Chapter 291
There was a thing that a human could never get used to even after countless experiences. It was pain. After all, even if you could endure it, you couldn’t stop the pain itself. Since the person who said that was someone who had tolerated all sorts of pain, he knew it was valid.
The stench that permeated everywhere was a kind of pain right now. In fact, the damp and rotten odor even smelled sour. Seong-Il covered his mouth as it felt like his throat was getting tangled. He barely managed to hold it in, but he heard people puking behind him. In the end, Seong-Il couldn’t help but vomit. Water was the only thing he had consumed since last night because he knew this would happen. He gathered the sweet and sour flavor that was lingering in his mouth and spit it all out at once.
Ptooey!
“It’s f.u.c.king nasty. The necromancer must be a p.o.o.ping machine. Even a giant pile of elephant p.o.o.p wouldn’t smell as bad as this. Don’t you think so?”
Seong-Il looked at Lee Tae-Han in amazement as the other man still hadn’t thrown up.
“That’s right.”
Lee Tae-Han’s twitching brows showed how much he was struggling, but that was it. He was the only man who had endured the stench so far.
Meanwhile, the people outside were in the midst of a battle, and they heard the noise from the pa.s.sage that led to the exit. Lee Tae-Han turned his head from Seong-Il to the Awakened who had entered together.
He announced sternly, “In the meantime, our brothers are dying. Keep in mind that we are only here at the expense of our brothers’ sacrifices. Tomorrow doesn’t exist to us.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Yes, sir!”f???we??o?e?. ?o?
After wandering among the Awakened, Lee Tae-Han stopped walking when he came up to a woman named Priya. She was a precious resource as they lacked people with mental attributes. Now that they were in what was believed to be the necromancer"s hideout, her role was more important than ever. It was highly likely that unique and dangerous traps were hidden here.
It wasn’t until everyone moved into the radius of the stench that she started to get busy. The price of touching a trap without discovering it was harsh. At least ghouls couldn’t use items and skills, but the Awakened, whose mentality had been manipulated, began to attack their colleagues by using all means. The problem was that each and every one of them was strong as the team was composed of only elites. Seong-Il had to smash the skull of his cherished subordinate with his own hands. He had to completely destroy the guy’s head in order to avoid him coming back as a ghoul.
Splat-!
The moment the head burst like crushed tomato, Seong-Il’s face contorted. The memories he had made with the guy on the battlefield were also shattered into pieces with blood. It only took a few seconds to make the half-decade of time they had spent together from Act Two, Stage Two to Stage Five completely meaningless.
However, Seong-Il’s feet continued to move even then, as if he was rubbing out a cigarette on the ground. When the situation settled, Lee Tae-Han became busy checking the results. In the meantime, Seong-Il stared at the struggling woman with the mental ability. She had joined as the leader of her group in Act Two, Stage Three. Then, she became bold in penetrating deeply into the leaders.h.i.+p of the a.s.sociation during Act Two, Stage Four. Perhaps it was because she had come to the conclusion that Odin was dead. She was good at looking after her own interests and winning the favor of other people, and she was talented at bullying her subordinates.
The reason why she was dangerous was that she had a mental attribute. Even though her ability was far inferior to Mary’s, she had caught the hearts of the a.s.sociation’s leaders at once, especially the leaders of each group and the people who had joined in Act Two, Stage Three.
The woman asked Seong-Il. “Anything you want to say…?”
Her p.r.o.nunciation was awkward, but she was speaking in Korean. Seong-Il didn’t like how she had learned the language as soon as she realized the core leaders.h.i.+p of the a.s.sociation was Korean and how she devoted herself to learning by forcing the Korean Awakened to teach her. He also didn’t like the fact that she was smart enough that she could communicate in Korean after studying for a short period of time.
He snapped, “That’s all you can do? What is the point of letting you join us if you act like this? Why do you look like you are dying when you only saved a few?”
She retorted, “You don’t understand the pain I’m suffering since you don’t have the mental attribute.”
Seong-Il sneered. “Ah, you are all bark and no bite.”
“What did I do wrong? Why are you treating me like c.r.a.p? I’m not weak to be treated like that. It’s the other way around.”
***
Priya wasn’t trying to argue with him. She had asked only because she couldn’t understand Seong-Il. Kwon Seong-Il was the most powerful Korean Awakened, and even Lee Tae-Han, the president of the a.s.sociation, couldn’t walk over him. He was wary of Priya’s influence on the a.s.sociation, but he had a strong tendency to look down on her absolute power. That was strange. Even after time had pa.s.sed, the way he regarded her had only become worse and worse.
He said sarcastically, “Isn’t that obvious? Because your ability is that poor and weak.”
He was picking a fight again, and Priya couldn’t ignore it. Showing one’s weaknesses in front of the a.s.sociation’s best players was an act of self-destruction.
The stage wouldn’t end after this. Even if the Stage of Advent ended in the next stage, there was a real stage that would begin after going back outside. The new world where the Awakened returned…
Priya responded immediately, “Nothing will ever satisfy you, but the Great Odin would have rated me differently. He would have recognized my capability.”
It was as she expected, and it was always like that. It was easy to give that ignorant Korean a punch. Whenever someone mentioned the name of the legendary guy, the savior Odin, he glared murderously and closed his mouth. Also, since Kwon Seong-Il’s murderous intent was real every time, Priya was satisfied with her reply. However, when Odin’s name was mentioned, silence filled the air. Only the sound of the injured holding back their groans was heard, and other noises quickly died down.
Many eyes were on Priya, and the ones who sent the most intense gaze were the leaders of the a.s.sociation. Among them, the Koreans were Kim Ji-Ae and Kim Ji-Hoon, led by Lee Tae-Han, the president of the a.s.sociation. The Danish were Angela and Gunnarson, and the leader of the j.a.panese was Tetsuya. Their glances fixed onto Priya in an uncomfortable manner
I agree that Odin was great, but why is everyone still not accepting the reality? He died a long time ago.
The shadow of the dead ghost, which was heavier than the stench around them, still remained at the top of the a.s.sociation and dominated them. Of course, Priya wasn’t going to express her true feelings or change the subject to lighten up the atmosphere. She enjoyed Kwon Seong-Il’s reaction because he was p.i.s.sed, but all he could do was stare at her fiercely instead of putting his anger at her into action. Then, he politely bowed to the people who were looking at him with a calm face.
They moved again. At every turn of the road, they saw ghouls who used to be their colleagues a while ago.
What if Odin appears as a Ghoul? Besides the shock that the a.s.sociation would get… will we be able to handle his power?
According to the stories about Odin, he reminded people of the Seven Demon Kings. Encountering such a ghoul was worse than facing the necromancer. However, it could be the best opportunity if her mental control worked. As long as it worked, it didn"t matter whether Odin was dead or alive.
***
The cave gave off a damp smell of death as they went deeper. The disgusting odor of the crushed skulls, which they had cracked on purpose to prevent the dead from becoming ghouls, seemed to have penetrated Lee Tae-Han’s and his party members’ clothes.
When their sense of time disappeared, the survivors finally captured a shadow. It was the necromancer. Its body was hidden by the robe, but the three-stranded tongue fluttered around outside the hood. The survivors got busy, and Lee Tae-Han gave out instructions in an orderly manner with the map in front of him. He reformed the attack force and placed them at every turn, as if they were herding the necromancer like a rat.
The secret room that they finally found seemed to be one of the necromancer’s labs. At first, the experiment results looked to be stained. However, as their vision cleared, they noticed that the stains were the disa.s.sembled bodies and organs of the Awakened. The bodies that hadn’t yet been dismantled were hanging upside down, so they looked clean. Nonetheless, they were wiggling their limbs around regardless of whether they were dismantled or not. There was a more intact corpse, and its spine was clearly exposed as the back muscles had been pulled back. It was also floundering its arm.
It was a horrible sight, but none of the survivors visibly reacted. They were carefully looking through the scene of slaughter with Night Eyes and raising their Sense to the highest cla.s.s. Then, a person in charge of tracking told Seong-Il to look at the ceiling. Seong-Il’s mouth opened wide.
“Was it ther-!” he shouted.
The sound waves from his mouth hit the corner of the ceiling. The waves had a strong force, so everyone else could see the vortex shape of the waves with their naked eyes. After the entire ceiling vibrated for a long time, they saw a black figure standing in the dust. The reptile-like hard skin was exposed outside the hood, and vertically slitted pupils skimmed through the survivors. Then, it smiled.
At that time, a pile of dust soared from the ground and the ghouls rushed out. Although their faces had been decomposed to the point no one could recognize them, they were once Awakened in the diamond section. The muscles under their peeled skin were quite bloated and grotesque.
Meanwhile, the entrance where the group had entered was quickly filled with black energy.
“Let’s see if you are locked here, or if we are. Let’s see.”
Seong-Il said it, but he realized that someone would die again as the high-cla.s.s ghouls had surrounded him. Eerie energy spread throughout the necromancer’s body. He was aware that he could be the one to die this time. The cold sweat flowing down his spine was his intuition warning him, but it was time for him to fill Odin’s absence again.
If Odin was here, those things would have… I miss him even more today.
Seong-Il’s position was at the forefront, as always.
***
As expected, the pain was something no one could get used to. Odin’s teachings were never wrong, and that was all Seong-Il could think of ever since he came back to his senses. He couldn’t see anything as he was buried in the underground soil, so he had a lot of c.o.c.keyed ideas. It was fortunate that the light of the challenger box he had gotten had a recovery effect. At that time, his heart, which had previously been rotting, was being healed. Life was tenacious.
A few days later, Seong-Il was rescued. After removing the dirt from his eyes, he saw the Awakened who were rescued earlier. Fortunately, Odin’s cousin and Lee Tae-Han were still alive. However, he saw the bodies of other military leaders such as Angela, Idema, and Eric.
Seong-Il turned to the guy who was rescued after him. It was Kim Ji-Hoon.
He remarked, “Man, you are indestructible too.”
The other man grimaced. “Nah, you are! Keuk… I guess this is the end of this stage, right?”
Then, Seong-Il stiffened his face when he found Priya in the midst of the survivors.
You should have died, b.i.t.c.h.
He couldn’t directly do something to her as that would be making the efforts that Lee Tae-Han had done go down the drain. Seong-Il knew about how much work Lee Tae-Han had put in to keep the groups that joined the force under the a.s.sociation from Act Two, Stage Two, which had started to be difficult to handle. Among them, Priya was the girl Lee Tae-Han had spent the most effort on.
Then, Seong-Il suddenly widened his eyes because the thing that was eager to drive the Awakened to death had appeared. Even though the malicious part of the System had disappeared, it still handed out quests that took many lives. Of course, everyone hated the guide.
[Your sacrifice and will were amazing. This is the last one, so you should enter the Final Stage with the current mindset. You can go back to your long-awaited home after the next stage. Ah, I’m so touched that I’m tearing up. (╥﹏╥) Don’t misunderstand my tears. It’s not because I was finally promoted to the guide of the Final Stage.]
No one was happy by the phrase ‘Final Stage,’ and everyone focused only on the message that had popped up. There couldn’t be cheers.
[In the Final Stage, all the districts will be on the same stage…]
Seong-Il thought as he stared at Priya from afar.
...So Mary noona is joining us, right?