Chapter 60
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 60
Chapter Title: Mom, I'm Low-Grade
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"I'm glad I didn't end up in a world with a creep like this...."
Just looking at it made disgust seep into every crease of her brain.
Sia leaped from foothold to foothold in midair, slicing through the tentacles.
Each tentacle was as thick as her own body.
Pink bodily fluid sprayed out like a fountain every time one was severed.
——!!
The monster's tentacles writhed all over its body.
The sounds of them slamming into the ground and trees rang out like screams.
The beast unleashed hundreds of tentacles at once.
A dense bundle of them closed in around Sia.
Using her footholds as leverage, she swung her sword diagonally downward in a long arc, wrapped in divine power.
Then, riding the momentum of that swing, she reversed direction and slashed upward.
By slightly adjusting the angle of her swing, the bundle of tentacles was severed, creating a small gap.
Sia conjured a new foothold perpendicular to the ground, stepped on it, and slipped through the narrow opening.
"Even the cutting sensation is gross."
Slicing the tentacles felt less like cutting flesh and more like hacking through a swamp.
The texture was squishy, but the blade didn't pass through easily.
And on top of that....
"Regeneration, huh?"
From the cross-sections she'd cut earlier, new tentacles were wriggling back to life.
She couldn't even fathom the mechanism behind such regeneration.
Not only was the regen speed impressive, but just getting close sent negative energy pounding against her mental barriers—thud, thud.
Their size made them a hassle to deal with using just a single sword.
But even accounting for all that, it wasn't particularly strong.
What made this thing dangerous was its direct mental interference, parasitism via tentacles, or biological domination through curses and corruption.
All things that didn't work on Sia in the slightest.
And above all else....
"This bastard doesn't even know how to fight."
With its horde of minions, mental corruption, and sheer mass... those three factors alone had let it coast by unscathed until now.
If you didn't panic, even the other raiders could handle it without much trouble.
Nothing else worth watching here.
She'd dragged it out, slicing tentacles pointlessly to see if it had any trump cards, but it seemed to have nothing more to show.
Sia concentrated her divine power into her sword.
The blade, enveloped in a glow, shimmered like pure white flames dancing along its edge.
For things with good regeneration, this is the way to go.
Spinning in midair, Sia unleashed a massive swing.
As the tentacles were sliced clean, they became wrapped in holy flames... and began to heal.
Not burn—heal.
It only looked like flames because the light gathered like heat haze; it wasn't actual fire.
The neatly severed tentacles started reconnecting at their cross-sections.
Sia's healing couldn't mend every wound perfectly.
But if you asked what she was best at, it was reattaching cleanly severed parts.
Hundreds of tentacles were sliced at once, then began reattaching under the power of her divine energy.
———!!!
At the same moment, the tentacle monster began regenerating as well.
Combining the beast's regenerative ability with Sia's healing caused the tentacles to sprout in grotesque new forms.
It looked like tentacles parasitizing other tentacles—a horrifying sight.
As hundreds more tentacles sprouted in an instant, the monster went berserk.
The once-fluid, precise tentacles now jerked and spasmed like a broken machine.
No matter how perfectly fused, suddenly grafting extra limbs onto a human wouldn't let them use them properly.
The brain's signals would tangle in an instant.
The same went for this monster handling hundreds or thousands of tentacles.
With its tentacles suddenly doubling, it even struggled to crawl properly.
The sporadic twitches and lunging strikes resembled a person gasping for breath.
As Sia descended to the ground and slowly closed the distance, the tentacles trembled and retreated.
But even controlling its intact ones seemed difficult—it just scraped futilely at the dirt.
The burden on its brain from the extra hundreds of tentacles was too much; it was already dying.
It couldn't even mount a proper defense.
"So damn many of them...."
Sia cleaved through the clustered central mass of tentacles, revealing its puny body.
It resembled a sea anemone.
Splitting its wrinkled, cylindrical torso exposed a massive mana stone soaked in pink blood.
Sia pocketed the body-sized stone, shook off the blood with divine power, and returned to the group.
"Boss cleared! In the next hour, hunt down as many remaining monsters as possible, collect the mana stones, and prep to head out!"
"“Got it—!”"
"Unlike coming in, we'll have mandatory interviews on the way out. Don't stress too much, though—the reporters asking questions are mostly from your guilds, so they won't throw anything too tricky at you. Everyone's reviewed the sample questions from the Awakener Management Bureau, right?"
They all nodded solemnly, faces stiff.
Recalling the swarm of reporters from before entering made it impossible not to tense up.
Gates were unpredictable in clear time, so long stakeouts by press were rare.
But with Sia's superhuman promotion riding on this clear, journalists would camp out for days, rotating shifts.
Plus, as Sia mentioned, guild-sent reporters would be there too.
"Ugh... I think I'm gonna puke again."
"How many times is that now?"
She chided him, but her own stomach was churning just the same.
Probably everyone's except Sia's.
"Should I... rub a bit more dirt on?"
"Won't it look too staged?"
Before exiting the gate, they were all checking their appearances.
Sia could have cleaned them up effortlessly, but they deliberately kept their post-battle grime.
Looking pristine right after a gate clear felt off—too polished.
"Filtered out the junk, but still a ton left."
"Hey, careful—that'll snag and tear on the ground."
The monster numbers had been insane, yielding a staggering mana stone haul.
They'd smashed the low-quality ones, but the remainder was still enormous.
Equivalent to raiding multiple ordinary gates.
"Kinda wasteful, though. How many did we have to crush?"
"Don't jinx it. We're lucky to carry this much out."
Left alone, mana stones would spawn new monsters after a few days due to gate influence.
Couldn't transport them piecemeal pre-clear either—that destabilized the gate, endangering those inside or triggering immediate field collapse.In the early days of gates, ignorance led to constant accidents.
Thus, awakeners on long gate stays learned stabilization techniques.
"—!"
"Show-off."
Seoa poked the smug Shin-a's side, who stood tall with hands on hips.
"What's wrong with that? We earned it."
It was Korea's other superhuman—the Magi Guild Master—who first uncovered the method in Korea.
For Shin-a, who idolized the guild master, it was a point of pride.
"Alright, everyone, let's head out. Watch for flashes!"
Sia led them like a tour guide.
Emerging through the entry gate, waiting reporters already in position knew of the raid success.
Twenty-four emerged one by one, Sia first.
Despite mental prep, faces stiffened.
"—Yes, in this gate, uh."
One blurted an answer before the question from sheer nerves.
A guild-affiliated reporter caught it—probably spin it as a cute mishap.
"Thank you all for waiting a week! Our twenty-four raiders have safely cleared the gate and returned! We'll take questions slowly now!"
As if scripted, reporters raised hands in turn.
They'd learned through contacts that Sia was jokingly called the Saintess in the ward—minus her promiscuity.
No outbursts expected from chaotic questions, but to leave good impressions, they'd coordinated responses.
"Congrats on the clear. With this success, Sia's superhuman promotion is all but certain. How do you feel?"
"Before getting tangled in this, I lived far removed from awakeners. Four months Earth-time later, becoming a superhuman feels more bewildering than joyful. For now, I'll focus on activities befitting the title and grow into the role."
Interviews proceeded smoothly from there.
Seeing Sia handle it calmly eased the raiders' tension visibly.
At Sia's subtle cue that they were ready, questions shifted to raiders.
"We all made it back safe thanks to Sia."
"...I see her as a real Spartan."
"Started off judging her harshly from rumors, but experiencing it firsthand taught me not to judge by hearsay alone."
Content unintentionally centered on Sia.
She grinned sheepishly listening in.
Bold and confident as she was, praise from others oddly embarrassed her.
The long interview wound down.
"Final question. After a tough week in the gate, what's top on your list right now?"
Sia slung an arm around Jiyu's waist beside her and answered.
"Gonna hang out with my girlfriends."
Even Sia wouldn't bluntly say "have sex" here.
But her sultry tone and "girlfriends" plural sparked that exact imagination in everyone.
-♬
In her office, sipping coffee, Haran snatched up her phone at the first Sia-exclusive chime in a week.
[MomI'mLowGrade]
"L-low-grade?"
Haran panicked at Sia's chat.
Why say something like that out of nowhere?
She couldn't know Haran had spent the week sleepless, masturbating to thoughts of her....
The thought flickered, but the next message from Sia made her realize she'd misread.