Chapter 138
Chapter 138
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 138
Chapter Title: Chapter 43. Orbis Tower (3)
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5.
Miner showed the five rings on her wrist.
The moment she awakened to the 5th Circle.
Everyone who saw it forgot to speak for a moment.
They had certainly aimed for 5th Circle awakening.
It was something they had desperately wanted.
‘Was the 5th Circle wall this easy to overcome?’
But that was only because it was so incredibly difficult—perhaps even impossible.
And that fact remained unchanged.
The 5th Circle wall was still a wall of wailing and despair for adventurers even at this very moment.
“Now we’re all 5th Circle.”
And that wasn’t even the end of it.
“What? All of us?”
“What? You didn’t know?”
“Know what?”
“Who else? Him.”
With those words, Miner looked at Ralph, and everyone followed her gaze to him.
“Hey, you too?”
Only then did Ralph finally show his wrist and speak.
“I’ve reached 5th Circle as well.”
“No way, when?”
“A little while ago.”
“A little while ago? Then why tell us now?”
“Because if I reveal I’m 5th Circle, I’ll have to work even harder, right?”
At his words, the others let out disbelieving laughs.
It was around then.
“Ah.”
Dibo seemed to remember something and looked at El Pam.
“Boss, sorry for interrupting. So, what’s the reason the Elija monster went extinct?”
“That’s……”
El Pam pondered briefly at that point before answering.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“It went extinct hundreds of years ago. And even before that, the Elija population was extremely low. There are no records about it. There’s no way for me to know.”
“I see. I thought it was some amazing effect that caused its extinction. You know, like how things good for stamina mysteriously go extinct. I figured it was something like that.”
“That would’ve been nice. We could’ve made a fortune selling it.”
El Pam said nothing in response to Dibo and Ralph’s words.
Nor was there any need to respond.
Kuhahaha-rooong!
“Damn it!”
A roar that pierced the clouds crashed down on them.
The thick clouds shrouding them vanished in an instant from the roar, and soon everyone could see it.
“Boss, that thing?”
“Yeah.”
A monster resembling a lion, with black fur, a white mane, and two red horns—yet incomparably larger than any lion, as massive as an elephant, breathtakingly magnificent.
“The Elija, called the goddess’s pet.”
Elija.
“Looks like we’re jumping straight into battle.”
The beast had come to them first.
6.
The Phantom Thief Phantom was a man whose smile was more beautiful than anyone’s.
And a man who never lost that smile.
No matter the time or place, no matter how desperate the situation, it was rare to see his face without a smile.
Even on the day they sealed the Black Mage, in that moment of despair, the Phantom Thief Phantom hadn’t lost his smile.
Yet now, the Phantom Thief Phantom was staring at a letter with a hardened expression.
It wasn’t a letter he was seeing for the first time.
The creases from repeated folding were visible.
Of course, it wasn’t because the Phantom Thief Phantom had poor memory that he kept looking at it.
In fact, the letter contained absolutely nothing.
It was blank.
There was no hidden message or anything like that.
The simple reason the Phantom Thief Phantom kept looking at the blank letter was this.
‘Lirin.’
The sender was a woman named Lirin.
It wasn’t a name known to the world.
But to the Phantom Thief Phantom, it was one of the most important names.
‘Aran’s ally.’
In the process of sealing the Black Mage, all six heroes met unfortunate fates.
It wasn’t strange.
Sealing the Black Mage of all things—no one would come out unscathed, and it was a win just to succeed with everyone dead.
Honestly, the Phantom Thief Phantom still couldn’t believe he was alive.
What was even more surprising was that he wasn’t the only one who had survived.
Aran had as well.
She too was sealed away in an eternally frozen glacier in the region of Lien.
Lirin was the last one waiting for such an Aran to awaken.
The final remaining follower after Aran’s countless devotees had grown tired of the endless wait and left.
And now, she had sent a blank letter to the Phantom Thief Phantom through a route she hadn’t shared with anyone else.
The Phantom Thief Phantom knew what that meant.
‘Aran has awakened.’
The mere fact that she sent the letter meant Aran had finally awakened.
Lirin wouldn’t have taken any action whatsoever until then.
The problem was the blank letter.
‘Sending a blank letter means she’s worried about information leaks.’
Being cautious even about passing on information meant, in other words, that the current situation was dire.
It meant there were people around Aran targeting her.
‘Like me, cursed by the Black Mage and stripped of power.’
And that she lacked the strength to deal with them right now.
In the end, the blank letter conveyed one thing.
‘Which means she needs my help.’
A plea for aid.
Truth be told, the Phantom Thief Phantom’s own situation wasn’t great.
Having lost all his power, he was currently pushing himself to the brink, risking his life to regain it.
To move now to help Aran in the midst of that?
It would be like sticking his hand into the jaws of the Black Mage’s followers—the savage wolves hunting him.
Even so, the Phantom Thief Phantom moved willingly.
He intended to help Aran with whatever capacity he could muster.
‘Heroes awakening all at once.’
It wasn’t just because Aran was a fellow hero.
‘This is an omen.’
He knew.
‘The omen that the Black Mage will awaken.’
The heroes who sealed the Black Mage awakening simultaneously couldn’t possibly be coincidence.
That was why the Phantom Thief Phantom’s expression was grim now.
If the Black Mage awakened again, he had no confidence he could stop him this time.
‘Time is short.’
Time was of the essence, first and foremost.
‘And no Fried.’
But the biggest problem was that Fried, the leader and central pillar of the six heroes, no longer existed in the Maple World.
Honestly, the Phantom Thief Phantom had no confidence he could defeat the Black Mage again without Fried.
And that wasn’t all.
‘I don’t even know who the Black Mage’s followers are.’
While the six heroes slumbered, the Black Mage’s followers had planted their own throughout the Maple World.
Their influence was immense.
Every time the Phantom Thief Phantom used his truth-seeing eyes to check, every time he sought out traitors, he was astonished.
The situation was that hopeless.
‘El Pam.’
In the midst of it all, the one thing giving the Phantom Thief Phantom hope was the adventurer El Pam.
He’d felt it the moment he saw him.
That he was no ordinary adventurer.
That he was an adventurer who had built up something worthy of the six heroes’ great name.
‘I don’t think you’ll replace Fried.’
Of course, the Phantom Thief Phantom didn’t believe El Pam could become an adventurer to replace Fried.
‘No one can replace Fried.’
Not just El Pam— no adventurer in the world could.
‘The only one who could even partially fill Fried’s role is the new Dragon Master Evan, that boy.’
Evan, who became the next Onyx Dragons’ Dragon Master after Fried—he was closer to Fried.
‘The only one missing now is Sung Wol.’
At that thought, the Phantom Thief Phantom recalled.
‘The day all six gather may be the last… Fried, you definitely said that.’
And then he stopped thinking.
He agonized.
But no answers came, so the Phantom Thief Phantom halted his deliberations and resumed his previous train of thought.
‘El Pam, you’ll still be a solid card.’
Even so, El Pam’s abilities and results so far were more than surprising—they were worth banking on.
That was why.
He had given such an unreasonable mission this time.
‘El Pam will find the answer to the mission I gave.’
And that’s when he appeared before the Phantom Thief Phantom.
“You’re here. Took you longer this time.”
At El Pam’s arrival, the Phantom Thief Phantom flashed his usual charming smile and spoke.
“So, the results?”
Before answering, El Pam pulled out a red horn.
The moment he saw it, the Phantom Thief Phantom’s smile deepened.
“Elija’s horn.”
“Pulling this out means you know about Elija’s horn?”
“Using Elija’s horn, you can brew a special potion that lets you surpass the 5th Circle wall.”
“Exactly. That’s why Elija went extinct. Adventurers wouldn’t leave behind ingredients for a potion that breaks the 5th Circle wall, right?”
El Pam had brought it.
“Anyway, that’s the correct answer.”
He had brought the method to make his comrades 5th Circle right before the Phantom Thief Phantom’s eyes.
In other words, the Phantom Thief Phantom hadn’t expected El Pam to actually make all his comrades 5th Circle in such a short time.
It was impossible from the start.
What he wanted to know was El Pam’s adventurer knowledge.
‘As expected, his adventuring knowledge is incredible.’
Simply being skilled wasn’t enough to accomplish what the Phantom Thief Phantom wanted going forward.
“Well, that leaves two more.”
Of course, he had no intention of ending the deal so easily.
“You have four comrades, but only two horns. Our deal was for all your comrades to surpass the 5th Circle wall, right?”
“Yes.”
“So, here’s the thing—I have another pair of Elija horns.”
He made a proposal.
“How about it?”
An offer impossible to refuse.
El Pam answered without hesitation.
“No need.”
“Yeah! No need, right! Huh? What?”
For the first time, the Phantom Thief Phantom felt flustered by the response.
It was that shocking.
“What did you say?”
It was enough to startle even the Phantom Thief Phantom—El Pam’s words were beyond anything he’d imagined.
“Exactly what I said. No need.”
The reason it shocked him more was that the Phantom Thief Phantom knew El Pam wasn’t lying.
No one could lie before his eyes.
Which meant El Pam had truly kept his promise and made all his comrades 5th Circle.
‘How?’
Something even the Phantom Thief Phantom hadn’t anticipated.
Of course, it was something El Pam hadn’t anticipated either.
El Pam had thought the Phantom Thief Phantom wanted him to find the method to surpass the 5th Circle wall—that was it.
‘As expected, I would’ve handed over Elija’s horn here and had him make all my comrades 5th Circle.’
Then strengthen the El Pam party with his own Elija horns.
Naturally, it wouldn’t be free.
He would’ve surely proposed something in exchange for those Elija horns.
‘Something other than Fried’s legacy.’
And it would’ve been a reasonable offer.
Elija horns were no longer obtainable in the Maple World—only beyond the Mystic Gate.
Even then, they weren’t easy to get.
Before El Pam returned to the past, he’d only heard of three Elija hunts.
A monster rarer than Balrog.
Letting you surpass the 5th Circle wall with minimal effort was worth that much.
More than enough for a trade.
But now the story had changed.
El Pam no longer needed Elija horns.
“Now give me what you promised.”
All that was left was to uphold the agreement.
“Sorry.”
The Phantom Thief Phantom smiled as he spoke.
“I don’t have Fried’s legacy.”
He’d never intended to give it in the first place.
He had lied.
It was a chilling statement.
El Pam had risked his life climbing Orbis Tower knowing he’d get Fried’s legacy, and it was a lie?
Spouting such a lie with a smirk?
It was beyond infuriating—enough to warrant curses.
But El Pam didn’t.
He didn’t curse.
It wasn’t because El Pam had exceptional patience or endurance.
He simply knew.
‘The Phantom Thief Phantom can provide Fried’s legacy—or something equivalent.’
That the Phantom Thief Phantom would pay the price.
And that’s exactly what happened.
“How about a different item instead?”
The Phantom Thief Phantom proposed.
Of course, El Pam had no intention of accepting the offer at face value.
What El Pam needed wasn’t just any valuable item.
It was something that would help against the Crimson Balrog, that monster.
So he planned to drag out the negotiations until that item came up, no matter how long.
But El Pam’s resolve proved unnecessary.
“How about an item from Luminous’s collection?”