F-Rank Secretly Becomes Stronger - Chapter 69
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
69
“It won’t be a trivial story.”
Juhyeok was about to take off his clothes to immediately show the tattoo when he noticed the butler standing nearby.
“I’d prefer fewer listening ears.”
“There’s nothing good about you constantly raising my expectations.”
“It’s because of a toy you made, so I ask for your understanding.”
“…Hmm.”
After being lost in thought for a moment, he waves his hand as if telling him to follow.
“Shall we have a conversation in a quiet place? You keep watch at the main entrance.”
“Understood.”
The butler immediately went outside upon hearing the order.
Garisto headed toward the basement without even glancing at him, and Juhyeok followed behind.
“I’ve made so many things that I can’t even get a good sense of what it might be.”
A wide circular staircase.
With no safety barriers installed on the sides, it was a dangerous place where even the slightest misstep would result in an immediate fall.
Garisto slowly descended the stairs while expressing his curiosity.
“Judging by your mana amount, you haven’t even made a contract with Mephisto, so I’m really curious how you fought on equal terms with our butler.”
“….”
“Did you draw on your lifespan? I haven’t leaked that anywhere yet.”
Garisto tried to recall his inventions one by one.
Even so, since nothing clearly came to mind, he continued questioning himself through muttering.
“You’ll know when we get there.”
Saying that, they reached the iron door at the end of the staircase they had descended together.
It was such a massive door that one would worry whether a small child like Garisto could open it, but as soon as he stood in front of it, the door automatically opened as if recognizing its master.
“This is the first human to enter here with a sound mind, no… anyone who came here in the first place isn’t normal.”
As they entered the laboratory together with Juhyeok, the iron door automatically closed.
The inside wasn’t that complicated.
It was like a science laboratory from school days but with slightly more medieval interior design.
Except for the modified demons that were torn apart here and there and instruments of unknown purpose scattered around, it wasn’t much different.
“Now, we’ve arrived, so hurry up and tell me.”
Garisto turned around and approached Juhyeok.
He looked closely with a face full of curiosity, and Juhyeok, with him behind, immediately took off his upper clothing.
“….”
The other party looked on with an emotionless expression, though he could have been surprised by the sudden undressing.
Juhyeok revealed the artifact pattern that he had never shown to anyone before his eyes.
“Can you see it?”
“…I can see it well, a very rigorously trained body.”
“Not that.”
He thrust out his left arm at the nonsensical comment.
Pointing with his other hand, he spoke again.
“This mark here.”
“Yes, the mark… does it have some meaning?”
“….”
He naturally thought that seeing the mark would make the problem immediately predictable.
Garisto showed a puzzled look as if he didn’t understand.
“It’s a mark that appeared because of an artifact you made.”
“Because of an artifact I made?”
“Yes.”
He seemed completely unaware.
Juhyeok once again brought up that name he couldn’t tell anyone else.
“Training Room. It’s an artifact you made, isn’t it.”
Originally, he wasn’t certain.
Perhaps he might have made it, or even if not, there was a possibility he could remove the artifact from his body.
However, the demon he met inside the artifact.
And Garisto he encountered in that demon’s memories.
This was definitely an artifact made by Garisto, and that’s why he could bring up the name without any resistance.
“Training Room…?”
Upon hearing that name, a question mark appeared on his face.
Then, not long after, he burst into loud laughter.
“Haha… Puhaha! What an amusing thing to say.”
How long did he laugh by himself?
He held his stomach and laughed endlessly, then wiped away the tears falling from his eyes and answered.
“Yes, the Training Room is certainly one of the artifacts I created.”
He acknowledged it.
That the Training Room was an artifact created by Garisto.
However, I couldn’t understand why he was laughing so much.
Garisto couldn’t hide the smile on his face as he continued to ask.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to spout nonsense about entering and exiting that room?”
“…It’s true though.”
“What a ridiculous thing to say.”
He drank some unknown liquid that was beside him and said.
“I don’t know how you learned about the Training Room, but it’s an artifact that neither humans nor demons can escape from.”
It’s not that I look down on humans.
It just means that thinking beings who enter can’t endure it.
“If you go in there, you fight endlessly until you go insane, your mind is destroyed, and in the end, unable to overcome that mental damage, the artifact gets destroyed.”
Even artifacts that block damage can’t heal mental damage.
If that were possible, it would have truly become the ultimate training weapon creation artifact, but implementing that much was still too difficult.
“In the end, whoever enters gets trapped in the subspace created by the Training Room and has to live as a madman forever.”
When the artifact breaks, the exit disappears too.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say they become space castaways drifting in zero gravity.
“You escaped from such a terrible place? Ridiculous.”
“….”
Eyes that only blinked.
Jung Juhyeok just quietly stared at Garisto without giving any answer.
“…What are you staring at like that?”
“Just thinking about how to explain it.”
An opponent who didn’t seem to have any intention of believing.
While thinking about how to prove that the Training Room was engraved on him, he soon rubbed his left arm.
“Mana replenishment for Training Room upgrade and operation.”
“….”
“Isn’t that the message you created?”
Garisto’s face became blank.
When he recited the message that appeared before his eyes without missing a single word, his expression suddenly changed drastically.
That was because this message was a guide that could only be seen after clearing it.
This was evidence.
Evidence that Jung Juhyeok had cleared the Training Room and returned.
“You, don’t tell me.”
“How many times do I have to say it for you to understand… I went and came back, from inside the artifact you made.”
“…Uh.”
His mouth gradually opened wider as if he was finally believing it.
His pupils gradually shook, then he grabbed Jung Juhyeok’s shoulders with both hands.
“H-how? To get out of there, you’d have to defeat the doll about a million times! And while staying sane!”
“I defeated it about a million times. While staying sane.”
“That’s impossible… That’s impossible…!”
Garisto muttered to himself while continuously touching the mark engraved on his left arm.
He examined it closely like an archaeologist who had made a great discovery, but it didn’t match his childlike appearance and gave me a somewhat creepy feeling.
“I scribbled it carelessly when I didn’t know anything and sold it off cheaply, but to think someone would actually break through it!”
“Now that you know, stop getting excited.”
“R-right. I need to calm down a bit.”
The guy wasn’t calming down at all.
He put some distance between himself and Jung Juhyeok, then glanced around nervously and asked.
“Do you perhaps need something to drink?”
“…It’s scary, so no thanks.”
“What would I do to such a precious guest!”
His solemn attitude from just moments ago disappeared, replaced by a childlike way of speaking.
Feeling a momentary sense of disconnect at the guy’s behavior that seemed ready to bounce around, Jung Juhyeok stood still as Garisto looked over his bare body and asked.
“So what questions do you have about the artifact that brought you here? I think I’ll need to touch you a little to answer properly.”
“….”
Should I just go back?
If I leave it to this guy, I feel like I’ll be dissected from my toes to the tips of my hair.
Jung Juhyeok stared, speechless at the sincere pure madness.
Garisto seemed to realize his mistake from that gaze, coughed once, then stepped back slightly.
“Did I get too ahead of myself? Right, don’t feel pressured. It’s my first time seeing a human with such an experimen… serious mindset.”
“Didn’t you just say experimental subject?”
“No way, I was just thinking how happy I am to see someone with such an experimental spirit to use the Training Room.”
Definitely not.
He was about to say experimental subject just now, then quickly changed his words while reading the situation.
‘Should I run away?’
The more they talked, the more dangerous this guy seemed.
He wanted to escape from here immediately, but unfortunately this guy was the one who made the artifact, so he couldn’t run away.
“Butler!”
“Yes.”
When he called the name, the guy who hadn’t been visible until now emerged cutting through the empty air.
Just as Jung Juhyeok wondered if he had heard their entire conversation, Garisto pointed at him and spoke.
“This friend… what’s your name?”
“Jung Juhyeok.”
“Right, treat Jung Juhyeok as an honored guest. He must have had a hard time getting here, so provide him with everything he needs.”
His status changed from intruder to honored guest.
Though it might have seemed strange, the butler accepted Garisto’s command without any resistance.
“Yes, understood.”
“No, wait a minute.”
The conversation was flowing strangely somehow.
Jung Juhyeok intervened between them and stopped them both.
“I’m just going to quickly finish what I need to do and go back. I’m not interested in anything else.”
“What do you need to do?”
“Remove the artifact from my body.”
“What?”
Garisto was greatly surprised.
Then suddenly he made an expression as if realizing something, and spoke as if comforting a child.
“No, right, I understand wanting to remove it. You might not want to enter such a space again.”
“No, that’s not the problem.”
If he could continue using the Training Room, he would welcome it.
The problem lay elsewhere.
“An artifact in a human body – who knows when it might explode.”
An artifact that could explode at any time.
Though it had been dwelling in a human body and showing stable behavior for almost a year now, there was no telling what might happen in the future.
“But your current mana state is too stable for that…”
Garisto also seemed to know his condition was stable, speaking quietly.
“Anyway, shall we think about that problem more calmly over a meal?”
“There’s something else besides that.”
“What else?”
Removing the artifact from his body.
Besides that, there was one more thing he had to do.
“I promised to help the demon you put in the artifact escape.”
The demon that Garisto had directly put into the artifact.
He had promised to rescue that demon, and because of that, a magic stone was currently dwelling in his body like a time bomb.
If he didn’t fulfill the condition of doing his best to help, it would explode, so he absolutely had to rescue that demon from Garisto.
But.
“….”
Garisto’s expression was strange.
The same expression as when I first showed him the Artifact Pattern earlier.
He answered with genuine curiosity written all over his face.
“I’ve never used that Artifact even once though?”
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————