Chapter 211
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 211
Chapter Title: Crisis in the Alchemist's District
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The peaceful Alchemist's District.
Its collapse happened in an instant.
There were no warning signs.
They simply awoke from sleep to the sound of a massive earthquake, and everything had changed.
Moreover, every building except the one housing Raigriner lay half-destroyed, reduced to rubble.
"Wha...? M-Master!"
Raigriner's face drained of color as he began searching for his master, LeBlanc.
It didn't take long to find him.
His master lay buried under a pile of stones.
"Master!"
Raigriner frantically cleared away the rubble.
As he pulled LeBlanc free, his body was ice-cold.
His master, whose illness had eased enough to move about freely, had turned into a cold corpse overnight.
The problem wasn't just his masterover seventy alchemists had perished in the disaster.
Including the injured, only seventeen survivors remained.
And that wasn't all.
"Grrr! Kill them all!"
"Kill. Kill."
Monsters prowled the streets.
Raigriner had no choice but to hide.
Fortunately, the monsters vanished somewhere after a certain time, so enduring until then meant survival.
'We need to ask the Merhen Kingdom for help!'
The Alchemist's District was a small town where alchemists gathered.
And that town lay within the Merhen Kingdom.
They would surely help if asked to protect them from this sudden monster assault.
"Wha...? The path is blocked!"
But the road to the kingdom was completely sealed.
Some kind of barrier prevented passage.
"What...?"
The alchemists despaired and had no choice but to return to the district.
Soon after, a few outsiders appeared.
"Hey! Save us!"
"If you do, I'll give you the artifact I developed!"
Outsiders always helped if given a quest.
But their response was ice-cold.
"Hidden quest?!"
"We have to do it!"
"Hey! Are you crazy? Those monsters are over level 200. How are we supposed to take them down?"
"Ah... yeah, you're right...."
"Risking our lives for it is too much. Let's skip this place."
Every one of them was level 160 or below.
They had entered just in case, but hunting mid-200s monsters was impossible.
This wasn't a gamedeath was permanent.
They couldn't gamble with their lives.
"Please, help us!"
Even to those desperate pleas, the outsiders escaped through portals.
The alchemists tried to follow through the portals, but they were locked and wouldn't activate.
Just as that faint spark of hope flickered out, Jeong Hoon appeared.
Hidden Quest: Alchemist Raigriner
-Restriction: Encounter with survivors
-Reward: ??
-Description: Protect Raigriner and the surviving alchemists. Accepting the quest will start the Monster Wave.
Monster Wave.
The very force that had utterly annihilated the Alchemist's District.
This Wave consisted of monsters over level 200.
'This'll be easy for me.'
Jeong Hoon's current level was 366.
370 was just around the corner.
"I'll help you."
"Is that for real?!"
Raigriner's face lit up as Jeong Hoon nodded.
"Yes."
"Thank you! The monsters will appear soon! Wipe them all out!"
A new message appeared upon accepting the quest.
17 minutes until the 1st Monster Wave.
After Jeong Hoon left, the alchemists gathered together.
"Raigriner... do you think that outsider can save us?"
A glimmer of hope shone in the alchemists' eyes.
But Raigriner shook his head.
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
The absurd answer snuffed out the spark of hope in their eyes.
Ignoring that, Raigriner continued flatly.
"What I do know is that he cured Master when no one else could."
"No... curing someone and hunting monsters are different things!"
"Then who? Who's going to help us? The ones who came before all ignored us and left."
"That's..."
Excluding Jeong Hoon, many outsiders had visited the district.
But none had helped.
The reason? They couldn't gain experience from the monsters.
They had wanted to hold on to them somehow, but with nothing to offer, they could only watch them leave.
"Anyway, that outsider is our only hope right now. Got it?"
"...Understood."
The 1st Wave begins.
Portals spawned around them as the alert sounded.
Monsters poured out in droves.
Lv.210 Red Lizardman
The monsters were Red Lizardmen.
Level 210 monsters that relied on high defense and mobility.
"Damn... artifact energy?"
"Still holding. Deploy it now?"
They had survived by using their developed artifacts.
That was when it happened.
Jeong Hoon's figure vanished from the front, and in an instant, ten Red Lizardmen fell.
"Huh...?"
"What...?"
Raigriner and the alchemists' eyes went wide.
The 1st Wave ends.
He had hunted roughly 300 Red Lizardmen in the 1st Wave.
'Quite a lot.'
With this many monsters pouring from the Waves, surviving nearly a year was a miracle.
'Probably because of that Raigriner.'
He was the prodigy personally brought by the era's greatest alchemist, LeBlanc.
He protected the district using alchemy specialized in reinforcement.
But the endless Waves eventually led to its downfall.
Jeong Hoon tossed the Red Lizardmen corpses aside and returned.
"How long does a Wave usually last once it starts?"
Raigriner snapped out of his daze and spoke.
"Uh... I think the 4th one, from memory."
"I see. Then wait here a bit longer."
Jeong Hoon nodded and prepared for battle again.
Soon, the 2nd Wave began.
The 2nd Wave begins.
Difficulty adjusted based on 1st Wave clear time.
This Wave's monsters were too numerous to count with the naked eye.
Having cleared the 1st Wave too easily, the difficulty had spiked dramatically.
Lv.240 Giant Lizardman
Still, they weren't much for Jeong Hoon.
'Ah, rather than this, I should feed them to Fenrir.'
Fenrir was getting hungry around now.
Jeong Hoon immediately summoned Fenrir.
"Yeah."
"Fenrir, getting hungry yet?"
"My stomach's stuck to my back."
"Figured. So I prepared a feast for you."
"A feast?"
Fenrir glanced at the alchemists.
The alchemists shuddered in fear at his gaze.
Jeong Hoon shook his head.
"Opposite."
"Ah."
Only then did Fenrir look at the Lizardmen pouring out.
"You... pretending not to know on purpose, huh?"
"Just wanted to scare them a bit...."
"Alright, let's go."
"Yes."
Fenrir's level was 308.
Giant Lizardmen were child's play for him.
"There's only one!"
"Kill!"
A 2.5-meter-tall Giant Lizardman charged at Fenrir with its spear.
Fenrir's eyes changed.
Giant Wolf Fenrir uses Predator's Gaze.
Predator's Gaze.
Movement speed reduced by 20.
Enters Fear state.
All stats decreased by 10.
Debuffs afflicted the Giant Lizardman.
Jeong Hoon cast Magic Missile in the gap.
Countless Magic Missiles spawned and engulfed the Giant Lizardmen.
"Kek!"
"Kuek!"
One Magic Missile per Giant Lizardman downed.
He mopped up the rest with Anima.
The 2nd Wave ends.
"...Um."
Then, Fenrir approached Jeong Hoon.
"Yeah?"
"Didn't you say that was a feast for me?"
"I did."
"But I didn't do anything."
"Why not? You applied debuffs."
"...."
"Go eat."
"...Yes."
All Waves ended. No more monsters will invade the dungeon.
The curse on the Alchemist's District is lifted, and the barrier disappears.
A new special dungeon is generated.
You can now enter a new episode.
Done.
This twisted the history of the Alchemist's District vanishing within a year.
Jeong Hoon approached Raigriner, who had watched blankly from behind.
"The Waves are over. No more monster invasions."
"Uh... uh... th-thank you! No, I mean, thank you so much!"
Raigriner now used formal speech instead of casual.
He clearly acknowledged Jeong Hoon.
An exclamation mark blinked above his head.
Quest completed.
Raigriner rummaged through his subspace pouch.
Jeong Hoon raised a hand to stop him.
"The reward is fine."
"F-Fine?"
"Yes."
"Ah, no... why?"
"In exchange, I have another request."
"Another one?"
Jeong Hoon pulled out the Celestial Engraving Stone he had mined and held it out.
"Do you know what this is?"
"...What is it? Never seen it before."
"I figured. It's a power above Legendary."
"Yes?!"
Raigriner hadn't learned everything from LeBlanc.
He was his disciple, but the training period had been short.
Still, he recalled hearing about powers above Legendary.
'Would you believe there's a power above Legendary?'
'Nah, no way something like that exists.'
Back then, LeBlanc had succeeded in decoding the recipe Jeong Hoon brought and, while cleaning up the remnants, glimpsed a power surpassing Legendary for a moment.
That was how he learned Legendary wasn't the end.
At the time, Raigriner had dismissed it as nonsense, but to think it actually existed.
"I'm trying to use this engraving stone, but its power is a bit unstable."
"Unstable?"
"Yes. So I'd like you to stabilize it."
"Uh...."
Raigriner was speechless for a moment.
The request was absurdly difficult.
How could he handle something he'd never touched before?
His master might have, but not him.
It was beyond his power.
"You can do it."
Jeong Hoon was certain Raigriner could wield this power.
'Only an alchemist specialized in reinforcement can.'
Plus, Raigriner had defended this doomed district for nearly a year.
He could definitely do it.
"No, even so...."
Raigriner agonized repeatedly.
A power beyond Legendary.
Failure would mean unimaginable loss.
"Please. You're the only one who can."
Jeong Hoon's eyes brimmed with trust.
He couldn't refuse those eyes.
Raigriner nodded with a resolute face.
"Understood. If you say so, I'll try."
"Yes. Thank you."
Jeong Hoon smiled brightly.
Reward changed.
Success rate of the request greatly increases.
And with the reward change, the success rate greatly increased.