Damn Necromancer - Chapter 20

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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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Spendthrift Necromancer (20)
Something felt off.
The enemy was far too confident.
Did he have some hidden card up his sleeve?
Lee Seoyun’s eyes narrowed with caution.
‘Level? No.’
This man had only entered a Gate a few days ago.
Raising one’s Level took time.
Even being generous, he’d be under Level 50.
Equipment was hardly a concern either.
Aside from an exceptionally rare few, equipment performance scaled with Level. Those select pieces were difficult to acquire even with money, which meant her own gear had to be overwhelmingly superior.
‘It’s not even a consumable…….’
He might have taken enhancement potions—he had the money for it. That could narrow the Level gap to a degree.
At absolute best, say Level 50. Even accounting generously, that put him at roughly Level 100.
The gap between him and her Level 300 was almost embarrassing.
The only real variables were the special Summon called Cedric and swordcraft.
But a Summon could never exceed its summoner’s Level.
What could a low-Rank Summon possibly do, even with an S-Rank Skill?
Swordcraft was likewise too minor to shift the broader tide.
Lee Seoyun had heard the rumors too.
That Geom-seon and Kim Minwoo had sparred.
‘Geom-seon matched his body, didn’t he.’
Mana, Skills, and Stats all equalized.
The difference between using that handicap and not using it was simply night and day.
Naturally, she had no intention of leveling the field the way Geom-seon had.
When ability parameters were overwhelmingly superior, technique meant nothing.
“Getting cold feet?”
“……Spare me your bullshit posturing.”
That was it.
Pure bluster.
Lee Seoyun was certain of it.
Only then did her mind settle into ease.
“Either way, you’re not walking out of this alive.”
They’d already seen each other’s faces.
There was no reason to let him go.
“So stop flapping your mouth and come at me.”
He made a casual beckoning gesture.
“Die!”
Lee Seoyun charged forward.
‘Perfect.’
Kim Minwoo’s eyes gleamed.
Combat could be navigated through skill and technique to some degree, but Stats—Ability Parameters—there was no working around those.
If Lee Seoyun fled, there’d be no catching her. At best, he’d end up with a stint in prison in the real world.
‘That won’t do.’
He’d gone through all the trouble of coming here under false pretenses; that exposure alone would be troublesome.
More importantly, the secret organization she served—’Shadow.’ They’d undoubtedly come to extract her.
To deal with her properly, he had to stay engaged.
Fortunately, Lee Seoyun had chosen combat over escape.
Which made sense.
The Level gap alone exceeded 200.
At that margin, most opponents got crushed.
She’d have confidence in victory.
‘But Level isn’t everything.’
If it were, he couldn’t have taken down an Orc Guard at Level 1.
Of course, Lee Seoyun was well-known enough in her own right—she’d be far stronger than that beast.
‘I’ve grown too.’
Before she arrived, he’d reached Level 30 taking down a gorilla.
And then there was Cedric.
‘Catch her the moment she drops her guard.’
Kim Minwoo’s eyes burned bright.
The Assassin class is a job that pumps everything into attack power. Defense is, frankly, abysmal.
There wouldn’t be a situation like before with the Orc Guard, where a blade simply wouldn’t penetrate.
The match would be decided in an instant.
Armed skeletons raised their shields, blocking Lee Seoyun’s path.
She dragged her Short Sword forward in a swift motion.
The skeletal ranks in front of her split cleanly in two.
“Ha! You think something this pathetic can stop me?”
Lee Seoyun hacked through the skeletons like chopping vegetables, closing the distance.
Cedric charged forward alongside her.
The gap narrowed in an instant.
“Die!”
She thrust her blade forward.
[Vital Point Strike (B) activated!]
The skill boosted her attack power.
But it wasn’t all advantages. Using the skill locked her into a fixed motion pattern.
In other words.
Someone like Kim Minwoo—a rotten schemer—could watch her movement and deduce both which skill she was using and which direction the attack would come from.
‘Vital Point Strike.’
An Assassin-exclusive skill that dealt massive damage to a single target.
Using it locked the attack route into one of three options.
Head, throat, or heart.
Because the route was so straightforward, landing it increased damage significantly.
‘That’s the problem.’
She would’ve been better off using an area-of-effect skill.
But she was going at it straightforwardly, assuming they wouldn’t be able to dodge at all.
With such a simple attack pattern, it was easy to deflect.
He raised his blade.
The Short Sword was aiming for the head.
The moment the Longsword collided with the Short Sword, he twisted the flat of the blade slightly.
The Short Sword grazed past her head by the barest margin.
He swept his leg through, sending her flying backward.
Lee Seoyun stumbled, caught off-balance.
Cedric, who had already repositioned behind her, thrust his spear forward with full force.
She twisted her body to dodge with surprising agility.
She was probably thinking he was a low-Level Summon and assuming she could evade with minimal effort.
‘That won’t work.’
Thunk!
The spear tracked her precisely, piercing through her torso like a skewer. The spearhead drove deep through the gaps in her armor.
A serious wound.
“……!”
Her eyes widened in shock.
Her body flinched from the pain.
The skeletons already spawning at ground level seized her ankles frantically.
Kim Minwoo didn’t miss the opening. His Longsword came rushing toward Lee Seoyun’s throat.
Regardless of the difference in Stats, a severed neck meant death.
Lee Seoyun hurriedly raised her Short Sword to block.
‘No—below.’
Unlike with skills, a normal attack could have its trajectory naturally adjusted if one controlled the force well enough.
The blade burrowed deep into her side instead.
The Longsword lodged far into her flank.
As she flinched from the agony, Mana surged into her Short Sword.
‘The Murderous Blade Dance.’
He released the blade and retreated.
Cedric also pulled his spear free and fell back.
In contrast, nearly hundreds of skeletons charged forward at Lee Seoyun instead.
In the next moment, the area was consumed by a flurry of blades.
Murderous Blade Dance (A).
It was Lee Seoyun’s Awakener Achievement skill.
For an Assassin with so few area-of-effect skills, it was nothing short of a blessing—a true lifesaver.
Blades erupted in all directions, tearing through the skeletons.
Skeletons crumbled to dust.
But the sacrifice had been worth it.
The blades that struck bone were rapidly losing their edge.
‘Too late.’
The fact that she’d resorted to an area skill meant she was finally panicking.
‘If you were going to use it, you should have from the start.’
He immediately drew another weapon from his inventory and pressed forward.
As a B-Rank Awakener, she’d have at least a few high-quality Potions on hand.
He couldn’t afford to give her time to drink one.
As predicted, a Potion was already in Lee Seoyun’s hand—raised to her lips, ready to drink.
At this distance, he couldn’t reach her in time.
The moment the decision crystallized, he hurled his blade.
The Potion shattered against her face in a spray of liquid.
In that same instant, Cedric’s spear thrust through her body once more.
“You bastard!”
She whirled toward Cedric in fury, lashing out with her Short Sword.
Clang!
Clang!
Cedric deflected each blow with his spear, meeting her blade with mechanical precision.
The skeleton possessed a skill for parrying that rivaled his own.
‘The game’s over.’
The debris in the air meant she couldn’t use concealment.
Already grievously wounded and surrounded, she had no room to create distance.
Her only option would have been to drink a Potion, recover, and fight again.
That was no longer possible.
She lacked the Mana to deploy a skill that would open the space she needed.
‘You’d need to be at least A-Rank to use the Murderous Blade Dance twice.’
At her current B-Rank, it was a technique she couldn’t employ more than once.
Using a lower-Rank area skill instead only burned through Mana without creating the distance she desperately needed—a vicious cycle with no way out.
He drew another blade from his inventory and thrust toward Lee Seoyun.
Under the two-pronged assault, she was rapidly driven onto the defensive.
* * *
‘This can’t be happening!’
Lee Seoyun’s mind reeled in disbelief.
She’d sensed something wrong the moment she unleashed the Vital Point Strike.
The stat difference alone was in the hundreds.
The gap in equipment was crushing.
By all logic, her blade should have shattered on impact.
But it hadn’t.
Instead, it had been deflected.
It was a sight her mind couldn’t reconcile.
What level of mastery did one need to achieve such a thing?
From that moment on, everything unraveled.
Cedric, too, was reeling in shock.
Dismissing a mere Summon had been a fatal miscalculation. That such a Summon could wield a spear technique of this caliber was utterly unforeseen!
As a result, he’d taken a grievous wound in a single strike.
‘Damn it! These bastards are countering every one of my skills!’
They moved in perfect anticipation, as though they knew exactly which technique he’d use before he used it.
Such awareness was beyond what even high-ranking Awakeners could achieve.
After all, without memorizing the motion of every skill imaginable, one couldn’t possibly coordinate like this!
She couldn’t fathom how a mere low-ranking Awakener was moving this way.
‘I need to break free…….’
Endlessly spawning skeletons blocked her movements, and in the gaps between them, Kim Minwoo and Cedric continued to pile wounds onto her body.
Like being trapped in an ant colony, she couldn’t escape.
And she couldn’t counterattack.
Cedric and Kim Minwoo—
Strike at one, and the other would slip through the opening.
Again and again, she missed both by the narrowest of margins.
All she needed was a single graze with her poisoned blade!
But even that eluded her.
As a result, her entire body had been reduced to a mangled mess.
‘Damn it…… this bastard…… isn’t S-Rank.’
The skeleton she called Cedric.
This was no creature she could have summoned at merely S-Rank.
She felt it in her very skin.
This was far, far beyond that.
Lee Seoyun’s eyes trembled violently.
She’d made a terrible mistake today.
‘Dying in an E-Rank Gate like this?’
So meaninglessly?
It couldn’t be.
She forced her quivering lips open.
“…… Stop! It’s all my fault! Please, just this once, spare me!”
“Friend. Would you spare me if the roles were reversed?”
“I—I have information! It would definitely interest you!”
“What kind of information?”
“I—I’m a member of an organization…… I’ll tell you everything!”
“Oh. An organization? Now that could be interesting.”
Kim Minwoo’s eyes gleamed with curiosity.
It was a reprieve.
If she could buy even a few moments by talking, that would be ideal.
“It’s an organization called…….”
Squelch.
Lee Seoyun stared blankly at the spear thrust deep into her side.
“Why…….”
“Shadow, obviously. Why mention what I already know? You’re giving me a headache.”
“How…… did you…… know that…….”
“No point explaining. Go well.”
If you make the decision to kill others, you must be prepared to die yourself.
Left unchecked, she would become a serial killer who’d slaughter countless people.
He didn’t hesitate in his resolve.
He severed Lee Seoyun’s neck.
[You have achieved victory against an Awakener with a Level difference exceeding 200!]
[You have acquired the Title ‘PK Specialist’!]
[Your Level has increased by 10!]
Her body crumpled to the ground.
Defeating an Awakener, not a monster, still granted Level experience.
Given the vast Level gap, he’d gained a full ten Levels in a single jump.
Cedric, staring down at Lee Seoyun’s corpse, spoke.
―A decent specimen, this one. She’d make fine material for undead later, Master.
“That’s the plan.”
Level is one of the most fundamental measures of an Awakener’s standing.
But does that mean anyone who continuously raises their Level will eventually become an S-Rank Awakener?
‘Not quite.’
Every individual has their own Level Cap determined by their Potential.
If someone’s Potential is low?
As they approach their cap, Level gains become increasingly rare until, one day, growth simply stops.
As if to say: this far, and no further.
‘Kim Minwoo’s was Level 200.’
C-Rank. Mid-tier Awakener.
His Level gains had stalled around that ceiling.
No amount of effort could push him past that point.
Hence he’d faced considerable difficulty during the Dragon Lord Try encounter.
Lee Seoyun, by contrast, was a prospect with enough Potential to reach S-Rank if given time.
B-Rank.
Still incomplete, unrefined.
She’d been overconfident, moreover—caught off-guard by psychological manipulation—making her easy prey.
If he’d faced her later, after she’d matured into an experienced S-Rank, she would’ve proven troublesome.
By then, he’d have grown considerably as well, and she wouldn’t have been careless enough to fall for such a trap.
‘A body like this will be useful when crafting higher-tier undead later.’
Kim Minwoo knew of a high-ranking undead that would suit an assassin perfectly.
But first, he needed to gather some equipment.
That was when it happened.
● You are humanity’s Horizon Opener!
● You perceive the world’s transformation!
● You have hunted Lee Seoyun, one of the supporting-role villains!
● The story begins to diverge in part!
● As a reward, the Achievement Shop is activated!
● You receive a small amount of Achievement Points!
“……Huh?”
What on earth was this?

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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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