Chapter 297: The Descent of Avarice (2)
Translator: miraclerifle
The entire team was shocked.
What appeared next to them was a glamorous woman with quite the voluptuous figure! Julian"s eyes opened wide.
He wondered who it was for a moment but the chaotic aura quickly helped him figure it out.
‘I was wondering what he was calling out!’
“You really were planning on leaving it to the Crow! I guess there really is no other choice.”
This delicious appearance was just a bonus!
Ironically, Ju-Heon looked as if he had chewed on s.h.i.t.
Why?
"Why did you come out?”
“?!”
Julian was shocked to hear that.
“Huh? You weren’t calling for the Crow?”
Ju-Heon did not call the Crow.
Ju-Heon glared at the woman.
“You motherf.u.c.king Crow, hurry up and take out that b.a.s.t.a.r.d!”
“!”
The woman quickly disappeared and something black popped out.
‘!’
That black figure leisurely sat down on top of a boulder.
The team members were shocked to see this form as well.
"That is......?!”
A l.u.s.trous jet-black body, haughty red eyes... A sharp and pointy bird’s beak...
It was a Crow.
The Crow was looking down at Ju-Heon"s group with its haughty eyes.
The team members who had doubted that the s.e.xy babe was the Crow dropped their jaws.
"What the h.e.l.l? It really was the Crow?”
“Holy s.h.i.t, the Crow was such a voluptuous noonim?!”
Seol-A was gasping while Jaeha was...excited.
But Ju-Heon growled at the Crow again as if he found it annoying.
“Stop bulls.h.i.tting with your fake appearance and hurry up and hand over that b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Don’t digest the pitiful moron.”
"Digest?!”
A black fog gathered around the Crow.
There was a flailing and whining worm inside the fog.
[S, save me! Save meeeeeee!]
It had been gobbled up by the Crow"s aura and was being forcibly digested(?).
Julian started shouting, as if he finally understood Ju-Heon’s plan.
“You were going to use the worm to find the real tomb!”
That b.a.s.t.a.r.d was really good at telling apart real and fake artifacts when it ripped them off!
But why was it being eaten by the Crow?
The worm was crying while seeing the digestive juices.
[Human! Hurry up and save me! I"m really going to melt!]
Ju-Heon gave the Crow an order.
“Hurry up and spit up that b.a.s.t.a.r.d.”
The Crow feigned ignorance.
[I don"t remember eating anything.]
“Then what is that stupid insect being digested right now?”
[.......]
“You"ll get in trouble if you eat random things.
Spit that b.a.s.t.a.r.d out while I"m asking nicely.”
[.......]
The Crow spit the worm up with an annoyed expression on its face.
To be more specific, the worm fell to the ground once the black aura disappeared.
The worm sniffled as it crawled over to Ju-Heon. It was sad that its hairs were melted by the digestive juices.
[It"s all burnt. All of it is burnt.]
The worm hid behind Ju-Heon"s foot as if it was scared of the Crow.
Ju-Heon then glared at the Crow.
“You weren"t planning on taking the worm’s appearance to scam me, were you?”
The Crow could change its appearance to an artifact it had eaten.
The Crow turned its head away. Ju-Heon shook his head and looked at the worm.
“Hurry up and find the real tomb.”
[O, okay. But moolah, the MONEY......]
Julian was shocked once he saw the worm writing something on the ground.
It might be because he already experienced being ripped off by the worm in the Monarch’s Tomb.
“Hold on! It’s dangerous to use that b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Everybody here will be ripped off by it!”
Ju-Heon sneered at Julian.
“The one who gets ripped off by it is the r.e.t.a.r.d.”
“?!”
Ju-Heon stepped on the worm and threatened it.
"Find the real tomb if you don"t want to be digested.”
[?!]
The scared worm groaned and pointed somewhere.
[O, over there! It’s over there! I smell money over there!]
The worm was pointing to a tomb that was hidden by many other tombs.
Ju-Heon nodded his head.
“Good, let’s go.”
But what good would the worm finding it do?
[It seems to be wrong.]
[I don’t think it is that tomb.]
[I think that the worm b.a.s.t.a.r.d is useless.]
[I really should eat it.]
The Crow"s aura started to chaotically swirl around Ju-Heon.
“Chairman-nim, we seem to have found the real tomb.”
TKBM members gulped while looking at Chairman Kwon.
It had been one month since he returned as a corpse inside the coffin and then embarra.s.sed by Ramesses"s artifact. Chairman Kwon was actually at a tomb excavation site in person for the first time in a long while.
They finally seemed to have found the right tomb after being annoyed at the numerous fakes.
“We believe it is that tomb over there.”
TKBM was still one of the top-ranked excavation teams even if their status had taken a hit because of Ju-Heon.
"Seo Ju-Heon is moving toward that tomb.”
They were spying on Ju-Heon"s group from a distance.
Dan would just wipe them out if they did it too close.
They were too scared to get any closer.
But it was fine.
‘Nothing else matters as long as we know which one is the right tomb.’
Chairman Kwon closed his eyes and went through his memories again.
He was remembering the past life the artifact showed him. He was recalling the events he saw while possessing his other body.
‘So, how did you clear that tomb?’
‘That tomb?’
‘Everybody is shocked because of you. They want to know what you did to clear it.’
The Tomb of Avarice that Ju-Heon had cleared was special in many ways.
Why?
[He has cleared the impossible to clear Tomb of Avarice. Will the pride of the monopolizers crumble?]
There had been a wall of sorts at that time.
The regular excavation teams could not catch up to the large excavation teams because the monopolizers had already taken all of the good artifacts.
Changes to the industrial world because of artifacts, the speculators going berserk, people sacrificed by artifacts...
There were even monopolies on drinking water, air, and other basic necessities.
That was why the Tomb of Avarice had been a beacon of hope for regular excavators.
For the monopolizers, they needed to clear it to maintain their sense of pride to not have their power diminished.
Chairman Kwon couldn’t help but ask when he scouted Ju-Heon.
‘How did you clear that tomb?’
‘That......’
Chairman Kwon had seen that conversation.
He experienced himself asking Ju-Heon that question while accepting Ju-Heon as his subordinate.
Ju-Heon responded like this.
‘It’s just a place you just have to give your body to it.’
‘Give your body to it?’
‘There are seven trials...... would you like me to tell you about all of the traps?’
Chairman Kwon started to laugh.
“The path is this way.”
They decided to scheme a little. He was going to use a side path Ju-Heon in his memories had told him about.
‘You can safely get inside the tomb using that side path.’
They dug in the ground and headed toward the side path. It wasn"t hard to find because Ju-Heon had given him very detailed information.
The TKBM captains gulped and looked toward Chairman Kwon.
“It really should be safe, right sir?”
“That’s right.”
Ju-Heon had said that it was safe.
That b.a.s.t.a.r.d claimed to use this path to get inside the tomb.
“It should be fi......”
But what?
“Aaaaaaaaaak!”
“Aaaaaaaaah!”
There were screams coming from multiple directions.
"What the, what happened?!”
“Ugh! Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
Excavation team members were dying left and right.
A black figure fell from the ceiling and cut off multiple people’s heads.
“I, I can’t breathe......!”
Poison gas suffocated people as well.
Chairman Kwon couldn"t believe it.
That was to be expected.
‘How is this a safe side path?’
This path was extremely dangerous.
If the danger level was divided into high, mid, and low, this would be considered one of the highest danger levels.
This would be a path that they would normally avoid at all costs.
‘But that b.a.s.t.a.r.d made it through this path to get inside?’
The Ju-Heon in his memory had no artifacts whatsoever at that time.
Was it really a fake future?
It did not seem to be fake. He could faintly feel the presence of Ju-Heon"s group in this side path.
That meant that Ju-Heon’s group must have used this side path as well.
He didn"t know what to think.
‘This must be the safest path.’
There was something Chairman Kwon missed.
Ju-Heon had said something else after that.
‘Yes sir. That was the safest path. Well, although everybody else died.’
“Aaaaah!”
“Aaah!”
Screams continued all around them.
It truly lived up to its name of being impossible to clear in the past as hundreds of people on the excavation team were quickly dwindling down to the tens.
“H, huff......! All of Team 4 is dead!”
“The entire Supply Team has perished!”
Ju-Heon’s team members clicked their tongues after hearing noises in the distance.
They had made it through a ton of traps to get here as well, but......
‘Crazy Seo Ju-Heon.’
‘As expected of the Captain-nim. He"s no joke.’
They were looking at Ju-Heon as if they couldn"t believe it.
That was to be expected.
“You really cleared a tomb like this without any artifacts?!”
“Yeah. I did.”
The team members grabbed the back of their necks at Ju-Heon"s nonchalant response.
‘He’s really crazy!’
They couldn"t help it.
The difficulty of this tomb was so high that the veteran team members here were struggling.
They understood why even the Monarchs couldn’t clear this tomb in the past.
But Ju-Heon had gotten the artifact of Avarice from this tomb without any artifact?
Ju-Heon just stomped on some bugs that came out as he responded.
“Well, even I was fighting for my life and pretty close to dying at that time.”
He did have knowledge of tombs and artifacts at that time as well.
Society was dominated by artifacts. He studied as if his life was on the line in order to survive.
He even found ways to steal information that the monopolizers had monopolized in order to study as much as he could.
It was a world where you couldn"t live a human-like life without at least having an A-Grade artifact.
But the many tombs he worked his a.s.s off to get inside resulted in nothing as the large excavation teams beat them to the artifacts every time. The Tomb of Avarice was the only one left.
He thought that he had no future if he couldn"t get this artifact.
“Anyway, this is...... ah, be careful of that thing above your head.”
“Excuse me? Aaaaaaaaah!”
Jaeha cried after almost having his head cut off.
He kept mumbling about how he hated this tomb.
Ju-Heon didn"t care and just continued to speak.
"This tomb is a maze. You need to get through seven trials and earn seven tokens of proof to get the boss b.a.s.t.a.r.d.”
“That boss b.a.s.t.a.r.d should be the Archaeologist"s Artifact you got in the past, right Captain-nim?”
“Probably. The layout of the tomb is the same and the aura of the artifact is the same as well.”
Ju-Heon started to smile.
He sounded uncertain but he was becoming more confident the farther they walked into the tomb.
‘It’s that artifact.’
It was much stronger than in the past that it could even be used as a Heirloom.
It was at that moment.
“Huh? Won"t your abilities overlap a bit if it is that artifact?”
“What?”
Julian explained his question.
“You are using the Crow"s artifact to use the abilities you had with the Archaeologist"s artifact.”
Jaeha noticed something and shouted.
“Ah! Then please give us the artifact of avarice! You already have the Tomb Excavation skill Captain-nim!”
The entire team looked extremely excited.
“My goodness, if I can be an Expert Excavator at the Captain-nim"s level......!”
Ju-Heon snorted at them to stop dreaming.
“Get lost, it’s mine. This artifact is special. Take that d.a.m.n Crow instead, you little punks.”
The team members clicked their tongues.
“Wow, he’s thinking about throwing the Crow away and using his old artifact.”
“Tsk, I guess it"s true that you can"t forget your first love. There"s no way an artifactphile could forget his first artifact.”
“Shut the h.e.l.l up?”
Ju-Heon stood in front of the first trial.
"Well, it"s not an easy trial to pa.s.s even if you know how to clear it.”
Julian agreed.
“It really is a difficult test to clear.”
[First trial: Do 1,000 push-ups in 1 minute.]
[PS. Dance and sing with joy as you do it.]
‘How the h.e.l.l did he clear this in the past?’
“But there’s no need to do what it wants this time.”
Julian looked toward Ju-Heon.
Ju-Heon smiled and flicked his finger.
‘Tomb Destruction!’
As Ju-Heon was about to destroy the door...
[The system is temporarily unavailable.]
[The system is temporarily unavailable.]
[The system is temporarily unavailable.]
[This is an extremely low-quality tomb.]
[This is an extremely low-quality tomb.]
[This is an extremely low-quality tomb.]
‘This little punk.’