Chapter 203: It is always darkest underneath the lamp 5

[You took care of her?]

Ju-Heon's eyes opened wide after Julian used the telepathy artifact once again.

Julian continued to speak.

[You were concerned about the Pandora system artifact. Didn’t you send the rope to them to take it away?]

Ju-Heon started to laugh after hearing that part.

‘I knew he would know what I did.’

Ju-Heon did indeed send a call interference artifact, a bomb artifact, and the rope with those bastards.

[Well, the rope should come back with it soon.]

Julian sighed in relief.

[Huuuuuu, I'm glad nothing much came of it. I guess we somehow ended up getting the Monarch of Destitution's help. Why did we suddenly get such an obstacle…]

Julian was relieved that they didn't have to make it messy and fight against the European troops.

[No, I don’t think she ended up being a total obstacle.]

[Hmm?]

Ju-Heon smiled while looking at the message that popped up.

[You have received the title of < Hiding your body like a ghost >and learned of the < Stealth > skill.]

[You have gained the Stealth skill.]

This was the first skill that had come out since he received the Tomb Restoration and the Artifact Destruction skills.

Ju-Heon happily opened his skills window to check.

[Linguistics(F-Rank)]Increases communications with artifacts

[Training(A-Rank)]A skill to handle artifacts and people

[Spy(A-Rank)]Information confirmation and Increases Detection ability

[Tolerance(S-Rank)]Increases Tolerance toward auras

[Tomb Restoration(A-Rank)]Restores Tombs, increases range, increases Dexterity

[Dexterity(S-Rank)]Improves pickpocket ability, Increases ability use artifacts and Fit

[Tomb Destruction(S-Rank)]Destroy tombs as you please, Decreases Affinity

[Artifact Destruction(SS-Grade)]Destroy artifacts as you please, increases Dominance, decreases Affinity

Ju-Heon smiled while looking at these skills.

Linguistics had no chance(?) of going up because he didn’t give a damn about what the artifacts said to him and somehow, the Artifact Destruction, which was his newest skill, was at the highest level, but……

‘Stealth.’

This was quite interesting.

Why?

Getting a new skill was interesting, but most importantly…

Ju-Heon peeked around. Since this was an above ground tomb, the entire city had turned into a tomb. Ju-Heon read the Toombglyph written on a small house before stealthily putting his hand on the wall.

However, at that moment…

“Hey, what are you doing?!”

A shocked Julian called out to Ju-Heon.

Thankfully the people around them didn't hear because he shouted quietly, but Julian had been so shocked that he even forgot to use the telepathy artifact.

His eyes could see it.

A trap to cut off Ju-Heon's hand and neck would activate the moment he touched it.

Even Seol-A looked toward Ju-Heon with nervousness.

[Captain-nim!]

[Seo Ju-Heon!]

But Ju-Heon ignored the two of them and gently put his hand on the trap.

Grab!

As an anxious Julian and Seol-A were about to pull Ju-Heon’s hand away…

“Huh?”

Julian questioned his eyes.

‘What is going on?’

He was fine.

Ju-Heon's hand was fine even though he had placed his hand on the trap.

This was probably the reason for their reactions.

[What the hell, how are you fine? How are you still alive?]

Ju-Heon’s subordinates's gazes were quite a spectacle as they asked such questions.

[What did you do?!]

Julian and Seol-A became flustered as they looked over Ju-Heon’s body.

[A, are you okay, Captain-nim?]

Ju-Heon enjoyed the concerns of his subordinates as he lightly chuckled.

‘It is as I expected.’

That was right.

Ju-Heon, who had made a dangerous gamble, saw a message pop up in front of his eyes.

[You used the Stealth skill.]

[The trap is not being activated because of Stealth.]

Ju-Heon snickered.

‘I got quite the useful one this time.’

It would be even easier to loot tombs with this skill.

Ju-Heon's gaze then headed toward the TKBM members who were aiming for him.

“We must get the artifact from this tomb!”

“We will go attack Seo Ju-Heon as soon as we get the artifact!”

Each and every one of them were grinding their teeth in anger toward Ju-Heon.

“Seo Ju-Heon, see what happens if we catch you. We will cut your head off and hang it on the company roof!”

“Oooooooooooo!”

Ju-Heon’s dangerous smile was quite wicked as he looked toward them.

“Uuuuuuugh, stop, stoooooop!”

While all of that was going on, Chairman Kwon was screaming because of a terrible pain.

When had this pain started? It seemed to have started after that bastard Yoo Jaeha had appeared in his treatment room.

Since then, Chairman Kwon had been struggling with terrible pains that he could not even discuss.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

This was what the doctors had to say about it.

“I'm sorry. You have Grade 4 hemorrhoids.”

“What did you say?!”

That wasn't all.

“Uggggggh! My foot, my fooooooot!”

“I'm sorry. You have an extreme case of Athlete’s Foot.”

“Aaaaaaaaaak! It’s leaking, leaking! Doctor!”

“My goodness. You have Incontinence. Having it at such a young age…….”

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! It hurts, it hurts!”

“Oh my, it is kidney stones.”

“What did you say?!”

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! My skin, my skin!”

“Doctor!!!”

“It is syphilis.”

“Excuse me?!”

And currently…

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

Another scream shot out of the room.

The aides turned pale and quickly started to move after hearing the painful scream.

These company executives would usually curse Seo Ju-Heon and effectively cater to Chairman Kwon’s mood, but it was different now.

“Chairman, are you okay, sir?! Where does it hurt?”

The aides jumped up and got angry after seeing a secretary get anxious.

"What are you asking?! You should be able to tell by now! Hurry up and bring it!”

“Excuse me? Ah, that……then I will get the donut c, cushion……”

“You idiot, not that! Call the female nurses over!”

“He needs ointment, the ointment!”

“You retard, it’s his diaper!”

‘None of you are right you dumbasses!’

Chairman Kwon was in pain and wanted to cuss them all out.

"Sooooooooob, sob. Over there, my thing…”

“Excuse me?!”

Chairman Kwon could not keep talking and just clenched the area between his legs. He was feeling a terrible pain where it felt as if that spot between his legs was being crushed.

‘Damn it, what the hell did you do to me, Yoo Jaeha?!’

Well, Seo Ju-Heon was probably responsible for it since Yoo Jaeha had done it.

What he was certain of was the fact that Yoo Jaeha had installed a monstrous artifact in his body.

That was why he couldn’t help but to grind his teeth.

‘Motherfucker, where the hell did he get such a shitty artifact?!’

He suspected that it was a curse-type artifact.

However, it didn't seem to be a regular curse-type artifact as weird things happened to Chairman Kwon regardless of the time.

There were times his eyes felt as if they were on fire, times he got sick, and even times he almost died because he could not stop laughing.

Even his sword between his legs that was standing rock hard thanks to the return to youth artifact was limping down.

As for right now…

“Owwwwwwwwww!”

He felt another pain in between his legs.

Even Chairman Kwon's artifact started to rampage, as if it was reacting to that pain.

Grab! Booboboboooooooooom!

It was his artifact of conquest.

[#$&#!]

The items in the room started to break as his artifact rampaged.

People started to scream once things started to float, as if they were being controlled by psychokinesis.

“Aaah! Chairman-nim, Chairman-nim!”

“P, please calm down, Chairman-nim!”

Medical equipment, vases, fruits, all sorts of things floating up in the air made his subordinates feel a sense of urgency.

“Hurry up and c, call the Doctor!”

“No, stop that first! N, no, call the artifact users over! Yang Chen, go get Yang Chen! Vice Captain Yang Chen!”

"Excuse me?! They’re all out on a Tomb Excavation right now! Kyaaaaaa!”

As all the aides stood there without knowing what to do…

Boom!

An artifact’s power suddenly shot out.

The sparkling light created a circle and surrounded the room.

That made the items floating around all fall to the ground.

Boom!

“!”

This power was Newton’s artifact that impacted gravity.

The subordinates dropped their jaws in shock while looking at the items that were stuck to the floor.

“I, it stopped……!”

“Just who…?!”

They heard an angry voice that seemed to answer their question.

“This is not the time to be angry, you old bastard!”

“!”

Chairman Kwon's eyes opened wide after hearing this familiar voice.

The person who had come to visit Chairman Kwon was the Monarch of Fate.

Joshua, the man who had the seer, Nostradamus's artifact. This man, who stealthily supported numerous countries and businesses from the back, was breathing heavily as if he had run over.

This young man would usually call his driver for even short distances because he didn’t want to sweat.

That made this current situation odd, but Chairman Kwon just glared at the Monarch of Fate.

“What are you talking about? Why are you suddenly here?! What is going on?!”

“Did you know? Seo Ju-Heon snuck into your excavation team!”

“?!”

This man must have seen something through his dream again.

“Your excavation team is currently in Europe, right? Seo Ju-Heon is hiding among them!”

Chairman Kwon started to scoff.

“Do you really think they wouldn’t be able to sniff out that damn rat?”

Chairman Kwon started to boil inside just thinking about Seo Ju-Heon.

He didn’t know the reason for it. But if he was to make a guess……

‘I saw something weird at that time.’

Actually, Chairman Kwon had made a personal deal with the Executive Board. That was how he was able to learn the method of instantly raising his Dominance through the system artifact.

But Chairman Kwon had seen something during that process. He saw Ju-Heon who seemed to be in his thirties.

‘Kill him. Get rid of him before he gets any bigger.’

‘I will promote you to Director if you manage to lure those bastards.’

‘No TKBM employees will have seen or heard about anything that is about to happen. Seo Ju-Heon was never in TKBM to start.’

He didn't know the details as he had only seen that one scene. It had felt as if he was seeing a film still of a movie he had never seen before.

But the way he found Seo Ju-Heon to be so annoying must have meant that they were connected in some way.

Chairman Kwon soon shook his head.

'It’s fake.’

Even if they were connected in some way, Chairman Kwon only cared about the present.

The thing he needed to focus on right now was…

“You’re saying Seo Ju-Heon snuck into my excavation team?”

“Yeah! Even my excavation team is being swept up because you guys can’t find Seo Ju-Heon!”

“What did you see?!”

“First, both your and my excavation teams were thoroughly destroyed……”

Chairman Kwon slammed his hand on the table after hearing that.

“Don’t say such ominous things! Even if that bastard is hiding like a rat, we can take care of him in the tomb……uuuuuuugh!”

Chairman Kwon started to twist his body.

The pain in his groin was just extra. The Monarch of Fate, who had his hands clashed by his stomach, clicked his tongue.

“Yes, I'm sure it'll be fine.”

He had already contacted the excavation team just in case.

But things were definitely not fine.

“What did you say? What about that bastard Seo Ju-Heon? He’s where?”

“No, we’re saying that Seo Ju-Heon is in your excavation team…

“Aaaaaaaaaak!”

“What are those things?!”

“It’s a trap, a trap, sir!”

The tomb entrance was currently full of screams from TKBM and other excavation teams. It was because of the terrible(?) pranks that Ju-Heon was pulling.

“Fuck, fix the formation!”

But ancient Chinese soldiers seemed to be coming out of every alley.

The excavation teams foamed at the mouth after seeing the large number of soldiers.

It was to be expected.

“Fuck, we didn’t even touch the trap!”

"Who the hell did it?!”

'‘Who else?’

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

Ju-Heon was activating trap after trap with ghost-like movements.

Of course, it wasn't difficult to find the traps. This was child’s play once he used his experience and knowledge from going into numerous tombs.

Click!

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

Julian and Seol-A truly prayed for their happiness in the afterlife after hearing their screams.

‘I now understand why he said to pretend like we are injured and stay in the rear. This damn thug.’

Julian had instantly realized Ju-Heon’s plan.

‘The trap path is the shortest path to our destination for sure.’

All tombs were set up so that the most dangerous routes were the closest to the artifact.

Using the safe path would make it difficult to find the artifact and also take too much time. Some paths would take over a year to get to the end.

That was why excavation teams usually chose the short paths even though they knew these paths were full of traps.

They could just use the baits they dragged into the tomb to deal with the traps!

But what had happened?

“Aaaaaaaaahh! The bait, throw the baits!”

“We’re out of baits!”

"What did you say?!”

“I believe all of the traps have been activated!”

“Why did they activate?! Aaaaaah!”

That was right. This was all Ju-Heon's doing.

The rope had stealthily returned with that Pandora system artifact or whatever and given it to Julian.

It was fine that he was analyzing the artifact without other people knowing about it, but his damn Captain seemed to have started acting like a total thug while he wasn’t looking.

Was he planning on lowering the number of people as much as possible since they would get to the central region of the tomb soon?

“Ahhhhh!”

He didn't seem to like what these bastards did by using human bait that he had already sent those people off elsewhere.

It was because Ju-Heon knew how these bastards abducted those people to be bait.

‘Clear the tombs with your own strength if you want the artifact, you bastards.’

He then urgently shouted in the middle of the chaos.

“Captain-nim! The exit seems to be this way!”

Their faces lit up after seeing Ju-Heon easily cross a bridge.

“Yes, over there is the path without a trap!”

But the moment they got onto the bridge…

"Ahhhhhhhhhhh!”

“Aaah!”

The trap activated and Ju-Heon started to shout.

“I'm sorry sir! It must have been a trap! I was okay but why…?”

“Hey you son of a biiiiiiiiiiiitch!”

Although Ju-Heon was apologizing, Julian saw it. He saw Ju-Heon's smile that seemed to be saying that things were going according to the plan.

‘This devil-like bastard.’

But Ju-Heon didn't care and just walked over to Julian and Seol-A as he started to speak.

“I succeeded in holding these bastards back. We will head to the central region before these lowlifes chase after us.”

Ju-Heon brushed his hair up before taking off the horn-rimmed glasses.