Gwanjongcheonma’s Game Broadcast - Chapter 168

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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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Episode 168
Crack-crack-crack!
With a deafening boom as if thunder itself had struck,
a spinning circular saw blade swept across the cave wall.
Hae-rang, who had anticipated the trap, gently pressed his front hooves to the ground and slipped past—all in a single motion.
A wink.
And Hae-rang sent a wink toward Ryu.
The single emotional expression permitted in Milksong.
Originally it was designed merely to break the monotony of a gamer’s appearance,
but now it felt like Hae-rang was sending Ryu a message.
A message that said: ‘You cannot kill me with something like this.’
<STAGE THREE CLEAR!>
<STAGE FOUR CLEAR!>
<STAGE FIVE CLEAR!>
Swift and decisive.
Hae-rang carved through the stages the way a blade slices through radish boiled all day—clean, methodical, relentless.
Time was needed for only one thing.
Practicing the new skill awarded after each stage clear.
At some point, Ryu stopped checking the clock.
Even accounting for all the practice time,
Hae-rang was setting a record for the fastest clear ever recorded.
‘This one is… different.’
It was like watching a longhorn beetle and a stag beetle locked in a fierce wrestling match,
only to have a grizzly bear crash down and trample them both.
Comparing Hae-rang’s talent to that of other gamers felt exactly like that.
When Hae-rang obtained the Dash Skill, his Hornet moved as if wings had sprouted from its back,
and when Hae-rang obtained the Counter Attack Skill, he was no longer battling the mob’s abilities—he was defying the game’s difficulty level itself.
Ryu could only watch that dazzling performance with a slack jaw.
His mouth hung open so wide that saliva pooled at the corners of his lips.
And now,
<WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!>
The boss of the final stage.
The game’s ultimate chapter was unfolding right before their eyes.
Shiiiii…….
A sound that pierced the ears of the mesmerized Ryu.
The sound of rice finishing cooking in a rice cooker.
A hissing as steam vented.
Even a wave of heat could be felt emanating from it.
Ryu’s face, which had turned back without thinking, went rigid.
“The Capsule is…!”
Moisture had already covered the glass door of the Capsule that Hae-rang occupied.
The faint white vapor gathering inside was growing thicker by the second.
So thick that Hae-rang’s face inside was no longer visible.
Since it was a Capsule of his own design, Ryu could grasp the situation at once.
“It’s going into overload…!”
On one hand, it made no sense.
Though the Capsule had aged somewhat, it once possessed the performance equivalent to a Private Capsule.
After just playing a 2D game like Milksong for a little while—
Could it really not withstand even this much?
‘Is the machine worn out? Or an unexpected malfunction?’
An unexpected malfunction.
The moment that thought crossed his mind, Ryu’s breath caught in his throat.
The tragedy that had befallen his grandson consumed his thoughts.
‘I have to shut it down right now…!’
Ryu rushed forward toward the front of the Capsule.
Just as his trembling hands reached out to touch the glass door,
“Do not touch it.”
A heavy, weighty voice came from inside the Capsule.
It was not the clear, respectful voice he had heard from Hae-rang until now.
A voice that made you want to bow your head just by hearing it—
There was in him an unquestionable dignity—the majesty of an absolute being that admitted no refusal.
“I can control the Capsule. So just watch.”
To a youth who couldn’t be more than twenty,
a man past sixty found himself obeying without question.
It was an unbelievable situation, yet Ryu stepped back all the same.
Perhaps it was the smoke obscuring his vision.
The figure inside the Capsule didn’t feel like the young man of the present moment,
but rather like a lord of old who commanded legions.
Screeeee!
‘Not much time left now.’
Whatever it takes, he’d find a way.
The limit—how much of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art he could channel without destroying the Capsule.
A precarious tightrope, but practice makes perfect, even on a wire.
Ryu’s Capsule could still withstand the Heavenly Demon Divine Art.
Even after using it continuously since Stage One.
‘Indeed. A true genius.’
That this was the performance of a Capsule over five years old.
It reminded him of the master blacksmith from his past life who had forged him a renowned blade,
so incomparable was Ryu’s skill.
Which is why he grew even more curious.
What would be the caliber of a state-of-the-art Capsule that Ryu had crafted with full intent?
Until that carefully wrapped package could be unwrapped,
there remained only one Monster left.
Grrrraaaaahhhhh!
The roar of the Boss Monster echoed forth.
A ship’s horn announcing departure.
The vessel’s destination hardly seemed a pleasant one.
Rumble-rumble-boom!
At that moment, the ground beneath Hae-rang’s feet began to tremble.
Glancing down, Hae-rang surveyed his surroundings.
Crimson pumpkins suspended in midair.
Without hesitation, Hae-rang leaped atop one of the pumpkins and climbed.
Moments later,
Crash!
The ground where Hae-rang had stood vanished without a trace.
“A single fall means instant death, then.”
But the trials didn’t end there.
The screen, wide on both sides, was progressively narrowing.
It wasn’t merely the screen itself.
The very space Hae-rang occupied was closing in.
“Suppress the Monster within the time limit, or I’m done for. Understood.”
As Hae-rang assessed the situation in a flash,
the final Monster at last appeared.
Unlike the cute, casual creatures that had appeared before,
this was a massive fly Monster that inspired instant revulsion at mere sight.
So this is what they call visual assault.
The plump, blubbery fly-type Monster flapped its enormous wings and darted back and forth.
Then it began spewing green orbs from its maw.
Whoosh!
Massive spheres hurtled toward him like homing projectiles.
But the ordeal was far from over.
Near the pumpkin Hae-rang would need to step onto lurked the Needle Crow.
For most players,
or even for those who fancied themselves skilled gamers, this stage drew nothing but screams of despair.
-Did they actually expect anyone to beat this?!
Yet Hae-rang did not complain.
He did only what he could do.
Feeling the Capsule’s warmth through his entire body,
Hae-rang pushed his Heavenly Demon Divine Art to its absolute limit.
‘Heavenly Demon Divine Art. Third Attainment.’
Crack!
A brilliant blue lightning flashed across Hae-rang’s eyes.
The Byeolyeon Siман—a divine art of the Third Star—seemed to pierce through the game world itself and perceive the very data signals beneath.
Hop!
Hop!
A distance of exactly one sheet of paper.
Hae-rang’s hitbox and the green orb passed by each other with that precise margin.
In that same instant, the Needle Crow unleashed its characteristic Dash Attack.
The moment Hae-rang evaded the orb, he unleashed a Downward Strike.
The needle barely grazed the top of Hae-rang’s head,
and by cruel fortune, the Needle Crow positioned below him was sent plummeting by that very strike.
‘Coincidence…? No.’
Ryu shook his head.
That movement bore Hae-rang’s clear intention.
In a single motion, he both evaded the attack of the Needle Crow above
and made the judgment to dispatch the remaining monster.
Hop!
Scrape!
A stage so bewildering it seemed impossible to know where to begin.
Yet Hae-rang’s expression remained composed, and his hands and feet moved without hesitation.
Before long, all the Needle Crows surrounding Hae-rang had crashed to the ground.
Now only the boss monster—Pigfly—remained.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Perhaps because all the lesser monsters had fallen,
the volume of green orbs that Pigfly unleashed had grown far greater.
To make matters worse, the pumpkin Hae-rang stood upon began to tremble.
Crack!
The pumpkin shattered into pieces, tumbling downward.
Hae-rang shared the same fate, beginning to fall.
But then—
Flash!
Hae-rang focused his mind and activated Dash.
Not left or right—upward.
“No way!”
Ryu’s eyes bulged wide as he watched.
Dash used vertically?
He had never seen such a thing before.
Was such a movement even possible to execute in the game?
If it were possible, he would have thrown open the glass door and demanded answers on the spot.
Boom!
Thump!
Hae-rang continued his upward Dash through the empty air.
He had already leaped to the very top where Pigfly hovered.
Sweat had begun to bead on Hae-rang’s brow.
Time was running short.
Hae-rang threw his full strength behind his blade, striking Pigfly’s core directly.
Scrape!
The strike landed cleanly.
Yet Hae-rang’s face had gone rigid.
‘No damage dealt.’
The Heavenly Demon of his past life would never have swung the blade wrong.
He could see no particular weak point on the creature.
And yet its health barely diminished.
By rough estimate, he would need to strike it a hundred times before it fell.
And meanwhile—
Rumble, rumble, rumble!
Crack!
The left and right edges of the screen steadily narrowed,
and only a handful of pumpkins remained to stand upon.
To any observer, the situation was utterly hopeless.
Reaching this point was itself nothing short of a miracle.
At this stage, even the game’s developer would be applauding, telling Hae-rang he’d done enough and praising him for it.
But Hae-rang neither surrendered nor accepted such praise.
Instead, he thought.
‘Was this game truly made to be unbeatable?’
No.
It wasn’t.
He’d heard that a small number of players had cleared this game before.
He’d wager they hadn’t performed any better than Hae-rang did now.
Then,
‘There has to be a way.’
He’d driven in his most powerful attack, yet the damage was negligible.
Every situation up to now.
And all the skills Hornet possessed.
As Hae-rang synthesized every clue, a sinister smile flickered across his lips.
“I understand.”
Hae-rang pushed the Heavenly Demon Divine Art to its absolute limit, mere seconds before the capsule would overload.
Crackle!
And he scrambled atop the pumpkin perched at the very top.
The pumpkin swayed as if it might shatter at any moment, but he didn’t care.
Victory or defeat.
Only seconds remained before the outcome was decided.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Facing Hae-rang head-on, Pigfly unleashed a barrage of green orbs.
Multiple spheres streaking straight through the air!
Confronted with such dense, fluorescent green, his eyes stung.
So Hae-rang closed them.
Soft rustle.
‘Remember.’
The master of hidden weapons.
The transparent flying blades the Head of the Sichuan Tang Family had scattered.
The Sound-Alone Unseen Blade was wrought from transparent glass, invisible to the eye.
Only the sound of air being pierced existed.
What good were open eyes when nothing could be seen?
Hae-rang batted away each incoming Sound-Alone Unseen Blade as it came.
Eyes shut, he relied on sound and instinct alone.
Compared to that,
‘Deflecting these melon-sized orbs is nothing.’
Tap, tap, tap!
His hands never ceased their frantic dance, striking sound piercing the air with each deflection.
The surging green orbs rebounded in the opposite direction as if choreographed.
A technique gained from clearing the stages.
‘Counter Attack.’
Hae-rang wasn’t deflecting the weapons of common mobs—he was batting back each of Pigfly’s green orbs one by one.
And where each orb redirected, Pigfly stood waiting.
“Gaaahhh…!?”
The previous attack had been flawless.
Yet if the damage still fell short,
then the ‘source of power’ must have been wrong.
To put it more plainly,
“I should’ve been using your strength, not my own.”
As if answering his words,
Pigfly’s health bar was gouged away in massive chunks from the direct hits of those green orbs.
Burst!
At the same instant, white smoke began seeping from inside the capsule.
Whoosh!
“Ah…!”
Smoke leaking from the machine.
No craftsman—no one—could mistake this for anything but grave trouble.
Should he shut it down?
Should I watch until the very end?
Conflicting thoughts churned through Ryu’s mind.
Under normal circumstances, he would have pulled the power cord long ago.
But Hae-rang’s voice, heard moments before, still held dominion over his body.
Splurt-splurt-splurt!
“Screech!”
Even as this unfolded, the orbs dutifully flew back to their master and struck home.
Whether he could win no longer mattered.
Only one question remained: would the boss monster fall first,
or would the machine give out?
“Screech!”
Just as Pigfly’s roar reached its crescendo,
the monitor screen suddenly went black.
Bang!
And Ryu dropped to both knees.
“F-finally……!”
The reason he fell to his knees.
It was not because the game had frozen.
Nor was it a malfunction in the Capsule.
This sudden blackout of the screen
was not a glitch—it was the opening of the Milksong ending sequence.
Hae-rang had finally cleared Milksong in its entirety……!
Fwoosh!
Pale smoke billowed outward in all directions like clouds.
From within that haze, a silhouette emerged.
Perhaps the one who would give Ryu a new purpose in life.
“Now you understand, don’t you? Teacher.”
…….
“I’ve cleared Milksong, and even though the Capsule has been reduced to this state, I remain perfectly fine. That means…….”
Ryu.
The words he had long denied and refused to hear.
The very words he had desperately wanted to hear,
now spilled from Hae-rang’s lips.
“The Capsule was never the problem.”

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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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