Chapter 30

< Chapter 30: Master of the Weapon (1) >

Without dwelling on the mystery, we managed to get out of the Lava Land.

We are now resting on a park bench near Uijeongbu.

“Hmm. The Flame of Engraving, was it? You should use it, Seo-yul.”

As I was staring blankly at the moon, Ha Si-yeon suddenly said something out of the blue.

“Huh? This is really good, you know?”

I told Ha Si-yeon everything about the ancient relic Whisper of Fire and the Flame of Engraving.

“It’s fine. It’s incompatible with my freezing magic anyway. And I don’t need money either.”

“Wow…”

I looked at Ha Si-yeon in disbelief. Her smile was like a painting, illuminated by the faint moonlight.

“Oh. And you can take the ancient relic too. Same reason~”

She said that and hummed a tune as she looked at the moon in the sky.

Unbelievable.

Does she have no greed at all?

“Are you an angel?”

“Pfft. What are you talking about? You’re the angel!”

No, seriously.

I can’t believe there’s still someone with such an angelic heart in this bleak world.

I knew Ha Si-yeon’s personality well, but I was still amazed.

“Oh. But can you use the Flame of Engraving while it’s sealed?”

“Probably.”

The Flame of Engraving is a special rankless one-piece equipment.

Once you wear it, it becomes bound to you until you die, and you can’t take it off.

Its effect is very simple.

It changes the magic attribute of the wearer to ‘fire’.

It’s one of the rare items that can change the magic attribute in this world where attribute magic itself is scarce.

And it doesn’t even have any wearing conditions.

Its performance goes without saying.

It’s the item that made Nasher, who was a D-rank superhuman, rise to the top villain position.

There was even a fight over who would get the Flame of Engraving after killing Nasher in the latter part of the story.

“But Seo-yul, you said you don’t have any magic at all. Is there any point in wearing it?”

“That’s the problem.”

As Ha Si-yeon said, I don’t have any magic at all.

And the Flame of Engraving is an item that changes the nature of magic.

Will it work properly for me, who has no magic?

“Hmm.”

“Just try wearing it. Even if you can’t use it right now, you’ll be able to use it once you break the seal, right?”

Of course, I don’t have any seal at all.

But she’s not wrong.

Even if I can’t use it right now, I’ll be able to use it later when I get some magic.

“Okay. I’ll know when I try it.”

I opened my carrier.

The Whisper of Fire and the Flame of Engraving were neatly arranged inside.

I reached out my right hand to the Flame of Engraving.

Whoosh-!

The next moment, the Flame of Engraving moved from my right hand to my heart.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. It’s just warm.”

I thought it would be a bit hot or something. But it felt like soaking in a hot spring.

The Flame of Engraving gradually shrank and disappeared completely.

It moved to my heart.

“How is it?”

“I don’t know.”

But I don’t see any difference.

It feels just like usual.

I don’t have any magic, so I don’t know what changed.

“Hmm. Maybe it doesn’t work properly without magic?”

“It seems so.”

It’s a shame, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

What I don’t have, I don’t have.

And if I don’t have it, I’ll get it.

“But I’ve been thinking. Can’t you just loosen the seal a bit?”

“I wish I could, but it’s not that easy.”

“Oh. I see.”

By the way, how long do I have to lie about this seal thing? I’m starting to feel no guilt at all.

What should I say?

Lies come out as naturally as breathing.

For example, something like this comes out naturally as a lie.

“But I’m looking for a way to improve the seal. So that I can hide my angelic power, but recover some of my stats.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I can’t stay at F-rank forever.”

“Aha.”

With this, even if I suddenly become stronger, it won’t be inconsistent with the story.

It was a perfect lie.

“Anyway, thanks for giving it to me. This fire attribute magic will be a big help in the future.”

“Hey. I should be more thankful. Thanks to you, I leveled up two stages. And I got a trait called Sanctuary of Freezing.”

Ha Si-yeon smiled innocently.

It was a bright smile that seemed to wash away the darkness in her heart.

It felt healing.

“Ah. There’s a taxi.”

Just then, I saw a taxi at the entrance of the park.

“Ugh. Can I make it until I get home?”

Ha Si-yeon got up from her seat and made a sad face.

“Why? Are you that hungry? Do you want to eat something?”

Ha Si-yeon shook her head.

“No. I want to grab a barbell.”

“Excuse me?”

“I have to do my upper body today that I couldn’t do yesterday.”

“…”

I felt like the veil that was covering her until a moment ago was suddenly torn off.

Exercise addicts are scary.

“I actually want to tell you to rest today too.”

As we were walking towards the taxi, Ha Si-yeon stopped and turned her head, looking at me like a ghost.

“What did you say?”

“I think it would be better to rest today―”

Thud thud thud-!

Before I could finish my sentence, she ran towards me and grabbed my shoulders and sobbed.

“Please. I’ll restrain myself. But not two days in a row. Anything but that…”

“Huh? Hey, that’s…”

She looked so pitiful that I couldn’t say no.

Hey. It’s not like anything’s going to happen tomorrow. It doesn’t matter.

“Fine. Let’s agree to do it moderately today―”

“Thank you, God! Thank you, Seo-yul!”

Ha Si-yeon hugged me.

She was so happy.

She jumped up and down and shouted.

The problem was that she was doing that while holding me tightly.

“Cough, cough! Hey! I can’t breathe…! It hurts…!”

“Ah. Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

She finally came to her senses when she heard my scream and let go of me. She looked embarrassed and said.

“I keep forgetting that your muscles are worse than my nephew’s. Hehe.”

“Gulp.”

Critical hit!

My heart took extra damage.

It was a heart-wrenching statement. Worse than her nephew!

“Let’s just get in the taxi.”

“Ah, yeah.”

We moved towards the taxi.

“Hum hum hum~”

Ha Si-yeon was ahead of me, humming a song because she was happy that she could exercise.

“Bench press~ The bench press I couldn’t do yesterday~”

Let’s pretend we didn’t hear the lyrics.

I followed her and thought.

There were some variables in this dungeon raid, but I gained a lot.

I got the Flame of Engraving, for crying out loud.

But there were some questions left.

Why were there two lava lizards?

And why was the Flame of Engraving there?

I’ve been thinking about it since then.

And I came up with an answer.

The contents of the novel [S-rank Status Window] that Shin read over and over again because of my brother.

Among them, there were scenes where Nasher appeared.

The answer to this question was in those scenes.

He was talking to another executive.

“This? I got it from beating up some lizard brats. It was dangerous. I managed to deal with one, but I couldn’t handle the other one.”

Lizard brats.

He definitely said that.

“How did you survive? What kind of question is that? Of course, I sacrificed my buddies and ran away. With the Flame of Engraving! Hahaha!”

The dialogue wasn’t exact, but it was something like that.

This explains everything.

Why there were two lava lizards?

And why the Flame of Engraving was here.

Nasher must have gone to this place, ‘The Resting Place of Fire’, with his buddies to raid it.

He barely caught one,

But he failed in the end.

They didn’t have a superhuman like Ha Si-yeon who was a cheat key with her existence.

And Nasher betrayed his comrades. He stole the Flame of Engraving from this place and ran away after using them as bait.

It must have happened about a year from now.

This is the truth.

Fortunately, the setting of the novel didn’t change.

This was also a kind of butterfly effect caused by me changing.

There were two major changes due to this incident.

First.

The villain Nasher disappeared from the novel altogether.

His power was impossible without the Flame of Engraving.

And second.

I got that powerful power.

I can’t use it right now because I don’t have any magic, but it’s a powerful power that I can use anytime once I get some magic.

How will this incident come back as a variable in the future?

To be honest, I don’t know.

I’m creating variables with my own hands all the time.

It was to get the most out of the future information I had before it became meaningless.

More than anything, I had no other way but that right now.

And as a result, the future is changing rapidly.

Maybe it’s changing faster than I expected.

It can’t be helped.

It’s obvious that you have to give up one thing when you choose one thing.

But I believe that the future hasn’t changed for the worse because of what I’ve done so far.

Just look at this incident.

The protagonist, myself, became stronger, and a powerful villain disappeared.

Both are positive things.

So the future must have changed in a positive direction too.

I’m sure of it.

“Seo-yul. Give me your carrier. I’ll put it in the trunk.”

I woke up from my thoughts at Ha Si-yeon’s words. We arrived at the taxi in no time.

“Ah, okay.”

We got in the taxi and headed back to the dorm.

* * *

The next morning.

I woke up at 5:30 a.m. as usual.

The blood of the beastman running through my veins was urging me to go train.

It was a familiar sensation.

I got out of bed and finished washing up quickly and headed to the training room.

Come to think of it, I went to the dungeon to get the Whisper of Fire, but I left it in my carrier.

I was distracted by the Flame of Engraving, and I spent all night thinking about how to get some magic.

I should have been thinking about whether to use the Whisper of Fire right now or not.

But I completely forgot about it.

“Hmm.”

Well, I’ll think about it now.

What should I do?

The reason I got the Whisper of Fire was to get a racial trait to beat Choi Jihun in the ranking match.

I don’t know what kind of trait I’ll get, but I have to do something or I won’t be able to break through his magic armor.

Considering my original goal, it would be better to use it right away.

But it’s a shame to just use an ancient relic that can only be used once.

It’s a high-rank item of [Ancient relic/A-rank] after all.

I’m sure I’ll get a powerful power that’s incomparable to what I have now for one minute while holding the Whisper of Fire.

It’s too precious to just use it.

This was something I’ve been thinking about since I got involved with Ha Si-yeon, or rather, since I decided to raid ‘The Resting Place of Fire’.

But I still haven’t made up my mind.

Both are attractive options.

I’ll probably keep thinking about this in the future.

Should I use it now? Or save it? Things like that.

Dilemma.

How nice would it be if I could get another ancient relic right now?

Ah. I should have held the Vampire Lord’s Fang for a minute when I accidentally got it at the department store in the past.

No, wait. If I did that, there would be CCTV footage and I might attract unwanted attention.

The media might have reported something like ‘The vampire has returned after 10,000 years!’

If I denied it, I would catch the eye of ‘that group’.

That’s why I can’t get ancient relics in a conspicuous way.

“Sigh.”

Anyway, it’s a dilemma in many ways.

As I walked lost in thought, I arrived at the training room before I knew it.

“I don’t know.”

Let’s just train for now.

Maybe I’ll have a new idea after sweating it out.

I entered the training room with a clear mind.

“You’re still early.”

As soon as I entered the training room, Instructor Pi Jin Ho greeted me.

“Good morning.”

“Yeah. Did you rest well on the weekend?”

“Yes. I rested well.”

No. Not at all.

I was tortured in various ways at the dungeon.

“Hmm. You look like you’ve been training hard on the weekend too. Your muscles are quite wasted.”

But there was no fooling Pi Jin Ho, who had ‘the eye that sees mystery’.

“Especially your back muscles… What is this?”

Suddenly, his eyes widened in shock.

He looked like he was stunned by something.

“Magic?”

“What?”

Pi Jin Ho approached me with an excited expression. He grabbed my shoulders and stared at me intently.

“This movement that starts from your heart. Of course! It’s magic! And not just any magic, but fire attribute magic!”

Pi Jin Ho’s face was filled with ecstasy. On the other hand, I was flustered.

He couldn’t possibly see the Flame of Engraving, could he?

“Amazing! Really amazing! Hahaha!”

Uh… What’s going on here?

Please donate guys…