Chapter 158
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 158
In a darkened room, Turan sat leaned back in a chair, his gaze fixed on a brightly glowing screen.
It was an object with a black border, roughly four palms wide and a little less than two palms high. It bore a striking resemblance to one of the ancient relics found on the surface level of the Tomb of the Gods.
Within that tiny light, incredibly, lay another world.
It was a world where people from all over gathered in one place to communicate through text and voice, fighting enemies and bonding with comrades.
In that world, Turan would sometimes become a single individual, wandering through all sorts of underground labyrinths and hunting grounds, or socializing with others in a plaza around a campfire.
Unlike other popular games, this was a half-dead game played only by a dedicated few, so the names and faces were all familiar.
[Buff Enchanters pls]
[Why buff a class that’s already OP as hell?]
[Why does that person want Enchanters to be even stronger? They have no conscience. Buff Healers first.]
[Just die already, you damn catfish!!!!]
He saw a red-haired woman who resembled Meisa shouting something before being pummeled by others.
Of course, since the plaza was a safe zone, no actual damage was dealt. Others watching the scene simply typed ‘LOL’ and laughed.
In truth, the scene itself was a sort of performance; in a place where combat was actually possible, that woman could have easily wiped out the people hitting her in an instant. That was precisely why her previous comment had drawn such ridicule and vitriol.
[Is the Night Hunter advancement dungeon bugged again? The boss’s defense shot up tenfold, I can’t deal any damage.]
[I’ll run it with you. I can handle up to 30x defense. Let’s go.]
[You can party up for the class change dungeon?]
[If I leave right before the kill, it counts as a solo clear for you.]
Elsewhere, two young men with black and gray hair stepped out of the plaza together, chatting. The gray-haired youth leading the way carried a massive bow over his shoulder, and his face looked strangely familiar.
A blue-haired youth behind them pointed at them and asked a light-blue-haired middle-aged man wielding two axes.
[That guy is the same 4th-rank as me, so why is his attack power two digits higher??]
[That’s because Otaku-bro is someone who dedicated his life to this... You should try whaling about a billion won too.]
[Why the hell would anyone do that for a trash game like this;]
[Who forced you to pick a PvP class with garbage stats?]
[I just like copying techniques in any game lol]
While chuckling at their conversation, a private message arrived that only he could see.
[Did you top up?]
It was from a guy in the same group as Turan—someone who spent quite a bit of money but played a non-meta class because the class itself was weak. They were close because their ages were relatively similar within a guild full of older people.
[Yeah.]
[I did it secretly on my mom’s phone while she was showering.]
[You’re dead if you get caught lol]
Turan snickered as he chatted secretly with the other person.
Out there, he was a miserable loser, but in here, he could act as confident as he wanted. No matter how much he vented his real-world frustrations here, they could never link his virtual self to his real self.
“Open this door right now before I break it down, you brat!”
Just then, a middle-aged man’s shout thundered from outside, accompanied by a heavy thud against the door. A woman’s voice followed, trying to stop him by saying the neighbors would hear.
Turan flinched at his father’s voice. Still sitting in his chair, he pulled a nearby blanket over himself. It solved nothing, but it was an instinctive act of self-preservation.
From beyond the door, crude insults continued to fly. Calling him a loser who quit school to do nothing but play games, asking if he felt good stealing his mother’s phone to pay for it.
Damn it, why is he always on my case? Other people make so much money they don’t even care about this much. It’s his own incompetence.
Turan cursed inwardly as he pulled the blanket over both himself and the monitor. Doing this made it feel as though everything else—except for him and the world inside that screen—ceased to exist.
He wished he could just become a character in that game, rather than a shut-in who dropped out of high school due to bullying—
*
“...Ah.”
Waking up in bed early in the morning, Turan retraced the dream he had just had.
The dark room, the world of illusions, the criticizing parents, and the longing...
Even though they clearly weren't his, the memories were as vivid as if he had experienced them himself.
Is this... Kadram’s old memories?
Not long ago, Turan had crushed Kadram’s soul into fine pieces, just as he had once threatened Resion and the other half-elves. It was an action taken only after confirming, until the very last moment, whether there was any intent to communicate.
The result was dozens of soul fragments, similar to those that had once possessed the bodies of Midan or Visen. Turan had tried absorbing one relatively small piece, but he had only seen fleeting, hazy illusions.
In the end, he had entrusted the analysis of the fragments to the Librarian, who had recently finished organizing the ancient books and was growing bored. Immediately after, he had experienced this dream.
It felt as if I had actually become Kadram.
In that world, Turan could think exactly like Kadram—or rather, like a boy who had dropped out of high school and locked himself in his room. The image of the ‘True World,’ which he had heard about several times from the half-elves but never quite grasped, suddenly felt incredibly close and real.
Getting out of bed, Turan recalled something Resion had mentioned in passing. He had said that the survivors of the old Frea Divine Clan, including themselves, were relatively young. This was because death from the aging of the Spirit Chains—the shackles binding soul to body—had claimed the older ones first.
[Most of the truly powerful figures recorded in history were top-tier players in the game. Naturally, obtaining such power required investing a lot of money, which favored the older players. Because of that, those who barely survived were mostly minor gods who never made a name for themselves in this world’s history—mere greenhorns who were in their late teens or early twenties in reality.]
Resion had spoken as if it were someone else’s business, wondering what kind of young person would pour their life into an outdated, dying game when there were plenty of popular ones around.
He lamented that if they had been more mature and knowledgeable, they might have fundamentally changed this world while hopping between bodies. Instead, all they could do was run around recklessly like the immature brats in the story Two Years' Vacation.
At the time, Turan hadn't fully understood what that meant, but now he did. Not only that, but he also understood the conversations his grandfather Talis used to have with the Carmine gods, and the things Ymir used to mutter to himself.
The reason why great gods like the Night Hunter or the Earth Mother, whose names remained in history, could not reincarnate was actually quite pathetic.
After a brief sigh at that fact, Turan suddenly looked at the closed door and remembered someone pounding on it. The idea that a door should remain closed, and that only fear came from outside...
“Maybe I should kill him if I ever go back.”
Turan muttered unconsciously, thinking of Kadram’s father, before clicking his tongue in annoyance. He realized he had become too immersed in his dream self and was over-identifying with those emotions.
If he continued to absorb Kadram’s soul, there would likely come a point where it would be difficult to clearly distinguish Kadram’s emotions and thought patterns from his own. To think this was the result of absorbing just one piece out of thousands.
Now he understood the Librarian’s words—that if he kept absorbing the soul fragments, it might even be possible to resurrect the original person.
I should probably hold off on absorbing more soul fragments for now.
While absorbing one piece had allowed him to instantly grasp the players' way of thinking—a positive effect—it would be meaningless if he lost his sense of self. To Turan, ‘himself’ was defined by having his own memories and thinking in his own way.
“Kill who?”
A voice came from the bed where he had just been lying. Turan gently pressed down on Meisa’s shoulder as she tried to rub her eyes and sit up, covering her half-exposed body with the blanket.
“Meisa, what would you think if someone said Enchanters needed a buff?”
“What are you talking about?”
“No, nothing.”
Since she looked so much like the woman in the dream, he thought she might remember something, but it seemed that wasn't the case.
*
After a somewhat unsettling morning, Turan finished breakfast as usual. But instead of heading to Baraha for work, he immediately mobilized his forces.
It was an elite unit consisting of twenty-five nobles, with no knights. Since even Meisa was included, it was a force small in number but capable of battling a major family.
“Is everyone ready?”
“Yes, My Lord!”
Turan looked at them as they answered with determined eyes, then had them board the enlarged Bije before soaring high into the sky. Several people in Kalamaf City looked up at the bird, large enough to blot out the sun, and shouted in awe.
“It’s the Lord’s bird!”
“O Golden Eagle, cover us with your great wings...”
Unaware of the prayers below, Bije grumbled in a sulky voice.
— I could go much faster if it weren't for them.
— Bear with it. For this task, it’s better to travel together.
Perhaps because the two of them had recently enjoyed toying with the Ruban army, Bije seemed quite dissatisfied with being slowed down by so many passengers.
Since the distance wasn't great, they soon reached the mountain range that separated the Grey Zone from the hilly regions. Turan brought the flying Bije to a halt and asked a noble beside him.
“Which way from here?”
“I believe we should head a bit further east, My Lord.”
The one who answered was the noble whose fief was Solon, a city located in this vicinity. Their flight here was due to his report.
A force of unknown identity had entered the Grey Zone. They had initially tried to make contact to ascertain the situation, but surprisingly, the strangers had erected an opaque barrier around their entire camp, preventing anyone from seeing inside.
That alone made it clear that the opposition was a mage army composed of multiple nobles. Because of this, Turan had to give up on attacking the retreating Ruban army. After all, his most important foundations were Kalamaf and this Grey Zone.
After flying east for a few more minutes, Turan felt a presence detected by his tracking magic and altered Bije’s flight path. Before long, they spotted a camp situated on a mountainside.
“Hmm...”
“Indeed, anyone can see that’s clearly an army.”
A group similar in form to the Ruban army Turan had recently defeated had established a base in the mountains. It was near the summit, a location where it was difficult to definitively say whether it belonged to the Carmine or Parsha families.
Turan stared down at the site, dusted off his clothes, and spoke.
“I should take a closer look. Wait here.”
Before an answer could even come, Turan leaped from Bije, activating stealth and flight magic. Then, using magnetic magic, his body surged forward as if pulled by an invisible force.
Though it consumed a lot of mana, it was a technique that allowed him to fly at a speed comparable to, or perhaps even faster than, Bije for a short duration. It was a skill he had managed to clumsily master through effort, modeled after the technique Badal Arabion had once shown.
Let’s see...
Reaching the vicinity of the camp in an instant, Turan first inspected the barrier surrounding it. Usually, to save mana, barriers were loosely draped like a fence, but these people had meticulously constructed a spherical barrier from the ground to the ceiling.
With this, even a Zahar noble couldn't infiltrate without breaking the barrier. It was a method rarely used because it required deactivating and reinstalling the entire thing every time someone moved in or out, not to mention the staggering amount of time and effort required to create it.
Zahar... no, they’re definitely wary of me. I can’t even sense who’s inside because of the barrier’s mana. Just who are these guys?
His original plan was to infiltrate secretly and identify them, but it seemed that would be difficult this way. Turan pondered for a moment.
Should he just attack and annihilate them, or make proper contact to find out who they were?
After a brief deliberation, he chose the latter. If he attacked and killed them first, negotiation would be impossible afterward. More importantly, he wasn't alone this time. It would be troublesome if rumors spread through one of his companions that the Parsha Head had indiscriminately wiped out a force staying in a border region. A Head of a Great Family was expected to maintain a certain level of dignity.
Here goes.
With a flow made familiar by repeated use in the battle against the Ruban family, Turan immediately fired a Railgun toward the top of the barrier.
With a flash, the barrier distorted violently before tearing apart and scattering into mana. It was smaller than the Ruban army’s barrier but significantly sturdier; Turan guessed that even if he had attacked with lethal intent, it would have been difficult to land a fatal blow. Unless a dozen nobles of the Barrier Master bloodline had gathered, they must have brought something on the level of a holy relic.
“An attack!”
“Everyone, defensive positions!”
Turan watched the ensuing chaos for a moment before sensing Bije, carrying the Parsha troops, flying in from the distance. They must have witnessed the aftermath of his Railgun.
The mysterious army seemed to have sensed them as well, as they stopped their frantic scurrying and turned their guard toward the sky. Thanks to that, Turan was able to approach the mysterious army without much interference and identify the enemy. Although a few had conjured light spheres, he could withstand them at the cost of some extra mana.
I wondered who it was... so it’s the Carmine.
More than half of them wielded the combined power of the Shoal bloodline, which controlled water, and the Frost bloodline, which controlled cold. The question was why this lot was entrenched here. Shouldn't they be busy reclaiming their capital from the Great Sea Serpents right now?
Judging by the sense of holy relics, their composition was somewhat far from a full-scale invasion force. It consisted of one high-ranking noble, about half a dozen mid-ranking ones, a dozen low-ranking ones, and about sixty knights.
Standing right next to the Carmine camp, Turan shifted his complete stealth to a low-level stealth that only hid his appearance, and spoke.
[To dare bring an army into Parsha land... does the Carmine Head wish for war on land as well as the sea? If not, get on your knees this instant.]
Aided by wind magic, a voice of unknown origin eerily enveloped the Carmine army.