Became a Mechromancer - Chapter 30

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 30.
Reprieve (1)
“Moving?”
My family’s eyes widened in surprise.
We exchanged glances, but no one dared to speak first.
I swallowed hard.
Now was the time to tell them.
“I… I’ve Awakened.”
Silence.
The air in the master bedroom grew heavy and oppressive.
“There’s no need for that!”
Father cut me off decisively.
A refusal without a shred of hesitation.
“Father?”
Father gripped my shoulders.
His eyes held not suspicion, but deep concern.
“What company in this world gives housing for work that isn’t even dangerous?”
“Father…”
“You’re lying to put our minds at ease, aren’t you? That’s what frightens me.”
Father’s voice trembled.
He had learned through years of grueling labor from the bottom.
That behind every glittering offer lurked a terrible price.
“I don’t mind struggling. But I can’t bear to see you collapse from dangerous work.”
Mother and my sister shared the same worried expression.
My younger brother, however, was different.
My older brother is an Awakened?
‘Then I have a chance too, don’t I?’
His eyes gleamed with anticipation, but Father’s intimidating presence silenced him.
I continued calmly.
“I… I Awakened as a production-type.”
My younger brother’s eyebrow twitched.
Huh?
“Brother… you’re not a combat-type?”
“No. It’s similar to what I was doing before.”
My sister pushed past my disappointed brother and interjected.
Brother!
“You Awakened in your own profession? That’s an incredibly rare case! Isn’t it?”
Instead of answering, I ruffled my sister’s hair. She beamed and turned to explain to our parents.
“Brother won’t have to enter the Abyss or do anything dangerous! It’s really safe, I promise.”
Yet Father’s expression remained rigid.
“Even if it’s a production-type Awakening, if you accept something that large, later on when you want to refuse entering the Abyss, you won’t be able to, will you?”
I gripped Father’s calloused hand firmly.
Warm, with hardened calluses embedded in the weathered skin.
“I won the championship this time, and I have to compete in the global tournament as well. That’s why the Hunter Management Bureau proposed ten years of free rent as a courtesy.”
….
Of course, I had mixed truth and falsehood appropriately.
A moment of silence.
While Father stared blankly into the empty air.
I projected a large hologram from my smartwatch.
An elegant high-rise apartment exterior.
A map showing the surrounding infrastructure in meticulous detail.
And….
The interior of the penthouse unfolded like a panorama.
A spacious living room.
A refreshing Han River view through floor-to-ceiling windows.
It’s called fifty pyeong, but the rooftop is a bonus space.
Moreover, there’s even a private terrace beyond the rooftop!
Duna’s mouth fell open.
Dubin, who was enlarging the hologram, clutched his head.
Damn, this is insane!
“This is really going to be our house?”
Mother’s gaze was already fixed on the expansive kitchen.
My goodness….
“The kitchen is bigger than our master bedroom?”
Father tried to maintain a stern expression with his arms crossed.
Glance, glance.
His eyes wavered as he stole glimpses of the hologram.
A cramped home without even a living room, where spreading and folding the dinner table in the master bedroom was daily routine.
As the breadwinner, a sense of debt had always weighed on one corner of his heart.
Then I delivered the finishing blow.
“We can move in two weeks from now, but if we don’t go, the opportunity passes to another Awakened.”
The twins cried out simultaneously in a frenzy.
“No way!!”
“Let’s go right now, Dad!”
Mother stared intently at Father.
Silent pressure.
There was no resisting the desperate gleam in his wife’s eyes—the woman who had endured hardship in a cramped home their entire lives.
Father cleared his throat.
Ahem.
“…to think it’s going to someone else.”
Father turned his head away, mumbling as if embarrassed.
Well then….
“We’ll need to prepare for the move.”
Waahhh!!
Duna cheered and bounced in place excitedly.
Dubin was already calculating furniture placement, pointing at the empty air.
It was understandable.
My younger siblings had been sharing the largest room in this house, divided by a temporary wall.
My parents used the middle room as their bedroom.
And as the eldest son, I had been using the smallest room alone.
As they grew bigger, I’d been secretly worried about the cramped conditions.
‘I’m grateful this stroke of luck has come our way.’
That’s when a voice echoed in my mind.
-It’s not luck! This is all the fruit of Master Duho’s blood, sweat, and tears!
-…For once, I agree with Ironhead’s assessment. Master Mechromancer’s abilities cannot be evaluated by merely a single house.
‘Thank you both.’
-Ahem, ahem! Ahem!
-Eh?! Eh!
The two of them coughed awkwardly, caught off guard by their own embarrassment.
I smiled warmly as I watched my family celebrating their happiness.
* * *
Two weeks later.
The biometric recognition system detected me.
Ding~
The heavy entrance door slid open silently.
“Wow….”
Yet no one dared to step inside.
The moment we entered the foyer, we were greeted by a panoramic view of the Han River pouring through as the entire wall became transparent.
The marble floor was so pristine it felt almost sacrilegious to set foot on it.
Overwhelmed by the vast space and dazzling cleanliness, my family hesitated at the threshold, exchanging nervous glances.
‘Even I feel awkward after visiting a few times over the past two weeks—I can only imagine how they feel.’
I smiled and stepped inside first.
“Please, come in.”
My family moved as if entering someone else’s home.
The empty living room.
Not a single piece of furniture was visible.
Dubin asked in confusion.
“Brother… you said we just needed to bring ourselves, but it’s completely empty?”
“No. It’s all here.”
Du-ho spoke into the empty air.
“Living room mode.”
-Switching to a cozy living room.
Along with the AI’s voice.
The tables and storage units embedded in the walls slid smoothly outward, and an ergonomically designed sofa rose from the floor.
The foundation of a smart house—”embedded modular interior design.”
“Whoa… that’s insane.”
The twins froze with their mouths hanging open.
Technology they couldn’t have imagined in their previous home.
The children only dared to poke the risen sofa with their fingertips, too hesitant to actually sit.
“Hyung… is it really okay to sit on this?”
“That’s not like you. Go ahead and sit comfortably.”
At Du-ho’s words, the twins settled onto the sofa.
The plush sensation enveloped them.
Du-bin, leaning back against the cushions, spoke in amazement.
Wow~
“It’s so comfortable I feel like my body’s melting away.”
Du-na also seemed to release her tension in response.
Sigh….
“I’m sleeping here from tonight on~.”
Du-ho, watching the two of them, pointed toward the doors.
“Go check out your own rooms.”
The twins carefully opened their respective doors and stepped inside.
And moments later.
“Hyung!”
Whoa….
In the hands of Du-na and Du-bin, who emerged from their rooms, were the latest model smart glasses.
Du-na even approached Du-ho with tears welling up.
“Sniff… these are really expensive. Are you sure I can use them?”
“You said you wanted them, didn’t you?”
“I never thought you’d buy something this expensive.”
After telling the twins to use them well, Du-ho turned his head.
His father stood by the living room window, gazing pensively down at the Seoul skyline.
His father’s words from not long ago came to mind.
「Son, I appreciate the sentiment, but if I suddenly quit, my colleagues will struggle. Still, for your sake, I’ll take my time wrapping things up.」
Du-ho gazed at his father’s silhouette and offered a faint smile.
Someone once said.
That simply resting isn’t always a good thing.
So.
‘Father, do things at your own pace. Don’t overexert yourself.’
Muttering to myself like that, I rubbed my stomach toward my family.
“Let’s eat first.”
I pulled up a holographic menu.
“There’s normally a resident-exclusive chef service, but on moving day, this is the way to go.”
“Jjajangmyeon?”
When Du-bin asked, I chuckled.
“Which one of you wants to order?”
Du-na quickly put on her smart glasses and asked.
“Oppa, is the sweet and sour pork the large size?”
And shortly after.
-Your food has arrived.
With the AI voice, a panel on the kitchen wall slid open, revealing the ‘drone delivery port.’
Soon my family gathered around the dining table.
Just as Du-bin was about to pick up his chopsticks.
Ding-dong—.
The doorbell rang.
“Who is it?”
I checked the visitor on my smartwatch linked to the entrance, and a neatly dressed middle-aged woman appeared on the hologram.
‘A guest?’
I quickly went to the entrance and opened the door, and the middle-aged woman greeted me.
“Hello~ I live in the unit below you.”
“Oh, yes.”
“I heard you were moving in, so I stopped by to say hello.”
“Hello.”
“My, are you the young owner of this place? An Awakened?”
When I looked puzzled, the woman’s eyes sparkled as if to say she could tell at a glance.
“My daughter is a Hunter too.”
“Ah, I see.”
“Son, what’s the matter?”
When my parents came to the entrance, the woman greeted them warmly.
“Hello~ Let’s be good neighbors as fellow Hunter families.”
She handed over a fruit basket and descended to the lower floor without being burdensome, yet conveying a sense of kinship.
She didn’t ask which organization she belonged to or what rank she held.
Just the generosity of welcoming someone based on shared circumstances alone.
I closed the door and set the fruit basket on the dining table.
My mother wore an apologetic expression.
“We should have greeted her first….”
“We can do that later. Let’s eat before it gets cold.”
Slurp.
Everything still felt cautious and unfamiliar, but the taste of jjajangmyeon spreading across my palate was comforting and sweet.
Duo-ho dipped the sweet and sour pork into sauce, his mind drifting back to the contract he’d signed with Na Yong-seok, the Department Head of the Hunter Management Bureau, two weeks prior.
An annual salary of 150 million won, contracted for one year.
The truth was.
He’d rejected the Hunter Management Bureau’s offer of 1.5 billion won for a seven-year contract.
Instead, he’d secured a 2% incentive on item repair requests from external guilds and a transfer to the first floor of the Department.
A choice that kept him free and unburdened by the Hunter Management Bureau, while still securing tangible benefits—the best of both worlds.
Yes.
‘It was the right call.’
After finishing his meal.
Everyone took time to organize their belongings.
Duo-ho headed toward the rooftop stairs to his room.
The moment he opened the door and stepped inside, Isto and Hawkeye emerged from the garage as if they’d been waiting.
Ohhhhh!
-Master Duo-ho! Is this our forward operating base?
-Independence isn’t so bad, I must say.
Soon after, Hawkeye stepped out onto the terrace railing, his scope glinting in the light.
-Open sightlines on all sides and top-floor positioning—ideal for a sniper’s nest. With a proper fortification, I could neutralize any target within a two-kilometer radius with ease.
“Targets? What are you talking about…?”
-Not even an ant will get close, sir.
Having said his piece, Hawkeye began methodically scanning every corner of the terrace, already formulating plans for his defensive fortifications.
Meanwhile, Isto.
-Master Duo-ho! I’m going to completely overhaul this house’s security system!
“Huh? What are you doing?”
-External hacking? Not a chance! Ehehehehe
“…”
Duo-ho shook his head as he watched Hawkeye bustling about on the terrace and Isto tinkering with the home security system.
Below, the sound of his family’s laughter drifted up, and beside him stood these peculiar companions.
Duo-ho leaned against the railing.
Ahhhh…
A cool breeze from the Han River tousled his hair.
Mm…
‘This must be what happiness feels like.’
“Perfect.”
* * *
3 AM.
Deep in the night, with the entire family asleep.
Duo-ho tightened the clasps on the Drake Leather Armor that Jang Moon-seo had gifted him.
The interior was lined with soft wool padding.
The reason being.
‘Abyss Layer 1 is supposed to be cold.’
Thus, I made all necessary preparations.
I studied information about the magical beasts in advance.
Suddenly, a news headline flashed across my mind.
『Changtian Clan Resumes Layer 80 Conquest』
I would be delighted to hear good news of clearing Layer 80.
But what if they fail again?
I turned my head and gazed down at the lower floor where my sleeping family rested.
Ultimately, Seoul would be swallowed by the Abyss.
This new home we had moved into with such difficulty.
My family, happy just this morning.
All of it would crumble to nothing.
I clenched my fists tightly.
To clear Abyss Layer 1 and secure at least minimal safety.
No—to protect this happiness.
‘I must go in!’
That was when it happened.
-Doo-ho! My body’s itching so badly I’m getting rusty!
-Mechromancer, sir. Just to change my name… no, let’s hurry in to achieve S-rank.
I let out a quiet laugh.
“Right, let’s go. Let’s move.”
As I thought of the Abyss, a Dimensional Control window materialized before me.
[Dimensional Control is activated]

[You may only enter Abyss Layer 1.]
Will you proceed?
Accept / Decline
Without a moment’s hesitation.
“Accept.”
Whoooosh—
The air shimmered, and a blue portal materialized.
Duo stepped directly into the portal.
.
.
.
A fleeting sensation of weightlessness.
As I emerged from the portal and drew breath, a biting chill pierced deep into my lungs.
“Ugh…!”
Startled, I hunched my body.
‘Sigh… I knew it would be cold, but I still wasn’t prepared.’
I brushed away the frost clinging to my eyelashes and surveyed my surroundings.
This Abyss was a desolate snowfield that bore no comparison to the desert from before.
Became a Necromancer
Author |
Gungang E
Publication Date |
February 25, 2026
Publisher |
TalesYX
Website |
https://talesyx.com
Email |
[email protected]
ⓒ Gungang E, 2026
This publication is protected by copyright law and may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without permission.
UCI |
G720:N+A277-20260210015.0030

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————