Chapter 54: Karma
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 54: Karma
"Just like a disgusting necromancer. Is playing a messy game of house your hobby?"
"Calling these lovely creatures messy... Well, I suppose they might look that way to the eyes of ordinary mortals."
Alex stroked the monsters lined up on his left and right.
To his eyes, these monsters, whose internal organs were clearly visible through their translucent skin, truly seemed lovely.
"No matter how I look at it, those eyes of yours seem to be just for decoration. LASIK won't fix them. I'd recommend just gouging them out."
Pzzzt!
A blue energy surged along Jinhyuk's dagger.
A dazzling light instantly swallowed the entire blade.
"Puhaha! Sword Qi? As expected of an S-rank. No, with this much mana, you'd be outstanding even among S-ranks."
Yet, even after seeing the Sword Qi, Alex smirked with a relaxed expression.
"If you're talking big because you're relying on those rags behind you, you're making a huge mistake."
"Of course. Did you really think I'd try to face you with just this?"
Alex smiled faintly.
At the same time.
Rumbleeee!
A dark energy surged.
[Alex activates Lv5 'Mana Melting Furnace'!]
An area-of-effect skill that blanketed the entire mansion.
An ominous energy instantly seeped into everyone's skin.
"Aaargh!"
"My head... my head!"
"It feels like my body is being torn to shreds."
The guests screamed and collapsed to the floor.
It was a curse that forcibly drained the life force from their entire bodies.
Because of this, the people here had to face the agony of their bodies melting alive—and excruciatingly slowly at that.
"Ugh."
Jinhyuk frowned.
He felt a stinging pain, but thanks to protecting his body with mana, he managed to avoid having his skin melt off.
"S-save me..."
"Please..."
People begged for their lives.
Most of them were middle-aged or elderly, but...
"Daddy... Mommy. It hurts."
Occasionally, there were young children as well.
'Are they the family members of those who received the invitations?'
Dying simply because they came here was far too harsh a fate.
Especially if he let a young child die, it would haunt his dreams for the rest of his life.
There should still be about ten minutes left before they completely melted and died.
If he could subdue the caster, Alex, and stop the furnace within that time, there was still a chance.
Ten minutes.
Ten minutes, huh.
There was no need for him to risk his life to save these people.
And there was absolutely no reason to act rashly.
But as long as they didn't get in his way and stayed quietly on the floor like they were now...
"..."
Jinhyuk looked at Alex.
Their eyes met.
"You look displeased. Why? Does the death of these bugs bother you that much?"
"Bugs?"
"Yes. Is there any other way to describe such insignificant creatures, who are only useful as ingredients for mana, other than calling them bugs?"
Pfft.
Jinhyuk let out a dry chuckle at Alex's words.
At this point, it was so absurd he was speechless.
"This is why I don't get along with you Demonic Humans. Even if I wanted to play along, your very existence rubs me the wrong way."
"Hmm. I expected an S-rank to be a bit more realistic. Are you just another one of those disgusting, sentimental hypocrites? This world doesn't run on sympathy. It is strictly sustained by the law of the jungle."
"You got that right."
The law of the jungle.
If nothing else, he could agree with that.
"Since those words came out of your own mouth, don't resent me even if you die."
"You speak as if you're stronger than me."
"Do you think I'm not?"
In that instant,
Pzzt!
Jinhyuk's blade twitched.
[‘Grave of Swords’ is activated!]
An energy far darker and more ominous than what Alex had used began to creep out.
The Sword Qi that had been burning with a blue light was suddenly dyed pitch black.
At the same time,
Boom!
Jinhyuk kicked off the ground and dashed forward.
The distance closed in the blink of an eye.
The dagger, held in a reverse grip, dug into the flesh of the monsters.
"Kieeeek!"
"Keeek!"
They possessed quite thick subcutaneous fat, but it wasn't enough to block the Sword Qi.
Slash! Slash!
Under the crisscrossing sword strikes that cut through anything they touched, over ten monsters were hacked into dozens of pieces.
However,
[‘Blood Barrier’ is activated!]
[Targeted area-of-effect 'Regeneration for Undead' begins!]
The additional skill 'Blood Barrier', triggered by the effects of the Mana Melting Furnace, was activated.
Squirm! Squirm!
The severed chunks of flesh instantly began to knit back together.
"Even bugs can be quite useful when gathered in these numbers. There's no better material to use for recovery."
Alex cackled.
I see.
So he plans to drag things out like this.
As long as he kept draining the life force of the people, the monsters would keep resurrecting.
In the end, Jinhyuk would run out of mana and grow exhausted.
It was a textbook strategy.
A textbook strategy, indeed, but...
"How pathetic."
"What?"
"I'm saying it's pathetic to see you bragging so proudly about this being your trump card."
Regeneration? Recovery?
Couldn't he just obliterate them before they even had a chance to do that?
Jinhyuk pointed the tip of his dagger at Alex.
Hummmmm!
Light began to gather at a single point.
The black Sword Qi dispersed, and a dazzling flash took its place.
[Lv2 'Daylight' is activated!]
The monsters writhed in agony as the white energy, bright enough to burn their retinas, washed over them.
"Kieeeeee!"
"Keeeeek!"
They must be in pain.
After all, a light-attribute skill dealt massive damage to dark-attribute monsters just by being manifested.
"Tch! Of course you'd use that!"
Alex clicked his tongue, as if he had expected this.
He had already seen it in the video of Jinhyuk's fight with Cheon Yu-seong.
The very skill that was a living nightmare for the undead, releasing compressed mana in a straight line.
That was why he had prepared for it.
To have them scatter the moment that skill was activated.
Alex redistributed his mana.
The commander's order pierced into the minds of the undead.
However...
For some reason, the undead didn't budge an inch.
"W-what is this?"
What else could it be?
"I froze the soles of their feet, so of course they can't move."
To maximize the effectiveness of his skills, Jinhyuk had prepared several combinations using the skills he possessed.
One of them was combining the area-of-effect skill 'Daylight' with 'Ice Sculpting', which restricted movement.
The only drawback of 'Daylight' was the time it took to cast. However, 'Ice Sculpting' could easily compensate for that.
With this...
"Checkmate."
The corners of Jinhyuk's mouth curled upward.
At that exact moment,
Kaa-boooom!
A massive torrent of light swallowed the monsters.
* * *
Sssssss!
Heat rose from the ground.
Not a single monster survived.
Every single cell capable of regeneration had been completely vaporized.
'It's my first time using it, but it's better than expected.'
Jinhyuk let out a quiet exclamation of admiration.
Fusing copied skills to create a higher-tier new skill, and combining them to set up a battlefield optimized for combat.
The thrill derived from that was incomparable to anything else.
On the other hand,
"T-this can't be..."
Alex simply could not accept the current situation.
Ten minutes. It was a fight that would have ended if he had just held out for ten minutes.
Once all the humans here melted, he would have been able to summon high-tier undead monsters.
But for his undead, who even had 'Blood Barrier' active, to be wiped out in a single blow...
It was impossible.
"Damn it!"
Swish!
Alex pulled a surgical scalpel from his breast pocket.
A clear liquid dripped from the sharp blade.
It was poison.
No, I get that he's desperate, but...
"Are you serious?"
A necromancer rushing in for close combat?
Just as Jinhyuk thought that,
Alex threw the scalpel in his hand with all his might.
The attack flew straight toward Jinhyuk's face.
Clang!
Jinhyuk deflected it in a single motion.
The scalpel, sliced in half, rolled across the floor.
"Disappointing. Was running away the best idea you could come up with?"
He wondered why Alex had thrown the weapon, and it turned out it was to distract him for a brief moment so he could escape.
It seemed he planned to draw attention away with the throw and flee in the meantime.
Black smoke rose around Alex's body.
A special skill that only Demonic Humans could use.
'Twisted Rift.'
It was an escape skill for short-range teleportation.
Sssss.
The smoke grew thicker and darker.
The skill was about to activate.
Of course, Jinhyuk wasn't about to just stand by and watch.
"Throwing... is done like this."
The basic rule is to calculate the shortest distance to the target.
And it must be fast enough that the opponent cannot react.
Thud!
The dagger that left Jinhyuk's hand plunged deep into Alex's chest.
"Aaargh!"
With a heavy pain, the skill activation was canceled.
"How was that? I gave you a tailored lesson. Do you understand now?"
"Cough! Ack! Urgh!"
"Ah, don't strain yourself trying to answer. The dagger is currently lodged in your lung, so even breathing won't be easy."
"Ugggh... S-save me..."
"You enjoyed watching others suffer so much, yet you don't like it when it's you?"
Isn't that a bit unfair?
A true necromancer should know how to enjoy their own pain as well.
"Urgh, cough. Grrr..."
Alex grabbed Jinhyuk's shoe, but Jinhyuk ignored his plea.
"Let me tell you how you're going to die from now on."
Listen carefully, because I'm giving you a life spoiler.
Since it's a story about you, and no one else.
"Over the next hour or two, blood will slowly fill your lungs."
A human life is surprisingly resilient.
Somehow, every organ in the body does its job to keep you alive for even just a single second longer.
"And only after that long period of time has passed will your lungs be completely filled with blood, and you will finally suffocate to death."
While not quite as bad as burning to death, this was still one of the most gruesome ways to die.
The more he heard about his end, the more miserably Alex's face contorted.
"That... n-no..."
"Of course, I can make sure you don't suffer for long. If you stop the Mana Melting Furnace yourself."
"...!"
"Why? Don't tell me you still have some loyalty left for the Demonic Human Association? It'll all be in vain once you're dead anyway."
If he thought the Demonic Human Association would hang his portrait and hold a memorial service for him every year for staying loyal to the end, he was sorely mistaken.
After all, Alex's worth was at best that of a disposable pawn.
'They'll use him for dangerous tasks like this, and once he's no longer needed, they'll just replace him with someone new.'
So there was no need to remain loyal to such people.
Just betray them and make things easy for yourself.
That would be better for both of them.
His hesitation didn't last long.
"I... understand. The promise. Cough! The promise..."
"I'll keep it, so just stop the Mana Melting Furnace."
"..."
In the end, Alex snapped his fingers as if he had made up his mind.
Then,
[Alex destroys the 'Mana Melting Furnace'!]
[‘Blood Barrier’ is deactivated!]
The mana that had bound the mansion vanished.
At the same time, the groans of the guests subsided.
"Now... free me from this... damn pain. Urgh! Cough! Cough! Every time I breathe, it feels like my chest is burning up."
Alex begged.
With every single word he uttered, his expression contorted even more miserably.
It probably felt like a red-hot skewer was poking deep inside his lungs.
"I'm sorry, but I don't really like killing people."
"...What?"
"Life is more precious than anything else, so I just can't bring myself to end a life with my own hands."
"W-what kind of bullshit... is that?"
Alex reached his hand out toward Jinhyuk.
Of course, with his sluggish hand, he couldn't even grab the hem of Jinhyuk's pants.
'An end fitting for trash.'
Actually, even an hour was too short.
Considering the evil deeds he had committed up until now.
A necromancer's class change quest. There was no need to feel even a shred of sympathy for him just because he did all this to succeed in that.
Die as slowly and painfully as possible.
While repenting for the sins of conducting human experiments on innocent people and desecrating the dead by turning them into the undead.