Chapter 12: The Enraged Mage
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 12: The Enraged Mage
Seo-un opened his eyes, the crisp, cold air filling his lungs as he finished gathering his Qi.
He began his approach, moving toward the mansion with agonizing slowness to ensure the shroud of darkness concealing him didn't break.
‘Map!’
Fortunately, the mansion was located within the next safe zone before the magnetic field shrank again.
Gazing at the estate, which beamed with light from its numerous windows, Seo-un swallowed hard.
‘I can’t assume a house is empty just because the lights are on anymore.’
It was only natural; this was already the twentieth day of the game. Any player still alive would be more than capable of basic psychological warfare, like leaving the lights on to deter potential intruders.
After scaling the high iron fence with practiced care, he didn't rush inside. Instead, he held his breath, straining to sense any presence within the walls.
‘If it were me, I wouldn't make a sound.’
Sensing nothing, Seo-un circled the perimeter, checking the windows obscured by thin curtains. Most were bolted shut, but one—notably larger than the rest—yielded to his touch and swung open.
Gripping hidden weapons in both hands, Seo-un stepped onto the sill and vaulted inside without hesitation.
Thud.
He had tried his best to muffle the impact by landing on the balls of his feet, but to his hyper-alert ears, the sound felt deafening.
He dropped into a low crouch, scanning his surroundings. He was in a dining room dominated by an exceptionally long table and a glittering chandelier. It was empty.
Then, his eyes locked onto a wooden box sitting atop the elegant, antique table—the kind of centerpiece one only saw in period films. As if drawn by an invisible thread, Seo-un approached the table and reached out.
Was it the faint fragrance wafting from the wood? Or was it the gut intuition that this box, which felt strangely out of place in such a luxurious room, was a high-tier item?
The moment Seo-un’s hand brushed the lid, a pleasant notification rang out.
[Ding! You have obtained a Cheongun Pill. Consuming it will increase the user's internal power.]
“Ha!”
The elixir he had longed for was finally in his grasp. Seo-un let out a sharp, involuntary breath. He quickly clamped a hand over his mouth, but he couldn't stop the corners of his lips from curling upward.
After a brief moment of elation, he forced himself to regain his composure and think.
‘If an item of this caliber was just left out in the open, the house must be empty...’
He stood at a crossroads: continue farming the rest of the mansion or retreat to a safe location to consume the elixir immediately.
If he hadn't found the pill here, he certainly would have scoured this massive estate from top to bottom. But now that he held something truly precious, a sudden wave of paranoia gripped him. The image of the coachman—who had died before he could ever use the Circle Stone he’d found—flashed before his eyes.
Holding the wooden box tight, Seo-un pulled up the detailed information window.
[Cheongun Pill]
[An elixir that increases the internal power of martial artists. It is a flawed elixir crafted by someone who clumsily stole the refining methods of the Cheongsim Faction. Cooldown: 3 hours.]
‘I knew it. The cooldown is too long. Three hours... I can’t stay in this mansion that long.’
This was a place where other players could burst in at any moment, eyes bloodshot with greed. If Seo-un, the most cautious player he knew, had been drawn to this estate, others would be no different.
‘Well, I’ve already come this far.’
After stowing the elixir in his subspace, Seo-un made his decision. He closed the menu, approached the massive double doors of the dining room, and pushed them open.
He had thought nothing could surprise him anymore since being thrust into this world, but his eyes widened in shock.
‘Whoa...’
Having lived in the modern era on Earth, he had seen grand architecture. However, he had never imagined that the interior of a mansion in this "primitive" world could be so vast. For a moment, he wondered if he had stepped into a castle rather than a house.
A massive fireplace, larger than any he’d seen in movies, stood as a centerpiece, and rows of armaments decorated the walls. In particular, the suits of armor looked so lifelike they seemed to house living sentinels, exuding an intimidating aura as if they might lunge at him at any second.
He approached a suit of pitch-black plate armor and placed a hand on it.
[Ding! This is decorative armor. There are restrictions preventing the current user from equipping it.]
As expected, the weight was likely immense.
After a moment of awe, Seo-un hurriedly resumed his search. Because the space was so vast and cluttered with furniture, his farming speed was slower than it had been in the cramped cabins. However, he meticulously picked through the living room, enjoying the process.
Eventually, a secret manual tucked inside an antique liquor cabinet caught his eye. He yanked the cabinet open and grabbed the book. In his haste, he accidentally knocked over a bottle, but he didn't stop to look.
The moment his fingers brushed the manual:
[Ding! Would you like to learn it?]
— CRASH!
Simultaneously, the sound of a window shattering echoed through the hall.
Startled, Seo-un slammed the 'O' button without even checking what the manual was. He sprinted toward the nearest window, threw it open, and leaped into the night.
He ran as fast as his legs would carry him, putting the bright lights of the mansion behind him. He loaded a bolt into his crossbow on the move, not daring to look back.
How long had he been running? Eventually, he flattened himself against the cold earth, stifling his ragged breaths as he tried to calm his racing heart.
‘Did they see me?’
Even in his frantic escape, he had remembered to close the window behind him. Only then did he risk a glance back at the distant mansion. He didn't sense anyone following, but Seo-un didn't trust his own senses. As he had learned the hard way, it was nearly impossible for him to detect a true expert. He could only pray he hadn't been spotted.
Once his pulse slowed, he began to analyze the situation.
‘Was that magic?’
It was hard to be certain since it happened the exact moment he grabbed the manual, but he thought he had felt a subtle ripple of Mana when the window shattered. He had fought mages twice before. After using the Circle Stone, he had become instinctively sensitive to the distortion in Mana—the same feeling he’d felt when a mage had blown apart a cabin door in a previous encounter.
He was fairly certain it was a mage. He desperately hoped that whoever had broken in was occupied with the mansion.
“NAM SA-GWANG!!!!”
Suddenly, a desperate, bone-chilling scream tore through the air from the direction of the estate.
In the distance, framed by the light of the mansion, a figure stood silhouetted against the dark, casting a long, jagged shadow. Clad in a robe and clutching a staff, he was unmistakably a mage.
Moreover, he was a mage of a completely different caliber than the ones Seo-un had encountered so far. The thunderclouds and fireballs swirling around his staff—an intimidating display of raw power—completely shattered Seo-un's perception of mages as "frail."
‘There’s definitely a story there.’
Judging by the way he screamed the name Nam Sa-gwang, the two must have built up a hell of a grudge during their short time in the game.
Seo-un remained pinned to the ground, his eyes fixed on the man. The mage screamed a few more times, and then, as if his rage was a physical weight he could no longer carry, he thrust his staff toward the sky.
— BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Seo-un’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. Under a relentless, unbelievable barrage of lightning, the massive mansion was reduced to ruins in an instant.
It was a terrifying spectacle—thousands of bolts, a literal rain of thunder, illuminated the horizon as they pulverized the estate. It was enough to make anyone's knees give out.
‘My god...’
Subconsciously, Seo-un realized he had looked down on mages. To him, they were beings with clear physical limitations—glass cannons who were essentially ordinary people once their spells were spent. That image had been solidifying with every encounter, only to be obliterated in a single moment.
‘It doesn’t matter if you’re a mage or a martial artist. All that matters is how strong the individual is.’
He never imagined someone could summon a storm of lightning to level a mansion in seconds. He swallowed hard, unable to move as he watched the dust and smoke rise into the moonlight.
‘If I could learn area-of-effect magic like that, I’d have a massive advantage...’
Human greed truly knew no bounds. Even after witnessing such a terrifying display, he found himself coveting that power. It felt as if a screw had come loose inside his head. Rather than the fear that he could have been buried under those ruins, the desire for such strength grew. He watched the spot where the enraged mage had stood until the man finally disappeared into the distance.
Only then did he snap back to reality.
‘Boundless Fist.’
New knowledge had taken root in his mind. As he focused on it, a detailed description appeared.
[Boundless Fist]
[A martial art created in his twilight years by the warrior nicknamed Manpaeja. Based on a lifetime of combat, he poured his soul into creating a technique that would never lose. However, contemporaries mocked his final work, as he held a lifetime record of 1,429 matches and 1,429 losses. With no one to inherit his legacy, the technique was considered lost.]
“Sigh...”
A heavy sigh escaped Seo-un’s lips. He felt a wave of self-loathing. He had learned this of all things?
Of course, it was better than nothing, but it didn't exactly sound like the peerless divine technique he had dreamed of. He would need to practice until the Boundless Fist became second nature to see how it synchronized with his internal cultivation.
The problem was finding a safe place to practice in this hellscape.
After lying there for a while, racking his brain, Seo-un’s expression suddenly brightened.
‘Wait, maybe!’
Seo-un carefully stood up and crept back toward the site of the ruined mansion.
“Phew. There must have been a mountain of items I didn't get to farm... Tsk.”
Looking at the charred, smoking remains, Seo-un let out a regretful click of his tongue. But his disappointment was short-lived. He began rummaging through the debris, searching for a specific spot.
“The dining room was over here... and the living room was over there...”
After digging through the wreckage for a few minutes, the corners of Seo-un’s mouth curled into a grin.
“I knew it!”
On the floor, beneath the charred debris he had pushed aside, sat an iron door—standing firm and completely intact.
“Even if the building collapses, the basement should be fine!”
He had searched on a whim, but he had actually found it: the entrance to a hidden basement.