Chapter 77
Chapter 77
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 77
Chapter Title: The Head That Rolled In (Revised)
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Jang Jo-jun was on his way back to the supermarket to pick up Kang Hwa-young and Lee Eun-ji, and was in the middle of searching the nearby area again.
It was then that Kang Hwa-young, her nose twitching, found the True Heart Strategy Team that had been fleeing from Durahan for some time.
"Over there... I smell fresh blood..."
"Let's go check it out quickly."
And so, they pursued them, but the bastards escaped just before being caught, and Jo-jun ended up facing off against Durahan by accident.
Jo-jun never imagined in his wildest dreams that they would suddenly use a teleport. By the time he shot out an Abyssal Maw the moment they were enveloped in light, they had already vanished from the spot.
"Dammit... Those fucking bastards..."
What's more, Jo-jun hadn't even imagined he would encounter Durahan here. Furthermore, after a fierce battle with the strategy Team's humans, Durahan had absorbed a considerable amount of magic power inherent in their skills, and had become strong enough to even summon his own steed.
"Ha... I'm screwed."
And so, the True Heart strategy Team ended up dumping Durahan on Jo-jun's group and running away.
Yoon Ji-ho was seized by the thought that he had to get out of here the moment he faced Jo-jun's distorted and twisted essence. That's why the idea of fighting together with Jo-jun or helping Jo-jun's group didn't even cross his mind. His only thought was that he absolutely had to run away.
"Oppa, those guys don't seem to have gone very far... For now, that one is the problem."
Kang Hwa-young said they had to kill the monster in front of them first, while vaguely feeling the energy of the fleeing strategy Team.
She instinctively guarded against Durahan. Her instincts were whispering that it was a considerable monster.
"Those fucking bastards... It's annoying enough that we let them slip away, but to dump trash like that on us..."
Jo-jun vowed that if he ever ran into those strategy teams bastards again, he would definitely catch and kill them, and sacrifice them all.
'Since they gave me such a big gift, I should repay them with death...'
Jo-jun was the type to often forget a favor, but always pay back a grudge.
"Hua... Huaaaaa..."
In the meantime, Durahan lifted its head and stared intently at Jo-jun, the one among the three new humans who felt the most magical power.
Red flames flickered in the eye sockets of the skull as it roughly gauged the amount of magic power Jo-jun possessed.
As a being instinctively drawn to the owners of strong magic power, Durahan let out its characteristic wheezing laugh the moment it saw Jo-jun.
What happened to the True Heart strategy team was now irrelevant.
Having surpassed 700 in his Magic Power stat, Jang Jo-jun was the ultimate prey for Durahan.
"Hua... Hua... Huaaaaa..."
"Oppa, is that thing really laughing...?"
"So I'm not the only one who felt that."
Jo-jun frowned and raised both hands, spewing out tentacles.
Durahan tried to brush the tentacles away as a matter of course, but couldn't.
Seeing Durahan's greatsword move, Jo-jun twisted his hands and bundled the tentacles together.
The bundle of tentacles shot from both hands became one and slammed into Durahan like a fist. Durahan, who had been about to swing its greatsword, quickly held it vertically to barely block Jo-jun's tentacle attack.
With that, Durahan was sent flying backward. Unfortunately, the impact was greatly absorbed by its armor.
Soon, Durahan was buried under a barrage of skills, including the Abyssal Maw that poured continuously from Jo-jun's hands, and its armor began to shatter.
However, the more skills it was hit by, the larger Durahan's laughter became. Sensing something was wrong, Jo-jun quickly stopped using his skills.
"Th... that bastard, what is it?"
"It's... it's filling with flesh."
Durahan absorbed the magic power embedded in the skills Jo-jun used and recovered even more than the damage it had taken. Soon, blood and muscles began to fill Durahan's body, which had been nothing but bone.
Soon, Durahan, which had been in a wretched state with only black bones left, took on the appearance of a robust adult male. The skull head in its hand filled with flesh, revealing the face of an unknown man.
It was the face of Gu Gyo-han. The head of Gu Gyo-han, now filled with flesh, kept muttering meaningless words about his neck being itchy and that he had to tear off every neck.
"That thing... it seems to recover the more it's hit..."
Eun-ji picked up on Jo-jun's dismayed muttering.
"You mean it's a type that has to be attacked without skills?"
"That's right. Dammit. This is my first time seeing a bastard like that..."
This type of enemy was new even to Jo-jun.
A type that gets stronger the more skills it's hit by.
If it had been a common Durahan summoned by a necromancer or naturally spawned, it would have been smashed to death long ago, as its recovery speed couldn't keep up with the destruction. But this one was a being created through a special method, an awakening of a cursed choker.
A superior version of a normal Durahan, a monster treated as a 'Player'.
It was designed to be a counter to magic-type players like Jo-jun who rely on skills rather than direct melee combat.
'I should have gone for melee combat without skills, prepared to annihilate it in one go... but I had no prior information on that fucking monster... Dammit...'
Jo-jun had planned to crush the bastard to death with skills as usual, but to kill it that way, he would have to pour out almost all of his magic power.
It was a monster he had witnessed once in the Dream World, but most of the memories of what he saw back then had long since faded. Moreover, it was difficult to grasp the fact that it could be strengthened in that way with just fragmented scenes.
This is why you get hit if you don't know. The world of the Apocalypse was not so kind to its survivors.
"Ha..."
Among Jo-jun's current group, the only one with enough skill to engage the monster in melee combat right now was Mer.
If Mer, who was already at a perfected stage in her technique, had been here, she might have blocked Durahan's sword strikes with the support of her other companions and cut the bastard in two.
Unfortunately, Mer was stationed at the supermarket in case of emergencies. As you can see, Jo-jun was the worst match-up against Durahan, and Hwa-young also lacked the backing to face Durahan without skills.
Eun-ji specialized in ambushes and stealth attacks, not melee combat. If she wasn't careful and got hit by Durahan's sword, she would be cut in two instantly.
"Should we run back to the supermarket for now?"
"Let's do that? Let's ask Mer and Aram to help a bit. If the three of us try to take that thing down... we'd really have to be prepared for a hell of a time."
Of course, there was a way to kill it.
For instance, the simplest way was to frantically spam skills until Jo-jun, Lee Eun-ji, and Kang Hwa-young had exhausted all their magic power, and Durahan would eventually die.
However, Jo-jun wanted to drag this bastard to the supermarket and throw it at Merherelle and Aram.
If he used up all of his magic power, which had surpassed 700, just to kill this one bastard, it would take a considerable amount of time to recover. If he caused that much of a ruckus, new enemies lurking nearby might target them.
If a new enemy appeared while he was out of magic power, it would be a real headache.
Also, Jo-jun now knew that his absurd Luck stat of 666 wasn't just plain luck, but a strange number that brought about hellish hardship.
Having gone a full circle from the black market to the Dream World, he had realized it clearly.
Furthermore, since he was far from his main base, the supermarket, he needed to lay low a bit.
He didn't want to act out unnecessarily, get caught by some other bastard, and end up fighting for his life.
Finally, he wanted to test the performance of the hammer Aram had newly acquired. He had a feeling that if he used the booster function, he could smash that crazy monster to pieces.
"It's not an enemy that's completely immune to skills, so let's try to hold that skeletal horse back as much as possible while we run."
"Yes!"
"Got it."
Jo-jun, Eun-ji, and Hwa-young started running away without looking back.
In the meantime, Jo-jun blocked Durahan's head with his distorted scales and tripped the skeletal horse Durahan was riding by tangling its front legs with his tentacles. Eun-ji and Hwa-young also held the bastard back in similar ways.
'There's an enemy that's hard to decide a clear victory against even with my magic power... So skills aren't everything after all...'
Jo-jun realized anew today that such things could happen, so he couldn't just act cocky relying only on his magic power.
He expected the enemies that would appear from now on to be very diverse. He had no way of knowing when he would encounter another irregular like this.
This type of enemy required a powerful expert like Mer, who could slice enemies apart even without skills.
Or they needed a more high-powered skill to annihilate it in one go.
"We, we're here! Mer! Merherelle!!"
The moment Jo-jun arrived at the supermarket, he called out to Mer, who was surveying the surroundings from the roof.
Before Jo-jun even called, Mer, who had immediately recognized that Durahan was coming, took out her scythe and came down.
"Knight of Death...! Uraaaah!!!"
Mer let out a battle cry and tried to slice through the skeletal horse and Durahan in one go.
However, Durahan nimbly dodged the scythe and jumped off the skeletal horse. The skeletal horse had its neck cut off by Mer's scythe and rolled on the ground.
Jo-jun also called Aram.
Aram, who had been eating on the roof for a while, immediately put down her rice bowl at the commotion outside and Jo-jun's call, grabbed an excellent means of communication, and came down.
KWANG!!!
Mer lightly dodged Durahan's greatsword and swung her scythe, knocking Durahan's greatsword away.
In an instant, the bastard's chest was wide open.
"Unnie!! Get out of the way!!!"
Aram, from the blind spot behind Mer, swung the means of communication, which had deployed its booster, horizontally.
Blue flames spewed from one side of the means of communication, and the hammer, whose speed had increased several times over, struck Durahan's chest head-on.
KWAAAAANG!!!
The magic power didn't get absorbed, and the armor shattered as if exploding, sending Durahan flying.
In the face of overwhelming mass, the bastard had no way.
"Heeuuk... Huaaaaaaah!!!"
Durahan screamed in pain and tried to get up.
However, before that, Arum, who had followed her sister down, swung her dual swords and cut off Durahan's arms, and Mer sliced off the bastard's legs.
KWONG!!!
"Haa... We managed to take it down."
Jo-jun looked at the women who had instantly dismembered Durahan and picked up the head the bastard had dropped.
"Hua... Hua... My neck... I have to tear it off... Itchy, itchy, itchy, itchy... Huaaa..."
Gu Gyo-han's head roared, repeating the same words like a broken toy.
"This... is it still alive? It keeps talking. I think I might be able to make it a slave."
"Oppa... wouldn't it be dead by the time its head was cut off?"
"Probably? Yeah, but..."
Jo-jun couldn't help but feel concerned.
'When the Black Wheel died, it said it was killed by five very strong people. From what I saw, that's almost certainly the strategy team bastards. And they must have picked up the choker. But when they ran into me, there were only four. So either one of them was already dead by Durahan's hand... or the one with the choker became Durahan.'
Of course, it's possible that one of the party members simply wasn't at that location, but Jang Jo-jun suspected that this Durahan was likely a member of the Strategy Team.
'From the feeling, I think I might be able to make this bastard a slave too... The important thing is how to make it submit...'
Jo-jun held Gu Gyo-han's head and spoke to it.
"Hey. Hey!"
"Ah... Hua... My neck is itchy..."
Of course, there was no way a conversation would work. Then, the sword possessed by Yang Ji-sang, which was hanging on Jo-jun's waist, trembled.
"What is it?"
[How about I try sticking me into that bastard's head? Like a public execution.]
"You?"
[Right now, that bastard's spiritual body seems to be in a state of great turmoil... I might be able to tamper with it a little.]
"Alright. Let's try it."
Jo-jun plunged the sword, in which Yang Ji-sang resided, into the severed surface of Gu Gyo-han's neck.
Pook...!
"Uaa... Uaaaaaaaah!!!!!"
Soon, Gu Gyo-han's head, which had been stupidly repeating the same words, screamed.
In fact, once the neck is cut off, the lungs that expel air are gone, so a head-only Gu Gyo-han shouldn't be able to speak or make a sound, but it's better not to worry about such trivial matters.
"Geggeggegegegege Maaaaaaahnd!!!! Aaaaaaaah Paaaaaaang!!!!"
Gu Gyo-han's head screamed and drooled, but it was unclear what exactly Yang Ji-sang was doing.
[The target has submitted to you.]
"It, it's done!!!"
Jo-jun quickly stamped Gu Gyo-han's forehead with his seal.
Chiiiiiiik!!!
"Aah... Aaaaaaaah..."
And so, Jo-jun had acquired a new turret.
A very high-performance one.