I Became A Thief Who Steals Overpowered Skills - Chapter 69

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

Episode 69. I Don’t Play Games with Dogs

That night.

Krash had promised to travel with Lakcradieon, and now he sat in his room with his eyes closed, training his Aura.

Thanks to Crimson Garden’s advice, Krash trained his Aura every single day, growing stronger with each passing moment.

Yet even so, he couldn’t shake the feeling that it still wasn’t enough.

Then, slowly, his eyelids began to lift.

He felt a presence against his lap.

Bianca lay sleeping with her head resting on his knees.

When had she come here?

Krash swallowed a wry smile and gently lifted her head onto a pillow instead.

After draping the blanket over her, he was just about to rise from the bed.

“Krash.”

Still drowsy, Bianca called out his name.

When Krash turned back to her, she rubbed her eyes and asked him.

“Are you leaving already?”

Her question was whether he was going to the Demon Palace.

If he went to the Demon Palace, Bianca would have to spend considerable time apart from him.

So it was no wonder she’d been clinging to his side during whatever time remained.

Krash raised his hand and gently stroked her head.

“No, not yet. I’ll be here for a while longer, so get some more sleep.”
“Mm, okay.”

Reassured, Bianca nuzzled her head against his hand and drifted back to sleep.

Lately, Bianca had begun her growth spurt in earnest, but her neediness only seemed to increase with each passing day—a worry for him.

Krash quietly left the room so as not to wake her.

Crimson Garden flew down and perched on his shoulder.

-Sleeping together already, are we? Quite the lecher, aren’t you.

“Where are you getting that from?”

Krash gave Crimson Garden a look of utter bewilderment.

-One look at you sharing a room with that child says it all.

Krash found it exasperating that Crimson Garden would say such things while knowing full well the reason behind them.

At first, Krash had intended to arrange a private inn room for Bianca.

But Bianca said she was afraid of being alone.

So when he suggested she share a room with Ellie, his personal maidservant, Bianca came right out and said she wanted to be with Krash instead.

Bianca was soothing the anxiety that arose with her newfound emotions by staying at his side.

Knowing this much, Krash couldn’t bring himself to refuse, and so he indulged her whims.

That was why he’d deliberately chosen an inn room with two beds.

Yet without fail, Bianca would somehow slip into Krash’s bed at some point during the night and sleep beside him.

He’d carried her back to her own bed several times, but she’d always creep back over before long, and by now Krash had simply given up.

‘I’m worried about the Academy.’

Once this year passed and Krash enrolled at Lahel Academy, he wouldn’t be able to see her face for at least a year.

As he mulled over these various concerns about how Bianca would fare during that time, Krash suddenly found the absurdity of it all amusing.

Who would have thought he’d come to care about her this much?

Before the regression, they’d had nothing more than the thinnest of connections as fiancés, yet so much had changed.

-Don’t suddenly laugh like that. It’s irritating.

“You can talk, considering your tone.”

Krash shot back at Crimson Garden, who was needlessly interjecting from beside him, and stepped out of the inn.

The reason Krash had ventured out this night was that someone had registered on his expanded sixth sense.

And this visitor was precisely someone he’d been expecting.

Despite the lateness of the hour, Krash deliberately made his way toward the back alleys to make it easier for the other party to appear.

The moment he stepped inside, sure enough, the figure emerged from the shadows.

A man draped in a robe.

“Pendal.”

It was none other than Pendal.

As Krash recognized his identity, Pendal slowly pushed back the hood of his robe.

His gray hair gleamed beneath the moonlight as he fixed Krash with a cold stare.

“Is it true that you—a direct member of Balheim—are entering the Demon Palace with Lakcradieon?”

As expected.

Krash regarded Pendal, whose instincts had not missed a beat, with an unhurried expression.

“What about it?”

Pendal clenched his teeth.

He glared at Krash, then slowly broached the real matter.

“If you’re going, don’t go with Lakcradieon. Come with me instead. Pendalord is going to challenge Nakcheon too.”

What came from Pendal’s mouth was unexpected.

“Pendalord has been steadily mapping the Demon Palace all this time. The interior has changed over the past few years, and the shortcuts are different. With us, you can reach the eighth floor in an instant using those shortcuts. Of course, we’ve prepared plenty for challenging Nakcheon as well.”

Looking at the words alone, it wasn’t a bad proposal.

Pendal had, after all, reigned as the king of the Demon Palace.

Though he no longer set foot on the eighth floor of his own accord, Pendal had always moved through the floors before it with ease.

Naturally, it was fair to call him an expert on the matter.

By contrast, Lakcradieon had, since leaving the Demon Palace, wielded only her blade in solitude.

She might be inferior to Pendal when it came to knowledge of the Demon Palace.

“I don’t want to.”

But even accounting for all that, Krash had no intention of going with Pendal.

“What?”
“I don’t walk into danger with a dog that’s bared its teeth at me and some fool who’s backed me into a corner.”

A dog that bites once will bite again.

Pendal ground his teeth.

“And besides, it was you who kicked away the chance from the start.”

It was none other than Pendal who had stopped Krash from entering the Demon Palace.

Pendal surely knew that fact.

“Don’t you find it laughable yourself, coming now to say you want me to go with you instead of Lakcradieon?”

Pendal clamped his mouth shut.

Krash had known Pendal would come today.

And he had known he would make this proposal as well.

But the answer had been decided from the beginning.

The Pendal in Krash’s memory had always been a contemptible figure.

“I’m going with Lakcradieon. No deal you offer will change that.”

Krash made to move past him.

“Wait——!”

Pendal reached out as if to stop him, but the moment his eyes met Krash’s, he froze.

This was the Pendal who had been thoroughly trounced by Krash not long ago.

I won’t deny I was careless then, but even in a direct confrontation, I couldn’t be certain whether I could defeat Krash or not.

And above all, he was Balheim.

Even if I won, I could never manage the fallout if he claimed I’d called him out and attacked him in the dead of night.

Pendal withdrew his hand and ground his teeth.

“…I’ll be the first to head to the Demon Palace. It’s Pendalord’s job to bring down Nakcheon.”

He had no intention of letting Lakcradieon and Krash defeat Nakcheon before him.

“Do as you wish.”

Krash didn’t spare him another thought and moved past.

-Walking straight into a trap he laid himself, is he.

Crimson Garden clicked her tongue with something like pity.

And Krash made no objection to that assessment.

From beginning to end, Pendal did nothing but confirm Krash’s expectations of him.

‘Nature, I suppose you’d call it.’

Before the regression or after—

People who hadn’t changed were still people who hadn’t changed, Krash reflected.

* * *

The Demon Palace.

A masterwork completed by an ancient weapon smith and a World Erosion Dwarf, both pouring their souls into its creation.

Stepping into the first floor, Krash glanced sideways.

Four people in total had come to clear the eighth floor: Krash included.

One was Derek, a scout nominally tasked with finding traps and paths, though his protruding belly rather undermined the image.

Another was Penicellie, a white-robed sorceress who had mastered both Holy Magic and Attack Magic simultaneously.

The last was Lakcradieon, the light of the Demon Palace.

“Well, I never thought Lakcradieon would be heading back to the Demon Palace again.”

Derek broke into a broad grin at the prospect of Lakcradieon returning to the Demon Palace.

And Penicellie seemed to share his enthusiasm.

“It’s really true. When word got out that Lakcradieon was going to the Demon Palace, everyone went wild. I’m truly honored to be included here.”

She swayed her dark chestnut ponytail with undisguised joy.

Lakcradieon herself scratched her head, looking rather uncomfortable.

“You’re well trusted, I see.”
“Well, yes, that seems to be the case.”

The moment Krash offered that casual remark, Lakcradieon’s face flushed and she began fanning herself with her hand.

-Kid, those ones are on the move too, it seems.

Crimson Garden’s voice reached them as they talked.

By “those ones,” it surely meant Pendalord’s faction.

-Surprisingly, they’ve decided to assault the Demon Palace just like you have.

“On the surface, perhaps.”

Krash’s response was one of unsurprised calm.

As he spoke, he glanced sideways at Lakcradieon.

Pendal harbored complex feelings toward Lakcradieon—something akin to inferiority.

He apparently lacked the courage to strike at her openly.

‘When the moment comes,’

Krash understood well that Pendal would bare his fangs.

All he had to do was wait for that moment.

Krash’s head lifted upward.

As it did, the first floor of the Demon Palace began to come into view at the top of the staircase.

There was an elegant corridor.

A crimson carpet ran along the floor, paintings hung in various places upon the walls, and rows of decorative vases with flowers were arranged in neat lines.

What was most absurd was that all these walls were fitted with windows.

Despite the Demon Palace being underground.

No matter how many times he came here, this place defied all reason—such was the Demon Palace.

In that moment, a ticking sound came from ahead, and a rabbit appeared.

The rabbit, clutching a Pocket Watch in its arms, caught sight of them and immediately began charging forward.

With each ticking sound, the rabbit’s body grew larger and larger.

Within moments, muscles swelled across its frame until it seemed ready to burst, and the creature hurtled toward them without hesitation.

“Lakcradieon.”

Krash spoke, watching the approaching rabbit.

“Let me see what you can do.”

The moment Krash’s words left his mouth, Lakcradieon was already moving.

She drove her blade down hard, carving a clean arc through the air before it lodged deep in the muscled rabbit’s throat.

The golden Aura Blade that erupted from the sword embedded in its neck sheared through muscle and bone in a single instant.

Crack!

The rabbit’s head flew skyward and rolled across the ground.

“Whew. Still as sharp as ever.”
“As expected of you!”

Derek and Penicellie gasped in admiration at her display of skill.

Krash felt no different.

‘Clean. Is she Early Master?’

If Pendal wielded an unrefined, unpredictable strength, she radiated an almost meticulous sense of mastery.

Two entirely different kinds of power.

And this was Krash’s chance to observe firsthand someone at the threshold he sought—the Early Master stage, the closest realm to his own next ascension.

No matter how much that stage was undervalued against higher realms,

more people failed to reach it despite a lifetime of effort than succeeded.

Krash was no exception.

Spirit Elixir, acquired skills, mastered Secret Techniques—none of it guaranteed a breakthrough.

The Master realm could only be crossed through one’s own strength.

Even with Destruction Erosion granting him the means to fight on equal footing with Masters,

if he couldn’t overcome that barrier, he was no different from anyone else trapped beneath it.

‘Soon it will be summer already.’

Spring had slipped away amid the chaos of these past weeks, and early summer was fast approaching.

And when this time too passed, autumn would surely follow, and then winter.

‘Then comes my admission to Lahel Academy.’

Less time remained than he’d like.

To survive the gaps between talents.

“Let’s keep moving.”

So this was his opportunity.

The finest study material for breaking through Early Master stood right beside him.

This raid on the Demon Palace might yield far more than he’d anticipated.

＊ ＊ ＊

Outside Babel, which formed the Demon Palace.

Someone was moving across the ground.

The woman draped in a robe wore a blindfold across her eyes, and for some reason carried an absurd number of weapons scattered all over her body.

She lifted the hood of her robe slightly and read the newspaper.

The article in the Demon Palace gazette was none other than news that Balheim’s direct line had challenged Nakcheon.

“Damn it—they’re trying to steal what’s mine?”

The curse spilled from her lips, and with a scowl she crumpled the newspaper and tossed it away.

Then her footsteps quickened.

A long tail striped like a tiger’s swayed between the folds of her robe.

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