Conquering the Labyrinth with a Trash-Tier Trait - Chapter 54

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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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Episode 54
—People’s lives are decided from the moment they’re born.
That was what Cha Hye-ryeon believed.
Appearance, physical ability, even intelligence—all rooted in one’s genes.
She’d grown only more convinced after learning that genetic influence had been scientifically validated even for something like work ethic.
Of course, her own life—having grown up as a natural beauty, surrounded by constant praise—had surely shaped this conviction.
And unfortunately, as she matured in normal society, she was never given the chance to correct this narrow view on her own.
Instead, she’d been dragged into an entirely different fantasy world for reasons she couldn’t fathom, and had gained supernatural powers in a place where Traits and Innate Ability Slots created visibly undeniable differences.
Her belief that people were determined from birth could only have solidified.
It was precisely from this conviction that Ko Cheol-woo irritated her so deeply.
A-Rank Trait. Someone so contemptibly insignificant compared to herself, with four Innate Ability Slots.
—No-Rank Information Trait? Only one Innate Ability Slot?
At first, ignoring him seemed sufficient.
In a society where discrimination based on power was taken as natural, there was no need to maintain even superficial courtesy like she’d done in Korea.
But then, at some point, the man caught the Royal Palace’s attention.
He’d suddenly appeared from nowhere and even struck her across the face.
A man who’d only barely obtained his first Class after two years in this savage world.
What irritated her more was that Prince Demian had issued her a direct ‘order’ to recruit Cheol-woo.
Of course, the fact that the reason stemmed more from her ‘hobbies’ being exposed as punishment than from the conflict with him was not particularly important to her.
‘He wants me to bow my head to that trash tier?’
That was absolutely impossible.
So even when Lee Jin-seong, who could be called both colleague and rival, mocked her for what was called a ‘childish plan,’ she’d pushed it through to the end.
—Well. Let me say this then. With conditions like these, what’s the problem?
When Jin-seong, uncharacteristically, volunteered to help, she didn’t particularly stop him.
She had a premonition that he wouldn’t accept those conditions anyway.
So, indifferently, she’d made her way to the Black Market.
‘A trash who just happened to get a decent Class or skill.’
Gather a few trash-tier ones stalled at second Class and have them rough him up properly.
Then, when he saw the gap in power before his despairing eyes, he’d have no choice but to positively consider recruitment from the Royal Palace, the strongest faction in this city.
She hadn’t thought problems would arise from a plan so childish in its simplicity.
Even accounting for the speed that man had shown in that bizarre transformation, five second-Class combatants would’ve been overkill.
No matter how weak the opposition, you couldn’t overcome higher-ranked Classes when five of them set an ambush together.
Right. It should’ve gone exactly that way, but things fell apart the moment he subdued those combatants.
Actually, it seemed wrong from the start when those combatants engaged him in a street crowded with people.
Ko Cheol-woo had sensed it beforehand and turned the tables, subduing them instead.
All the premeditated plans fell to pieces.
What remained was to suppress him through raw power and make him understand the difference in their levels.
And despite everything, propose recruitment with favorable terms.
It wasn’t to her liking, but if she showed a little ‘kindness and a smile’ in the process, it wouldn’t be difficult at all.
He was a man, after all.
That alone would wound his pride.
The moment she cornered him, she even felt a pleasant thrill of satisfaction.
It was a continuation of that same feeling.
“Ha!?”
She’d laughed as he made a final desperate move, summoning a Spirit, which she’d annihilated with her Whip.
But the instant her Whip struck the Spirit, she realized something had gone wrong.
A surge of unstable Mana followed by an explosion.
Boom!
“Ugh!?”
It was an explosion so violent that it rendered a distance of roughly ten meters mere trifles.
Even after instinctively activating her last Innate Ability, Gluttony, she was still sent flying.
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom.
The moment Ko Cheol-woo’s combined ultimate self-destruct and explosion skill, Annihilation Burst, detonated, he found himself worrying instead about whether Cha Hye-ryeon had survived.
‘Is she dead?’
There was no other way to think about it.
Though it was a skill he’d combined and created himself, the power of Annihilation Burst transcended all common sense.
Even a third-Class Special Class wouldn’t have an easy time surviving it.
Not a few people had witnessed him deliberately provoking and drawing her out.
Originally, it was meant to prevent her from using any tricks should an unexpected situation arise, but now it had become a shackle around his own leg instead.
Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately), Cha Hye-ryeon had survived.
Cough. Cough. Ugh. Damn it!”
Blood spilled from his mouth, streaming from his eyes and ears.
‘Something’s off.’
If he’d taken a direct hit from Annihilation Burst, there should have been severe burns and trauma visible on the surface first.
But the outside looked clean—as if the damage had occurred internally instead.
“Gluttony? How could you possibly—!?”
The shout, eyes bloodshot with rage, left much unsaid, yet the meaning was plain enough between the lines.
‘Gluttony? Is that the result of using that third Innate Ability?’
I didn’t know the exact nature of the skill, but hearing it somehow lifted a weight from my chest.
Cha Hye-ryeon’s final card had been revealed.
But my own condition wasn’t good either.
“Well, who knows how I managed it?”
My left shoulder throbbed badly, and most of my Mana had been drained when I unleashed that Annihilation Burst just moments ago.
Still, I forced myself to appear composed.
‘I need to finish this quickly.’
If I dragged this out much longer, I wouldn’t have enough Mana left to maintain the Transformation.
“What sort of trick—!”
As Cha Hye-ryeon thrashed and tried to regain her footing, I hurled the Crystal Dagger at her.
Whoosh.
The semi-transparent blade, invisible and silent, shot forward like an arrow.
“You bastard!”
Clang.
Her Whip caught it mid-air, deflecting it away.
But—
“Let’s end this!”
Ping.
I pulled the threads of Mana, redirecting the deflected dagger back toward her ribs, and simultaneously charged forward with all my strength.
At the same instant, I rushed in with everything I had.
Boom.
Clang.
She deflected the second dagger too, but the motion broke her stance, leaving her front completely exposed.
‘It’s over.’
Piercing Strike.
Burst.
The wall of air before me shattered, all my Mana consumed in an instant, my entire body accelerating forward.
The distance closed in a heartbeat.
Just as the World Tree Spear was about to pierce her abdomen—
I saw her gaze, bloodshot eyes gleaming with a vicious smile.
“Die!”
With that cry, a massive inferno erupted from her entire body.
Kaboom!
‘Ugh!?’
Even as the flame—disturbingly familiar—engulfed me, the focus in my spear-tip and the Mana concentrated there never wavered.
Perhaps that was why.
I was able to survive the Annihilation Burst pouring from her body.
But the Piercing Strike I’d scraped together from my last drop of Mana only managed to cancel out half of her Annihilation Burst, exhausting what little power remained.
Thud.
“Ahhh!”
Without a single trace of Mana left, my spear couldn’t pierce her armor and bounced away.
In that moment, my entire body consumed by the sensation of burning, I felt my strength abandon me, and I fell to my knees.
Thump.
‘Damn. Hell.’
Whoosh.
The power of Purification flowing from my Undergarment eased the burns faintly, but it couldn’t restore the depleted mental focus and Mana I’d spent.
It merely dulled the pain and held my fading consciousness in place.
At least Cha Hye-ryeon’s condition looked worse than before after pouring out that Annihilation Burst.
‘Damn. So that’s Gluttony—she swallows magic and spits it back out?’
It was a terrifyingly dangerous Innate Ability.
“Ugh… Cough, cough.”
Lying there, she spat out thick clots of blood, and only then did some color begin to return to her face, which had turned an ashen blue.
‘Damn. Stubborn woman. No, wait. Actually, maybe this is optimal.’
She looked just as spent, unable to fight any longer.
I could still walk, but if I approached her now and tried to drive the spear home, even a final desperate lunge from Cha Hye-ryeon could leave me unable to handle it.
‘And I can’t kill her anyway.’
Tsk.
“Look at you. Ha. Next time, pick your fights more carefully!”
I shouted it loud enough for her to hear, then turned and walked away.
‘Back to the Martial Arts Hall, I guess.’
I’d come out here boasting about tackling the eleventh floor, and now it was going to look pretty pathetic.
But I couldn’t think of any other option.
‘Damn. Play it cool. Look like I’m barely hurt.’
Step. Step.
I wrung every ounce of strength from my body to fake an uninjured walk.
All the while feeling the burning weight of Cha Hye-ryeon’s stare on my back.
‘How dare you……. A Trash Tier bastard like that…….’
Cha Hye-ryeon watched Ko Cheol-woo’s receding figure, still crouched on the ground, and her gaze burned white-hot.
‘This is impossible. It can’t be.’
Fighting him to a draw was her—a collapse of common sense she’d believed in her whole life. Her entire worldview crumbling.
And so her mind’s defenses activated naturally.
‘That spirit at the end. I should have ignored it and dodged. If I had, I’d have caught him easily. I was too careless. Stupid.’
Since the thought contained enough truth, she accepted the packaged narrative without resistance.
‘If only I hadn’t been careless…….’
But no matter what, reality remained reality.
She had no choice but to accept that she’d reached a stalemate with a mere Trash Tier Stage 1 Classed warrior.
‘……We’ll see, Ko Cheol-woo.’
It was a shameful situation, but fortunately no one had witnessed it.
She had no intention of telling anyone about this.
The problem was only this:
-Get his contract. Or else…….
One command from Prince Demian.
But now she couldn’t remain in the same organization as Ko Cheol-woo, not as colleagues.
The only way was to dress it up enough to get the order rescinded.
‘How……. Ah, right. That bastard. The way he talks—he’s not normal.’
That Lee Jin-seong refused the conditions was one thing.
But the rumors that he’d gone mad for undergarments, or as a man had become obsessed with ‘pretty’ accessories—those had been proven true.
And just now, hadn’t he drawn a knife in broad daylight, threatening to flay someone’s skin?
There were plenty of witnesses.
‘That’s right. That’s how I’ll do it.’
No organization accepts a madman, no matter how skilled.
And Ko Cheol-woo, by the mere combination of known facts, was madman enough.
“Hrrgh. We’ll see.”
Some time later, after she’d mastered her raging mana and vanished into Bartus,
rumors about Ko Cheol-woo began to circulate inside.
-A remarkable rookie appeared in Bartus.
-He ambushed and subdued five Stage 2 Class warriors, and even dueled a Stage 3 and came back unscathed.
There were positive rumors, but the negative ones ran deeper.
-He’s obsessed with undergarments, obsessed with accessories. For a man, no less.
-He tried to butcher a person.
The incidents already proven true and witnessed by many became even more sensational in retelling.
What had begun as a few grounded rumors became distorted into ‘He tried to flay someone for not offering what he wanted.’
-A madman appeared who’ll skin you alive if you don’t bring him undergarments or accessories.
-Never become his enemy. Better yet, don’t associate with him at all.
The legend of ‘the Butcher’ Char was born that way.

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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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