Even if I Make It Roughly, Ex-rank Items Continue to Accumulate - Chapter 45

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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 (45)

When That Time Comes

—KWAGAGAGAANG!

With an ear-splitting roar, a tremendous dust storm erupted in all directions.

‘This crazy…!’

The power was so intense that even Lee Si-hyeok, who was standing nearby, got caught up in it.

Just as he was about to lose his center and fall, the Snow Flame Empress rushed over and firmly grabbed Lee Si-hyeok’s wrist.

Thanks to her, he was able to regain his balance and move to a safe location.

“…What kind of nonsense is this…?”

It took less than a minute for the situation to settle down.

The Snow Flame Empress, who had been blankly watching the scene of slaughter, muttered in bewilderment.

She was an A-rank Hunter from South Korea.

A Great Mage who wielded fire and ice, and a powerhouse at the very front of A-rank. Wherever she went, she was revered, and even her smallest actions could create enormous butterfly effects.

Saaaa…

However, that all depended on the situation.

A-rank.

The head of a snake that couldn’t become the tail of a dragon.

If A-rank was a snake, then S-rank was like a dragon. Between them stood an insurmountable, vast wall. But what if the opponent wasn’t even the tail of a dragon, but the head of one?

“Boss.”

The man now walking leisurely toward them was exactly that.

Isaac Reynolds.

The pinnacle of S-rank assassination-type Hunters.

And Lee Si-hyeok was the one who employed such a Hunter as a mere bodyguard.

“Sorry for being late.”

At those utterly dejected words, Lee Si-hyeok burst into laughter.

“You were quite late.”

“…”

Still, it wasn’t incomprehensible.

Isaac had deliberately allowed himself to be brainwashed at the Obsidian Mining Site as Lee Si-hyeok had ordered, and had been out of his right mind for quite some time after that.

Moreover, since this world had a different flow of time from the outside, not much time would have passed for Isaac.

“…Good to see you.”

Isaac, who had been approaching, spotted the Snow Flame Empress and bowed his head politely.

It seemed he was putting to good use the Korean etiquette that had been taught to him occasionally. The irony was that neither of them was actually Korean.

Then Isaac looked at Lee Si-hyeok with a puzzled expression.

“It seems Boss knew I would come.”

Lee Si-hyeok nodded.

‘I had no choice but to know.’

The moment Hollow Trace’s Dimensional Leap Technology was unlocked, a message had appeared saying that the same information would be shared with Isaac.

If it was the Isaac that Lee Si-hyeok knew, he believed he would somehow come to help.

“Couldn’t you have appeared a bit more quietly? Why did you have to show up so dramatically?”

“It wasn’t particularly dramatic.”

“Bullshit. Who do you think you’re fooling? I saw you deliberately releasing more mana. I almost got swept up in it too.”

“…”

Isaac subtly averted his gaze. The Snow Flame Empress, who had been watching, saw this and could be heard exclaiming ‘A-amazing!’ in admiration.

“Anyway, Snow Flame Empress. We should get going now too.”

However, she seemed somewhat hesitant. She appeared lost in thought while looking at the corpses of the Infected that Isaac had just swept away.

Lee Si-hyeok understood her feelings to some extent, so he spoke calmly.

“Those things aren’t real people. They’re just crudely made imitations.”

“Still… they were once my subjects…”

Actually, this was a point that Lee Si-hyeok had also questioned while thinking about the Imitation World.

Were the people living in a world created as an artifact truly alive?

Or were they also just components?

The conclusion he reached was ‘I don’t know.’

It was an ethical issue. When he had entered the Obsidian Mining Site not long ago, he had briefly thought that humans weren’t much different from artifacts in some ways.

But he felt there was still insufficient information to judge right from wrong.

So rather than waste energy on pointless matters, it would be better to focus on immediate concerns.

“…I understand. Then let’s hurry and get out.”

Lee Si-hyeok had worried about what to do if the Snow Flame Empress became clingy, but surprisingly, she made a firm decision.

As he’d felt before, it was good that she wasn’t frustratingly indecisive. Though she had many rough edges.

Shortly after, Lee Si-hyeok stored the newly created Core of Mimicry World in Subspace and checked his surroundings.

There was nothing more to take.

“Let’s go, then.”

“Moving out.”

They entered the dimensional rift that Isaac had created.

 

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[Imitation World has fulfilled its role.]

[Confirming absence of administrator ‘Elec’. Accordingly, the artifact will be destroyed.]

[Checking…]

[Anomaly discovered!

《Three Times When Important》 – 1 remaining special privilege found.]

[Variable occurred! Currently, the existing world has been destroyed, making further use of special privileges impossible.]

[Therefore, the unused special privilege will be transferred to the ‘Elec’ of the new Imitation World.]

[Additional effect activates.]

[《From World to World》 – A special privilege transmitted by leaping across one or more dimensions. It possesses infinite possibilities. The power of the special privilege increases dramatically.]

 

* * *

 

Elec, who had been lying collapsed, slowly opened his eyes.

‘How long was I unconscious?’

As he raised his body, what he saw was a white space where nothing existed. Unlike the room where the previous core had been stored, this was truly a space of nothingness.

Thinking that he was in the middle of it, Elec finally realized that he had been left alone once again.

A world that flowed regardless of his will.

A world that repeated eternally, where only suffering existed.

Elec had fallen into the middle of it once more.

“Hmm heh heh…!”

But strangely, Elec’s face was filled with a joyful smile.

Perhaps, fearing to face the harsh reality, he had turned away from it and gone completely mad.

However, it was different from that.

“You were absolutely right!”

The emotion in Elec’s eyes wasn’t fear or anything like that, but something closer to pure awe.

The Pale Artist… or rather, the young man who had belatedly introduced himself as ‘Lee Si-hyeok’ had said.

He was asking Elec to take on the role of administrator for the new imitation world.

Naturally, he had refused. He had trembled and waved his hands in rejection.

But the young man, as if he had expected even that, spoke his next words.

―There will be no more repeated destructions.

At first, he couldn’t understand what he meant at all. However, the explanation that followed made Elec nod his head inevitably.

“It’s finally beginning.”

Elec looked around with a face full of anticipation.

He could feel massive mana moving. The ‘new world’ that the young man had spoken of was beginning to take shape.

Rumble!

It shook. It broke. It collapsed.

The white space crumbled, and new buildings were replacing it.

The ‘Orbes’ that Elec knew well was taking its place according to Si-hyeok’s design. The familiar royal palace, the back alley library and workshop. Everything found its proper place and rose up in an instant.

“Such completion in such a short time…!”

However, it was too early to be impressed.

Because up to this point, it wasn’t much different from the existing world.

What was more important was what would happen next.

Then ‘people’ began to appear as well. People who had existed in the original history appeared all over the kingdom.

It was still the same.

But at that moment, an anomaly occurred.

The people who had been repeating the same actions as always all looked up at the sky at once.

“L-look there!”

“Hey, call the guards!”

The flow was broken.

At the mysterious beams of light that suddenly poured down from the sky, everyone ran around in panic.

However, only Elec knew the identity of that light.

‘Purification.’

A very simple, basic circuit of magical engineering.

It was a basic circuit function that could be called the foundation of managing and cleaning artifacts.

However, the young man named Si-hyeok had combined that circuit with ‘enchant.’

‘Overlapping purification circuits with enchant… It’s an idea I’ve never heard or seen before.’

The very concept of meshing enchant with mana circuits was Si-hyeok’s extraordinary idea to begin with.

And he had taken it one step further from there.

Elec watched the people with admiration once again.

Black energy was circulating in the kingdom just as before, but the beams of light from the sky instantly devoured that energy.

That process continued to repeat.

One, two, three, four…

Countless times, to the point where counting became meaningless.

‘Just how many times did he overlap the circuits?’

That was the most absurd part.

The idea of enchanting purification circuits into an imitation world to clean away the black energy was something a human might think of at least once.

But to overlap it on a world scale, enough to restore all infected back to their original human state?

“Uh, hmm heh heh!”

It was so absurd that he almost laughed. Impossible. It was absolutely impossible for a human.

Just as Elec had lived for hundreds of years, that young man had also infinitely overlapped hundreds, no, perhaps tens of thousands of circuits onto a single artifact.

And all in that brief moment.

“I-I’ve regained my senses. What is this…?”

“I’m alive!”

Before long, the black energy that had been circulating the kingdom was completely cleared.

Vitality returned to people’s faces, and some were even cheering. Furthermore, they knelt toward the sky and revered the beams of light as gods.

Elec observed the people for a while, then walked step by step into the Alchemy Society Hall.

At the end of the second-floor corridor was his research lab.

Not some shabby workshop temporarily placed in the back alleys, but a real research lab.

―Clatter.

He familiarly brewed a cup of tea. Kyllis tea. Actually, unlike how he had mischievously recommended it to Si-hyeok, Elec didn’t particularly like this tea either.

The reason he always carried this tea despite that was simply because it was bitter and astringent.

It was a life he had endured for a long time. In his increasingly distant consciousness, when he took a sip of Kyllis tea, his dulled sense of reality would awaken.

“Gulp.”

The taste was still the same. Even after living for hundreds of years, this bitterness was something he still couldn’t get used to. Thanks to that, the unbelievable reality felt a bit more real.

…Good. Elec smiled and recalled his conversation with the young man earlier.

―I won’t leave you stranded in that world forever. I’ll come find you soon.

Re-entering an imitation world was difficult.

The existing one might somehow be possible to form a dimensional gate since it had been connected to Earth once before, but a new world had a much higher probability of being impossible.

Just matching the unique mana wavelength… the time and effort required was considerable.

Yet the young man had firmly said he would come find him.

―Why? Could it be because of the Princess?

At first, he had thought so. But hadn’t he looked at him as if asking what nonsense he was talking about?

―What do you mean because of the Princess? No, don’t you have any idea?

―…I don’t.

―How absurd. I’ll just say it straight, so listen well. There’s no such thing as a free lunch in this world.

Even in the urgent situation, the young man spoke clearly.

―There must still be plenty of magical engineering in Orbes that I haven’t learned yet. Probably parts that were lost when copying the world. But all of those things are in Elec’s head, aren’t they?

―That’s… right.

―Next time, I’ll need to learn all of that. Every single bit without exception. So please take good care of yourself until we meet again.

“Hmm heh heh!”

Elec pounded the table and burst into laughter.

Of all things, magical engineering!

If he had asked to take treasures or receive monetary compensation, he wouldn’t have thought much of it.

But to say he just wanted to research artifacts more.

How pure and brilliant this was! Elec was genuinely impressed.

Of course, he had no idea that Si-hyeok had earlier swept all the treasures from the treasury into his subspace.

“When that time comes, we should have another cup of tea together.”

Why was he so looking forward to seeing that guy’s face scrunch up as he drank Kyllis tea?

As he chuckled like that, it was when his tea cup was nearly empty.

 

[You are being given 1 unused privilege from ‘Lee Si-hyeok.’]

[Searching for the most appropriate privilege for the current situation…]

 

“Hmm?”

Strange phrases appeared before his eyes.

Black text on a blue background…

Elec’s eyes narrowed at the sight of his first status window.

 

[Search complete.]

[One-time skill 『Hand of Salvation』 is activating.]

[『Hand of Salvation』

There are forgotten ones in this world. They once saved the world, albeit in a broken state, but as a result, they are currently forgotten by everyone except you.]

[19 alchemists.]

[Their consciousness returns.]

 

I don’t know what the identity of these letters is.

But I could understand what they meant in an instant.

“…!”

I immediately kicked open the door and went down to the first floor.

In the lobby of the Alchemy Society Hall that was revealed, the 19 alchemists who had been standing like vegetables were looking around frantically as if they couldn’t believe it.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

 

[《From World to World》 – The power of the special benefit dramatically increases.]

[The heroic tale of ‘Lee Si-hyeok’ is delivered to all people in the current world. They will naturally realize how this world was born, and will harbor infinite gratitude toward their savior Lee Si-hyeok.]

[People unite as one.]

[A common goal for the world is formed.]

[Common Goal: Accelerate the development speed of magical engineering to pass on everything to Lee Si-hyeok on the day he returns.]

[The flow of existing history has been twisted.]

 

Elec could no longer say anything.

Moreover, this thing called a special benefit.

He had heard an explanation about it from the young man once before, but he had no idea what it really was.

Unlike other arrangements, it was something Elec had no involvement in whatsoever. Then, who on earth designed it? Such questions arose, but there was no time to pursue them further.

“I see. So Lee Si-hyeok saved us….”

“…Did Elec help as well? It feels like just a few days ago to us….”

Elec stared blankly at the senior alchemists who seemed to have made some kind of resolution while repeating Lee Si-hyeok’s name.

His dream had come true.

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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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