Chapter 59
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 59
Chapter Title: Lesson 13. Because I Need to See You Kneel - 4
-----------------------------------------------------------------
[Obtained Life 3, Magic Beast 4, Body 2, Wildness 3.5.]
“Lucelle, looks like there aren’t any living ones left.”
“Hoo, hoo...”
Lucelle, who had been rampaging wildly amid the horde of charging monsters, finally snapped out of it at Ban Yu-won’s words and lifted her head.
For about ten minutes, she had marked a single point to link up with either Light or Dokgo Yeon and barreled straight ahead, breaking down and absorbing every conceptual wall in her path.
Now that they were openly revealing their true colors, monsters were swarming from all directions, so she had gathered them in one spot and beaten them all down.
“Wildness hit 3.5. Come here.”
“Thank you, Master... Eek!”
After sorting the concepts, he injected the string of Wildness into Lucelle’s body, and she let out a strangely sultry voice as her frame shuddered.
Ban Yu-won was convinced she was provoking him, but every time he shot her a stern glare, she drooped her eyebrows like an innocent puppy and whimpered—though the trap was that she usually wasn’t innocent in these cases. He couldn’t bring himself to press her too hard.
“I want to link up with the others soon...”
“Yeah, tell me about it.”
Our Lucelle reads her Korean textbook well, too.
Ban Yu-won sighed and checked his own internalized concepts.
Life had climbed to 392 before he knew it.
Considering it had been 360 when they set out from the Academy, it was decent growth... but still not enough.
He had hoped to hit 400 before running into any enemies inside, if possible.
But with Life’s growth rate slowing down, that didn’t seem likely.
“No matter who shows up, I’ll protect you, Master...!”
“Thanks, Lucelle.”
You’re the scariest one here.
As that thought crossed his mind, Ban Yu-won sensed something hurtling toward them at tremendous speed.
The instant he reflexively thrust out his hand—
“First, I’ll take that hand from you!”
A familiar male voice rang in his ears.
“Master!”
Lucelle cried out in alarm and charged toward him.
Ban Yu-won soon realized what had her so shocked.
This is...?
Right in front of his outstretched hand surged a massive flow of mana.
It was a pattern of magic power he had encountered once before.
Explosion.
“I’ll send it right back at you, Ban Yu-won!”
“Master... Kugh?!”
The enraged man’s voice.
Lucelle, charging toward him, got blocked by monsters “springing up” from all sides and let out a fierce roar.
A colossal projectile, live with real-time mana reactions, barreling in to smash his body to pieces—
“Haha.”
Despite the dire situation, Ban Yu-won let out a hollow laugh.
Hadn’t he been through an identical scenario before?
And now, far more adept at handling his powers than back then—
[Stolen Magic Bomb 50!]
—it was now possible to simply rip out and claim the concepts of objects this easily.
“Wha...?!”
With the absurdly oversized projectile vanishing from his sight, he could finally get a clear look at the man.
The guy who had lost to Ban Yu-won in a sparring match during lecture, refused to accept it, charged to kill him, and ended up losing his right arm.
Irecto.
“But still...”
Ban Yu-won hadn’t expected to run into him here, but what surprised him more was the mechanical arm now occupying the spot where Irecto’s right arm had been.
Honestly, it looked ridiculously cool.
“What’s with that cyberpunk arm? Did you just shoot that thing with it?”
“H-how did you...!”
Unfortunately, Irecto had no intention of telling Ban Yu-won where he got the mechanical arm.
“What did you do with the Magic Bomb, Ban Yu-won?!”
Ban Yu-won shrugged at the screaming Irecto.
“You’d know if you watched the video uploaded to the Rebellion channel.”
“That’s obviously faked... Kugh!”
Irecto started to shout something but clamped his mouth shut.
Having proven with his own body that the Rebellion channel video wasn’t faked, he couldn’t spout that nonsense anymore.
Ban Yu-won examined the golden threads coiled around his arm—the string of Magic Bomb at a depth of 50—before speaking.
“Yeah, you didn’t shoot it just to check if it was faked, right...? So you’re in league with those Exodus guys too?”
“Don’t compare me to those lowly scum. I’m just following Young Master’s orders!”
“Ortima, huh... Right, so you were connected to him, not Exodus.”
Thinking back, it had been odd how Irecto picked a fight with Ban Yu-won out of nowhere during their first lecture.
What if he was already under Ortima back then?
What if Ortima had sent him to provoke Class 11 from the start?
It all made sense.
During the duel with Ban Yu-won, Irecto... might have intended to kill him no matter what, or at least inflict grievous wounds, right from the beginning.
“How dare a lowly scum like you utter Young Master’s name!”
“Ha, you’re one loyal dog.”
“I’m Master’s loyal dog too...!”
“No, Lucelle. Don’t get competitive about this here.”
In the end, far from Ban Yu-won dying, Irecto lost an arm, got expelled, but Ortima dragged him back in for revenge against Ban Yu-won.
Ultimately, Irecto had been nothing more than a convenient pawn to Ortima from start to finish.
“So how’d you get in here? With Ortima?”
“You think I’ll tell you?”
“Ah, yeah. You don’t have to.”
He’d guessed the moment he saw the guy.
The odds of him hiding outside and slipping in the instant the dungeon opened were vanishingly low.
Obviously, he must have entered beforehand, before the dungeon even opened.
But that implied there could be other enemies lurking inside besides him... Ban Yu-won bit his lip.
The situation was far worse than he’d thought.
Of course, not knowing what might happen, I prepared accordingly...
“Don’t get cocky! You think breaking the Magic Bomb means you can beat me?!”
Maybe it irked Irecto that Ban Yu-won was lost in thought with him right there. He snarled like a wounded beast and puffed up his body.
And it wasn’t an exaggeration—it actually happened.
His mechanical arm belched eerie purple steam, then in a flash, metal covered his entire body, swelling him into a 4-meter-tall mechanical monster.
“Krraaaah!”
A metallic giant with an ashen sheen, as if his right arm had devoured the rest of him to be born.
The joints, once venting steam like a volcano, now spewed purple mist.
“This is the power I received from the constellation. Not from Exodus scum—but from the constellation aiding Young Master, the ‘Hand that Sows the Seeds’!”
Now a blatant monster, Irecto bellowed in a dissonant voice.
Ban Yu-won realized the nonstop mist pouring from him was poison and groaned as he retreated.
At that moment, he succeeded in reading him.
—Evil Ghost 800 [Giant 400, Superhuman Strength 300, Poison Mist 100]
Seeing a conceptual mass at depth 800 made his breath catch.
But separately, he was puzzled.
How could he read the concepts inside someone far stronger than himself so easily?
Maybe because he had once beaten Irecto before and absorbed his record?
But thanks to that, I figured it out. That’s a curse.
He had read that Irecto inherited the Giant’s blood during their previous duel and snagged 14 depth of Giant concept from his severed arm.
But that had only been latent potential—how had it ballooned enough to transform his body? Clearly because of that Evil Ghost concept.
Like Lucelle’s Heartfire, or even worse. It devoured even the concepts he originally held, reshaping Irecto into a simple, lethal monster.
Irecto boasted of it like a blessing, but to Ban Yu-won, the guy might never return to normal.
Lucelle’s Heartfire drew power from temporary concepts, but Irecto’s Evil Ghost had already consumed his existing ones to forge this strength.
“Poor guy...”
Ban Yu-won pitied him.
And that triggered his rampage.
“The pitiful one’s you, about to die!”
Boom! He kicked off the ground and charged.
“Not on my watch!”
Despite the dire straits, it wasn’t Ban Yu-won who blocked the monster’s charge—whose raw power dwarfed his own—but Lucelle.
“You bitch! I’ll tear you apart first!”
“Kugh...!”
Lucelle activated her Heartfire to max and held her ground, but in a head-on clash, she couldn’t push back Irecto, empowered by the constellation’s curse.
Their pure strength seemed evenly matched, but his ceaseless poison mist was weakening her.
—Detoxify!
“I was ready for this!”
He channeled some of his vital energy into the staff’s magic crystal and drew in the air.
The magic language completed and unleashed in an instant took the form of the character 해 (解).
Language magic had manifested.
“Ah!”
“You bastard...?!”
The effect was dramatic.
The moment the language magic activated, the poison mist filling the space vanished, and even the fresh poison spewing from Irecto’s body lost its potency.
Until the vital energy infused in that 해 fully dissipated, poison would hold no meaning in this space.
The power of the magic language would automatically detoxify anything that touched it upon manifestation.
“Magic?!”
“Hraaaah!”
“Grk!”
Clang! Seizing Irecto’s moment of shock, Lucelle slammed a powerful kick into his gut.
Size-wise, it was David versus Goliath, but he screamed and staggered back.
“He’s too tough...!”
But Lucelle, who had actually landed the blow, looked dissatisfied.
Her foot was swelling from the clash with his metal-covered body.
“Master, we can’t win like this.”
“I’ll link up right away. He’s just a big dumb brute anyway...”
“Master, stay alert for other enemies.”
“Eh?!”
At Lucelle’s calm voice, Ban Yu-won immediately scanned their surroundings.
But even with his eyes that read all concepts, he couldn’t detect any enemies.
Lucelle wouldn’t lie to him... In a pinch, he unfurled the Magic Bomb string still in his hand.
“It’ll blow if it touches him!”
The golden string at depth 50 spread wide in a circle.
The instant it caught in midair, the threads enveloped the target and exploded massively—
“Hm, you wield some intriguing powers.”
But surprisingly, the target merely dropped his stealth and stood there unscathed.
“A power from a constellation? To think one would grant strength to lowly scum like you...”
That familiar voice made Ban Yu-won’s eyebrow twitch.
As the explosion’s mist cleared, the figure revealed was—
“Ah... the associate professor who got booted from the Academy?”
“What did you say, you insolent cur...!”
Parell, the pathetic associate professor who had harassed Ban Yu-won during their first lecture, gotten caught by Yumina, and been expelled from the Academy!
Ban Yu-won analyzed the intensity of the barrier Parell had manifested to protect him earlier while brainstorming magic or martial arts to counter him, tossing out whatever came to mind.
“A legend, for real. Fired from your job for your own screw-up and now back for revenge?”
As if proving his guilt, Parell appeared pitch-black in Ban Yu-won’s sight, which distinguished good from evil.
Even worse than Irecto—what the hell?
“You’ve got it wrong, worm. I’ve always been with Exodus.”
“...What?”
An answer he truly hadn’t expected.
—Incoming!
With Lucelle busy holding off Irecto, Cellon screeched a warning in her shrill voice.
Ban Yu-won reflexively raised his staff to block the attack flying at him.
He slid back from blocking the arm, then gasped in shock.
Upon inspection, it was a human arm sharpened and elongated like a blade.
“Is this... a constellation’s power? Or something you were born with?”
“I’ll tell you once only your head’s left.”
With both arms transformed into massive blades like he was munching fruit, tremendous mana flowed through Parell’s body.
No, even without mana, his raw physical prowess alone was beyond what Ban Yu-won could overcome.
—Use magic, magic! Or I’ll get sliced—I’m not just some staff!
Drop that gag already.
Above all, the staff he held wasn’t ideal for blocking Parell’s tough, razor-sharp arms.
He tried leveraging the principles of 반 (Counter), but repelling blades laced with horrific mana was still beyond his current ability!
The Executioner’s Longsword... No, even with that, the gap’s too big.
Some things you only learn clashing weapons directly.
Wasn’t the mana surging over him right now proof enough?
His opponent was a former Union Academy associate professor.
One likely enhanced in some way, like Irecto.
Head-on is suicide even if I die and come back. So then...
Ban Yu-won had no intention of playing hero.
There was only one way he could beat this guy—
Escape the 1v1.
“Ha!”
He instantly focused his vital energy on two active concepts in his body.
Superhuman Strength and Acceleration!
“Urk, you?!”
Infusing the flow of Superhuman Strength, he repelled him, then used Accelerated Shadow Step to swiftly retreat.
And thrust out his staff to construct elemental magic.
Attribute: wind. Form: a cube big enough for one person!
A prison of wind to trap Parell!
“This crap... from you?!”
—You won’t break out easily, you brute!
Of course, no way a beginner like Ban Yu-won could hold Parell forever with magic.
Just landing it properly was a miracle.
In that brief window as Parell shredded his magic, Ban Yu-won hurled a conceptual mass at Lucelle, locked in combat with Irecto.
“Lucelle, can you win with this?!”
“...!”
An impromptu idea, born from reading Irecto’s manifested concepts and watching Lucelle fight him: a language concept drawn from his arsenal.
It was the Giant at depth 14 he’d obtained from the previous Irecto.
A half-gamble, but Lucelle’s reaction was dramatic.
“Wha...?!”
“To grant me even this power!”
Was it because she was Ban Yu-won’s slave?
Or because she was a beastkin, not pure human?
Or had her latent aptitude blossomed upon meeting his authority?
Either way, the Giant concept melted seamlessly into Lucelle’s body, and with the vital energy Ban Yu-won had packed into it, massively amplifying her power!
“This is enough... I can win!”
“Filthy beast!”
The 4-meter super-strong giant thrust out his brutish arms to crush Lucelle.
Shockingly, having absorbed the Giant concept, Lucelle swelled to match him without yielding, pinning him in an instant.
“Kyaaaah!”
“Gahk!”
With a savage roar, her massive hand pierced the Evil Ghost’s chest in one stroke and ripped out his heart!
No illusion.
This time, Ban Yu-won saw it clearly.
The beast ears sprouting atop her head and the tail from her hips.
The sharp, tough predator claws grown on her hands.