Conquering the Labyrinth with a Trash-Tier Trait - Chapter 44

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

Chapter 44
My father was a freight truck driver.
He worked day and night without rest to support my ailing mother, my sickly wife, and my young children.
I remember fragments of my childhood.
We were a family that lacked much financially. I complained often, but if I’m honest, we were happy.
Until I made that absurd complaint.
“Grandmother, why can’t we move to a bigger house? The kids keep making fun of me.”
Even as a child, I knew houses were expensive.
But when I’d just started school, the words of the friends who mocked me weighed on my mind, so I let slip that complaint to my grandmother alone.
I understood, vaguely, that our family’s circumstances were difficult.
Then, not long after, the accident happened.
My father’s freight truck—the very truck he drove day and night without pause—was in a crash.
And the worst part was that the person driving the truck at the time wasn’t my father. It was my mother.
My parents had been taking turns driving day and night, and while my father dozed in the passenger seat, my mother also drifted off at the wheel.
She collided with several other cars and plunged into the river below.
My younger brother and I lost our parents in an instant. My grandmother lost her son and daughter-in-law and became a sinner for all eternity.
What little property we had was swallowed up entirely by the settlement.
“I’m so sorry. I’m truly sorry.”
I watched my grandmother—who struggled to even walk long distances—bowing her head again and again at the funeral.
I saw people come to pay respects at the nearly empty funeral hall, only to hurl curses at my parents’ photographs before leaving.
All I could do was hold the infant Ha-eun and weep.
I, an elementary school student, cried harder than my baby brother.
Then I overheard something that made my tears stop.
“Kyung-ho pushed himself too hard at work lately.”
“The kid said he hated the semi-basement apartment, remember? That got into your son’s head.”
“So that’s why your daughter-in-law went with him?”
“Yeah. She wanted to make extra money by driving when her husband slept.”
“And she had health problems, too…….”
“What else could they do? Driving was all they had.”
“Still, don’t say such things in front of the child.”
“An eight-year-old won’t understand anyway.”
I understood.
I understood perfectly.
I had pestered them about moving to a bigger house.
My parents had increased their work after hearing that.
Then they died.
In my young mind, the chain of cause and effect became terrifyingly simple.
‘Because of me……?’
The world turned white, and my tears dried up.
Then Ha-eun in my arms cried even louder.
I could not comfort my brother. I only stared at my parents’ photographs.
I no longer needed a big house.
I didn’t even mind the semi-basement apartment.
I wanted to tell them to come back.
But I couldn’t make my lips move.
I felt too ashamed even to look at the photographs.
After that, I stopped crying.
I believed I had no right to cry.
So I lived with desperate purpose.
When my grandmother could no longer even collect scrap paper, I started working part-time jobs.
The debt I owed my parents, the debt I owed the world—perhaps I could never repay those. But I wanted to repay what I owed my family.
After my grandmother passed away, I threw everything into caring for my young brother.
I wanted him to have at least some hope, even if I had robbed him of his future.
I was living that way, working so hard, when I was dragged into this savage world—leaving behind my younger brother, still just a high school student.
This was the trauma I absolutely had to overcome. This was the atonement I absolutely had to make.
That’s why I couldn’t simply let Silvania go.
At least she was a far more noble rebel against fate than I was.
“Jenzaaang!”
If my parents really had been terrible people, if I truly had caused their deaths, wouldn’t this guilt that has strangled my entire life feel even slightly less suffocating?
I’ve imagined that possibility far too many times.
Each time that happened, I regretted that garbage of an imagination.
So I couldn’t turn away from Silvania—not truly.
“Damn it! How—how can I help!?”
Thump.
I seized the Orb of Light and asked desperately.
The Orb of Light hovering above Silvania’s head—even a glance told me it contained the distilled essence of all her life force and spiritual power.
I understood that she was prepared to sacrifice it all to purify the World Tree.
I understood that I was far too weak compared to that power of hers.
I knew it all.
But at the same time, I grasped something by instinct.
That I could offer some small help.
That the result would be far more than small.
If there were just a little assistance.
“You can live! You can!”
But Silvania pushed me away first.
—It’s impossible. Step back. Char.
—Your feeble power means nothing. You’ll die, and I’ll become a cripple. That’s all.
Her words were meant to drive me away, but they gave me certainty instead.
“I understand.”
Whoooosh.
I poured all my magical power, every scrap of spiritual force, into that Orb of Light.
It wasn’t some grandiose thought about sacrificing myself to save the righteous.
‘I’m saving myself.’
—What bullshit delusion! This is insane!
—This isn’t the natural order. The main body—
—No, why do something so foolish—
—……Is it to protect one’s own heart?
The Spirits’ cries spoke for my other reasoning, but I was already pouring everything into the Orb of Light.
—It’s just a Labyrinth Quest! Why!?
My fragmented reason, split among the Spirits, condemned my own actions.
Yet I couldn’t stop.
If I turned away from her like this, my guilt would deepen into an abyss that would torment me for the rest of my life.
Within that reckless attempt, I glimpsed a faint possibility.
‘Spirit Wedge. If I sever the flow…….’
Restore the World Tree, save Silvania, and survive myself—wasn’t it possible?
The power radiating from every inch of Silvania was incomprehensibly vast, vast enough to purify this enormous sacred tree.
But because I knew it was power beyond control, that possibility revealed itself to me.
“You can live! Don’t give up!”
Silvania answered those words.
“I am the daughter of a criminal. I’ve made Atonement. There’s no meaning left for me to live.”
She spoke with a peaceful expression, tears still streaming down her face.
I recognized those tears as resignation.
“That’s just running away! That’s just giving up! It’s not your sin! So why should you die!?”
But I wasn’t speaking to Silvania.
I was speaking to myself.
To the cowardly version of myself from the past—the one who’d tried to end it all so many times, yet stayed alive only because of Grandmother and my younger brother.
“That’s right. It’s not my sin! If I owe a debt to my parents, I’ll repay it when we meet again! First, I have to live and make amends for the sins I’ve committed in this world!”
Yes. That’s it.
Whether it’s my parents’ guilt or guilt I’ve caused.
Shouldn’t the one who survives be the one who makes amends?
I found the path to Atonement I’d been seeking in the words I’d carelessly spoken.
Mercifully, clarity returned to Silvania’s eyes.
“……The sins committed against the world……I will make amends. Yes. You’re right.”
—That is just.
Through the Spirits, a wave of communion echoed once more, and Silvania’s energy—which had been radiating chaotically—began to reorganize into a single flowing current.
The blackened walls around us, the bark of the World Tree, began to stain with a vibrant blue-green hue.
But the purifying power that had already been channeled continued to flow endlessly in one direction.
—……Your words are true. Yet the purifying force I’ve amplified through sacrifice has already escaped my control.
—So withdraw your hand now. The final understanding you’ve given shall return with me to the Divine in peace.
Silvania’s green eyes, now serene and resigned, fixed upon me.
But.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
I hadn’t poured my full strength into lending such a pittance of power for nothing.
The moment Silvania’s flow normalized, I too grasped the precise point where that current broke.
The Spirit Wedge that Illumina had taught me and Silvania had perfected gave me hope that even the smallest force could sever the flow of Spirit power.
“Live, and repay the debt!”
Crack.
My Spirits began driving wedges into the massive flow of power Silvania was pouring forth.
A minuscule force, but one aimed at blocking the shallowest passage at the very source of that power—an attempt to stem the hemorrhage of life itself.
But.
Burst.
Even that wedge shattered in moments.
-……It is futile. The difference in our strength is not something that can be overcome by concentration alone.
Silvania smiled faintly.
A transcendent smile.
Yet in that instant, a far greater force flooded into my Spirit.
“Char!! I don’t know what’s happening, but use this!”
Bartus.
The seed of a hero, of an Ascendant, began lending his strength to my feeble Spirit.
Bartus’s output was, in simple terms, many times my own.
“Excellent!”
I felt a brilliant surge of inspiration in the flow of that power, gathering everything into a Spirit Wedge.
One.
-I’m furious, but I’ll cooperate.
Roar.
Two.
-That’s fine. Even if it’s not the natural order, I’ll follow the flow of my heart.
Crash.
Three.
-Ah. Really. I could have lived without doing things like this. Why. Sigh.
Crack.
Four.
-If this can make the original body’s heart—our heart—even a little lighter.
Roar.
And finally.
“Five.”
Shatter.
The moment the Spirit Wedge pierced through Silvania’s solar plexus.
The power that had been pouring madly from within the Orb of Light overhead began to wane.
The World Tree’s walls surrounding us hesitated before turning completely green.
But it didn’t matter.
The flow of energy around me was already locked in one perfect direction.
“……Thank you, Char.”
Silvania, her face wholly worn and frail, offered a smile.
“Is it done? We did it, right? I don’t know what happened, but we pulled it off, didn’t we?”
Bartus, bewildered yet brimming with pride.
In that moment, I truly understood that I had finished all that needed to be done.
[You have successfully purified the Fallen World Tree.]
[You have cleared the Labyrinth 10th Floor Quest perfectly and beyond.]
[You have obtained 1 Level-Up Point.]
[An Achievement has been created. You will receive correction upon Class acquisition.]
[Your level has increased.]
[Your level has increased.]
Brightness.
And as the world turned brilliant white with light, I saw the aged Bartus I had glimpsed on the 5th Floor standing before me with a gentle smile.
“The matter of the Fallen World Tree’s prison was my second Regret.”
“Having lost my clan and hunted, I was finally captured by the Green-Skins and kept imprisoned in that dungeon—alive only because I knew how to command Spirits.”
“It was there I met my Master, Silvania. I grew under years of her teaching and eventually succeeded in escaping.”
“Yet in that very process I left behind a great sorrow—my Master abandoned her sacred duty of purifying the World Tree to set me free, burning her own life in the attempt. That became my second great Attachment in this life.”
“The purification of the World Tree alone would have been accomplishment enough, yet you have saved my Master’s life as well. You continue to exceed my every expectation.”
“To you, who showed me my own insufficiency, to you, who freed me from long attachment—my gratitude knows no bounds.”
After words much like those from the Fifth Floor echoed on for some time, I finally understood: I had truly escaped from the World Tree’s prison, where I’d been bound for so long.
Yet even then, an instinctive doubt rose within me.
The kind of doubt that might ruin this perfect moment.
The old me would have asked and moved on, but the fierce currents of emotion from the World Tree’s prison still lingered in me.
“Forgive me, but what meaning does this hold?”
“…What?”
“I don’t understand how exploring alternate possibilities for a past already gone could offer any comfort. I’d like to know.”
Bartus’s eyes gleamed at those words.
“Hm…?”
“Don’t you still harbor regret? Wouldn’t you find it even more tragic, knowing such possibilities existed?”
The doubt I’d carried since the Fifth Floor Quest spilled out without filter.
Then the old man let out a low chuckle.
“Of course it’s tragic.”
“…Pardon?”
“But in doing so, doesn’t another version of me gain a new possibility?”
A flash.
With Bartus’s laughter, white light receded, and a new world came into view.
The scene of Bartus supporting Silvania as they left a great forest beginning to turn blue.
“What…?”
“The world is not singular, so my past need not be the past of all of me.”
What kind of nonsense was this?
As if aware of my confusion, Bartus smiled and gestured.
“The Labyrinth is another possibility—another direction the world might take. The Bartus here, unburdened by those two greatest sorrows, will forge his future with a brighter, more positive will.”
“But couldn’t that make things worse?”
I wanted to curse my own tongue for its careless prattle.
Of all moments to recall some half-remembered butterfly effect, and to speak ill omens like some fool—why now?
Yet still, the old man laughed.
“That much is no concern of mine.”
“Sir?”
“I am content to have swept away my regrets and glimpsed this new possibility. What comes after is another me’s life to endure. My attachment will trouble you no longer.”
I could not fully grasp his meaning, but he gave me no chance to probe further.
“As payment for clearing away what remains of my attachment in this world, allow me to lighten your burden somewhat.”
The moment his hand rested upon my shoulder—
the system’s voice rang out.
[Your first Class is being selected.]
[Calculating results from Floors One through Ten to identify Class candidates suited to you.]
[Perfect scores achieved across all metrics.]
[Generating a Class befitting your qualifications.]
‘Oh!?’
The voice continued, grand and crystalline—
“I’ll just interfere a little. Pardon the intrusion.”
The voice suddenly warped at Bartus’s words.
[An Ascendant interferes. System security breach. Warning. Warning.]
Like red lights flashing in my mind, a sharp, high-pitched drone filled my skull.
Yet Bartus bellowed right through it.
“Was downgrading Providence’s eye not enough, that you would limit ability stones as well? I merely seek to ease that excessive interference!”
Crack-crack-crack.
Whirrrrr.
Bartus’s hand seemed to tear at the system message itself—
grasping something I could not perceive, and smiling.
“Next time, I hope we meet as our true selves, not merely as regrets. Junior.”
A flash.
‘What does he…mean?’
As he vanished, the red light that had danced at the edge of my mind faded, and the system’s cool voice returned.
[Congratulations.]
[To one who commands Spirits absolutely and dissolves all living things completely, we grant a Class befitting your deeds.]
[You have obtained your first unique Class: Arc-Reaper. We offer our reverence to the Great Harvester.]
[With your first Class acquired, you may now equip High-Grade orange-tier Ability Stones.]
[Magic increases by 12, Agility by 12, Magic Resistance by 9, Vitality by 9, Physical Resistance by 6, and Strength by 6.]
Crack.
‘What—!?’
My stats surged violently, and my body began to restructure itself all at once.
Through it all, the system’s voice continued.
[Unique Privileges]
[1. The growth potential of contracted Spirits @#$!@3]
[Error. User customization applied.]
[1. Forced Growth: Spirits under your command automatically grow to match your rank.]
[2. Spirit Fusion: Merge with a Spirit to generate powerful stat bonuses (Fire: Strength +50, Water: Stamina +50, Earth: Physical Resistance +25, Magic Resistance +25, Wind: Agility +50).]
[3. Living Spirit Crushing: When using a Spirit’s power to dismantle an organism, an additional 50 destruction power is added.]
[4. Essence Extraction: When you completely dismantle a hunted target, you can extract its essence.]
A low, thrumming hum echoed through me.
Something shattered and splintered inside.
I heard pieces of something within my body—something that wasn’t mine—breaking away.
[A Spirit has been forcibly evolved.]
[‘Multiple Spirit Domination’ has exceeded the limits of the Ability Stone. The stone is forced to evolve.]
[It has evolved into Multiple Spirit Domination (Orange Rank). Special effects have been added.]
But there was more.
[Special Reward: An ‘Ability Slot’ is created on the body of any Spirit you achieve perfect synchronization with.]
An unexpected reward had been added on top of everything else.

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