How to Replace Your Dad - Chapter 203

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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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How to Replace Father
Chapter 203
Aragon wasn’t the only one shocked.
Every member of the unit stared at him with rigid faces.
‘Why did he save us?’
The rift between Abel and them had never healed.
They merely carried out their assigned duties.
Or more accurately, they treated him as if he didn’t exist.
No one gave him any recognition as unit leader.
Abel’s body crumbled under the force of the attack.
Aragon caught him with trembling hands.
Abel’s condition was terrible.
His body, torn to shreds, was little more than rags.
His flesh was discolored blue-black everywhere—from the Worm’s claw toxin.
A sickly metallic stench of blood drifted from his nose.
He had crossed countless battlefields, seen more battles than most would in a lifetime with comrades.
Because of that, they knew.
This was the smell of death.
“Why… why so recklessly…?”
Rushing straight at the Worm was hardly a sound decision.
Had he taken time to chant and deploy a barrier properly.
The next part would have been easier.
Even if it meant losing a few unit members.
So this was what he’d done to save his unit members.
Without a care for his own life.
“Hey, come on, pull yourself together.”
“Why would you do something like that…?”
It was then that the unit members, flustered and at a loss, stood frozen.
“Move!”
Yustea pushed through them and rushed to Abel.
That was when the golden fortress expanded.
A hemispherical fortress spreading outward from Yustea’s center.
Nullification Barrier!
“…!”
“…?!”
Abel’s upper body, which had been deathly blue, regained its proper color, and the gaping wounds sealed shut with a flash like thread.
The minor wounds of the unit members vanished instantly, which was only natural.
They remembered what they’d been too shocked to recall.
When despair comes upon you, let not fear take root.
The seed shall germinate in silence and bloom as the flower of glory.
Watching over their backs is the protagonist of divine revelation.
She who cuts through any despair…!
“Young Lady—!”
“Waaaah—!”
—the Saint.
* * *
I exhaled in relief once I confirmed Abel’s breathing had returned.
‘That was close.’
The thought that I might not have been here made me dizzy.
The most terrifying thing about the Worm was its toxin.
Exposure to that poison meant death in less than five minutes.
I slapped Abel’s back repeatedly.
“Come on, wake up. Wake up.”
“…My hand burns.”
Abel muttered with a groan.
“There’s no time to rest. Get me to Ros’s Research Lab. The stairs are destroyed.”
The Nullification Barrier didn’t block attacks.
It healed our allies the moment they were struck.
Since healing activated every time the opponent attacked, the more vicious the assault, the more mana consumed rapidly.
If we dragged this out, we could run dry on mana entirely.
So we had to quickly destroy the pendant—the source summoning the monsters.
Abel pushed himself up.
But he swayed as if he might collapse any moment.
It was because his torn organs hadn’t fully recovered yet.
“Abel, let me support you—”
“I’ll do it.”
Aragon stepped between me and Abel.
Aragon draped Abel’s arm over his own shoulder.
Among Abel’s Unit, Aragon held the strongest animosity toward Abel.
When Aragon quietly took on the role of support, the unit members’ eyes wavered.
But no one mocked or blamed him.
Instead, some hesitantly approached and helped support him as well.
Abel, without a word, condensed mana and created a foothold in empty air.
When I didn’t move immediately, he glanced at me.
“What?”
“Not really.”
I let out a small laugh and stepped onto the foothold Abel had made.
We held off the Worm’s attacks with my Nullification Barrier and the members of Abel’s Unit.
That’s how we safely crossed the broken stairs and entered Ros’s Research Lab.
Inside the lab…
“Help me, aaaahh—!”
Ros was dangling on the broken wall like a paper doll.
Roslin was wielding some kind of iron plate, swinging it wildly at the Worm coming over the wall.
“Die! Die!”
As if the Worm would die from that…
Wait, that’s not the point.
“Save me…!”
A member of Abel’s Unit quickly pulled Ros down.
Ros, barely touching the ground, spoke through sobs.
“I thought… I was done for…!”
“Ros.”
“Young Lady!”
Ros bounced up and greeted me.
Roslin gestured frantically, reporting how much more focused she’d been on the Worm than her only brother.
“Forget that—the pendant!”
“Oh!”
Ros fumbled the pendant from her chest.
I quickly laid the pendant on the ground and began Purification.
But something was wrong.
‘Purification isn’t working?’
I grabbed the pendant with a confused expression—it still glowed red.
Not only was Purification ineffective, but more monsters kept pouring in.
“What on earth…?”
As I murmured, Ros came rushing over.
“So it doesn’t work?”
“Doesn’t work?”
“We used a Purification Stone too. Ah, there was a Purification Stone here. Cesar brought a broken Purification Stone from Andres. It was such a perfect environment for experiments…!”
“Just the main point!”
“The moment abnormal phenomena appeared in the pendant, we used the Purification Stone, but it didn’t work. I wondered if the Saint’s Purification would work…?”
I glanced at the Purification Stone.
“It’s not alchemy…”
“Pardon?”
What I can purify are toxins, alchemy, and similar things.
Power generated within causality cannot be purified.
Magic, or Pattern Power like what Luciano, Abel, and Miliano possess.
Which means…
“It’s Pattern Power.”
The moment I muttered that.
Crash—!
“Aaahhh—!”
Roslin, who had been outside the Nullification Barrier, was struck by the Worm and sent flying into the wall.
“Bring Roslin into the Nullification Barrier!”
“Yes—!”
Members of Abel’s Unit rushed desperately toward Roslin.
But two Worms unleashed a toxic fog at the unit members.
The members held their noses and mouths with their forearms but to no avail.
The Worm shot like an arrow at the brown-haired unit member with ferocious speed.
Suddenly a strange sound rang out.
Click.
Barriers combining countless times, wrapping the Worm in sound.
It was Abel.
“This is quite troublesome…”
He clicked his tongue and muttered.
“Ordinary barriers dissolve in the toxin. I have to create separate Barus Formulas and Hermen Formulas and combine them.”
“Barus Formula and Hermen Formula are completely different methods—can they even combine?”
“The junction uses Getel Formula.”
“Three formulas are involved?”
Since it was so difficult, he couldn’t confine every monster that way.
I was frowning when.
Gazes poured down on me and Abel.
More precisely, on Abel rather than me.
The unit members stared at Abel with wide eyes.
“Wh, what…?”
“What’s Getel Formula? At least I know what dog hair is…”
“Unit leader… wasn’t an idiot?”
Abel regarded the unit members with an unmoved expression.
“Did they think I was Antonio?”
I laughed.
Even in the midst of all this, I found myself laughing.
“In terms of pure intellect, Abel is the best in the Irregular Elite. Better than me, even.”
“Pardon?”
The unit members looked bewildered.
Ros watched the confused unit members with an expression of disbelief.
“Don’t the spells Abel uses seem rough and improvised to you?”
“Well, I always thought they were powerful…”
“Magic this powerful means the formula is ultra-advanced. Abel’s specialty, barriers, don’t condense mana—they utilize the Five Elements around us appropriately instead. It means mana loss is minimal.”
Ros continued enthusiastically, raising a finger.
“So he can maintain barriers while attacking simultaneously. This formula is so complex that even the Mages at Matap can’t move like this. There’s literally no one who can.”
“…”
“Abel calculates such formulas in an instant—”
I stood up, saying “Yeah, yeah.”
As the tension eased, my mind cleared.
‘If Purification doesn’t work, there’s another way.’
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
I picked up the Communication Stone.
Shortly after, the voice of the contact came through.
[Yes, this is Miliano.]
“It’s the Mage Tower. Miliano, you need to join us here. As fast as possible.”
[I’ll move immediately.]
The communication ended.
“Let’s cross the bridge and head to the Citadel. Abel, dissolve the bridge.”
Abel nodded with a weary face.
We descended to ground level through the stairs Abel had placed in empty air.
We didn’t forget to leave the wounded unit member and Roslin inside the Nullification Barrier to recover.
‘If it’s Pattern Power, we respond with the same Pattern Power.’
I gripped the pendant with a cold expression.
* * *
The members of Abel’s Unit glanced at Abel.
He was running close beside Yustea, silent and steady.
A barrier expanded on the outer edge of the Nullification Barrier.
Not just Worms but other monsters poured in, and the color of the barrier changed with each monster type.
“You’re constantly switching the formula of the barrier?”
“How would I know?”
“You’re the best at formula calculation.”
“I can’t even see the formula. The conversion is so fast that the configuration changes in seconds.”
“…Huh.”
Abel’s Unit was a group of spellswords.
Ones who wielded magic.
I knew Abel was immensely skilled, but I’d thought his strength came from vast mana reserves.
But today, I saw his true strength lay not in vast mana but in extremely delicate and thorough calculation.
“…Isn’t that incredible?”
“His skill was always incredible.”
“No, I mean there’s talent and effort too.”
“…”
The unit member best at formula calculation in Abel’s Unit was named Heizel.
From Abel…
“What… went wrong? Is my mana usage incorrect?”
“Your head.”
“…”
“You’re stupid, so don’t use it if you can.”
—he’d heard such words.
He’d thought it was sarcasm.
He’d felt it was supremely arrogant…
Heizel asked Abel.
“That… from last training.”
“…?”
“You said my head was… bad.”
“And?”
“What did I do wrong?”
Abel glanced at him.
“Circulation.”
“Pardon? Using mana circulation to strengthen the body is obvious.”
“Why would you need to strengthen your body?”
“So I can wield my sword more powerfully…”
“You already have enough strength to swing a sword. Your priority isn’t strengthening yourself but destroying the opponent. There’s no need to waste mana on circulation.”
“…”
“Use the Fervannon Formula.”
“…”
The unit member stared at Abel in surprise.
Abel spoke.
“Oscar had you learn circulation because you were young then.”
“…”
“It doesn’t mean Oscar was wrong.”
Then he looked forward again, unmoved.
The eyes of Abel’s unit members trembled.
Words wouldn’t come.
‘He was watching us.’
‘He knew where we were struggling.’
Even when they shut him out and kept their distance, he’d been watching.
They hadn’t seen his essence because of his blank expression.
Looking back, during training he’d watched them from afar.
Even though he must have heard them mocking him, saying they were just deadweight taking up space.
“Thank you… for the advice.”
“…?”
“Just… thanks.”
Other unit members also had their lips moving or clenched their weapon hilts, confused.
Heizel swallowed dry.
Aragon, who had been listening to the exchange between Abel and the unit member, spoke.
“When today’s situation is resolved… will you teach us?”
“What?”
“About magic.”
“…”
“Please teach us.”
“…Sure, then.”
Yustea smiled brightly.
I don’t know who attacked, but there was one thing they didn’t know.
Crisis becomes strength the moment it’s overcome.
‘Abel’s Unit… transfer successful?’
* * *
We crossed the bridge and ran toward the Citadel.
Miliano appeared in the distance.
“Young Lady!”
“Miliano, Language Magic. Destroy it with Language Magic—!”
As I spoke, an enormous heat radiated from the pendant I held.
It felt like I was holding a ball of fire.
A scream burst out involuntarily.
Miliano pulled me close and held me against his chest.
“I can’t use my power. The caster who summoned the monsters will reveal themselves!”
That moment, a pale mist spread around us.
When I saw who appeared in the mist, my eyes widened.
“You…!”

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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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