I Became a Disaster-Class Newbie by Stealing Abilities - Chapter 12

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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 12. Storm Growth (2)
[Fragment of the Sun has been destroyed entirely.]
The warm sunlight vanished as though it had been a lie.
[Fragment of the Moon takes its place.]
The fragments split in half reassembled, transforming into the pallid form of a moon.
Descending shadow.
Plummeting temperature.
That was when the anomaly began.
“Grrrr.”
“Keeeee!”
The rhinoceros’s horn lengthened like a lance. Its hide hardened impossibly as it calcified.
The tiny fairies riding atop it grew to human size.
Black veins spreading across pale skin.
Armed with curved sabers and black daggers, they looked like seasoned warriors.
Every other monster and plant dwelling in the Dungeon darkened as shadow consumed them.
A three-times experience event.
Item drop rates even climbed to four times.
There were no better conditions for raising skill proficiency and Rank.
And more than that.
There was one more thing to anticipate.
[A Hidden Event has occurred.]
[During the Time of the Moon’s dominion, the one who slays the most monsters shall receive a special reward.]
Jusang touched the Broken Smartphone tucked in his pocket.
When the heroes were first selected, he had manipulated the group message as though sent by the goddess and drained their Stats shamelessly.
‘After that it went dead completely.’
It required a special battery, so he’d kept it stored away—but if he used the rewards from this place, he could activate the smartphone once more.
Right then.
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
One of the fairies riding the rhinoceros charged toward him at once.
“Hehehehe! Die! Die! Die!”
Perhaps losing the sunlight had given it depression.
Its eyes had gone completely mad.
“Let’s time this carefully. I’ll take the high ground, you handle the low.”
“Fighting alongside you, my lord. There is no greater honor.”
Boom!
The rhinoceros’s charge was intercepted by Baek Seol-gi’s blade.
In that instant, Jusang severed the fairy’s head from where he rode above.
Crack!
This time, vine tendrils burst from the ground itself.
“Screeeee!”
A plant-type monster—the Blood-Draining Tree.
The moment it made contact, every last drop of bodily fluid would be drained in seconds.
Jusang severed the tendrils and widened the distance.
“Shriiiiek!”
Dust Moths, which blurred vision temporarily, swarmed in from all sides.
When these creatures were about, one had to breathe through the nose, not the mouth.
“Groaaaar!”
“Oooohhh!”
The Mud Golem, forged from clay, rose its massive form upright.
Armed with stone axes and hammers, it spread its encirclement.
Now this.
This was starting to feel like an actual raid.
Worth the effort to have staged such a difficult scenario.
[Iceflame Divine Sword “Seol-mae-hwa” activates!]
[Annihilation Class “Moonlight” activates!]
The two blades resonated with each other.
A beautiful melody sang forth as the swords themselves began to hum.
Shwiiing!
Boom-boom-boom-boom!
Between the frozen snowflakes, two sword lights flashed.
Monsters tumbling like rotted straw.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
At her feet, a pure white serpent moved with startling speed, driving its fangs deep into flesh.
As the frost venom spread, the monsters’ movements noticeably slowed.
Thanks to that, combat became considerably easier.
Hm.
That creature’s proving unexpectedly useful.
Freeze and Slow are each precious Traits in their own right.
“If you gave it a name like you have me, it would be much easier to handle.”
Baek Seol-gi stroked the white serpent’s head gently.
Right.
A pure white snake, then.
“Let’s call it Seol-tang.”
The name rolled off the tongue perfectly.
Since I’ve given the creature a name, it deserves something to match—a touch of sweetness.
I mixed three drops of blood into the sap drawn from the Blood-Draining Tree.
Then, coating my index finger, I pressed it to Seol-tang’s forehead with a soft tap.
“Squeak?”
Seol-tang tilted its head in confusion.
Only for a moment.
“Sniff, sniff!”
“Grrr.”
Monsters began swarming toward the sweet scent.
Drool spilled from their jaws as a bonus.
“Right then—just herd them all over here.”
If they catch you, snake meat it is. I hope you move quickly.
“Squeak, squeak!?”
Seol-tang looked urgently back at Baek Seol-gi.
Certain that its true master would never allow such treatment.
But.
“You can do it.”
Baek Seol-gi had already chosen my side.
“SQUEEEEAK!!!”
The warm master it once knew was gone.
Now it had to accept this new reality.
And so.
The proper drive hunt began in earnest.
* * *
They surge in.
We cut them down.
Hack and slash—sweeping away the endless tide of monsters.
After losing myself in the rhythm for well over thirty minutes.
Boom!
Finally, every monster in the area lay cleared.
“Huff. Hah.”
I gasped for breath.
Sweat drenched my entire body.
Thump-thump!
Heart hammering in my chest.
Everything felt astonishingly good.
My entire body sang with the sensation of impossible growth, of becoming stronger by the second.
‘Let me check the numbers first.’
[Remaining Stat Points: 35]
‘Damn. I’ve accumulated far more than I expected.’
Stat Points can be obtained through various means.
Hunting a monster for the first time.
Slaughtering multiple monsters at once.
Or defeating Boss-Grade monsters or Rankers, and so forth.
‘Even after over a decade in The Emperor, I still haven’t precisely mapped out this system.’
That’s exactly why the game earned its reputation as a disaster.
Well, that unfriendliness had its advantages—I managed to monopolize the information, so I can’t complain too much.
“Squeak!”
In the meantime, Seol-tang had frozen several monsters solid where they stood.
About the size of figurines, I’d say.
Her ice sculptures had grown proportionally dainty to match her shrunken frame.
“Would you freeze this one too? Oh! That little one would be so pretty.”
Baek Seol-gi’s eyes sparkled as she set about collecting a new set of statues.
A hobby deserves respect.
Unless you want to end up the same way.
“Master. Um, something feels odd. How do I put it? I think I’ve gotten smaller…?”
Baek Seol-gi tilted her head and looked up at me.
The eye level was completely different from before.
Right.
She’d definitely shrunk quite a bit.
She’d been barely five-foot-three to begin with.
Now she didn’t even reach a third of her original height.
A side effect of burning through her magic carelessly.
“Still, you’re cute like this. There’s something charming about being so tiny.”
I tried my best to preserve her dignity, but my expression must have already betrayed the amusement written all over my face.
She immediately went looking for a full-length mirror.
A moment later, Baek Seol-gi found an ice statue the size of her current height and stood before it.
Then slowly surveyed her transformed reflection.
“……!?”
Like a frozen frame.
Baek Seol-gi stood motionless before the mirror, her mouth opening and closing soundlessly like a goldfish.
“Surely I won’t have to stay like this forever, will I?”
“With proper rest, you’ll return to normal. Or you could try the Qi Circulation Method. Martial artists swear by it for recovery.”
Nothing works better for their kind of healing, or so they say.
“Unless I’m in a place saturated with cold like the Han Bing Region or the Han Eum Snow Forest, the efficiency drops dramatically.”
Meaning conventional methods won’t cut it.
What, was I supposed to hope there was a walk-in freezer nearby?
‘Wait, could it be…?’
Just then, an idea struck me.
“Seol-gi, want to try stepping into here for a bit?”
[Baek Seol-gi is stored in the Subspace Inventory.]
The Subspace Inventory, which maintained a constant –70 degrees, was hardly suitable for human habitation.
But for Baek Seol-gi, such an environment might be the perfect place to recover her inner strength.
-It’s so cool and cozy. I love it.
My guess proved spot-on.
Seemingly quite content, her voice stretched with satisfaction.
Before long, her breathing fell into a rhythmic pattern.
Soft, steady breathing….
She’d fallen asleep.
After everything in the Labyrinth, she hadn’t had a proper rest, so I’d let her doze for an hour or two. That ought to be enough to restore her to normal size.
At least, it should be.
‘I could use some rest myself.’
I stretched out on soft grass.
The view was perfect.
A bowl of spicy beef soup noodles would make this paradise.
Break an egg into it, add some kimchi and a hot bar with a cold drink, and there’d be nothing left to want in the world.
As I drifted through these thoughts, about twenty minutes passed.
Footsteps.
Multiple presences approached.
I opened my eyes slowly.
A familiar face appeared in the distance.
Lee Do-jun of the Jeokho Guild.
“Didn’t we agree we wouldn’t meet in here again?”
“We did. But circumstances have changed.”
As if talk were meaningless, Lee Do-jun drew his longsword.
“Kill them.”
“Ahhhhh!”
The Jeokho Guild rushed at them all at once.
Had these bastards gone mad as a group?
Ju-sang unfurled the Twilight Blade and severed the arms of the two men at the front.
Crackle!
Bright red blood sprayed forth.
It was a threat of sorts.
A warning that anyone who charged would meet the same fate.
And yet.
“Attack all at once!”
“Do whatever it takes to close in!”
Not a shred of hesitation emanated from them.
How could they be so bold even after witnessing such an overwhelming gap in power?
Something was wrong.
In the span of a few hours, something must have happened to shift their resolve so drastically.
The wrongness grew sharper, moment by moment.
In their faces.
And in their eyes….
A single emotion was visible.
It was fear.
They were all charging in, driven by terror.
-Ahahaha. Yeah, these small fries won’t do. Go on, burst wide open!
A new voice cut through at that exact moment.
Swell!
Lee Do-jun and everyone else felt their bodies bloat grotesquely.
“W-wait! We can still—!”
“Guuh… ack.”
Boom-boom-boom-bang!
Then they erupted in flames.
Dozens of Jeokho Guild members became living bombs, one after another.
The destructive force was so immense it turned the entire field crimson.
“Did I get them all? Ah, but I shouldn’t say stuff like that. I really can’t shake this habit of planting death flags.”
A man with purple hair emerged from the acrid smoke, chuckling to himself.
And in nearly the same instant.
“Yeah, I know. We’re not supposed to say things like that.”
Ju-sang brushed the flames clinging to his body away with quick pats, answering as he did.
[35 Stat points have been allocated to Agility.]
Thanks to investing all the Stat points he’d saved for emergencies into Agility, he’d managed to escape the blast radius by the narrowest of margins.
Had his decision been even a heartbeat slower, he would have met the same end as they had.
“Oh. You sensed it in that split second? And managed to dodge on top of that? Haha. What are you, really? Some kind of hero or something?”
His tone was still playful.
“That’s what I’d like to ask you. Just how lucky do you have to be to end up in a body like that?”
Ju-sang threw out his words flatly.
And then.
“…What? You know about this body?”
The man’s voice shifted 180 degrees.
The playful atmosphere evaporated. Caution dripped from every word.
He clearly hadn’t expected his identity to be seen through.
“Of course I know. The Jester. There’s a reward from the Crown, sure, but that character has ten times more advantages than drawbacks.”
The atmosphere had changed considerably—whether due to the side effects of the Possession or something else.
Before, his appearance had been grotesque rather than handsome.
An ordinary person might have been fooled, but Ju-sang recognized him immediately.
Purple hair and that distinctive face like some parasitic spirit.
And the long black scythe.
He was famous in The Emperor in several ways.
“Hey, how many hours of playtime do you have? Judging by how much you know about the Jester, you’re definitely not a newbie.”
“If I tell you, you’ll piss yourself the moment you see my eyes.”
“Wow. This bastard. Playing tough, huh? You actually know my specs and you’re still mouthing off? I’m a 10-star. I’ve got 7 Traits too.”
Ten-star from the start….
There were people out there who’d created over 500 characters and never once experienced a Golden Spoon Route.
Through the “Gate of Possession,” I’d hit the jackpot.
But I felt no twinge of conscience about it.
Because…
this character of mine was an even more broken cheat.
[Plunder conditions are displayed.]
What good is raw power?
Before someone who’d mastered the game, it was nothing but a vending machine spitting out abilities for the taking.
Since anyone could see this was a villain through and through, I’d steal without a shred of guilt.

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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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