Even if I Make It Roughly, Ex-rank Items Continue to Accumulate - Chapter 41

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Even Hastily Made Ones Keep Stacking Up as EX-Rank (41)

Soaring Flames

In the underground of Orbes Royal Palace exists a treasury.

Befitting a kingdom with a long history in magical engineering, it’s a precious place where countless artifacts and treasures lie dormant.

Just how massive this treasury was—the corridor seemed endless, and wherever one stepped, brilliant display cases were arranged.

—Click, click.

And at its center, only one girl was slowly walking with sunken eyes.

“…”

The girl had two names.

Two completely different names: Princess Serena del Lumiere and Snow Flame Empress Cha Yu-rim.

The years lived under different names were similar to each other. She had lived about ten years as Serena, and a bit longer—about fifteen years—as Cha Yu-rim.

However, in her mind, the memories as Serena remained more vividly.

“…How could it not be so.”

Even this speech pattern that others called peculiar was because of her childhood growing up as a princess.

Her bitter voice echoed throughout the entire corridor.

It was hollow. Originally, this treasury would have been filled with guards, so her voice wouldn’t have echoed like this.

She recalled memories of living as Serena—memories that now felt distant from the past.

The year she had just turned ten.

In the kingdom, a mysterious ‘black energy’ began to appear.

At first, it was dismissed as mere smoke from excessive mana usage, but as time passed, the damage rapidly increased.

It corroded human minds, infecting them.

And those infected would indiscriminately attack other humans.

Serena, who had witnessed that scene directly, was tremendously shocked.

Still, even then, she thought it would end someday. She wasn’t the only one who thought so. The king, the queen, and even the kingdom citizens didn’t worry too much.

Because they had the Alchemy Society.

They believed those super geniuses would somehow solve it.

‘But…’

It was different from expectations.

The Alchemy Society couldn’t find any solution either, and the situation gradually worsened.

Destruction.

That word, which had never been considered even once since the kingdom’s founding, began to hover over the entire kingdom. At this rate, we’ll die. At this rate, everything will end. Such ominousness consumed everyone.

Finally, when they reached the very end.

The Alchemy Society made one decision.

—Let’s give up now.

Everyone was dyed with despair, but the alchemists added one more thing.

—Instead, we’ll preserve this world.

The explanation that followed was complex.

Serena at that time had no knowledge of magical engineering, but even so, she could roughly understand the conclusion.

‘Artifact.’

To copy the existing world as it was and create it as a single artifact.

It didn’t seem like an easy task. To accomplish that absurd process, enormous mana was needed. Then, who would sacrifice themselves?

—We will do it.

Thud, Serena’s footsteps stopped in front of a wall with a group photo of the Alchemy Society.

‘…Those who were more royal than royalty.’

They shouldered that heavy task entirely, solely because they had spoken and thus had to take responsibility.

What happened after that was unknown. Because she had crossed over to a place called Korea through a dimensional gate that opened in the middle of the kingdom.

Since then, Serena had lived as Cha Yu-rim.

Fortunately, she had the talent of magic that she had learned from childhood, and through this, she worked as a hunter while collecting information to return to Orbes.

But then, recently, a gate suddenly appeared in the mansion backyard.

There, she accidentally discovered traces of the Alchemy Society and came to reach this place.

“…”

Her eyes reddened as she looked at the photo of the Alchemy Society.

She didn’t want to go back.

It wasn’t that she disliked Earth, but she liked this place. Even if it was just a fake world made by copying the original. Even if it was an empty world where all the people she wanted to see had disappeared.

Simply existing here made her happy.

‘I’m sorry to you.’

That’s why she had deliberately ignored Lee Si-hyeok when she encountered him recently.

Praying he wouldn’t recognize her since she had returned in the body from when she left, which happened to be a girl’s body.

…Of course, it seemed like she was already completely found out.

That’s when it happened.

“…?”

Just as she was making a bitter smile, she suddenly felt a sensation and looked up at the ceiling.

A hot sensation was felt from beyond the ceiling. As if a fire demon was soaring…

‘Oh, this is bad!’

She was very skilled with flames, befitting her alias as the Snow Flame Empress. But if it felt this threatening to her, it meant it was quite a large fire.

She hurriedly crossed the corridor and climbed the stairs.

With each step, her heart pounded. This shouldn’t be happening. How could this happen to the kingdom she had returned to!

She knew that destruction would come anyway, but it was terrible to see a place filled with precious memories being ruined like this.

But why was it? Today, the royal palace seemed even wider than usual.

Moreover, while moving her feet, she checked rooms to evacuate the servants, but for some reason, no one was visible.

‘Everyone, where has everyone gone.’

Her heart grew anxious.

Snow and flame. Normally, she could instantly suppress fires with ice magic, but because her mind was disturbed, it was difficult to even exert her mana.

She walked for a long time.

After walking for a long time, she reached the garden.

“This, this cannot be.”

The garden seemed to be where the fire had started. All the flowers had turned to ash, and the pond water had completely dried up. Could it be that all the fish had died?

Her eyes trembled finely.

These were all places filled with memories. The fish were ones she had personally chosen and brought, and most of the flowers were ones she had grown as a hobby.

But what on earth was this…

Her gaze turned forward. The center of the garden. The source of the fire demon. The place where all the oil smells gathered.

There stood a man.

“It’s been a while.”

—A familiar voice.

She looked at the man as if she couldn’t believe it. His eyes seemed indifferent, but a faint smile hung on the corners of his mouth. That smile was so familiar that she couldn’t bear it.

Why are you here?

She wanted to ask that, but.

“Ah, uh…”

The words wouldn’t come out properly. The words wouldn’t connect. It was hard to accept the situation itself. They weren’t that deeply connected, but she thought it wasn’t this kind of bad relationship at least.

She staggered for a moment, then barely managed to extend her finger and point at the man.

That struggling motion contained countless meanings.

The man seemed to notice this and shrugged his shoulders.

“So why did you pretend not to know me all this time?”

Those words were the final blow.

Her head, which had felt like it would burst all along, reached its limit. Under extreme stress, her brain felt like it was being squeezed tighter and tighter.

Unable to endure it any longer.

Thud!

She collapsed right there.

* * *

“Oh my.”

Lee Si-hyeok let out a small exclamation as he caught the collapsing Snow Flame Empress.

Why is she suddenly acting like this?

For now, the plan to call out the princess who might be the Snow Flame Empress by setting fires had succeeded brilliantly.

Moreover, judging by her reaction, it seemed she wasn’t just someone who might be the Snow Flame Empress, but really was the Snow Flame Empress Cha Yu-rim.

‘Then why did she pretend not to know me back then?’

He had asked out of curiosity about that, but she suddenly collapsed like this.

It was bewildering. Still, he laid her down roughly on the garden and got back up.

Well, if nothing else, there was one thing he could understand.

She was extremely shocked by the fire he had set. The problem was that it wasn’t just simple shock, but enough to make her collapse…

‘I should deal with this first, then.’

Lee Si-hyeok frowned and looked around.

Even seeing it directly, the damage was certainly tremendous. It was natural since he had poured oil everywhere to make the fire spread throughout the entire royal palace.

Still, it wasn’t like he had done this without any thought.

Whoosh!

Lee Si-hyeok approached the fire burning the garden.

Then, after taking a deep breath, he stepped into the enormous flames.

Normally, he should have immediately screamed or collapsed, but Lee Si-hyeok continued walking without showing any sign of distress.

‘Where did I throw it.’

Even in the midst of this, his eyes quickly scanned the ground. He was rummaging through the grass that had turned to ash, searching for something.

After a while.

Finally seeming to find it, he bent down and picked something up.

It was none other than the magic match he had thrown when setting the fire earlier.

In the vicious flames, Lee Si-hyeok closed his eyes and resonated with the mana circuit of the match. One second, two seconds, three seconds. A brief moment passed.

Whoooosh…

With a cool breeze, all the fires throughout the royal palace were extinguished at once.

That wasn’t the end of it.

All the flowers that had already turned to ash returned to their intact state, and in the pond that had dried up, fish were once again playing vigorously.

Everything had returned to how it was before the fire.

“It works well.”

Lee Si-hyeok smiled contentedly and sat down roughly beside the collapsed Snow Flame Empress.

He hadn’t used a difficult method. Magic? Time manipulation? As if. He didn’t even possess such skills.

He had simply used magical engineering cleverly.

‘I layered a mental interference circuit onto the magic match through enchant.’

To be more specific.

He had used enchant technology to layer a mental interference circuit that planted the illusion of a tremendous fire occurring, stacking it several levels deep.

In reality, it was just a very small flame.

These were all ideas he had newly acquired recently.

So he couldn’t gauge well what kind of performance it would show in actual practice, but who knew it would be this realistic. If he had known it would be like this, he wondered if he had unnecessarily sprinkled oil everywhere and evacuated people to add realism.

By the way, when is she going to wake up.

It was around the time he was looking at the collapsed Snow Flame Empress with apologetic eyes, thinking he might have gone too far.

Ding!

[The special privilege 《Three Times When Important》 of the ‘Deep Zone Access Key’ is activated.]

Suddenly, the special privilege that was supposed to activate only in crisis situations had activated.

Lee Si-hyeok blinked and looked at the message.

[The royal palace is in danger of being completely burned down by an unexpected fire. At this rate, the underground treasury of the royal palace, which houses precious treasures, might disappear entirely.]

[While you are in Orbes, 『Treasure the Treasury』 is temporarily created!]

[『Treasure the Treasury』 – When used, you can enter your own subspace. This subspace has no limits and can store anything you desire.]

[Before it’s too late, evacuate all the treasures from the treasury to the subspace.]

“…?”

So it was saying that the treasure vault hidden in the royal palace underground had become dangerous because of the fire from earlier.

But the thing is.

‘That wasn’t a real fire though.’

Did he even fool this thing?

[…]

[…Updating information.]

[Confirmed that the previous fire was a type of hallucination.]

[Hidden condition met! Achievement unlocked.]

[Achievement 『Liar』

With your outstanding talent, you have succeeded in deceiving not only humans but even the system. Congratulations. You have the talent to become the world’s greatest con artist.]

[The special privilege is promoted to a permanent special skill, 『Subspace』!]

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