Chapter 88 – Magician’s Ivory Tower (9)

Evolution… Evolution eh?’

Sungjin was staring at the fruit when Besgoro made a comment.

‘So you can give it to the Wolf… or that baby Griffin.’

“I guess so.”

Sungjin inspected the fruit for a bit longer before returning it to the cube. It wasn’t something meant for him to eat.

“Operator, how long has it been since we arrived?”

[4 minutes 55 seconds.]

There was still 5 minutes remaining.

“Yeah? Then give me some items the trolls dropped.”

A pile of weapons came flooding out of the cube at his command. A total of 8. Sungjin picked them up one by one, determining their auction prices.

He couldn’t have possibly guessed that he would run into an old teammate in the next Dimensional jump.

*

“Hey… what’s the point of this?”

At the 5th floor of the tower, the ‘Elite Samurai’ asked while severing the head of the lion. The ‘Owl Hunter’ replied.

“Well… it’s an ingredient to unlock the hidden boss.”

The ‘Owl Hunter’ was holding the snake’s head from the 3rd floor.

“Does it really work with shit like these? With severed monster heads? I thought the bosses were hidden on the map somewhere.”

The ‘High Level Berserker’ replied

“Well… it’s different on every map. Some are hiding in human form, other times it’s camouflaged into the canyon wall. I’ve only seen it twice…”

“I see. But how did ‘that woman’ know how to do this?”

“You heard earlier. Something about Treasure Hunter or whatever. Thanks to her we got bonus 5000 status points after finding the hidden place.”

“How do you get the Title? I want it as well.”

“If I knew, I would have it already.”

The ‘Elite Samurai’ picked up the Lion’s head as he said

“Ok. Now let’s see how strong Hidden Bosses really are.”

The hunters each carried a head and headed upstairs. But along the way, the ‘Elite Samurai’ asked the Operator

“Operator, what’s my contribution?”

[Your Contribution is 14.4%.]

“What? Only that much?”

The ‘Owl Hunter’ also checked his contribution.

“What about me?”

[Your Contribution is 13.2%]

It was even lower. The Owl Hunter pointed at Elite Samurai and shouted

“What? I did worse than this guy?”

“What? Watch your mouth! How can you say that after seeing my swordsmanship?”

At his words, the Owl Hunter grinned as he replied

“It is because I saw your skill that I say this”

“What?”

The Samurai and Owl Hunter snarled at each other as if they were about to break into a fight.

“Don’t fight. Do you want to become a troll?”

The five hunters all agreed to try hunting the ‘Hidden Boss’ together. If one person were to flag themselves as a troll, the rest wouldn’t let it slide; the troll would just die uselessly.

So the two men stopped arguing to look around. The ‘High Level Berserker’ said

“I checked earlier, and my contribution was on the low 10% as well. The Iron Will on the top floor was the same. The four of us combined are only 50%. The rest are the woman’s.”

Owl Hunter said

“…Really? I mean I thought that might be possible…”

The Elite Samurai also nodded.

“She’s really strong… if it only wasn’t for her strength…”

He licked his mouth. It was a simple expression, but the other two men thought the same thing. Almost no women survived to this late stage of the Raids.

Even from very early on, they were almost nonexistent. It was the first time the men have seen a woman in a long time. And a very beautiful one at that. Once they arrived at the 9th floor,

“It’s my turn now”

The last person with an empty hand, the ‘High level Berserker’ began to cut off the head of the Goat. But among them, the ‘Elite Samurai’ decided to say

“Hey. Just in case… if we survive the hidden boss…”

The others turned to look back at him.

“How about we steal her contribution points?”

He was suggesting they engage in trolling. The others froze in place for a moment. Samurai continued to explain.

“Her contribution is too high, don’t you think? If this continues as is… we will die later on. And… before we take her points… we could enjoy the moment.

At his suggestion, the men couldn’t respond. The High level Berserker paused from beheading the Goat and said

“But she’s strong. Even if all three of us take her on, we have no guarantee we can come out on top. And we don’t know if ‘Iron Will’ will take our side.”

“Well… let’s watch the situation and see what happens. How’s that?”

The ‘Owl Hunter’ broke his silence and joined in.

“Ok, I’m in.”

The “High Level Berserker’ lifted his axe up high and finally finished cutting off the Goat’s head then replied

“I’m in as well.”

The three men all climbed up to the roof past the 10th floor. At the ceiling was the Tank ‘Iron Will’ holding the corpse of Lenin, and the one who commanded the men, the ‘Treasure Hunter’.

The three men all stared at the ‘Treasure Hunter’ for a moment. Slightly tall, lean build, with a long pair of legs.

On top of it all, the leather armor which failed to completely conceal her ample breasts, flawless skin, and her pale blonde hair…

The three men thought back to their earlier conversation.

‘…and enjoy the moment…’

She pointed at the Pentagram with her dagger.

“Here, put it here.”

The men obeyed her command and placed the corpses on top of the pentagram. Soon a bright red pillar of light appeared.

[Warning! Hidden Boss]
[Terrible Chimera has appeared!]

The three hunters glanced at each other when they heard the announcement.

*

Sungjin spoke while checking the information page.

“This is good enough to receive 4500 Coins right?”

Besgoro was also inspecting the item as well.

‘4800… no, I think you can even go as high as 5000 Coins.’

“5000? It doesn’t look THAT good.”

‘You don’t have anything to lose from raising the price.’

“Ok sure, I’ll try with the higher price. If it doesn’t sell, I can just lower the price at that point. It’s not urgent after all.”

‘Yes.’

Sungjin placed the item into the cube and said

“Operator, how much has time passed since I arrived at this Dimension?”

[9 minutes and 46 Seconds.]

“Really? Ok, it is almost time to leave.”

Sungjin took out the Trollseeker Marbles from his vest. Only one was still glowing. Sungjin picked it out and said out loud

“Pursuit of Justice”

[Dimensional Transfer Requested]
[Dimensional Transfer request granted]

He had gotten used to dimensional transfer by now. After finishing the final dimensional transfer, Sungjin took a look around.

“Hmm?”

Something was odd. There was no corpse of Lenin lying around anywhere. There were evidences of combat, scorches of fire and remnants of ice, but no boss.

“Why…”

Sungjin tilted his head.

‘Boom!’

He could hear a sound coming from above.

‘No way… they went for the Hidden Boss?’

Sungjin quickly climbed the stairs to the roof.

There he saw one of the final 10 survivors from the previous life, the Black Magician.

‘Seeing her here…’

Sungjin thought, but Besgoro interrupted him.

‘It’s a woman! And she has a killer body!’

Sungjin had no time to sit around chatting with Besgoro.

“Die you witch!”

The ‘Elite Samurai’ and ‘High Level Berserker’ were ganging up on her.

‘She might die’

Besgoro warned Sungjin.

“Probably not.”

Sungjin shook his head. Nada chanted a spell.

“What is real is fake and what is fake is real! Illusion!”

Her body split into five. Elite Samurai and the High Level Berserker both cut down one illusion each, but there was something they were not understanding.

Her skill with the dagger was unparalleled. During the fight

“Ahhh!”

The Samurai screamed out in pain. Several of his fingers from the hand he held the sword fell to the floor.

‘Oooh… Strong women are my favorite!’

Besgoro said unnecessarily.

“Here! This one is real!”

Samurai yelled. The Berserker stopped facing off against an illusion and turned to run towards the real Nada. This time Sungjin ran in as well. He didn’t take action to protect Nada.

It was to make sure he could protect the Trolls from Nada. If she kills the trolls, the number of items he could gain decreases.

Nada dodged the sword and axe acrobatically and waited for a chance to counter-attack, when Sungjin suddenly intervened. All three combatants were shocked at the sudden intruder.

“Oh excuse me”

Sungjin said as he pulled out his sword.

“Ghastly Wail”

“KYAAAAAAAH!”

A deafening screech reverberated in the air, and the Elite Samurai and the High Level Berserker turned to run in terror. Sungjin was going to slowly bring them down, but…

Nada who was standing next to him (despite taking the full blunt of the Wail) asked with a completely relaxed voice

“Who are you?”

It appeared that she had an item which nullified fear effects. Sungjin gazed at her. She stared back as if it was their first time meeting.

“Well… There’s really not much to say… Let’s hunts those trolls first.”

Sungjin said before running up to the Samurai.

“Eeee…ack”

Seeing as he had obtained the title of ‘Elite Samurai’, he could have parried at least three or four of Sungjin’s strikes, but he was steeped deeply in fear with several fingers missing.

Sungjin swung his two swords.

‘Clang!’

The Elite Samurai was able to stop the Moon Specter which was coming from above, but he couldn’t respond at all to the Blood Vengeance that came from the side.

‘Splat’

He collapsed to the side with a sickening sound. Sungjin was about to take care of the Berserker as well, but his state was a little strange.

His entire body exuded a crimson aura, and the red glow shining from his eyes did not seem like it was due to fear. Now that Sungjin took a closer look, something was shining on his neck. Something that Sungjin also carried in his pocket.

“Yanhurat…”

Sungjin tensed up as he quickly raised both of his swords up in a stance.

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