Chapter 78
Chapter 78
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 78
Chapter Title: Luminous's Collection (3)
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25장. 루미너스의 소장품 (3)
8.
“A giant scorpion is approaching!”
It was truly a house-sized giant black scorpion.
“It looks like a boss monster just from the sight of it!”
Its overwhelming presence screamed boss monster to anyone who laid eyes on it.
And it wasn’t just overwhelming in appearance.
Slash!
The two pincers on its front could slice through a massive tree in an instant with their razor sharpness.
Boom!
The groan of the severed tree was enough to make anyone’s legs, body, and mind freeze up without a second thought.
Yet in the face of that overwhelming presence, the first to move was none other than Miner.
Bang!
She pulled the trigger on the giant scorpion without a moment’s hesitation.
It was the basics.
The fundamental action any gun-wielding pirate had to take in battle.
First and foremost, the gunshot announced to her comrades:
Tighten the strings of tension, ring the bell of alertness—this was a fight, a battle for their lives.
But it served another purpose as well.
Calibration.
It let every party member gauge the enemy’s strength and toughness based on the damage dealt by the bullet.
Of course, it was far from easy.
In this sudden situation, it required overcoming the instinct to flee faster than anyone else.
Just landing the shot was an impressive feat.
That’s why.
Miner was hailed as the woman with golden eyes.
Her bullet struck precisely in the giant scorpion’s small left eye—right in that black pupil.
It went beyond mere calibration; in this dire moment, she had targeted a clear weak point.
A jaw-dropping display of skill.
Ting!
But even more shocking, Miner’s bullet ricocheted off the giant scorpion’s eye.
“Insane!”
Dibo couldn’t hold back the curse that flew from his mouth upon seeing it.
“Does that even make sense?”
He knew full well the power of Miner’s gun.
And it wasn’t just any random hit.
“It hit the eye!”
Common sense dictated that the eye was the softest part of any creature’s body. Hitting it and dealing no damage?
Utterly absurd!
“That’s not the issue.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“The scorpion.”
“What about the scorpion?”
“There’s a high chance poison won’t work on it.”
“Ah!”
The opponent even likely had strong resistance to poison.
“But its poison will hit us hard.”
On the flip side, it clearly wielded a potent venom.
Worst-case scenario in every way.
Of course, the absolute worst factor for El Pam’s party was this:
“If the boss resists magic, it’s game over.”
The possibility that El Pam’s magic—their strongest firepower—wouldn’t work.
And in this situation, that possibility seemed very high.
Anyone could see it boasted incredible defense, far beyond what fit this Mystic Gate.
El Pam’s magic failing wasn’t out of the question.
El Pam wasted no words on needless chatter regarding that doubt.
Whoosh!
“Fire Arrow, Magic Acceleration.”
With the signal to fall back, he summoned an enhanced Fire Arrow and launched it straight away.
Swoosh!
The reinforced fire arrow whistled eerily as it flew toward the giant scorpion’s pupil.
Whirr!
The fire arrow began to spin as it hurtled forward.
Revolver!
El Pam’s sinister telekinesis technique propelled the fire arrow straight into the pupil in one go.
Clang!
The moment it made contact, a harsh sound rang out, and the fire arrow shattered to pieces.
The instant the Fire Arrow failed to pierce the giant scorpion’s eye—or the shell covering it—and broke first.
El Pam’s party didn’t panic at the sight.
It was thanks to the steady experience they’d honed over time.
Cold, rational thinking.
With that clarity, understanding what had just happened was simple.
‘The Fire Arrow shattered.’
Fire Arrows were fundamentally made of flames.
Naturally, they lacked a solid form.
They could only pierce targets through sheer destructive power.
But even that had limits.
El Pam’s magic was no exception.
The astonishing results he’d achieved so far were only possible because they penetrated.
If penetration failed, even El Pam’s magic became powerless.
Nothing unusual about it.
‘Boss is immune.’
So the answer now was straightforward.
‘Find the exit.’
Abandon the fight.
And the first step toward that was none other than fleeing—which El Pam’s party knew better than anyone.
It was El Pam’s teaching.
In battle, escape mattered more than the hunt.
Everyone fell back.
Swiftly.
Except for one.
“Cold Beam.”
El Pam didn’t retreat—instead, he cast a new spell. His comrades were stunned.
“Boss!”
In a situation like this, retreat without hesitation—that was El Pam’s mantra, wasn’t it?
Yet here he was, attacking instead of pulling back?
‘Cold Beam here?’
Moreover, El Pam rarely used Cold Beam.
The reason was simple.
None of his legendary items boosted ice-attribute magic.
Crucially, Cold Beam was tough for El Pam to handle.
Because of its weight.
Unlike other spells, Cold Beam had a physical form—and it was quite heavy.
For El Pam, it meant far greater telekinesis expenditure than other magic!
That’s why he only used it with poison applied.
Yet now he cast Cold Beam?
Utterly baffling.
‘Whatever it is.’
But the moment El Pam drew Cold Beam, his comrades thought:
‘We’re hunting.’
The hunt was on.
The basis for that was singular.
‘Boss has a reason.’
El Pam’s actions always had purpose.
Not just any purpose—a perfect, undeniable one.
“Over here!”
Dibo reacted first.
“The hero of the polearm is right here!”
He deliberately roared loudly, making a racket to assert his presence before the giant scorpion.
Drawing aggro.
The giant scorpion reacted instantly to Dibo’s provocation.
Shaa!
It turned its head and sliced two trees right in front of it with its pincers.
Swoosh!
Then it raised its venom-laced tail high into the sky.
A display of intimidation.
The kingly posture of the Scorpion King, overwhelming everything it faced.
“Quit screwing around and come at me!”
It had little effect on Dibo, which only enraged the Scorpion King further.
Shaa!
With a furious screech, the Scorpion King charged at Dibo at full speed.
Boom!
Crushing everything in its path.
As the distance closed, Dibo finally sprang into action.
“Come on!”
Shaa!
Dibo began circling the Scorpion King.
Tank basics.
Blindly running away would prevent the ranged DPS from landing proper attacks.
Of course, it was an incredibly demanding basic.
Yet Dibo pulled it off—and not just barely.
‘Focus every sense.’
In this perilous situation, he never took his eyes off the Scorpion King.
That’s why he saw it clearest.
Swoooosh!
El Pam’s Cold Beam flying in and embedding right into the Scorpion King’s eye.
Clang!
A harsh sound followed.
Like striking steel with a stone.
Disappointing.
Even that solid Cold Beam couldn’t pierce the Scorpion King’s eyeshell.
But Dibo felt no disappointment at the sound.
He couldn’t.
“My god.”
He could see it.
‘What the hell?’
Kakakakang!
The Cold Beam, upon hitting the Scorpion King’s eyeshell, spun wildly in place like a drill.
Literally.
‘A drill?’
Just like Dibo’s impression—the Cold Beam rotated relentlessly like a drill.
Kakaka!
Endlessly.
Kyaaaah!
Even the rampaging Scorpion King seemed bewildered, forgetting Dibo momentarily as it let out a screech.
Then the Scorpion King moved its pincer to grab the Cold Beam lodged in its eye.
Crunch!
And crushed it.
But that wasn’t a positive outcome for the Scorpion King.
“Cold Beam.”
El Pam’s assault was only just beginning.
9.
The seventh.
Crunch!
When El Pam called out his seventh Cold Beam and launched it, that’s when the Scorpion King’s sturdy shell finally cracked with a sound.
Of course, the wound wasn’t all that impressive.
Shaa!
Just one eye lost.
The Scorpion King’s armored body still tolerated not even the tiniest scratch.
But everyone watching knew instinctively.
‘It’s over.’
The hunt was ending.
El Pam would now exploit that fissure relentlessly, mercilessly.
And El Pam delivered exactly that.
“Apollo’s Fire Arrow.”
The mighty Apollo’s Fire Arrow appeared.
A death sentence.
Swoosh!
Apollo’s Fire Arrow—so fast it was hard to track—plunged straight through the shattered eyeshell and tore into the Scorpion King’s brain mercilessly.
Kyaaaah!
The Scorpion King shuddered, its whole body convulsing in agony, revealing the wound’s severity.
It didn’t die.
Lethal, but just shy of killing the Scorpion King.
No problem, though.
El Pam, thanks to Fried’s ring effect, had a second Apollo’s Fire Arrow ready.
Swoooosh!
The second Apollo’s Fire Arrow burrowed into the Scorpion King’s eye once more.
The Scorpion King no longer thrashed.
Thud!
It merely collapsed its massive body onto the ground.
The hunt’s conclusion.
“Boss!”
Dibo and the others rushed to El Pam.
And asked.
“How the hell did you do that?”
About what El Pam had just shown.
“Hey, if you could pull that off, you should’ve said so earlier!”
Had they known El Pam’s telekinesis could handle that level, the party’s response to the situation would’ve been entirely different.
Not just different—on another plane entirely.
What El Pam displayed this time was incomparable to anything before.
No wonder everyone was floored.
That’s why.
Even El Pam was surprised.
“This is my first time too.”
“What?”
“The drill succeeding is a first.”
Drill.
A technique that spun magic attacks like a drill using telekinesis, just as the name implied.
For El Pam, it had existed only in theory until now.
A technique he’d never even attempted properly, let alone succeeded.
And for good reason.
‘This was an impossible technique.’
Even simply moving magic with telekinesis was no easy feat.
Adding spin like a revolver was a massive undertaking—and even that revolver spin was applied only before impact.
But a drill—continuing to spin even after contact? That was another level.
Above all, drilling required durability the magic could withstand.
Meaning it only worked on ice-attribute magic.
Ice magic’s weight demanded the most concentration and mana when using telekinesis.
The fatigue was comparable to casting Fire Arrow fifty times versus Cold Beam once.
So he’d kept it theoretical.
Yet now, theory became reality.
‘Definitely Luminous’s Bracelet, one of Luminous’s collection items.’
At that moment, El Pam no longer doubted the identity of the item on his wrist.
No reason to.
Whether it was Luminous’s Bracelet or something else didn’t matter to him.
What mattered was that it elevated his telekinesis to another level.
“As expected of the boss! Incredible!”
“We’re short on time.”
“Huh?”
“Complete the mission in the remaining time and get out.”
Of course, El Pam hadn’t forgotten.
‘I need to prepare for war with Queen Areida.’
A war against an enemy beyond compare with anything so far had only just begun.