Ex-level Player With the Greatest Civilization of All Time - Chapter 83

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

Episode 83

「Trial Layer – Quiet Mist Forest」

[Purify the mana particles accumulated in the forest – Purification Rate 0%]

This trial hinged on purifying the forest.
The mission window made it clear, and according to data the exploration team had gathered, all the mana densely blanketing the entire forest was the target of purification.
Analysis suggested that the forest’s blackened appearance was a direct result of this contamination.
In any case, neutralizing the ambient mana was relatively straightforward.
There existed a tower material called a Purification Crystal.
You simply drove a massive apparatus specially crafted from these into the ground, and it was done.
“But something feels off.”
“Off? What exactly do you mean?”
“Well… didn’t the exploration team say they’d already completed 1% of the purification?”
“Ah, now that you mention it, they did.”
How had the exploration team discovered that purification was possible using Purification Crystals?
There was no special methodology involved.
They had simply tried it themselves and, after witnessing changes in the mission window, arrived at their conclusion.
But now something felt wrong.

「Trial Layer – Quiet Mist Forest」

[Purify the mana particles accumulated in the forest – Purification Rate 0%]

The purification rate in the mission window was 0%.
That meant the previously achieved purification rate had reverted.
Cha Seong-hun paused to consider this, then shook his head.
“According to the report, we’ll reach the purification site soon enough. We can verify it directly and discuss it then. For now, we’re working with too little information.”
“Understood. We’re nearly there anyway.”
As his conversation with Kang Se-hyeon concluded, Cha Seong-hun turned his gaze forward.
Combat had been ongoing there for the past few moments.
‘Is this the fifth encounter already?’
The monster density far exceeded what the report suggested.
Consequently, battles were occurring far too frequently.
That said, it didn’t mean the report was entirely inaccurate.
The monster types, at least, matched the predictions.
Three species of monsters spawned in this field.
Rake Basilisk.
Saber Tiger.
Gold Brush.
All were Layer 70+ monsters,
each formidable enough to demand caution.
The reason he hadn’t deemed the difficulty particularly high was solely because the monster density was supposed to be low.
Yet here, even at the sector’s entrance, encounters were happening with an unsettling frequency that made him uneasy.
“Hisssss—”
Crash!
“Grrrrr….”
A pair of Saber Tigers, bleeding and writhing in resistance, finally collapsed.
No matter how powerful the monsters were, his team was elite.
There was no immediate sense of danger, but at this pace, how much longer could he afford to be at ease?
“Team Lead, there’s something you need to see.”
Kang Se-hyeon’s voice.
From the tone, he must have gone to check the purification site ahead.
Cha Seong-hun moved with him beyond the mist to examine the purification site.
And what he witnessed there was….
“I had suspicions, but… they’ve completely demolished it.”
“Yes, with what feels like deliberate malice.”
What should have been a Purification Crystal lay in a state of utter devastation.
Ground to powder so thoroughly it couldn’t even be recycled.
The reason the purification rate in the quest window moments ago had shifted to zero became abundantly clear.
“Curious. For something done by a monster…”
“Yes, it seems almost intentional, though I’m not certain that’s possible.”
Monsters generally possessed low intelligence.
It was rare for them to expend this kind of malice on inanimate objects.
Of course, it wasn’t impossible they might knock something over to mark their territory.
But to smash it to pieces like this….
Which was why both Kang Se-hyeon and Cha Seong-hun found themselves treading carefully.
“What if we simply installed another one here?”
“Hmm?”
“Then perhaps we could witness what happened in this place, assuming the crystal records it.”
Kang Se-hyeon had another reason for arguing this way.
“Besides, if not here, there’s nowhere suitable.”
A purification tower couldn’t be installed just anywhere.
The main reason was efficiency.
Since each tower had a limited purification range, haphazard placement would do more harm than good.
And if they didn’t build it here, there was no other suitable location for a structure.
They’d confirmed the entire surrounding area on their way in.
“Then that’s what we’ll do.”
Cha Seong-hun, rather than taking the long way around, had no choice but to nod at the proposal.
Truth be told, he was curious too.
Curious about whatever had smashed the tower like this.
“We’ll build the purification tower here! Get ready.”
At Kang Se-hyeon’s command, the work began in earnest.

Clang-clang-

Materials they’d brought separately in their inventory were retrieved and reassembled piece by piece, and in moments….
A gleaming crystal tower, ten meters tall, materialized in an instant.
Whirrrrrr—
The moment the purification tower touched ground, it began drawing in the surrounding mana with ravenous intensity.
The response was immediate.
The blackened earth began to show signs of life.
Then the trees.
Even the river flowing beside them returned to the natural form they all knew.
Save for the faint mist that clung to the canopy, the forest overall felt clearer and purer.
Ding-

「Trial Layer – Quiet Mist Forest」
[Purify the mana particles accumulated in the forest – Purification Rate 1%]

About thirty minutes passed.
The purification rate in the quest window changed.
It appeared the other teams had installed their towers as well.
They’d just begun to think their opening move had gone relatively smoothly.
Whump-whump-whump-
When suddenly, birds took flight from the distant horizon.
Thud-thud-thud-
Followed by the ground itself beginning to tremble.
Cha Seong-hun, recognizing it as a harbinger of what was to come, turned his head urgently.
“Kang! Can you tell what’s happening?”
“…They’re coming.”
Kang Se-hyeon, eyes closed for his Detection Magic, spoke as beads of sweat rolled down his face.
“Coming? You mean monsters?”
“Yes.”
“How many? And which direction?”
Cha Seong-hun asked because the vibrations traveling through the ground made the direction impossible to judge.
And with good reason.
“The numbers aren’t clear. The direction either… it’s hard to pin down.”
“What do you…”
Crack-crack-crack—
As Cha Seong-hun spoke, the sound of a massive tree toppling reached his ears.
The problem was that it came from all directions without exception.
Now he understood what Kang Se-hyeon had meant.
The monsters were advancing from every side in real time.
“Right, this is what a Trial should be…”

* * *

The live broadcast footage of clearing the Trial Layer.
The viewers watching anxiously had gone into panic.
A monster wave pouring into the purification spot.
Hiss-hiss-hiss—
A ten-meter ashen-scaled basilisk spewed toxic gas.
Thud-thud-thud—
A five-meter golden-furred humanoid hurled heavy fists in rapid succession.
Crack-crack-crack—
A saber-toothed tiger with agile movements and razor-sharp fangs barreled forward, obliterating everything in its path with crushing bite force.
Dealing with a dozen or so would have been troublesome; when hundreds of monsters surged from all directions at once, there was nothing to do but grip one’s hands in tension.

– Is this the end?
– Use the support beacon!
– Apparently teams 2 and 3 are in the same situation! Where’s the support?

“We should abandon this position and fall back, sir.”
“Yes, understood.”
The fundamental principle of combat was always to fight on favorable ground.
But now the advantage had shifted against them.
Resisting stubbornly to hold the spot would only create needless casualties.
Cha Seong-hun, having decided to retreat the way they came, took point and spoke.
“Cover us.”
Cha Seong-hun equipped the gauntlets and charged toward the onrushing monsters.
He had reason to believe in what was coming.
The gauntlets’ special skill, Chain Explosion, had the property of spreading impact outward in all directions.
That’s why it shone brightest in places where targets clustered like this.
“Hraaah!”
Cha Seong-hun threw his fist.
As his knuckles connected solidly with the lead humanoid, the explosion that erupted in that instant spread outward in every direction.
Boom-crack-crash.
In the aftermath, roughly five monsters nearby were obliterated in a spectacular display.
Screee—
The monsters shrieked in agony.

– That’s Cha Seong-hun for you!
– Strong, but the damage output seems a bit low.
– Aren’t they going to get surrounded?

The sight of Layer 70+ monsters being swept away in a single blow was overwhelmingly powerful.
But cutting through alone was beyond his capability.
That’s when the executives of Gangseong Guild rushed in.
Back-to-back, they bought time by supporting Cha Seong-hun’s assault.
But there was a problem.
There were far too many of them.
It was like a tug-of-war—whenever they managed to widen their corridor, new monsters would narrow it again; whenever they tried to push forward, it constricted once more.
And then Kang Se-hyeon’s magic came flying in.
Crack-crack-crack-crack-crack—
The blades of a colossal wind gust carved through the monsters’ bodies, scattering them to pieces.
While Kang Se-hyeon bought time, Cha Seong-hun gathered himself once more for his next blow.
Crack—crack—crack—
At last, the path opened before them.

— We made it!
— This actually worked?

Cha Seong-hun had covered the team’s retreat from the rear, holding off the pursuers with one last desperate strike before barely slipping through himself.
Fortunately, there was no sign of them following further.
Only once they’d reached the safety zone did his legs finally give out, and he sank to the ground.

— Cha Seong-hun, you’re a true leader.
— Do you enjoy the thrill?
— Even so, the way you drew aggro all the way out was impressive.

“I’m relieved you made it through safely.”
At Kang Se-hyeon’s words, Cha Seong-hun caught his breath before responding.
“We got lucky.”
The swarm of monsters now appeared as a blur beyond the fog.
Had they pursued with the same relentless intensity, escaping with so little casualty would have bordered on miraculous—something he was well aware of.
As he watched the creatures huddled together in that strange mass, a thought crossed his mind, and Kang Se-hyeon spoke up.
“Do you think they had some other purpose?”
“Probably. I’d say that’s almost certain.”
When the Monster Wave first hit, there hadn’t been time to think this deeply—the chaos consumed everything.
But now, thinking it through step by step, something felt off.
The way they were tangled together haphazardly, as if honey had been smeared over them, was profoundly unnatural.
Monsters typically had some sense of territory, after all.
Yet analyzing the cause at this stage would be foolish.
There were more pressing matters.
“What’s the damage?”
“Ah, I haven’t mentioned that yet.”
Kang Se-hyeon spoke carefully.
“I suppose we should call it fortunate… One fatality, and the rest minor injuries. They should recover with some rest.”
“…That’s fortunate.”
In that hellhole, losses that light were fortunate indeed.
Cha Seong-hun took one last look at the monsters beyond the mist, then turned away.
“We head back to the starting point for now. We’ll need to devise a new strategy from scratch.”
As he walked, Cha Seong-hun reflected.
Something told him this mission would not be easy.

* * *

I woke a little later than usual.
The previous day’s minor trouble between Sermin and myself had pushed my schedule back, so I’d worked late into the night.
Of course, Neia had made a fuss about it.
Something about how working late could damage my health.
But I’m not one to bow to such concerns.
Despite Neia’s objections, I’d pressed on and mapped out the mechanism of combat learning.
And sure enough—
the results aligned with my hypothesis.
The learning rate was markedly higher during practical application and tasks related to my specialty.
So I assigned missions to the humanoids accordingly.
For Krail, I gave the task of surveying the terrain outside the City and creating maps through the Caller.
For Tia, I instructed her to hunt down roaming long-distance monsters and practice sniping.
As for Pluto… I deliberated longest on this, but since nothing obvious came to mind, I directed him to actively carry out Neia’s secret missions as he’d been doing.
“As for Ar and Sermin—”
They’d do well enough as they had yesterday.
“But while all that was happening, something like this occurred?”
In normal times, merely isolating oneself for a day or two rarely generates noteworthy incidents.
But the Trial Season was different—yesterday proved that.
The opening ceremony for the Trial Layer.
I’d seen plenty of reports claiming they would, of course.
Though I hadn’t expected results quite like this.
“This is going to hit pretty hard. They’re not asking me to join early, are they?”

『There’s no need for that.』

“How can you be so sure?”
Regardless of whether my presence would actually help, they seemed fairly keen on having me there at least for the sake of calming public opinion.

『I received a similar message yesterday and made it clear we were declining.』

Ah—so it wasn’t that there was no chance of it happening. She’d simply refused already.
Well, either way.
I didn’t blame Neia for it.
My own feelings matched hers on that count.
“Good, then. Works out.”
Anyway, back to the main point.
The raid party that had been in good spirits the last time I checked yesterday returned empty-handed.
The Monster Wave that started right after the Purification likely bore most of the blame.
Regardless of the reason, the press was first out of the gate.
They’d snapped photos of the raid party returning covered in blood and dust, highlighting them across their feeds.
As a result, across every Community, MYtube, everywhere.
The atmosphere online was uniformly grim.
Talk of Kang Min-hyeok’s absence, and so on.
Those sorts of comments were popping up frequently enough that I couldn’t quite ignore them.
“I’m starting to feel a bit guilty about this.”

『There’s no need for guilt. It’s simply karma—cause and effect.』

Perhaps from consuming outside culture through the internet.
Neia’s once rigid way of speaking had become considerably more natural.
By now, anyone would take her for a fellow modern-day citizen like myself.
“I understand that in theory, but it’s not so simple in practice. There were apparently quite a few deaths.”

『That is….』

Cha Seong-hun’s Team One had only one casualty.
But the other teams suffered far worse.
Between the two groups, five dead.
“I was honestly hoping things would run smoothly without me.”
That way there’d be less work for me to do.
But it didn’t seem like that was going to be the case.
Now it felt like everywhere I went, expectations hung over me even heavier than before.
I supposed I could simply trust the Humanoids to carry things as I had been, though never having faced Layer 70+ Monsters left me oddly uncertain of myself.
“Is there any other news besides all this?”
Something that might change the mood.
Something like….
Right—that Legendary Weapon I’d consumed earlier.
I’d searched it online and found that while it didn’t quite match the attention on the Trial Layer, it was drawing considerable interest nonetheless.
Or rather, to be precise, there had probably been more focus on this topic to begin with.
But the disastrous results from the Trial Layer had simply shifted all attention there within a single day.
I was reading through related posts when one caught my eye immediately.
“What’s this now?”

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