other times flying in with Leaf Attack to smash them.
The magic orbs’ durability wasn’t high, so that alone cracked them, leaking mana and dimming.
“No……! Stop right there!”
Silronian desperately chased after, but it was futile.
Even if it turned the ground to mud, one jump crossed it. Obstacles? Axe strikes or Shoulder Charge demolished them. The distance kept widening beyond reach.
Clang.
“Got it.”
After backtracking quite a ways, he finally found a magic orb that didn’t shatter in one hit.
As the lich’s Life Vessel, it was protected by stronger power than regular orbs.
“Lethal Strike.”
But before overwhelming force, even that was powerless. Swinging with veins bulging on his arms, Silronian’s Life Vessel couldn’t hold and split.
Shrieeeeeek!
A banshee wail echoed.
The moment the Life Vessel took lethal damage, the soul forcibly bound to this world twisted and vanished.
All that remained were the shattered remnants leaking death mana.
Left like this, the surroundings would turn to death land, but Rokan grinned and tossed it aside.
This situation was very familiar.
“Been a while since I farmed something good.”
Death Essence.
Just like in Trinsic, where he’d done infinite hunting instead of taking the death essence.
The difference was the lich’s Life Vessel had mana limits, so it couldn’t last as long, but the undead monsters it spawned were a bit higher level.
[Acquired research material ‘Meditations on Bone.’]
Rokan backtracked the now-dark path after losing the magic orbs, lit it up again with a torch, and looted everything he could.
Not just the quest item research on bone, but stacks of skill books too—unlike with the cowardly wizard, he wasn’t limited to one.
The skill books spawning in the lich’s lab were random, but all acquirable.
[Acquired Skill Book ‘Rise Skeleton.’]
[Acquired Skill Book ‘Curse of Weakness.’]
[Acquired Skill Book ‘Curse Doll.’]
“All trash, as expected.”
The problem was they were skills useless to Rokan even if learned.
Monster-drop skill books could be learned regardless of job, but what was a berserker like Rokan going to do with necromancing or curses?
It’d cost more mana than a necromancer’s, so better to swing his blade one more time with that mana instead.
So these all headed to the shop inevitably.
Smacking his lips as he shoved them into his inventory, he placed a hand on the last skill book without expectation—and froze.
[Acquired Skill Book ‘Third Hand.’]
“Third Hand?”
‘I remember. A skill that concentrates the mind to create a mana hand.’
A bizarre skill that could make not just one but several hands if you had enough mana and focus.
“This could be fun.”
At first listen, more hands sounded like eliminating blind spots and boosting combat power, but sadly, strength stats didn’t affect mana hands. They were truly just for hand-like uses.
No matter the proficiency, direct combat with focus and mana was proven less efficient in his past life’s research, but Rokan still welcomed this skill.
“With this…… it might actually work.”
It could fill one shaky part of the plan he’d made upon regressing.
Afraid to lose it, he learned the skill immediately and waited for the time to ripen.
“It’s here.”
Clack clack.
A while later, from the deep dark passage ahead, Skeleton Knights marched in formation.
Born soaked in death mana, the ground died with every step they took.
The truly scary part was they’d revive endlessly on that death land.
Until the death mana in the earth ran out!
[Skeleton Knight Born from Death][Lv 170]
But conversely, it meant excellent prey that revived endlessly for experience, no matter how many times killed.
“Bestow…… death…….”
“Alright then, time to level up.”
The beings viewing each other as prey clashed.