Became a Mechromancer - Chapter 44
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 44.
2nd Floor (4)
Is this a system error?
[You have gained experience]
[You have gained experience]
[Level Up!]
Level-ups kept erupting sporadically.
[You have gained experi…]
“What’s going on here?”
Experience kept accumulating without any explanation, and now I was genuinely afraid.
Meanwhile, Isto was throwing a fit, bursting fireworks effects from his LED eyes.
Ooh! Oooooh!
-Master Lim Doo-ho! Aren’t you feeling absolutely brimming with power?!
Why was he so cheerful?
Did he have no sense of how abnormal this situation was?
Geez!
“This isn’t exactly normal….”
[Level Up!]
Oh! Oh! Oh!
-Another one! You’ve leveled up again!
Isto alone was already overwhelming.
Hehehehe. Mechromancer, sir!
-The day my name changes is drawing near!
Even Hawkeye, the efficiency fanatic, was beside himself with excitement.
What were these two, geniuses?
They were more like elementary schoolers.
Actually, elementary schoolers would be better.
But here’s the thing.
With each level-up, my body continued to respond, and I found myself inevitably drawn into this madness alongside them.
I pulled up the main menu.
[Main Status]
F-Rank Lv.87
Experience: 4387 / 4392
Available Stats: 148
Gasp.
Level 87 already?!
The experience counter below ticks upward in real time.
[Experience Gained]
[Level Up!]
“Yes!”
My eyes locked onto the main status window.
My heart pounds as the experience numbers climb like a slot machine jackpot.
Isto stares at the main window and incites me.
-Let’s all shout together, swordmaster!
[Level Up!]
“Level up!”
Dopamine explodes throughout my mind.
Three people intoxicated by the level-up high.
-At this rate, E-Rank is within reach!
-Congratulations, Necromancer!
Aw.
“What did I even do?”
Hahaha. Hehehehe, ahahahaha~.
Reason had already fled.
‘E-Rank….’
How much stronger will I become?
Wait.
If things continue like this?
-That’s right! A new Newcomer summon!
Yes!
Super Intelligence summon!
What kind of Super Intelligence will appear?
Maybe a quieter one would be nice?
…No, wait, if they’re too quiet, it might feel suffocating.
Then I glanced at Isto and Hawkeye.
‘I think I need someone more normal.’
Just as all sorts of thoughts crossed my mind.
The level-ups abruptly stopped.
Huh…?
Eh?
Huh?!
Question marks flickered continuously across Isto’s LED eyes.
Hawkeye’s scope tightened and loosened in frantic succession.
Their gazes snapped toward the main display.
『F-Rank Lv.99』
-Is it over?
-Wh, why?!
My eyes widened as I checked my experience points.
“…Twenty-four?”
I was short by twenty-four experience points.
A moment of silence fell.
Isto’s LED turned red as it scanned the surroundings.
A monster!
-We must hunt for the remaining experience!
Hawkeye immediately drew his bow.
-I shall make up the difference for you!
Unnecessarily serious.
I placed my finger on my status window and made a show of dragging the experience number upward.
“Just a bit more…!”
It was strange, truly.
When you give someone something incomplete, it drives them absolutely mad.
Even though I’d already gained so much.
The moment I, feeling that lingering regret, shifted my gaze downward toward the bottom of the stairs.
I froze.
The outline of the Ancient City overlapped with my widened eyes of shock.
‘A, a city?’
I stood at the foot of the stairs as if entranced.
The depths below were not clearly visible.
Of course not.
There was insufficient light to gauge the distance.
Isto, regaining his senses, stepped forward.
-Allow me to illuminate it for you.
His LED eyes expanded.
Papang!
An absurd burst of light erupted.
The entire staircase was revealed as if in broad daylight.
I reflexively shut my eyes.
Hawkeye, struck by eye damage once again, trembled violently and drew a steel arrow.
With the determination to bury Isto in the dead city below.
Isto!
“Stop shining it so bright!”
-W-wait, am I being naive?!
-Iron-headed fool, lower the brightness!
-Ah!
Only then did the light dim.
Phew.
My vision still swam with afterimages.
As Isto lowered his head, the landscape buried in darkness revealed itself.
Ancient City.
Collapsed stone pillars, half-crumbled walls.
Withered roots and vines blanketed the entire city.
Thud!
Then a massive chunk plummeted before them.
Startled, I glanced upward.
Crack— crackle.
The enormous roots forming the ceiling were rapidly desiccating, growing precarious.
‘That’s going to collapse soon.’
My prediction proved accurate.
Boom!
Another falling fragment sent vibrations through the Ancient City.
Larger debris followed in quick succession, and dust clouds erupted across the Ancient City.
The intervals between falls grew progressively shorter.
Whoooosh—.
Now roots and desiccated vines cascaded down in torrents.
The encroaching dust mingled with the acrid stench of withered matter, creating a nauseating reek.
Lim Doo-ho shielded his face with nanobots.
Glimmer.
Hm? What’s that?
Another glimmer.
Wait?
Something glinting then fell alongside the cascading vines.
I stretched out my hand and snatched it from the air.
A magic stone?
Good heavens….
“Are all of those falling right now magic stones?”
Isto was beside himself at the rain of magic stones.
Ooh! Ooooooh!
-Daily sustenance is falling!
Kyeeeeeeeet!
Hawkeye’s scope trembled wildly with excitement.
-With this much, efficiency doesn’t even matter!
Only then did the secret behind the torrent of experience points finally reveal itself.
“…I never imagined there were so many bound vines on the 2nd Floor.”
As the plant-type monsters parasitizing the vines died in a chain reaction, an experience jackpot had erupted.
That was when it happened.
Uu─ung.
A sound of something activating resonated from near the root that Isto had severed.
Upon closer inspection, the mana that had been supplying nutrients to the root was now flowing toward the Ancient City.
A faint line was drawn on the stairwell wall.
Immediately after.
Bang! Pa-bang! Pa─ang!
Mysterious lights flickered on one by one from below, and a portion of the silent Ancient City was awakening.
Gulp.
Lim Doo-ho swallowed hard.
…This.
This isn’t an experience reward.
Did I just touch something I shouldn’t have?
* * *
Floor 2 Forest, far from Lim Doo-ho’s party.
The Swamp’s breathing continued through the undergrowth, but today it felt unusually quiet.
The hunters advanced through the Swamp, checking the markers they had left behind.
The reason this group remained in this sector was Ghost.
They aimed to find Ghost before he completely cleared the 2nd Floor.
It was an open goal among the lower-ranked hunters who repeatedly circled this area.
That’s why this party hadn’t withdrawn. After clearing Changtian 80th Floor, a one-year grace period took effect and most had dropped out, but several hunters refused to abandon hope that they might find Ghost.
“Let’s pull back around here today.”
Ehehe~.
“You want to keep going a bit more? If we find him, it’s a jackpot.”
“But how would we even recognize Ghost?”
“You definitely wouldn’t.”
“Then it’d be you who nearly died catching a single Ratkin?”
Keke. Hehe.
Light banter exchanged between them.
Then one of them froze.
Looking closer, his eyes had lost focus, wandering into empty space.
Soon after, his lips trembled.
“…I didn’t eat it.”
“What are you talking about?”
The moment he saw the other’s face, he shouted.
“Everyone, hold your breath and back away the way we came!”
The two of them moved reflexively in unison.
One clamped shut the mouth of the man trapped in hallucination.
The other held their breath and pulled his body back.
Together, they all retreated swiftly along the path they’d come.
The hallucinating man thrashed about.
“Mom, it’s not fair! My brother ate it, waaah.”
Everyone was too busy laughing at the man to focus on anything else.
“Stop laughing and give him a status ailment cure potion.”
Soon a bottle cap twisted open, and liquid flowed down the hallucinating man’s throat.
Moments later, his clouded eyes cleared.
“…Tch. To fall for something so trivial.”
The man brushed himself off roughly and stood.
His party members stifled their laughter before asking.
“Waaah~ Is that what happened?”
“Did I… cry?”
“Your brother ate it, waaah~”
Pfahahaha. Tee-hee-hee-hee.
Binding Flower’s hallucination.
It happened all the time.
That’s why they formed parties to traverse this place.
The man who’d been hallucinating let out a sharp cry.
Ugh.
“Let’s go, get out of here!”
It was just as the hunters burst into raucous laughter.
Slither.
The surrounding vines writhed.
At first, they thought it was an optical illusion.
Whoosh, whiiish.
The vines coiled like serpents, accompanied by an eerie sound.
As if they possessed will.
“…Did they always move like that?”
No one answered immediately.
It was a phenomenon they’d never witnessed in all their time exploring this place.
Vine tendrils crawled between their legs from beneath the undergrowth.
“What is this!”
Someone slashed at a tendril with their sword.
Viscous sap sprayed violently from the severed end.
The stench was far more revolting than expected.
To make matters worse.
Squelch.
The swamp beneath my feet suddenly deepened.
One of them leaped onto a tree and offered their clothing to a companion in place of a rope.
“Grab it!”
“Don’t, don’t leave me behind.”
“Shut up and hold on tight!”
Several of them clung to the fabric and pulled upward.
My arms screamed in agony as I gritted my teeth, my gloves slipping repeatedly.
The swamp continued its relentless pull.
The moment I barely made it onto the tree,
everyone held their breath.
They trembled as they watched the Forest 2 Forest writhe in madness.
This time, countless vines tangled together, climbing from tree to tree.
“Here it comes!”
With that cry, I adjusted my grip on my blade.
Someone activated an ability to sharpen their reflexes.
Another extended their hand, preparing a buff toward the one wielding the sword.
Come on!
We’re hunters too!
This won’t be easy!
Or so I thought….
The vines merely brushed past us and continued stretching deeper into the forest.
The emotion that arrived before fear was embarrassment.
That….
“It’s definitely ignoring us, right?”
“Now we’re being disrespected by plants.”
Ugh, ugh.
“Don’t say that. It makes it even more pathetic.”
A moment later.
They all shared the same question.
But….
“Where are all those vines bundling together and heading?”
A brief silence.
“If you’re curious, why not look?”
With those words, one of them climbed up the thick ancient tree.
The remaining hunters
Ah!
“Me, me too.”
began climbing after them.
The hunters who reached the top of the ancient tree.
As my vision cleared, one of the hunters pulled out a small telescope.
The shape itself—a giant’s hand—was visible even without the telescope.
But what caused it to burst, tear, and scatter remained a mystery.
The hunter peering through the telescope seemed to stop breathing.
…Good heavens.
“Something invisible is twisting and tearing the vine hand to pieces!”
Everyone around simultaneously reached out their hands.
“Let me see too!”
“Hey, give it to me!”
“Humans, stop shaking it! It’s going to fall!”
The telescope was passed to another hunter, who peered through it.
In the magnified view.
The giant’s fingers, woven from vines, were being twisted.
As the hunter who’d handed over the telescope had said, as if subjected to telekinesis, the finger joints were being snapped and broken.
Soon the vines burst from within and fell severed.
Gasp!
“…What is that?”
The shock was brief.
Wait!
“The vines are moving?”
The telescope was no longer necessary.
Even with the naked eye, an enormous mass of vines was chasing something, toppling massive trees in their wake.
Then, at some point, the vines fell silent for a long while.
“What exactly did we just witness?”
“More importantly, what kind of Quest would cause something this absurd?”
But….
Was it over now?
As if answering their curiosity.
Boom!
A tremor that shook the very earth.
A heavy vibration felt even from where they stood in the trees.
Just now….
“It came from below, didn’t it?”
Instead of an answer, a louder sound erupted.
The hunter holding the telescope turned the lens toward the direction of the noise.
Boom—!!
The center of the forest caved in slightly.
“It’s a sinkhole!”
Crack. Crumble, crumble….
As those words left my lips, the towering ancient trees began collapsing in a cascading chain reaction.
A Hunter watching from a distance murmured in realization.
Wait, is this right now….
“Isn’t Ghost in the middle of a Quest?”
“What?”
Listen up!
“Unless Ghost is doing this, who else would dare go head-to-head against the Abyss environment itself?!”
Ghost had accomplished two Abyss Layer annihilations and one reprieve thus far.
So then….
“Ghost’s Quest must be to subjugate the Abyss environment!”
A speculative claim brimming with delusion.
Yet every Hunter listening found the theory oddly plausible.
One of them asked.
“What do we do now?”
“What else? We need to find Ghost.”
As if warning them against entertaining foolish thoughts.
Boom, boom-boom, CRASH!!
Accompanied by successive tremors, the ground began collapsing in ways beyond imagination.
Finding anyone was impossible,
“Run if you want to live!”
They scrambled down from the ancient trees and bolted.
After a desperate sprint, when they finally reached the safe zone of Abyss Layer 2, their legs were on the verge of giving out.
Quite a number of other Hunters had already arrived there.
All wearing expressions of sheer terror.
The tremors transmitted through the ground still hadn’t ceased.
Everyone realized the same truth.
This phenomenon unfolding now.
It wasn’t over yet.
So then….
“We need to report that Ghost is on Layer 2!”
I Became a Necromancer
Author |
Keongang E
Publication Date |
February 25, 2026
Publisher |
TalesYX
Website |
https://talesyx.com
Email |
[email protected]
ⓒ Gungang E, 2026
This publication is protected under copyright law and may not be reproduced or duplicated without permission.
UCI|
G720:N+A277-20260210015.0044
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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