I Became A Thief Who Steals Overpowered Skills - Chapter 71

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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 71. Krash, You’re Getting Cocky

Pendal, the commander leading the Pendalord and darkness itself within Masseong Palace.

He was now passing through the 7th Floor of Masseong Palace.

Beside him walked the teammates who had fought at his side to lead the Pendalord all this time.

One was a white mage, another a scout, and besides them one melee fighter and two mages.

Befitting a lineup handpicked by Pendal himself, their prowess ranked among the highest within Masseong Palace.

“Commander.”

At that moment, a woman with crimson-tinted hair, a mage, called out to Pendal as she adjusted her robe.

Her curvaceous figure visible between the folds of her robe and her form-fitting garments drew the eye, but the material was woven from Red Spider Silk—a precious resource found only within Masseong Palace.

Just that alone spoke volumes of her skill and resources.

And it was precisely such a woman who now approached Pendal with an anxious expression.

“…I respect your determination to challenge Nakcheon again, Commander, but are you truly certain about this?”

As she asked cautiously, Pendal walked on in silence.

Nakcheon—a wall that spanned the lifetimes of all who dwelled in Masseong Palace.

Though the legendary Team Black Lion to which Nakcheon belonged had long since disbanded, he remained the phantom of the 8th Floor, guarding it still.

How many explorers had been shattered before such a monster?

Pendal’s entry this time to strike down Nakcheon was nothing short of stubbornness.

Seeing the direct descendants of Lakradion and Balheim, his pride had ignited, his competitive reflex flared, and that was reason enough.

“If you have complaints, you’re free to turn back.”

At Pendal’s sharp retort, the woman who had voiced her concern exhaled softly.

And her sentiment was shared by the other teammates.

“We’d never abandon our commander.”
“Without Pendal in Masseong Palace, where would we show our colors as the Pendalord?”

They all displayed their resolve not to leave him.

Pendal regarded them for a moment, then turned his gaze forward.

“Ridiculous fools.”

Pendal said so and fixed his eyes ahead.

Having made the first move and taken a shortcut, Pendal was reaching the 8th Floor far more quickly than Krash and Lakradion.

‘If that’s the case…’

He would be the first to challenge Nakcheon.

Rather than the hook sword he habitually wore at his waist, he carried a single long blade, which he now drew slowly.

Team Icarus—the team that had once included Lakradion and Pendal.

It was the Okcheon, the sword wielded by Kairan, who had captained that team.

A blade that fell short of the Lightning Star, yet bore no shame in being called a fine sword.

Though Kairan, the captain, had crumbled before Nakcheon and fallen, this time would be different.

It would be different.

For he would inherit Kairan’s will—the will to ascend all of Masseong Palace.

“Nakcheon will be brought down by Pendalord.”

So Pendal spoke these words to those who followed behind him.

His teammates gazed at Pendal’s eyes, burning bright with determination, and soon broke into radiant smiles.

“Of course.”
“Masseong Palace is ours to rule!”

Seeing their joy, Pendal drew in a breath, then released it.

Unlike Lakradion, who stubbornly swung her sword against the wall, Pendal turned away from it.

Instead, he looked behind himself.

At the explorers who had continuously entered Masseong Palace even after Team Icarus failed.

If Lakradion had kept swinging her blade against the wall—

Pendal had pulled those who came behind him forward.

‘I cannot scale that wall alone.’

So Pendal chose to climb that wall together with others.

On that day when he fell before Nakcheon, Pendal was undoubtedly moving forward in a different manner.

This was something Krash had no knowledge of whatsoever.

For Krash would not encounter Pendal until much later.

After Lakradion finally crumbled before that wall, and Pendal, who had cried out for a year trying to persuade her, also eventually collapsed.

It was what came after.

Darkness existed only because light existed.

“…Did you do it well?”

At that moment, a middle-aged man who was another mage following behind Pendal posed a question to the swordsman at the rear.

The middle-aged man was none other than Soldric, the vice-captain of Pendalord.

The swordsman who heard Soldric’s question slowly nodded his head.

“Yes, I’ve given the order to the others. Lakradion and Balheim’s direct subordinates are absolutely forbidden from reaching the 8th Floor.”
“Well done.”

Soldric swallowed quietly.

Let them call him a coward if they wished.

He could always claim later that he’d acted independently.

But at least while Pendalord was challenging Nakcheon, he wouldn’t let anyone interfere.

Not for anything else—but for their captain, Pendal, for all the effort he’d invested until now.

* * *

7th Floor, Mechanical Maze.

A place constructed entirely of springs and mechanical walls, it truly deserved the name maze.

Countless traps and mechanical monsters burst forth without warning, and sometimes the maze walls shifted on their own whim, obstructing the path forward.

The objective of the 7th Floor was to escape the Mechanical Maze.

Escaping this place required either pure luck or extraordinary powers of observation.

Thus, this was the place where the Explorer’s role mattered most.

Yet even in such a place, where the Explorer’s role was crucial, Krash and Lakradion now faced a wall together—just the two of them.

Without Derek, who should have taken the Explorer’s role, and without Penicheli, the white-robed mage.

“…What shall we do?”

What had transpired just moments before.

It was a trap laid by Pendalord’s faction—something that had unfolded in an instant.

The moment they entered the 7th Floor and took but a few steps, Pendalord’s group had attacked Krash’s team.

Naturally, there was little Pendalord’s faction could accomplish against Krash and Lakradion.

These two, whom even Pendal himself could not fell, swiftly subdued Pendalord’s entire group.

But that was where the real problem began.

The Mechanical Maze’s walls shifted at that precise moment, suddenly separating Derek and Penicheli from the other two.

“Penicheli! Derek!”

Lakradion rushed toward the wall, but it had already sealed the passage behind it.

Even Lakradion’s sword, blessed with Aura Blade, could not cut through it.

The wall regenerated faster than she could cleave it.

Pendalord’s faction had clearly aimed for precisely this—they had deliberately attacked at the moment when the walls would shift.

That wasn’t all.

The moment the wall split open, a swarm of mechanical weapon-type monsters suddenly descended on Krash and Lakradion.

While the mechanical creatures focused their assault solely on the two of them, the Pendalord faction members who’d been waiting on Krash’s side of the wall seized the opportunity and bolted from the spot.

A direct confrontation with those two held no advantage for them, so they’d made masterful use of Masseong Palace’s unique properties—the very system they knew best.

Lakradion swallowed hard.

Pendal had always been prone to cowardly tactics.

He leaned far more toward villainy than virtue.

But until now, Lakradion had believed that at least his devotion to Masseong Palace was genuine.

Yet for all her faith, he’d ordered his subordinates to commit cowardly acts here too, within these very walls.

A shiver ran through Lakradion’s frame.

She’d once counted him among her companions, but in the end, he’d changed too.

“……Krash, I’m sorry.”

Krash’s expression, by contrast, remained unchanged.

“A dog that’s been snapping finally takes a bite—nothing surprising about it.”

Krash was almost grateful for the trap they’d sprung.

Pendal hadn’t changed much at all, after all.

“So how do we breach the 7th Floor without a scout?”
“……If we follow the walls as we go, we should eventually reach it somehow.”

Though it would take considerable time.

Lakradion didn’t suggest searching for Penicheli and Derek.

The mechanical gears’ rotation cycle wasn’t something one could predict unless, like the Pendalord faction, you’d deliberately timed the movements beforehand.

So meeting those two again would take a long while, even if they actively searched for each other.

“So you’re saying there’s no method, then.”
“……Yes.”

Lakradion felt a pang of remorse—she’d entered Masseong Palace first, supposedly the senior, yet there was nothing she could do.

After all, she’d been brought in for combat, not reconnaissance.

“Fine then. But do me a favor instead.”

Krash spoke as though the matter barely concerned him.

“If that is your wish.”
“Carry me on your back.”

Lakradion’s eyes blinked in confusion.

Carry him? Out of nowhere?

Doubt flickered across her eyes, but Krash’s gaze remained resolute.

From the start, if those creatures were laying traps, he’d assumed it would be the 7th Floor.

And sure enough, there were traps—exactly as he’d predicted.

That’s why he’d deliberately brought along one scout.

To make the Pendalord fools believe that once they separated the scout from their group, everything would be solved.

“You don’t trust me?”
“No, sir.”

She didn’t protest, simply lowering herself and presenting her back to him.

The thin armor and tunic that Explorers commonly wore showed between her strands of hair.

Krash climbed onto her back without the slightest hesitation.

Krash had grown considerably during his growth phase.

Yet he still wasn’t as tall as Lakradion, whose stature rivaled that of an ordinary man—so she lifted him easily onto her shoulders.

“What would you have me do now?”
“Now I need to concentrate. Just go where I tell you to. While I’m focused like this, I can’t move on my own.”
“Understood.”

Lakradion followed Krash’s instructions faithfully.

Satisfied with her response, Krash closed his eyes slowly.

In that same moment, he awakened something else—his sixth sense.

His sixth sense, now far broader in range than it had ever been before.

Today, he intended to push that sixth sense beyond its limits.

For that, he needed intense concentration.

And a mobile fortress—her—willing to move at his command.

His sixth sense was like a web of Aura woven through space.

That web spread thinly through the air, and even when blocked by densely packed walls, it continued threading through their finest gaps.

As Krash’s sixth sense expanded further and further, the vast labyrinth’s shape began to materialize in his mind like a blueprint.

Because he’d pushed his concentration to its absolute limit, his expanded senses forced all the information directly into his mind.

Of course, expanding his sixth sense to that degree came with a price—a sharp, throbbing pain in his head.

But it was a level of pain he could endure.

“Run straight ahead for five hundred meters, then turn right.”

In that moment, Krash’s command came.

Lakradion obeyed without hesitation, bursting forward.

“Then left at the next fork.”

With each stride Lakradion took, Krash’s directions came sharp as a blade.

As she ran, Lakradion began to notice the landscape around her shifting.

The walls of the Mechanical Maze were changing color gradually as they pressed deeper along the correct path.

From their original black hue to red.

The crimson glow suffusing the surrounks confirmed they were indeed following the right course.

Lakradion was impressed.

She hadn’t expected Krash to navigate this well.

At this level, he was far more skilled at tracking than Derek.

‘How many peculiar talents does he possess?’

Was it Balheim’s blood, perhaps?

Or that stubborn obsession of his—the same relentless determination that had driven him to master even her techniques?

Either way, Krash was clearly no ordinary boy.

“They’re coming.”

At Krash’s murmur, she felt her eyes narrow slightly.

“They are? Could it be—”
“Yeah. Pendalord’s crew.”

Krash and Lakradion had found the path too quickly, too efficiently.

The panicked Pendalord group, seeing them pull ahead, scrambled to cut them off.

If this continued, Krash and Lakradion would reach the 8th Floor far sooner than anticipated.

Once they reached it, the game was over—and they knew it. So they chose violence.

“Whether that’s stupidity or just how much they care for their leaders, I couldn’t say.”

Krash’s eyes snapped open. He pushed off from her back.

In the same motion, a blade materialized in his hand.

“They’ll pay for that choice.”

Without hesitation, Krash hurled the sword forward.

It streaked through the air in a blur of black light, embedding itself with a sickening crunch into the chest of a figure who’d been about to spring from around the corner.

“Ack?!”

Even as someone rushed to pour a Potion on the man struck by Krash’s blade, Krash was already moving.

At the sight of him, three shield-bearers from the Pendalord faction suddenly lunged forward.

Krash exhaled sharply as he watched them come.

“Who do you take me for—some Weapon-type Monster?”

Shield formations made sense when you were dealing with Weapon-type Monsters.

But against a human opponent? It was almost laughable.

For a moment, the absurdity of it nearly took his breath away—but the barrier the shields formed was undeniably formidable.

Behind them, he could hear Female Mages chanting Incantations as they scattered reagents on the ground, weaving magical circles into place.

They were treating him like an Exploration problem, like he was something to be conquered through formation and protocol.

‘If that’s the kind of fight they want.’

Thin wisps of smoke began curling from Krash’s lips.

It was the trace of Flame Erosion Extinction activating—Ignis igniting the power of World Erosion itself.

In that instant, Krash’s body straightened like a drawn bowstring.

His blade blazed with black fire, burning with brilliant intensity, and his muscles swelled and hardened with terrible purpose.

‘Then I’ll give them what they’re asking for.’

Crash!

Krash met the shields head-on.

The Aura reinforcing the shields—wielded by those who fancied themselves experts—crumpled pathetically the moment it met Krash’s blade, giving way entirely.

“Argh!?”
“Gaaaah!?”

Sword-bearers rushed to intercept as Krash punched through the shield line.

But Krash was faster still.

He read every trajectory of their attacks, thread through them all like acrobatic flourishes, weaving between them with impossible grace.

Eyes widened in shock.

The movement was almost an art form in itself.

“M-monster.”

When he heard someone whisper the word, Krash had already reached the mages.

Before their magical circles could even flare with light, he drove the Black Sword straight into the center of the formation.

Whoosh!

Fire erupted from the Black Sword’s edge, incinerating every trace of reagent, every mark of the circles in an instant.

In the blink of an eye, the mages cancelled their incantations and scrambled to withdraw, but Krash’s hands and feet were faster.

He kicked one mage flying and slammed the other’s head straight into the ground.

Having subdued both mages in the gang in an instant, Krash rose slowly from where one of them lay embedded and trembling in the floor.

His eyes, flushed crimson by the Flame Erosion Extinction, cast their pupils slowly across the dark Mechanical Maze.

All of the Pendalord faction froze where they stood at the sight.

Every veteran of Masseong Palace found themselves overwhelmed—crushed by the sight of him destroying an entire team in a single moment.

And that team had fallen to a boy who was only fourteen years old this year.

“Do you want to keep fighting?”

When Krash asked the question, all their bodies flinched.

Their faces had lost all will to continue.

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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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