Chapter 77
Chapter 77
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 77
Chapter Title: 25. Luminous's Collection (2)
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4.
Poison-attribute mages were quite popular among adventurers.
It was all thanks to the sheer effectiveness of poison magic.
But it wasn't something you could use recklessly in real combat.
Poison had no eyes.
On the flip side, if poison had eyes, its value would be limitless.
That was why.
“Slime Virus.”
The Slime Virus skill, which summoned slimes infused with deadly venom, was incredibly popular.
Of course, even Slime Virus came with restrictions if you just used it plainly.
Slimes weren't particularly agile or fast monsters.
That was when some poison-attribute mages had an idea.
What if they fired arrows coated in Slime Virus poison?
Surprisingly, this method proved devastatingly effective and gained massive popularity among adventurers.
Killerbee Meo took it one step further.
He fired poison arrows himself.
And he controlled them using telekinesis.
“Poison Arrow.”
He named this technique of his Poison Arrow.
With telekinesis control, there was no such thing as a Poison Arrow missing its mark.
Especially for Killerbee's Poison Arrow, enhanced by wearing Luminous's bracelet—it was hardly an arrow anymore.
Shiiik!
It slithered through the jungle like a snake, racing toward its target.
From a distance, one of Killerbee's subordinates watching this couldn't help but gasp in admiration.
‘My God, was Meo always this incredible?’
He had seen the results of Killerbee Meo's work countless times before, but nothing had ever reached this level.
Killerbee Meo felt the same.
‘This is beyond belief.’
Right here and now, he was more shocked and amazed by his own creation than anyone else.
‘Failure is impossible.’
His confidence was overflowing.
The very idea of a miss didn't even cross his mind.
And the current situation was in Killerbee Meo's favor, to boot.
His prey had wandered right into a pre-set trap, oblivious to his presence—and this was the jungle! Filled with all sorts of noises.
Dodging his attack after noticing it? Impossible.
That was the moment.
‘Huh?’
Just as Killerbee's Poison Arrow was about to reach its target, the target vanished from his sight.
Killerbee didn't panic at the realization.
It was only natural for the target to move.
He waited.
He halted the swiftly flying Poison Arrow with telekinesis, holding out until the target reappeared.
As he lay in wait, Killerbee's eyes narrowed.
‘Gone.’
It was no longer visible.
But he didn't dwell on it much.
The target's position: five hundred meters ahead.
So he simply thought,
“Lucky bastards.”
That they'd somehow slipped from his view by sheer luck.
And he figured,
‘They can't get lucky twice in a row.’
Luck wouldn't hold out next time.
With that resolve, Killerbee Meo issued the command.
“Track them down.”
“Yes, sir.”
At his word, his subordinates moved toward where the target had been moments ago.
To search for traces.
“We've got a signal.”
Upon arrival, his subordinates soon sent Killerbee a signal.
“Huh?”
Another subordinate receiving it tilted his head, prompting Killerbee Meo to narrow his eyes and ask,
“What is it?”
“Well... they say there are no traces.”
“What?”
5.
“When facing adventurers, never think about killing them.”
That was the most important lesson El Pam taught when dealing with fellow adventurers.
“Think about escaping from them.”
Escaping well was more crucial than fighting well.
“If you can escape, opportunities will come eventually.”
El Pam had ingrained this lesson deep into his companions' bones.
Thoroughly.
That was why, in just one day, El Pam's companions had reached a professional level in evasion skills.
“The basics of evasion aren't speed. It's erasing your traces.”
Among those teachings, the first thing El Pam's companions had mastered was vanishing without a trace.
Of course, by El Pam's own standards, it was still laughable—but those were El Pam's standards.
“There are no traces anywhere.”
To Killerbee's party, it was like a mirage in the desert.
“Does that mean what we saw was a ghost?”
“N-No, sir.”
“They triggered the traps. They're definitely nearby.”
But they couldn't just abandon the chase.
“Find them, no matter what.”
Killerbee's party began their search.
“As fast as possible.”
Pushing themselves.
“Spread out and look.”
Truth be told, it was dangerous.
Reducing their numbers for a search when they didn't know the enemy's position?
A perfect setup for a counterattack.
But Killerbee didn't care.
For one, he was brimming with confidence.
“Report immediately upon sighting.”
He was certain he could kill them in one shot.
And it wasn't just blind confidence driving this reckless pursuit.
“We eliminate them fast and get out.”
It was the seventh and final day of their promised time—Killerbee wanted everything wrapped up within that deadline.
It mattered a great deal.
Finishing everything within the allotted time versus leaving loose ends and bailing—the difference in adventurer reputation was night and day.
‘Ebob's crew isn't bad, but shining here could catch Queen Areda's eye.’
Decisively, this situation was a golden opportunity for Killerbee.
Frankly, Ebob was already a failure.
He was aiming for a comeback under Queen Areda, but that still meant being under her thumb.
‘The eye of Ariant Kingdom's true master.’
Better to become Queen Areda's direct card than Ebob's subordinate.
Of course, the biggest reason was still his confidence.
‘They're the last ones to show up anyway. The weakest of the bunch. No tricks will save them.’
It was a lion versus rabbits.
No matter how well rabbits hid or fled, a lion would never lose to one.
That was when it happened.
“We found them!”
Traces were discovered, and a smile crept onto Killerbee's lips.
Wearing that smile, Killerbee said,
“Pursue.”
“Yes, sir.”
His subordinates sprang into action.
“Poison Arrow.”
The moment Killerbee prepared for the hunt as well—that instant.
Shiiik!
‘What the—?’
A single sound of slicing wind pierced Killerbee's ears, sending chills erupting across his entire body.
No time for thought.
His instincts—his survival instincts—took over.
He whipped his head around.
And that's when Killerbee saw it.
‘A fire arrow?’
A single fire arrow hurtling toward him at tremendous speed.
6.
Fwoosh!
The suddenly appearing fire arrow pierced straight through Killerbee—right through his left shoulder.
“Gah!”
Killerbee yelped in shock and instinctively dropped low.
Pure reflex.
In other words, his rational mind wasn't functioning at that moment.
‘What? What the hell?’
He was just stunned.
“Meo!”
Killerbee wasn't the only one shocked—his nearby subordinates were too.
And El Pam, who had fired the Fire Arrow from afar, was equally surprised.
‘Dodged it, huh.’
He wasn't about to claim his attack was perfect.
El Pam was the type who believed nothing was perfect.
But that Fire Arrow had been stealthier than ever, aimed squarely at the enemy's blind spot.
Even El Pam himself couldn't have spotted and dodged it.
‘He reacted first.’
What stunned El Pam most was that Killerbee Meo had suddenly turned his head—without seeing it, without even hearing it properly.
‘He sensed it.’
El Pam had only one explanation.
‘My telekinesis.’
The enemy hadn't sensed the Fire Arrow itself, but El Pam's telekinesis.
It wasn't strange.
He'd already confirmed the opponent was a telekinesis user too.
A high-level one could absolutely sense incoming telekinesis.
El Pam himself could.
In other words, only someone on El Pam's level could pull that off.
‘Killerbee's impressive, but...’
In El Pam's eyes, the foe matched the profile of Killerbee, one of Ebob's key cards.
‘Not to that extent.’
The Killerbee El Pam knew was a skilled telekinesis mage, but nowhere near his own caliber.
If he were, Killerbee's fame would have exceeded what El Pam knew.
Of course, there were exceptions.
If it wasn't Killerbee.
Or if Queen Areda had hired another mage adventurer wielding both poison and telekinesis.
‘Not luck.’
Regardless, El Pam had no intention of dismissing the scene before him as mere luck or coincidence.
There was definitely something to it.
Naturally, El Pam didn't need to puzzle it out.
“Apollo's Fire Arrow.”
If Fire Arrow didn't work, a more decisive strike would do.
7.
Even a wolf can fall to a fox if it lets its guard down.
Against a tiger instead of a fox? The outcome for the wolf was obvious.
“Boss, we've cleaned them all up.”
It took Killerbee's party—responsible for slaughtering every adventurer who'd entered this place—less than thirty minutes to be wiped out.
An utterly overwhelming result.
‘Did this myself, but I didn't think my skills had grown this much.’
El Pam's companions, including Dibo, were stunned by the handiwork—especially the perpetrators themselves.
In a way, it made sense.
Until now, they'd only ever sparred against El Pam.
This was their first real chance to put their honed skills to use.
‘Insanely stronger.’
Still, they hadn't anticipated quite this level.
‘Fighting adventurers is this easy...? Just how much of a monster is the boss?’
In other words, El Pam's strength operated on an entirely different plane.
That realization left them all newly awed.
By their boss's abilities.
Of course, other thoughts crossed their minds too.
“Maybe they weren't all that impressive?”
“Could be.”
“Yeah, they fell for it way too easily.”
That maybe these guys were just weak.
El Pam saw it differently.
The moment he saw Meo's corpse, he was certain.
‘It's Killerbee.’
Killerbee Meo, one of Ebob's trump cards.
No pushover by any means—Ebob wouldn't rely on him for nothing.
Killerbee, wielding telekinesis and poison, was a nightmare for adventurers.
‘Over a hundred of my companions died by this guy's hand.’
El Pam knew it well.
So he had questions.
Killerbee was formidable, sure.
‘But his telekinesis isn't anywhere near my level.’
Certainly not advanced enough to sense and react to El Pam's telekinesis.
‘There's a reason.’
He must possess something.
El Pam began rummaging through Killerbee's body to find it.
Starting with the obvious.
‘Earrings are ordinary, ring's Slime Virus magic.’
Earrings, ring.
‘Bracelet...’
The moment he pulled out the bracelet and slipped it on, El Pam's eyes narrowed.
He felt something.
And soon, his pupils widened.
‘No way, is this...?’
If El Pam's hunch was right, this bracelet was an item beyond his wildest imagination.
That was why.
‘No.’
He refused to jump to conclusions.
‘This can't be Luminous's bracelet. No way something like that drops this easily. I need to verify properly...’
That was when.
“Boss!”
Dibo approached.
“Giant scorpion incoming! Looks like this place's boss monster!”
The time to check if the bracelet was real had arrived.