Chapter 5
Chapter 5
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 5
Chapter Title: The Power of Compression
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"Huff! Huff! Huff!"
His lungs burned, breath heaving up to his throat.
But he couldn't stop his feet.
'Dodging is getting harder and harder.'
When the stone statues first attacked, there had been plenty of slaves and expedition members around.
That was why the statues targeting Jeon hadn't been too numerous back then.
'But not anymore.'
Now, most of the expedition lay in ruins.
The weak slaves and regular members were all dead. A few who could fight back had banded together to hold on, but even they wouldn't last long.
And that meant the statues were now paying closer attention to Jeon as he fled and dodged—focusing their attacks squarely on him.
Following the voice in his head, Jeon hurled himself forward without looking back, tumbling across the ground.
Boom!
A statue's foot slammed into the spot where he'd been just a heartbeat before.
His body was scraped raw and bruised from all the rolling, but Jeon ignored it, springing to his feet and sprinting onward.
'Almost there...!'
The altar was right in front of him now.
This time, the voice boomed right in his ear rather than whispering. Gritting his teeth, Jeon leaped onto the altar and seized the casket.
Creak.
The moment Jeon's hand closed around the casket, the surrounding statues froze as one, turning their heads to stare at him.
Dozens of massive stone figures glaring down—an utterly chilling sight.
But Jeon paid them no mind, focusing intently on the inscriptions carved into the casket.
'I can't quite put it into words... but it's definitely different.'
He'd sensed it even from afar, faintly. The writing on the casket was unmistakably unlike any other.
The sensation was strange and unfamiliar even to Jeon himself, but the characters on the casket emanated a distinct energy, wholly separate from any other language or script he'd encountered.
'It's... hard to read.'
Ever since gaining the Korean Patch ability, whether it was Imperial Language or Tuk Language, Jeon had grasped reading, writing, and speaking them effortlessly upon first exposure.
But these characters on the casket didn't resolve at a glance. The more he tried, the more his head spun, like mental overload.
And that wasn't the only odd sensation from the writing.
'It feels like... it's looking at me?'
The casket—or rather, its inscriptions—seemed to possess a consciousness, gazing back at him.
Worse, that consciousness felt like it was reading Jeon in turn. A creepy, unsettling feeling.
The instant he sensed that strange energy, Jeon tried to pull his hand away—but he couldn't.
"I... I can't move...!"
His hand was stuck fast to the casket, as if glued with adhesive.
Then, one of the statues that had merely watched him began to glow from its eyes.
The voice emanated from the statue—identical to the one that had echoed through the chamber when they first entered.
Apparently the leader among them, it alone moved slowly toward the altar, looming over Jeon with glowing eyes and voice.
The blatantly dismissive tone carried a hint of pity even in the statue's glowing eyes.
"Son... of a... bitch..."
Hearing it only made Jeon's stomach churn with anger.
'Am I... going to die like this?'
Meanwhile, the energy from the casket had climbed up his arm to his shoulder.
His arm no longer obeyed his will.
If this energy spread to his whole body—or his head—he was certain it wouldn't end well.
'Died stupidly under a car in the modern world, and now here too?'
Back on Earth, a freak traffic accident had killed him.
That was unjust enough. He didn't want to go out powerlessly like this again.
That thought ignited a fire in him. Jeon glared harder at the casket.
'It's tough, but I can read it.'
He sensed it instinctively.
His only way out was to read the inscriptions on this casket.
For the first time since gaining the Korean Patch, Jeon focused every ounce of his mind on deciphering something.
His head whirled furiously, and the fragmented characters began resolving faster and faster.
'This is... a sealing spell?'
The inscriptions formed a magical incantation to keep the casket's contents from escaping—a sealing ritual scripted in a magical language.
Beyond mere containment, it included a countermeasure to thwart anyone tampering with the seal. That seemed to be the source of the energy pinning Jeon down.
'But something's off.'
His racing mind flagged an anomaly in the ritual.
'The language is corrupted.'
Though a ritual, it was built from magical language characters. Jeon realized parts were twisted, their meanings warped from the originals.
As the energy reached his neck, the whispering voice returned—not in his ear now, but murmuring right beneath his throat.
The voice, once flat, now buzzed with excitement.
'What... are you?'
On a hunch, Jeon addressed the voice mentally.
Startled yet intrigued, the voice reacted as Jeon echoed its language.
Seizing the moment, Jeon pressed on.
'Were you... the grand mage who guarded the kingdom?'
As expected.
Just as the murals depicted, the casket sealed an ancient grand mage of the kingdom—its guardian deity.
'You're dead and buried. How are you still alive?'
A vague answer to a direct question.
But it chilled Jeon. "Not yet" implied things could change soon.
'You plan to... possess my body?'
He didn't know how, but the grand mage, even sealed, had corrupted the ritual over time to twist it to his will.
'...You're insane.'
The mage responded smugly.
As it spoke, the mage's will-infused energy climbed past his jaw.
If it reached his mind, the mage might seize his body.
'Go mad cleanly, at least.'
But Jeon hadn't bantered idly.
He'd noticed the energy weaken slightly when he engaged the mage, piquing its interest.
Realizing this, he'd kept talking to draw it out further.
Now, as the mage pushed to his jawline for possession, Jeon focused every ounce of strength into his slightly freed arm—and twitched one finger.
Click!
Just one finger moved.
Yet the seemingly unbreakable casket sprang open effortlessly.
'The corruption weakened the actual sealing mechanism to the point of absurdity.'
Inside lay a single black-glowing stone chunk, deeply etched with a single character.
The statue's glowing eyes flared in shock—the most surprised of all.
Expecting Jeon to vanish instantly, the statue panicked at the finger-twitch seal-break, blasting intense light and charging.
The mage's voice, too, panicked—directly affected by the opening, its pressure on Jeon momentarily fading.
'This character...'
Jeon seized the opening, focusing on the black stone's inscription.
Its nature dawned on him.
'A rune etched into the grand mage's body and soul.'
The rune the kingdom's guardian deity—the grand mage—had used most, even in his final moments, as seen in the murals.
Gazing at it, Jeon's already racing mind burned hotter, threatening to burst.
'I have to read it.'
Even with full focus, it resisted.
But he had to.
Drip.
Was it the overheating brain? Blood trickled from Jeon's nose.
Yet he strained to read.
'Unlike the others.'
Imperial, Tuk, ancient murals, magical script—all easier by comparison. None had a single character this hard to grasp.
'Still... I read it!'
Drip drip.
The blood flow increased visibly.
But Jeon's resolve hardened.
'So simple, yet profound.'
Progress came. He translated it into known words.
'Compression.'
A seemingly trivial meaning, but its depth was immense.
Understanding surged.
Not much time had passed since the seal broke and Jeon began bleeding while grasping the word—though he didn't realize it.
Thus, as the mage's will renewed its assault and the statue's fist finally reached the altar...
"...I get it."
Jeon fully comprehended what this rune could do.
Gazing at the encroaching energy and statue, he spoke evenly, neither loud nor soft.
Compression
All threats reduced to dust instantaneously.
With that single word, the grand mage's energy and every statue in the chamber crumbled to dust in an instant.
Right after uttering the word that reduced the mage's energy and statues to dust...
Thud.
Blood streaming from his nose, Jeon collapsed like a marionette with cut strings.