Chapter 167. Hidden Peace (2)
—Anything. Even if it is a weapon that can extinguish the Queen.
When he heard the reward, Jeffrey got goosebumps.
‘This it is!’
The Expedition Leader who would play a decisive role in the final battle against the Queen died. Nevertheless, the mission continued without failure. Why?
Was it because this crazy man and woman who killed the Expedition Leader could kill the Queen with only their power? At first, he thought that might be the case, but now he realized that wasn’t the case.
“I didn’t know this method was hidden here!”
Jeffrey cheered inside. Then he tried to advise Yoon-seok that they should get that weapon. No, the moment he was about to.
“I will take this egg.”
“…?”
“I cannot hand over Chaos Red Devil Dragon to anyone!”
The warm atmosphere of doing a good deed and receiving a reward for it disappeared. When it came to its sense, the dragon was furiously flapping its wings.
—Human greed is truly endless.
The moment when the dragon’s words resounded in his head, Jeffrey felt a tightening pain in his chest. Paradoxically, a sense of relief bloomed in him. If they felt this absolute power right in front of them, these two might change their minds.
‘Huh?’
Jeffrey’s eyes went wide. The woman was still there, looking at the dragon indifferently, without appearing intimidated in the slightest.
“This master is not greedy. I only get what I want.”
Her arrogant eyes looked down on everything. How could she hold that kind of arrogance in front of such a being? Was it because she held that much power?
‘Can she win against that?’
Jeffrey was confused. He wasn’t even sure if he should try to stop this or not. But-
[The content of the challenge varies depending on the choice.]
[The task content has changed]
[The Guardian of the Red Clan is hostile. It intends to punish the greedy humans and retrieve its precious egg back.]
[Run away from it. If you survive, you may receive an unexpected opportunity.]
The system message appeared. Runaway and survive… the thought of fighting and winning didn’t exist at all. That meant one thing.
‘That being is not something that was created to be defeated.’
It couldn’t be defeated by a challenger. But since the system message appeared, this was also one of the options in the scenario.
‘Once the goal of survival is accomplished, another task must open up.’
Jeffrey gulped. It would be impossible for a normal challenger to run away, but these two might manage it.
‘As the difficulty level is high, the rewards for the task will be significant… let’s stay calm.’
It wasn’t such a bad situation.
‘But the question is, will she listen to me…?’
Jeffrey instinctively looked to Yoon-seok. If he succeeded in convincing him, they might somehow make it out of this situation.
“I think it would be better to step back for now.”
“Stepping back?”
“Yes. It’s better.”
Jeffrey logically explained why. As long as they survived, another special challenge would open up, and if they completed it, they might receive a bigger reward. It was an offer that would tempt anyone. Even Yoon-seok shook his head, saying that it made sense.
However, Jeffrey had forgotten for a moment-
“If the goal is to survive, we can just kill it.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“There’s no warning not to kill it, right?”
This man was just as insane.
* * *
The moment when Cheon-ma’s sword cut off the dragon’s head while the two chatted, the dragon’s massive body collapsed to the ground.
Boom-!
She seized victory after about 30 minutes of battle. Her clothes were scorched and frayed, but she suffered no major injuries. However, Cheon-ma looked a little tired as she sheathed her blade.
“This one, this task is not easy. At this rate, how about the Queen who is said to come out at the end…?”
It wouldn’t be that hard. After all, the dragon wasn’t an opponent they were supposed to fight. It was only a scenario where they would protect one egg and receive a reward so that Jeffrey couldn’t understand at all.
‘Why are they making this easy mission so difficult?’
Although there was some ambiguity in that statement, at least for the two of them, this was a very easy mission. However, starting from killing the Expedition Leader, they kept increasing the difficulty on their own. Just like this!
[The Guardian of the Red Clan, who was suppressing the dimensional fusion, has perished.]
[Dimensional warp has accelerated. If you are unlucky, you may encounter a being from another dimension.]
[Be careful. The Queen, who regained her sealed power early, may threaten the expedition.]
The Queen regained her power, but even Jeffrey didn’t know what that was. Nothing like this had happened in the stories he heard.
“Fufufu. Come to think of it, what Jung said was wrong. He said that the mission is like an outing…”
“Maybe it’s because the floors are different. I didn’t know that an enemy like this would come out on the third day.”
Jeffrey screamed inside.
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‘The floor isn’t the problem. It’s all because of you!’
The Queen, who didn’t even show her face until the 30th day, was now threatening the Expedition Team? It even said that they might face something from another dimension if they were unlucky? At this point, it was no longer the same ordeal as the mission he heard from a senior challenger. After all, the devices arranged by the Tower for balance control were all broken down.
Moreover, it was all at the hands of those who took on the mission!
‘What the hell is going to happen now?’
He didn’t know. However, Jeffrey decided not to care about it anymore. They had surpassed his common sense for a while now, and there was nothing he could do.
Pad-pad.
It was around the time he realized that he had to give up thinking and leave everything to them that Yoon-seok approached Cheon-ma and handed over the dragon egg.
“I completed the appraisal, and it is a dragon egg. It will hatch if you keep giving it your mana.”
“Fufu. Is that so? I am looking forward to it.”
Cheon-ma carefully took up the egg in her arms and approached the dragon’s corpse. She bowed to the dragon who left behind its child.
“Chaos Red Devil Dragon will be raised well by this master, so rest in peace. One day it will grow up to be a wonderful dragon like you.”
To be honest, even Yoon-seok, whom Jeffrey considered to be at the same level as her, had difficulty sympathizing…
“By the way, you are empty-handed.”
The challenge that appeared on the third day ended with one dragon egg as a reward.
“I am fine. Let’s say I paid you back a little with this.”
“No. You can’t do that. Wait a minute.”
Cheon-ma turned over the fallen dragon’s corpse so that they could see its belly. Then she hefted her sword and shouted a command.
“Butchery.”
Did she perhaps learn something like this for her crafting skills? In an instant, the dragon’s body was split into bones, intestines, and meat. Cheon-ma clicked her tongue as she checked what she had harvested.
“I guess we’re not lucky this time, so nothing much came out. Here, at least take this.”
She casually threw a large bone and a heart the size of a rock to him. Yoon-seok couldn’t understand why she was giving him this until he used Appraisal at Cheon-ma’s prompting.
*Dragonian Bone (Rank S+) – It can be used for crafting or summoning magic.
*Dragonian Heart (Rank SS) – When you consume it, all mana is restored, and magic below SS rank is permanently increased by +1.
Each was an item. When Yoon-seok looked at her with surprise, Cheon-ma muttered, embarrassed.
“This kind of thing became possible after I upgraded to A-Rank and chose a trait.”
He knew it from the moment he saw her various crafting skills, starting with Knitting, but he didn’t expect her to raise non-combat skills such as Butchery to A-rank.
‘It’s all about Rank…’
Even a seemingly insignificant skill could be utilized like this when the Rank rose. It was pretty impressive. The next time he returned to the Tower, he decided to do some research on these fringe skills. For now, however, Yoon-seok put the bone and heart into his subspace bag.
“Anyway, thank you for giving them to me.”
Well, there was no reason to be in a hurry, as it wasn’t going to go bad or disappear, although Cheon-ma asked why he didn’t eat it right away. After all, there might be a way to use it in a way other than consuming it.
“Then let’s go back soon.”
“Yes.”
Cheon-ma left first, and Yoon-seok followed after Jeffrey, who was now smiling with an unpleasant expression.
* * *
The fourth, fifth, and sixth days quickly followed. Despite the Guardian of Red Clan’s death and the mission’s difficulty once again increasing, the mission continued smoothly. The challengers whined because the invaders suddenly grew stronger, but it wasn’t a big difference for Cheon-ma and Yoon-seok.
‘Is that all when it was said that the Queen regained her powers?’
Rather, Yoon-seok felt sorry. The Tower followed the principle of equivalent exchange. In other words, the harder the difficulty, the greater the reward. That was why he left it alone when Cheon-ma said she was going to fight the dragon.
‘To put it simply, it became rather bland?’
If Jeffrey or the other challengers had heard him, they would be shocked, but those were Yoon-seok’s honest thoughts.
‘But the next task will be a little different, right?’
Jeffrey said it himself. They chose a different option, so if they survived, there was a high possibility that it would be linked with other challenges. But was it because they fought back and killed the dragon instead of running away? Up to the seventh day, no special event occurred, let alone a special challenge.
‘Should I wait a little longer?’
Maybe that was the case. Yoon-seok, contemplating one thing or another, looked at the expedition’s battle line. Carrying the egg in her arms and injecting mana into it 24 hours a day, Cheon-ma was caring for her new dragon egg while cutting down invaders. The more he grew to know her, the more interesting she became.
Rumble-
While he was watching Cheonma fight, a great vibration ran below them through the ground.
“What’s going on”?
“Be careful! Something’s coming!”
The expedition crew now trusted each other with their backs regardless of their race and origin. They formed up to ready themselves. Yoon-seok turned to the direction where he felt a foreign energy welling up.
Cracking-cracking-!
A crack opened across the beautiful night sky. Something huge was emerging. Yoon-seok was shocked.
‘What, why is this here?’
There was no room for doubt in that armored form. However, if there was a difference from the Space Captain, it was only armed with a light ax about 10 meters tall instead of a sword. It was said that beings of another dimension might appear, so he wondered if the natives of Taklan had flowed in. But…
He checked the cockpit and realized that wasn’t the case.
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—Khahahahahaha! A new type of invader! It’s the first time I have seen humanoid ones.
The being exclaiming loudly from the cockpit…
—I’ll grind everything down and make it into beer!
It was a dwarf.