Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
A series of deafening crashes erupted within the span of mere seconds.
Brooklyn swung her axe again and again, as though chopping through the trunk of some ancient tree, relentlessly battering her opponent without giving him so much as a moment to breathe.
Naturally, the Korean Hunter was pounded like a punching bag, unable to offer even the slightest resistance.
Could there possibly be a fight with less tension than this?
“Ack!”
Honestly, if not for the blood of the Sacred Tree, his head would have been severed long ago.
What good had replacing his lungs done him?
His total capacity was still only F-rank. All the procedure had accomplished was allowing him to breathe properly while being beaten half to death.
At first glance, one might think the [Sacred Tree Seedling] had been selected by a great sorcerer specifically to endure the terrifying barrage of an S-rank’s attacks.
But on closer inspection, the situation was nowhere near that reassuring.
To put it another way, even the [Sacred Tree Seedling] had limits.
If one were to compare its defensive capabilities to something familiar, it was roughly equivalent to the durability of an S-rank tank-type Hunter.
And if an S-rank tank were beaten badly enough to suffer a fatal wound, even [Protection] would eventually cease to function.
“Damn it, there’s no way out of this!”
Paat!
Whether he tried opening the [Surprise Box] hidden in his pocket or attempted to draw [Hydra] for a surprise attack, none of it mattered against a genuine S-rank Hunter.
“Keught!”
Clank!
The moment Giryeo pulled a sword from the item box, the dark beast sneered and struck his wrist.
Giryeo’s hand went numb, and the Hydra he had just summoned slipped helplessly from his grasp.
They said that if you drew a sword, you should at least cut something with it.
And yet he had failed to swing it even once before ending up like this!
“No! My Hydra!”
Ting-
The longsword spun away, leaving a green trail behind it as it flew into the distance.
Brooklyn bared her teeth in a grin, looking every bit like the beast she was named after.
“Haha.”
This overwhelming powerhouse had now even identified her prey’s weakness.
“You’re unbelievably slow!”
Absolute certainty rang in Brooklyn’s voice.
Immediately afterward, her second awakening attribute activated.
An absolute attack that seemed to tear directly through space itself, disregarding all defensive abilities.
[Designated Incision].
If Giryeo took a direct hit from that technique, even the Sacred Tree’s barrier would not leave him unharmed.
“This!”
But this time, Giryeo had a way to resist.
Just before Brooklyn’s spell fully took shape, he applied a certain interference to her body.
Whoosh!
The incision technique the Earthling had been preparing abruptly lost cohesion and collapsed into nothing.
“Huh?”
If even that had failed, Giryeo would have been ready to drown himself in a shallow bowl of water.
Fortunately, however, things unfolded exactly as he had expected.
Brooklyn Morgan, due to her innate awakening level, suffered from the same problem as Jung Haseong.
The enormous power she possessed was like an ocean that had suddenly appeared overnight.
Naturally, controlling something of that scale with precision was exceedingly difficult.
And for a sorcerer whose mana control remained underdeveloped, even the slightest disturbance to the flow of internal mana could cause tremendous disruption.
To put it simply, whenever Brooklyn activated a skill, even losing an insignificant fraction of the mana circulating inside her body was enough to momentarily throw off her senses and destabilize the spell in progress.
That was right.
What Giryeo had just used was [Mana Burn], successfully completed for the first time since his reincarnation.
“It worked!”
The [Mana Burn] produced by the alien archmage possessed an astonishing damage output equivalent to only 0.35% of the soul strike once wielded by Kelumineto, King of the Dead...
But even that laughably insignificant manipulation was more than enough to disrupt Brooklyn.
Humans were far more fragile than they appeared.
They relied on minute electrical currents to regulate the muscles of the heart, and even a few grams of potassium could be enough to kill them.
If that was the case, then this method should also be capable of interrupting Brooklyn’s healing techniques.
Brooklyn’s eyes widened in rare surprise when her spell collapsed.
But Giryeo’s momentary advantage lasted only an instant.
“Canceling my skills...?”
The woman whose elegant appearance seemed wholly at odds with the nickname “Beast” tilted her head curiously.
Then she immediately changed tactics.
“I don’t know what trick he pulled, but that guy’s body is too tough. I can’t tear him apart with a skill the way I did the Nuckelavee.”
“Then the answer is water.”
She reminded herself of one simple fact.
Kim Giryeo was a creature that needed to breathe.
“Yeah. That’s right, Brooklyn. It’s not like people have to take half-body baths with only their lower halves submerged.”
Boom!
Boom!
The American Hunter muttered to herself as she rapidly sealed the stone doors leading out of the room.
Among the skill stones she had accumulated while clearing countless dungeons was the low-level skill [Water Ball].
By sheer coincidence, it had proven surprisingly useful because of its compatibility with her abilities.
Brooklyn intended to repeat that auxiliary spell “thousands of times” and completely flood the dungeon chamber.
There were gaps here and there through which the water would inevitably escape, but that hardly mattered.
If any water leaked out, she could simply spend more mana and produce still more.
Perhaps because of her wild way of life, Brooklyn could remain underwater longer than most ordinary people.
The chances of her drowning first were slim.
Whatever strange magic the blond-haired Asian possessed, she wondered whether he had truly prepared for something as abrupt as being submerged without warning.
Well.
She was about to find out.
“This...!”
Beast suddenly stopped moving.
Giryeo sensed the massive surge of mana coursing through her body and instantly understood.
“Water magic!”
Beast was preparing to torture him with water.
Then what was an F-rank Hunter supposed to do in a situation like this?
The [Sacred Tree Seedling] merely reduced physical impact.
If Beast flooded the entire chamber and bound him in the water like a serpent, there would be no way to avoid drowning...!
“Oh my God. I’m actually in danger of dying from water despite coming from a planet covered in oceans.”
If his teammate regained consciousness, there might still be some chance of turning the tables.
But the fallen Rank 1 showed no sign of waking.
“Wait.”
At that moment, however, a red one-handed sword entered Giryeo’s field of vision.
In front of him stood Beast, a monster preparing some enormous technique.
Behind him lay the unconscious owner of a Legendary-class weapon.
...?
“Hurry!”
The hesitation lasted only an instant.
Giryeo immediately acted on the thought that had crossed his mind.
He rushed toward the unconscious Rank 1 and seized the sword the young man had been holding.
“Ha!”
Naturally, Beast merely snorted.
The way he held the weapon was so awkward that even if someone placed a blade capable of cutting through S-rank skin directly into his hands, what could such a slow and clumsy opponent possibly accomplish?
“Whoo...”
But contrary to Brooklyn’s expectations, Giryeo had not borrowed Jung Haseong’s sword simply to swing it.
What followed was an immediate transformation of his body, accomplished by using the meager mana of an F-rank.
Air flowed through his lungs.
Kim Giryeo altered his body so that he could perceive “ultra-low-frequency sound waves” that Earthlings were incapable of hearing.
At the same time, transparent magic circles appeared over his palms, allowing him to generate those frequencies himself.
It was a spell he had prepared ever since the first time he touched Jung Haseong’s sword.
Just in case.
Now all that remained was to confront the truth hidden within the weapon.
[...Anyway, you probably won’t understand a word I’m saying, so I don’t know why I even bother... Sigh... How did I end up with such a hopeless master? I haven’t even gotten to see a common low-level magic stone...]
Mutter, mutter, mutter.
These were words that Earthlings normally could not interpret.
They were sounds belonging to what could be called an “overlap system,” a language impossible for humans to reproduce because of the physical limitations of their vocal organs.
Giryeo listened quietly for a moment.
Then he tightened his grip around the red sword and activated the crude magic circle built into his palm.
[Sniff, sniff. What a miserable fate... Growing old alone with no one to talk to. How pitiful...]
[Hey.]
[I think it’s sad...]
[Hey!]
[It’s sad.]
That was right.
[Huh?! What was that? Did this creature just talk to me? E-Excuse me, but... can you hear my voice...?]
[Yeah. I can hear you. I can hear you.]
In truth, this red sword concealed a secret beyond anything anyone could have imagined.
[Ooooooh!]
The true identity of the Sunset Sword carried by Jung Haseong was none other than an Ego Sword, a legendary weapon found only in myths.
A sword possessing an ego of its own!
[Note: Language used - Alphaut]
There was, however, one small yet fatal flaw that made it poorly suited for use on Earth.
What exactly did [Legendary] mean?
It was a new item classification that had only recently begun appearing.
These troublesome objects had proven impossible to analyze even for Earth’s most renowned experts in item appraisal and analysis.
Therefore, in the case of Legendary-grade items, the only way to determine how they functioned was for their owners to discover their abilities personally through actual use.
One day, in the northeastern United States, in the state of Connecticut, the true power of one such treasure was revealed for the first time.
A mysterious black book.
Its cover was intricately decorated with branching patterns that resembled a decaying World Tree.
It was another Legendary-grade treasure in the possession of the United States government.
The artifact’s true owner had activated its ability entirely by accident while repeatedly entering dungeons in an effort to determine what the magical tool actually did.
Much like the discovery of penicillin, the American had inadvertently spoken the activation phrase required by the book while chatting with a friend.
And the result had been astonishing.
He had merely uttered a single word.
Then, without warning, an exit appeared directly in front of the players while they were eating sandwiches.
Wooong.
It had been a Type B dungeon, one that could only be cleared after every monster within the nest had been exterminated.
And yet the exit suddenly appeared.
The American Hunter pieced the information together and stared in disbelief.
“Oh, my!”
In reality, the situation had occurred because the light emitted by the book had killed every monster within a one-kilometer radius.
Thus, the American Legendary item came to be known by the imposing title [Grimoire of Annihilation].
Like the Pyromancer Necklace, the artifact required time to recharge after expending its power.
It took considerable effort to understand exactly how its spells worked.
There were restrictions on the grades of monsters it could annihilate, cooldown periods, and various other penalties.
Even so, the value of such a rare artifact unquestionably justified the reverence attached to its Legendary classification.
Naturally, people had begun to speculate that Haseong’s sword must possess some similarly extraordinary ability.
But no one could possibly have imagined that the secret hidden within it would be something like this.
[Master, today’s weather forecast says it will be cold and rainy. But even though I’m telling you this, I already know you’ll go outside completely unprepared. Honestly, I still don’t understand why I keep bothering. Right?]
The Sunset Sword was a magical artifact capable of conversing with its owner!
In a sense, this could be considered another consequence of the indifference shown by the alien creatures that created the gates.
They would throw out treasures they considered useful for tormenting Earthlings, but apparently gave little thought to the finer details.
As a result, magical tools would occasionally emerge in forms that Earthlings were not even physically capable of using.
‘Come to think of it, the period when they were making experimental pieces like this was exactly the same year I massacred those creatures.’
And only now had someone finally appeared who could actually use the Ego Sword’s power.
The man possessed no more than F-rank mana.
His physical strength was, at best, enough to open a tightly sealed jar without too much difficulty.
And yet—
he was qualified to wield a Legendary sword.
[Yahooo! Oh my! Someone can finally hear me! Finally! I’m so happyyyy!]
Thump, thump.
The Sunset Sword vibrated with its entire body, practically trembling with joy.
Giryeo, on the other hand, began sweating profusely, his face rigid.
There was a reason he had never dared to use Haseong’s sword before now.
‘Alphaut’s failed experiment...’
Back when Giryeo had been unable to repair his lungs, he could not use the body-modification magic required to communicate with the sword.
After acquiring the dragon organs, he had deliberately avoided using the artifact because he did not want to attract unnecessary suspicion.
And now, even at this stage, he remained reluctant because there was no telling what side effects such an experimental item might produce.
Yet despite all of that, Giryeo did not release the Legendary-grade sword.
Whether it was sturdy, defective, or half-rotten no longer mattered.
With Beast standing directly in front of him, he had no choice but to seize whatever lifeline lay within reach.
“Damn it!”
During those brief moments, Brooklyn was still gathering mana in preparation for flooding the chamber.
That Awakened possessed enough power to regenerate a severed arm in a single breath.
To someone like her, exposing herself for several seconds probably did not even register as carelessness.
There was no urgency in her movements.
She likely had not even considered the possibility that she might die instantly.
And that meant—
this was the first and last chance the weak would ever receive.
‘If I don’t kill her in a single attack, I’m dead!’
Ugh.
Giryeo gripped the Sunset Sword tightly and hurriedly issued an activation command.
[Hey! That’s enough talking. Just use it. That thing!]
[Did I hear you correctly?]
[There’s something you’re best at, right? Use it now!]
[Aha.]
This was a do-or-die situation.
[Understood! In that case, I will activate the spell registered first in the Memorize list...]
[Warning: Insufficient activation mana to execute. If this warning is ignored and execution proceeds, the user’s...]
[Ignore it and force execution.]
[Warning: Are you certain you wish to proceed—]
[Yeah. It’s fine. Just hurry up!]
No matter how experimental the magical artifact was, surely it wouldn’t actually kill its own wielder.
Right?